Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Eviews expressed by the host on this program, documented to be, we got a mix-minus prompt.
There we go.
Let me start again.
The views expressed by a little broadcast lingo there.
I don't expect you to know what mix-minus is, and I'm not going to take the time to tell you.
All I know is that complaining about it got it fixed.
The views expressed by the host on this program, documented to be almost always right, 99% of the time.
It's an incredible feat.
Great to be with you, folks.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
The email address LRushbo at EIBnet.com.
Interesting little Rance Mussen Reports poll here.
Congress comes in dead last in voter trust.
When all voters are asked which branch of the federal government they trust the most, 34% say the Supreme Court.
27% choose the president.
Now, that doesn't make sense given the Bamsters numbers in the 60s, but we'll say what it is.
And 13%, only 13% say Congress is the branch of government they trust the most.
Twice as many voters, 27% are undecided about all this.
Well, it doesn't mean much to me, except wouldn't it be nice if this is setting the stage for a total overhaul?
You know, history, talking yesterday about how do people stay optimistic.
If you look at history, midterm elections, no matter how popular a president in his first term, he loses seats.
Reagan lost them after a landslide win.
Clinton lost them, as you know, in 1994.
Big time lost control of the House.
It happens regardless how popular the president is.
Now, you might be saying, well, what if the Republicans aren't offering a cut?
It doesn't matter.
It's just a rejection of the people in power.
And I'll tell you, the more that you see Pelosi and Reed and Henry Waxman and this bunch, I mean, do they not epitomize what I always say, showbiz, politics, showbiz for the ugly?
And these people act arrogant and condescending, and they act like that they are the biggest stars in the country.
So we'll see.
I wouldn't mind a total overhaul.
Let's go back to this program, an audio soundbite of me, November 12th of last year.
It ain't going to be long before big media asks for a bailout.
Time magazine today is asking for volunteers to take a pay cut.
Can you not?
Isn't that just fabulous?
Time magazine asking for volunteers first to take a pay cut.
And what happens if nobody volunteers?
Well, which liberal journalists will be first?
They are into sacrifice.
They've been wanting us to sacrifice for the longest time.
We'll keep a sharp eye on this.
I predicted there would be big media bailouts.
State of Washington, the governor there, how do you pronounce your name?
Is it Christine Greguari?
Gregoire?
Gregory.
I apologize.
Folks, my pronunciations are horrible because I don't listen to anything, and I never hear these names pronounced.
So I'm not purposely trying to mispronounce people's names.
The governor out there in the state of Washington has approved a tax break for the state's troubled newspaper industry.
The new law gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40% cut in the state's main business tax.
The discounted rate mirrors breaks given in years past to the Boeing company and the timber industry.
Newspapers across the country, as you know, have resorted to layoffs and other cost-cutting.
But the point is, the point is, I know that this governor, regardless how her name is pronounced, is a left-wing radical Democrat.
There's no question about that.
And she is admitting that taxes are part of the problem.
She is admitting that cutting taxes will help businesses stay in business.
Cutting taxes will help businesses not lay off people.
In this case, she doesn't care, or appears to only care, that newspaper reporters not be laid off and that newspapers not be closed.
But you have to, you know, you have to watch these people.
And when they want to save a business, they know what they have to do.
They have to cut taxes and they have to make it more affordable and economical for these businesses to operate.
U.S. foreclosure activity in April jumped 32% from a year ago when Bush was president to a record high.
And that should mount because now I thought all this was, I thought Bam fixed this.
I thought Obama fixed this.
I thought he already saved the day on these foreclosures.
I thought there was a website out there where you could go and refinance and do all this.
I thought it was already fixed.
U.S. foreclosures jumped to a record high.
One in every 374 households with mortgages got a foreclosure filing in April.
A temporary foreclosure freeze by major banks and government-controlled home funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ended before Obama's massive housing stimulus unveiled on March 6th could take root.
Oh, so they're giving him a pass.
Unfortunately, the BAMSTRE got screwed by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
Well, that's what it says here, Sturdy, because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac put some temp, they did suspend foreclosures.
And when I remember they did this toward the end of the year, and I warned everybody this is just delaying the inevitable.
It was done at the holiday time.
It was done for PR.
And it was done at the urging of Obama.
Let's we forget it happened at the urging of Obama during the transition.
And so now who wrote this?
Reuters.
Temporary foreclosure freeze, blah, blah, blah, ended before Obama's massive housing stimulus unveiled on March 6th could take root.
You get it.
We're just going to have to get used to this.
Everything rotten is going to be somebody else's fault.
It just, the drive-bys are not going to attach it to him.
Retail sales drop unexpectedly, unexpectedly.
What did they think they were going to keep rising because they went up last month?
Have you ever noticed every bit of economic news reported by the Associated Press contains the word unexpected or surprisingly or something?
Retail sales fell for a second straight month in April.
A disappointing performance that raised doubts about whether consumers were regaining their desire to shop.
Whether consumers are, they're losing their jobs, AP.
It's not a question of whether they're regaining their desire to shop.
They are scared to death.
Many of them are taking their cash out of the banks and putting it in a can and burying it in a backyard.
There is abject fear out there over the state of this economy.
Healthcare, a lesson in pain.
I made this prediction to you yesterday.
This is the New York Times.
The author here, David Leonhardt, apparently they're struggling out there to find $90 billion a year to make BAM's health care overhaul happen.
Despite the fact that the industry big Whigs have promised $2 trillion in cost cuts that will never happen, by the way, over the next 10 years, they somehow still need to find $90 billion.
Democrats have suggested they're willing to play hardball and pass a bill without Republican support.
Good.
I hope they do.
They don't need Republican support for this.
The worst thing the Republicans could do would be to sign on to nationalized health care because it really nationalized health care is not about the money, folks.
You have to understand this: nationalized health care, single-payer, government-provided, whatever you want to call it.
Once that happens, then virtually every activity that you engage in can be controlled because they can say it relates to how much health costs the government's going to have.
Your kids may not be able to use a swing set anymore.
It may be too dangerous.
You may not be able to buy a TV that hangs in a wall because it might fall on your kid and break his head.
Now, I'm not making this up.
They're talking about banning sugars yesterday or taxing sugars yesterday.
If they get national health care, it is the entree to controlling every aspect of your life because they will be able to say and attach every behavior to some health malady or health risk.
So, anyway, Arlen Specter became a Democrat, potentially adding one more vote at the White House on Monday.
Lobbyists for doctors, insurers, and other health industry groups pledged to reduce the growth of medical spending.
Yet, none of these developments has removed the hurdle to health care reform, the matter of the missing $90 billion.
Providing health insurance to the roughly 50 million people without it will cost something like $120 billion a year.
Obama has proposed $60 billion or so in new revenue for this purpose, a down payment, his advisors say, but Congress seems set to reject about half the down payment.
That makes for the $90 billion health care hole.
$90 billion.
Even though the news yesterday was about $2 trillion in savings over 10 years.
$2 trillion in savings.
Somehow, after assuring the country that we're going to save $2 trillion over 10 years, we're hung up on $90 billion.
And no one's quite sure where to find it.
What did I tell you yesterday?
What did I say, Snordley?
What did I warn people about yesterday?
That's right.
I've said they are going to find a way to tax your employer-provided health care benefits.
And lo and behold, right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, the experts at the roundtable, liberal and conservative, actually agreed to an impressive degree about the best way to come up with a $90 billion.
They urge the senators to limit the tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance.
I told you this yesterday, and it happened while I was predicting it.
Now, this is not taxing you.
That'll come.
This is not taxing you on your benefits as income.
This is limiting what your employer can deduct as an expense as it relates to your health care benefits.
That is going to add to the costs of doing business, which is going to eliminate some jobs, and it is going to cause the company, whatever its product or service is, to raise prices.
Now, the deduction, this is his next graph.
The deduction may seem a wonderful thing, but it isn't.
It benefits the wealthy more than anyone else.
It encourages employers to overspend on health insurance because $100 in untaxed medical benefits is more valuable to workers than $100 in taxed income.
As Max Baucus said, the deduction has a certain Willie Sutton appeal.
A Willie Sutton appeal so they can go steal it, go to where the money is.
Healthcare benefits.
This is just the first phase.
And they'll get this.
The idea seems to be classic Obama, empirical, pragmatic, bipartisan.
Unfortunately, it happens to be an idea that McCain campaigned on last year, and Obama opposed during the campaign by calling McCain a tax increaser on health care benefits.
Mr. Obama's economic advisors would be happy to see him reverse his position, but his political advisors remember that ad and how it could be used against him.
So if they don't do this, it leaves two ways to pay for an expansion of health insurance, raise taxes or cut health spending.
And I guarantee you, all three are going to happen.
All three are going to happen.
They're going to limit the deductibility of your business health benefits provided to you.
They're going to raise taxes and they're going to cut health spending.
They've already said they're going to do all that by squeezing doctors, squeezing big pharmaceutical.
And so over the short term, tax increases are probably necessary, concludes the Times.
Though they have their own problems.
Will the 85% of people with health insurance be willing to pay higher taxes for something approaching universal?
They're not going to have a choice.
They're not going to have a choice.
There's no way to stop anything Democrats in Congress want to do other than dispatching them in 2010.
We will be back.
All of a sudden, ladies and gentlemen, there is some hesitation at the White House on releasing these abuse photos, these torture photos, these interrogation photos.
As you know, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the photos released.
All the Obama people would have to do is appeal it to Supreme Court, punt it down, kick it down the road for a year or two, half a year or whatever.
But they've made this big noise.
Oh, we want to release the pictures.
We want to get the pictures out.
And everybody's starting to get, no, See, Obama has a, my friend Andy McCarthy's got a great way to describe Obama.
Obama, there are two Americas.
There is the America that began upon his ascension to the throne, and then there's the America prior to it.
And the America prior to January 20th this year is an immoral, unjust, imperfect mess.
But now, with the ascension of the Messiah, America is perfect.
And in this mindset, Obama wants to cleanse all of the filth of the previous 200-plus years of America by releasing all the filth and apologizing for all the filth wherever he has to go, around the world or in his own country, apologize for America here, apologize there, admit that we're evil, admit that we are not what we once were, admit that we torture.
Not only are we going to release the memos, here are the pictures.
And then somebody somewhere got them to thinking at the way that, you know, I actually think the Justice Department may be involved in this.
Somebody got them to thinking, you know, we still have soldiers in battle.
And if we're going to go out there and if we're going to say, like the Democrats did for six years, that the Bush policy of interrogation and its techniques created more terrorists and ruined our self-esteem and ruined our image in the world.
Well, wouldn't these pictures do the same thing?
I mean, we're going to put out pictures of supposed torture and obscene interrogation techniques.
Wouldn't that cause just as much damage to the world?
Obama said, well, yeah, but that'll be America before I ran it.
Go ahead and do it.
Somebody said, no, no, no, no.
We've got soldiers out there, and Afghanistan is your war now.
And Afghanistan may become Pakistan or Pakistan, as he says it, and it's your war now.
And you don't do this there.
They're rethinking this.
Obama administration signaled yesterday it may be rethinking its promise to release several dozen photos depicting abuse or alleged abuse of detainees held in U.S. custody abroad.
Gibbs kind of let the cat out of the bag yesterday of the press briefing.
He said, Obama has great concern, great concern about the impact that releasing the photos would have on soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Asked whether the Justice Department's decision might be reversed, Gibbs declined to reaffirm the government's intentions.
The CIA, not happy about this.
Democrats charged yesterday that the CIA has released documents about congressional briefings on harsh interrogation techniques in order to deflect attention and blame away from itself.
The Democrats think the CIA is out to get them.
Now, all this is brought about by Nancy Pelosi lying about what she was told regarding waterboarding and other forms of torture.
And speaking of Pelosi, and I'm going to delve into this a little bit more detail as the program unfolds, but my keen sense of insight and my highly tuned radar tell me that something might be brewing regarding Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
I mean, she leaves the country and as she's out of the country and in Iraq and so forth, Stenny Hoyer yesterday says, yeah, you know what?
We should have congressional hearings on what Pelosi knew.
Hoyer and Pelosi are not buds.
I can get the news stories from 06 and 07 if you want to back this up.
But Hoyer's number two in the House, but Pelosi wanted Mirtha.
Mirtha's her ally.
Hoyer's not.
Hoyer and Rahm Emmanuel are buds.
They are tight.
And nothing would surprise me as power crazy as these are for Rahm Emmanuel and Obama to get hold of the House, hold Pelosi out to jail.
I know you think Democrats wouldn't do that to each other.
And it may not happen.
It may not even be in the cards, but I'm looking at this because they're hanging her out to dry on this.
I mean, they're using words like Clinton-esque in the drive-by media to describe the way she's handling all this stories and evidence about what she knew and when she knew it and what she didn't say about torture.
Ha, welcome back.
Great to have you.
Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone.
As usual, half my brand tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
Democrats think the CIA is out to get them.
The CIA is out to get anybody that wants to throw them under the bus.
It doesn't matter if their party is Republican or Democrat.
And the Democrats want to release these pictures and the Democrats want to release these memos and the Democrats doing all this stuff.
The CIA is going to fight back.
Now, the document CIA has released that the Democrats are all upset, said about a 10-page document prepared after an April 20th request by Pete Hookstra, a Republican from Michigan.
And the CIA document that's been released lists 40 4-0 instances in which the CIA briefed members of Congress between September 2002 and March 2009.
They provide descriptions of the briefings, giving just enough information to fuel claims that Pelosi and other top officials have long known about waterboarding and other tactics, but did little to stop the techniques being used.
And so the Democrats still trying to dump on George W. Bush.
CIA said, wait, wait, wait, wait just a second here.
They dump him these documents because Hookstra asked them for it.
And so the Democrats don't think the CIA is out to get them.
Now, it's amazing the finger-pointing going on regarding memos pertaining to enhanced interrogation techniques when you consider the results.
Here again, we are ignoring results, in this case, successful results, and trying to besmirch people on the basis of intentions, regardless who released the memos and what the motivations were.
It's hilarious to see Congress blaming the CIA when one of the outcomes was that Los Angeles was saved from a terror attack.
That's right.
One of the bits of info we got from interrogations at Club Guitmo was information to help to stop a terror attack in Los Angeles.
And the Democrats are pointing fingers at the CIA, and the CIA is pointing fingers everywhere else, and Pelosi is trying to get the attention focused anywhere but on herself.
Meanwhile, it all worked.
How convoluted is this?
In the old days, everybody would be rushing to take credit for this.
Now, Nancy Pelosi's lied her way into a corner, gotten to the point here where a responsible American would have praised these interrogations and pinned medals on everybody involved.
So convoluted is the American left that success as a result of these interrogations is now part of the crime.
Los Angeles ought to have proclamations, keys to the city, ticker tape parades for the people that prevented the attack occurring there.
But because Pelosi and others tried to politicize and demonize Bush's incredible national security accomplishments, we have people in Washington running around like chickens with their heads cut off.
And this story from the Politico, the paragraph from the political story is interesting.
Intelligence community member, committee member Ralph Sweingold said, it appears that members of the committee or their staff were not in any way involved in the release of the document.
It appears to come from the executive branch itself.
I think it's unbelievable.
So the Senate Intelligence Committee is looking into this behind closed doors.
They get all this information, but it's been released outside the bounds of the Intelligence Committee.
The CIA is considered the executive branch.
Now, is this story, a question, is this story getting more coverage than Obama kneecapping the CEOs at the White House?
Remember when he brought him in there and said, I'm the only one standing between you and the pitchforks?
Is this story getting more play than the Chrysler-secured creditors having their Fifth Amendment rights trampled on?
Is this story getting more play than the corruption associated with TARP money?
If so, if this story is getting more play in the drive-by media than all these other evidences or stories involving White House corruption, you can damn well rest assured the White House is encouraging this story.
You can damn well rest assured the White House is dictating this story to the politico and the drive-by media.
The executive editors of this story are in the White House.
This is aimed, folks, I don't know this, but the ultimate target of this is Nancy Pelosi.
She's the only one of them that's worried about it.
She's the only one of them twisting in the wind here.
She's the one parsing her statements, changing her statements, saying that she's sounding Clinton-esque about this.
And then there's this story that subtly appeared last night from the AP.
The House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, reluctantly agreed on Tuesday that congressional hearings should investigate Nancy Pelosi's assertion that she wasn't informed more than six years ago that harsh methods were used on an al-Qaeda leader.
Steny Hoyer called Republican challenges to Pelosi's assertion a diversion.
See, the Republicans are the ones demanding this, and Hoyer could say, go to hell.
The Republicans don't have the votes or the power to demand anything.
They're demanding this, and Hoyer says, oh, well, okay.
This is sort of like Tom Foley back in 1990.
Remember when the stupid book came out accusing George Bush of being involved in an October surprise 10 years earlier?
There was no evidence of it.
And Tom Foley's speaker to the House said, well, that's exactly precisely because there's no evidence.
The seriousness of the charge is so grave, we must look into it.
So Hoyer's basically saying the same thing.
Well, we really, I guess we must look into this.
So Democrats are going to hold a series of hearings on Justice Department memos released last month that justified rough tactics.
While Democrats want the hearings to focus on what they call torture, Republicans are trying to turn the issue to their advantage by complaining at Pelosi and other Democrats knew.
And Hoyer asked at a news conference whether Democrats were inviting political problems for themselves by holding hearings and said, I think the facts need to get out.
Ha!
He thinks the facts need to get out.
Now, this is one of the rare times they are not circling the wagons around their leader.
So, you know, folks, I'm looking at this and just my highly trained eye, my, my, my, my sensitive Democrat Dar on this radar.
Something happening here.
And, oh, by the way, let me add to this.
Mr. Broadcast Engineer, follow me here as I scour the audio soundbite roster for Ms. Pelosi today at the White House, sucking up to President Obama.
Let's see.
Well, let's see.
Let me get to number nine and see if it's what it is.
Number nine.
Yes.
At the White House today, there was a meeting between Obama and Congress about passing his Obamacare, his socialized medicine by July 31st.
So when the Messiah was done, when the BAMSTER had wrapped it up, Pelosi grabbed the podium to speak in praise of the Messiah.
Mr. President, It's important to note that under your leadership, since you became president, whether it was signing and taking the lead on the S-CHIP, the children's health insurance, the health IT that is in the recovery package, other legislation as we have gone along, you, under your leadership and working with this Congress, have done more to promote health care, to move it along prevention, technology, biomedical research, children's health,
veterans' health than has been done in our country since Medicare was established in the 50s.
So already you have a remarkable record.
We're down the path.
We're going to get the job done.
But I thank you for the leadership you have provided already this year.
She made a dash for that microphone as soon as he finished.
And let me tell you what she was doing, that microphone.
And she was pretending that microphone was a body part of Obama.
That's exactly what's going on because she knows.
She knows what's, I mean, let's see.
I know she's spoken before him.
I know that.
But after he finished, nobody else is.
That was supposed to be over.
You know, when the president finishes, it's over.
And she made a B-line.
Back to that microphone.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
It's still 45.
45 pounds that I've lost.
That's how much it is.
How many inches?
From where?
The inch is, let's see, 12.
12 inches.
I've been thinking about something, folks.
The legalization of marijuana in California.
You know, the natural instinct here is to have morality rise to the top.
Now, this is not.
We've got to put the brakes at some point on the cultural decline.
We just have to put the brakes on.
But we've been saying this for 20 years, and there are no brakes.
The cultural decline continues.
The rot is expanding.
The perversion is growing.
So I'm rethinking this legalization of pot business in California.
Maybe we ought to get behind Schwarzenegger on this.
Maybe we ought to start encouraging the legalization of marijuana in California.
Do you know how many Obama supporters would flock there to live there?
We've lost California anyway.
They're never going to win that state the way the Republicans are currently constituted.
So why not send every pothead out there?
Hollywood will collapse.
No one will show up to work.
Nothing will get done.
Probably won't make more than one or two or three movies a year.
49 states will be left full of hardworking, responsible, motivated Americans.
While the potheads are all in California, I'm just thinking about it.
It's not my official position yet, but I'm just thinking about it.
Jeannie in Huntington, Long Island.
Great to have you.
You're up first today on the EIB network.
Hello.
Free Republic Dittos Rush.
We love you.
Thank you.
I love you too.
Thank you very much.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
Yes, ma'am.
But I just want, in regards to the health care, it seems like the administration is trying to make it almost impossible for employers and employees to have private health care and therefore forcing us on the government's heat.
And how do we fight against that?
If I can afford it, how do I keep my private health care?
Yeah, I know.
I don't know what you can do.
The objective is to for businesses are caving left and right.
I don't care what their health care business, I don't care what a car company is, the banks, they're caving left and right out of abject fear.
But I can't do that.
But what do I do?
In addition to fear, there is, well, you have no fear.
Do you run a business?
No.
I work for a small business, and we all have that fear.
Well, the odds are that your business is eager to offload your health plan to the government.
My boss is not.
We talk about this every day.
Well, good.
You're as afraid as I am.
They are saying that we're going to be like Spain, that there will be an option for private insurance.
But I guarantee you, this is not.
They may be saying that at certain levels of the Democrat Party, but it's not what they want.
They want the control of single-payer national health insurance.
I'll tell you, what you can do about it is 2010.
What you can do about it is throw as many Democrats out of Congress as possible.
What we can do is overhaul Congress.
That's the first chance we're going to have to do anything about this and overhaul Congress.
That's what you can do about it.
And what do we do in the meantime up until 2010?
You raise hell.
You raise hell.
You raise hell with people.
I continue to be the racist teabagger, quote unquote, that, you know, I've been talked about in the news media.
We just continue that.
I know we have Memorial Day.
We have Independence Day coming up.
Wait a second.
Wait just a second.
For those of you in Riolinda and Port St. Lucie's just talking about the 4th of July, and there are a couple governors that are trying to get these tea parties going on, again, they're trying to tap into the grassroots on the 4th of July.
But look at, they don't think of you that way individually, Genie.
They think of you, they're typecasting you.
They're stereotyping you because you're a member of the group.
Don't call them up and say, hey, I'm a teabagger and I demand this.
Well, really, don't say you're a teabagger.
You can call CNN and say you're a teabagger, but don't call your Congressman and say you're a teabagger.
Just don't even identify you.
You're just a citizen.
Look, there's another just absurd story in the snack of stuff today in the New York Times.
Jeannie, thanks for the phone call.
Recession drains Social Security and Medicare.
What this is all about is that they've done some studies, and lo and behold, Medicare's broke in, what, seven or eight years, and Social Security a year sooner than they even thought last year.
And while these two government programs are the direct responsibility of Obama, he's doing nothing to fix this.
He's worried about the car companies.
He's taking over the private sector.
While existing government programs are in the process of going bankrupt, Medicare is going to be out of money very, very soon.
We're very close to the point where Medicare expenses will exceed Medicare tax revenue.
And yet they want to model national health care on Medicare.
And they claim they're going to lower costs.
None of this can possibly happen.
But they're saying recession drains Social Security and Medicare.
Medicare goes bust in eight years.
We want to expand government health care programs and model them after Medicare.
Geithner in this story says we need to control the growth in expenditures.
The dirty little secret is Medicare and Social Security were going broke before the recession.
They are trying to say that they were fine.
Harry Reid, you know, when Bush back in 2005 was trying to use some political capital to reform Social Security, Harry Reid and other Democrats, there's nothing wrong with it.
Social Security is fine for decades in the future.
This war is won.
We don't have to worry about Medicare.
Social Security is all fine.
Lying through his teeth, as Democrats do, it's in big trouble.
And now they're trying to, again, absolve themselves of any responsibility by blaming the recession.
And these programs were doomed long before the recession hit.
But here's the New York Times dutifully go along, going along with the template and the storyline demanded by the Obama administration.
We'll be back.
Okay, the first hour of the Excellence in Broadcasting Network is in the can, and we have just barely scratched the surface here.
The Obama administration now targeting Cheerios.
Targeting General Mills, Cheerios, now targeting sugar.
Well, they're mad that Cheerios advertising on the box claims to lower cholesterol.
If it actually does that, then it's a drug that has not been approved.