All Episodes
Previous Next
May 20, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:37
May 20, 2009, Wednesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
How this is funny.
The most competent, wise, smartest uh White House press secretary ever, Robert Gibbs, is up there saying Obama.
Imagine having to say this.
Obama will not make any decision that will place our security at risk.
They're talking about Club Gitmo.
You realize my thriving merchandise business will now continue down there, despite their best efforts to shut me down.
To have to say that you will not make a decision that will put our security at risk.
Means there must have been some doubt.
And then Gibbs went on to say, hey, look, our prisons are cool.
We've we've got terrorists convicted of crimes in our prisons, and no big deal to bring them here.
Our prisons are safe.
Greetings and great to have you with us, Rush Linball, the EIB network and the uh Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, 800 282-2882, the phone number.
I uh mentioned uh ladies and gentlemen that Harry Reed's re-election numbers are not good.
This is a story from the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Nearly half the people of Nevada have had enough of Harry Reed.
About a third of the state's voters would re-elect him if the election were held today.
He's up in 2010, according to their poll.
But 45% say they would definitely vote to replace him if the election were today.
17% would consider another candidate.
The findings are echoed by another poll.
Another poll question about Dingy Harry's popularity that finds the four-term incumbent to be a polarizing figure in his home state.
No, no, no, no.
I am the only polarizing figure in American politics.
I don't want any I I don't want, I don't want any I don't want any company.
Yeah, how can he be polarizing?
He's uh he's bringing the train there from Disneyland to Las Vegas.
He's um how can he be a polar?
Saved Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste.
Uh how how how how could uh well from nuclear waste I should say.
Half of Nevada voters had an unfavorable view of Dingy Harry, while uh 38% had a favorable view, eleven percent are neutral.
Dingy Harry had hoped things might improve with the departure of President Bush, but that's not the case, at least not yet.
The uh the poll fines, and by the way, it's a Las Vegas Review journal poll.
The poll finds Nevadans are bullish on Obama even as they are unhappy with Dingy Harry.
And he's got a problem now because he can't blame Bush.
Bush is gone, so he will blame me.
Uh Harry Reed's fellow Nevada in the Senate, Republican John Ensign has high marks from voters.
53% view him favorably, uh only 18% view him unfavorably.
You've probably seen this if you've been watching cable news all day.
They're making big news out of this.
From the UK telegraph, drinking large amounts of cola every day can cause muscle problems and irregular heartbeat and even paralysis.
Doctors have warned.
This is just a run-up to taxing the stuff.
Uh chronic consumption of colas can cause a condition called hypochalemia, in which levels of potassium in the blood fall in some patients, but not in others.
So if you drink cola as you could become paralyzed or you might not.
Symptoms can range from mild weakness and constipation to paralysis.
Researchers said that family doctors should look out for muscle problems in people who drink large amounts of cola.
Now you might be saying, what's a large amount of cola?
Between two and ten liters a day.
Patients who drink ten liters a day.
Sixteen ounce bottle.
Okay, sixteen point nine ounce bottle is a half liter.
So you'd have to drink a minimum of four of those a day, or up to twenty of those a day to be at risk.
That's a pretty big range.
Between two and ten liters a day.
And then you would have to do this repeatedly.
Yeah, that's a good qu When's the last time you went to the doctor and he asked you how many colas you're having?
Now note the next story.
New York Times, soda's a tempting tax target.
See how this all works.
The uh article admits, by the way, that preventive medicine is not a cost savings, by the way.
And it perpetuates the myth that tobacco taxes and shakedowns help cover the costs of uh that the tobacco engenders, it's wrong.
All the money that, you know, we had all these tobacco taxes and the tobacco settlement, the lawsuit and so forth, and that was to go to education programs to get people to stop smoking.
It's not where it went.
It just went to cover government deficits.
In fact, this New York Times story even admits it.
It's certainly true that a soda tax by itself will not solve the multi-billion dollar obesity problem.
Um if we could cut back on our soda drinking, uh we would be thinner and richer.
Again, look, I seriously now, folks, be honest with yourselves on this.
There may be exceptions to this.
I'll just say my experience is when I run around and I see people drinking Diet Coke, they're overweight.
The thin people drink regular sugared stuff.
Like Brian, skinny as a rail, works out all the time, fit, never drinks diet anything.
HR, same thing.
Regular sugared coke, 12 teaspoons of sugar in every bottle or can.
Snerdley, little overweight, drinking diet coke.
I, in my life, have been overweight, diet coke.
Now I happen to like Diet Coke's taste better than regular Coke.
I just don't like all the sugar.
It's a flavor thing with me.
But I this notion that it's just the exact opposite.
It's the thin people that drink the regular Coke.
And the overweight 52 pounds today, snurdly, by the way, snurly asked me how much weight I've 52 pounds today, this is day 70, if I'm uh if I'm adding it up right.
Let's see.
Uh oh.
Ladies and gentlemen, uh, you know, I seldom talk about the broadcast business or people in it, uh, because in my mind there's nobody else in it but me.
But secondly, uh it's inside baseball.
You know, we do what we do here.
We don't talk about how we do it.
The only time we talk about how we do it is when people are doing profiles, and they want to know the ins and outs of procedures and philosophies and so forth.
But I must break from this tradition today because there's controversy raging out there over the way radio ratings are now taken.
In the old days, and many of you have participated in this system and know about it, uh, Arbitron is the company that rates radio stations and listening.
And in the old days, and it's still in use in many markets, although it's starting to change now, is the diary system.
They would pick out a sample population, sample of people that represent the population at large.
Uh in New York, for example, a city of eight million, and depending on how wide the survey area could be as number of 16 million, they would have a sample of 1,200 people.
And these people would be mailed diaries, and they would be required to fill out, not as they were listening, they could if they wanted to, but to fill out what they listened to at each time of the day.
And there were all kinds of hints that they could use.
They could put down the name of the guy or girl on the radio, they could use the station call letters, the uh if a station was running a promotion, like we're going to give you a house today, and if that's all the listener could remember, the station could report to Arbitron.
If somebody says they're listening to the station giving away a house, they give us credit.
So there are only a number of ways.
But it was, you know, in time you require people, unsupervised, To write down what they're listening to, and some of them would wait for the whole week and try to reconstruct it.
Very few would do it while it was they were actually listening.
Some would.
But it was it was the best we got.
It turned out I think it was as accurate as anything out there, but it still left a lot of room to be desired.
Also, there was something that happened along the way in this process.
And that is a mathematical algorithm was attached to the end results, and they called it waiting, W E I G H T I N G. And in the case of minority programmed stations like all Hispanic or Chinese opera or uh black RB stations.
Just as there was affirmative action uh in society, Arbitron would wait the listenership of minority stations on the basis that the minority population in the market is smaller, and so to be fair, what they would actually end up doing would be add to by way of educated guests, they said, the number of people listening to minority stations uh who might not have been listening.
The problem it evolved because minorities did not respond to the diary program.
They just didn't fill out the diaries as completely, and so you couldn't leave them out, so they the process began of waiting, and in some cases the waiting approached 30%.
They would be given an audience of 30% more than they got.
Well, everything changes.
For the longest time, television has been rated by Nielsen with boxes on television sets in select Nielsen homes.
So there was no question what was being watched.
You tune your TV to Channel X, and that got reported to Nielsen, and there was no way you could fudge it.
And every time you change channels, it got sent to Nielsen.
And the the the argument against Nielsen ratings was a thousand people across the country are determining which shows are watched more than any by anybody else.
It was the small sample that they had a problem with.
So Arbitron has rolled out in the last couple of years this thing called PPM, the personal or what is it, personal or portable?
Personal people meter.
It's a pager.
And the participant actually wears the PPM device on a belt, takes it with them in their car wherever.
And it measures precisely and exactly what people are listening to.
The information is then fed electronically to the massive computers at Arbitron and they publish a results, and there you go.
Well, what's happened is ever since the PPM went into effect, admitted listenership to minority radio stations and plummeted.
It probably is no different than what it's always been, because they waited.
They added, they guessed.
So this resulted all these years of waiting, W E I G H T I N G waiting the listenership to minority radio stations, gave them credit for more listeners than they had.
They went out to advertisers and they sold advertising at rates based on this listenership.
Now the PPM hits, and lo and behold, the minority listenership is not as high as it was reported all these years in the diary programs, not just in New York, but around the country where the PPM is into effect.
And they're also finding out that talk radio is much more listened to than the diary programs produced, particularly the QM.
So, which is the total number of people uh over any length of time.
Well, measured in a week.
I don't want to get too technical with this.
This has led minority owners to sue Arbitron because their system is somehow short-selling them, even though this is the most accurate one they've had.
They have then that there's been a a uh task force of minority-owned stations who then went to the Obama FCC, and they are raising holy hell, and they're trying to get the PPM system thrown out because they say it's biased.
Uh there's no way you can cheat the PPM system.
If you're not listening to a station, the station won't get Credit.
If you are listening to it, the station will get credit if you are one of the participants using the portable people meter.
So there is a story today that these broadcasters, minority broadcasters, are asking for two things.
They want the FCC to change this.
And they also want TARP money to rescue minority broadcasters.
There is now a request for federal bailout money for broadcasters.
Now when just listen to me on this, when when Democrats seek financial rescue of minority-owned broadcasters, high-ranking Democrats in the House are urging the Treasury Department to prop up minority-owned broadcasters suffering from a lack of capital and lost advertising revenue amid the economic slump.
Now wait.
Stick with me on this because the irony here is delicious.
When Tim Geitner and Barack Obama buy companies, they run them.
What's happening here?
This is about statists owning media.
This is the first step toward Obama and the government owning minority radio stations.
Crisis is an opportunity, after all, remember.
High-ranking House Democrats are urging the Treasury Department to prop up.
I mean, they propped up GM, they own it, right?
They propped up the banks, they own it, right?
The mortgage, they own it, right?
Prop up minority-owned broadcasters suffering from a lack of capital and lost advertising revenue.
Now later in the story, here's the irony.
In addition to the credit crisis, also weighing heavily on minority broadcasters is a significant decline in advertising revenues, particularly the loss of automobile advertising.
Ha.
Make me laugh.
It is Obama who has slashed the advertising budgets of the auto companies.
Obama, the first black president, has cut the Chrysler ad budget in half.
He's going to do the same thing to General Motors.
That hurts the media.
And in particular the minority-owned media, according to this story, so Obama will get an opportunity to buy into the broadcasting business.
This is shades of Hugo Chavez.
But I the unintended consequences of these people taking over the automobile companies, they haven't stopped the thing.
Shutting down all these dealerships, do they know how important the communities' dealerships are?
These owners, what they do, they donate to charity, they prop up the local symphony.
They do a lot of things, and they're being shut down.
The lack of revenue in local communities that will result from these dealerships being shut down is going to be devastating.
It's going to mean more people out of work, not just at the dealership.
It's going to mean less charitable operating revenue in these communities.
Also that Obama can get you driving a lawnmower with a couple of seats on it.
I got to take a break.
I'm a little long here.
Your phone calls and other things are coming up.
Stay with us.
I want to grab some phone calls, but in the next segment, a story from Reuters.
Terminated Chrysler dealerships are going to challenge the sale.
You know, I've been waiting for some of these people being put out of business to file lawsuits against Obama and the federal government on Fifth Amendment grounds and others.
It's a great story.
But first, Ken in Grand Rapids has been waiting the whole show.
I appreciate your patience, Ken.
Great to have you on the EIB Network.
Yeah, it's only been two hours.
I appreciate your rush.
Thank you, sir.
You're uh the only remaining living hero of mine, I must tell you.
After my grandfather died last year at the age of 96.
Well, thank you, sir, very much.
I I really appreciate that.
You bet.
I'm in here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Rush.
You know what the state of Michigan's going through right now, and uh there's a lot of us just looking for some marching orders.
I'll be honest with you.
You know, we're kind of fed up with the whole uh everything that's going on.
Just it's really frustrating to wake up every day and you know hard work and individual and uh I know I know a lot of people I'm I'm waiting for marching orders.
I'm I'm uh I'm in the same boat as you are.
Who are you waiting for from who?
General Powell.
Uh General Powell is the titular head of the Republican Party.
General Powell is waiting for the uh party, Republican Party to emerge that can win, and until that happens, none of us can get marching orders.
So I uh empathize uh with you, Ken.
I really do.
I know a lot of people are waiting to be told what to do, and I'm with you.
Um General Powell has the answers.
He just hasn't shared them with us.
And I'm chomping at the bit to hear them so that I can join you in executing and following the uh marching orders.
We'll be back.
Some automobile dealers that Chrysler plans to close are beginning a challenge to the automaker's plans to quickly sell itself in bankruptcy.
The group which calls itself the Committee of Chrysler affected dealers filed papers yesterday asking bankruptcy courts to delay hearings that would approve the sale, and would allow Chrysler to reject almost 800 of its dealership franchise agreements or about 25% of its overall dealer network.
The committee, which uh said it represents nearly 300 dealers in 45 states, said in a statement that it needed more time from the court to investigate the issues and present their defense.
Chrysler's proposed asset sale and request for immediate termination of the dealer franchises will destroy several hundred independent businesses, ruin the livelihoods of their owners, cause the loss of thousands of jobs, and precipitate inevitable personal and business bankruptcies, said Stephen Lerner, an attorney at Squire Sanders and Dempsey representing the committee.
Chrysler said it needs a smaller dealer network to be profitable.
That means Obama said.
But the dealers argue they are Chrysler's main source of revenue.
They bear much of the risk on car sales, they employ thousands of people.
So I this is good.
I have been waiting for something like this to happen.
The American Thinker has on its website today a letter from a Dodge dealer.
Dear American thinker, my name is George Joseph.
I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge Asuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida.
My family bought and paid for this business, this automobile franchise, 35 years ago in 1974.
I am the second generation to manage this business.
Before the economic slowdown, we employed over 70 local people.
We are active in the community in the local chamber of commerce.
We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day-to-day basis and many more during a month.
All depend on our business for part of their livelihood.
We're financially strong with great respect in the marketplace and community.
We have strong local presence and stability.
I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day.
I know most of our customers and all of our employees.
Sunshine Dodge is my life.
On Thursday, May 14th, I was notified that my Dodge franchise that we purchased will be taken away from my family on June 9th without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them.
My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of three million dollars.
This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9th.
Without the Dodge franchise, we can no longer sell a new Dodge as new, nor will we be able to do any warranty service work.
Additionally, my Dodge Parts inventory, that's about $300,000, is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service.
There's no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or the parts inventory.
Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler's insistence.
We incurred a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at some trust bank.
How in the United States of America can this happen?
This is a private business.
It is not a government Entity.
This is beyond my imagination.
My business is being stolen from me through no fault of our own.
We did nothing wrong.
This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy.
This will also cause our 50 plus employees to be unemployed.
How will they provide for their families?
This is a total economic disaster.
How can this happen in a free market economy in the United States of America?
I beseech your help.
I look forward to your reply.
Thank you sincerely, George Joseph, President and Owner, Sunshine Dodge Ysuzu in Melbourne, Florida.
His mistake was assuming that we are operating in a free market economy.
We are not, Mr. Joseph, operating in a free market economy.
We have not been operating in a free market economy since TARP.
And President Obama has expanded on the usurpation of free in the market.
A CNN story.
The current plans to restructure General Motors and Chrysler will leave the United Auto Workers Union in the driver's seat at both companies.
But it appears that the union would rather be in the back seat.
The UAW is getting 55% of Chrysler through its union trust fund.
And the trust fund will also likely get up to 38% of General Motors stock as part of its reorganization.
All of this I predicted, by the way, last December.
That the ultimate aim of Obama was to give these companies to the unions.
Return the nation's wealth to its rightful owners, you see.
But that doesn't mean that the union will be calling the shots at either company.
In fact, Ron Gettlesinger of the UAW said the union hopes to sell its stake in both companies quickly because he's more interested in raising cash to cover retire health retiree health care costs than having an ownership stake in General Motors and Chrysler.
The truth of the matter is that Ron Gettelfinger and anybody at the UAW don't have a clue how to run a sustaining profitable business.
They only know how to leach from it.
They only know how to complain.
They only know how to whine about how evil management is.
And to say they want to sell their stake to fund their health care trust fund is an indication of why they exist in the first place.
Benefits.
Benefits.
I'm talking about the union leaders.
Benefits.
It's about benefits.
It's not about making cars.
It's not about advancing the business.
They don't want any part of that.
They just want the business to be around to be able to leech off of it.
The union's reluctance to take an active ownership role in either company is nothing new when the UAW got a more direct stake.
Chrysler, during a federal bailout of the company in the 80s, it also sold the stock as soon as possible to compensate members for concessions they made in labor contracts.
experts say union leaders are worried about being in an uncomfortable position by being blamed by membership if management, meaning the union management, needs to make additional plant closings or layoffs down the road to be competitive.
Well the reality would really suck there.
Conflict of interest, anybody?
Conflict of interest reality would how's that hope and change working out for you here?
Isn't that absolutely wonderful?
I'll tell you what, this is absolutely cool.
They don't want to run it.
What happened?
I asked this question the first day this was announced.
What happens when the UAW has to negotiate a contract with itself?
What happens when management tells the rank and file, uh, sorry.
And then the rank and file says, okay, union, we're striking.
We're going to strike against ourselves.
This is the anatomically impossible.
You know the old phrase that's out there all the time.
Go yourself.
The union doesn't want to be put in this position.
They want to screw somebody Else.
You gotta love this.
All these unintended consequences.
Barack Obama, the one, the savior.
Deep inside the Heritage Foundation, ladies and gentlemen, researchers have prepared information for what's going to be a huge fight on Capitol Hill, the energy bill.
It's all related to this automobile stuff.
The energy bill that carries out Obama's plan for capping energy consumption by companies creating products and employing people.
This is cap and tax.
Obama's vision of energy in our future very different than the one you have.
Obama wants the federal government to determine the limits of carbon dioxide emitted by different companies and cap it, offering companies the chance to buy permits if they go above the opposed limit.
This is just going to raise everybody's taxes.
Let me does anybody would anybody in their right mind say they want to wipe out the coal industry, the oil business, and the automobile.
That's what Obama said he's gonna do, and people are out there applauding this.
And then after he does that, he's gonna raise everybody's utility cost, he's gonna raise everybody's cost on an automobile, he's gonna put everybody at risk.
He's downsizing the American lifestyle.
And the question was raised the other day.
What did Democrats vote?
Did they know they were voting for this?
Is did they really support all this?
Well, the answer to that question is crucial.
We don't know.
We find it hard to believe they would, but there's enough angry leftists out there who hate this country who would love to see it chopped down to size who do support some of this.
Every detail of cap and tax, every detail of cap and trade, and its effect on you has been dissected by the Heritage Foundation.
It's available to Heritage members at Askheritage.org.
When you are a member of the Heritage Foundation, this is a kind of heads up and background information.
It's at your ready fingertips.
I swear, folks, of all these websites out there, there is more information at the Heritage Foundation than anywhere else.
AskHeritage.org.
It's just 25 bucks to become a member, and then ask them.
Whatever you want to know.
Their scholars have researched it.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
MSNBC is refusing to report the news that I have resigned as titular head of the Republican Party.
They have also been unable to accept my challenge to go 30 days without mentioning my name.
Fresh blood today in the pitch fight between the current president, the former vice president on the eve of both President Obama and Dick Cheney's speeches on terrorism and torture.
In fact, they're also talking about former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who fired back at the man he served with in the Bush administration.
Now that happened after he listened to Cheney say Rush Limbaugh better represents the GOP.
Oh, you said his name, he's not gonna like that.
Hey, Rush Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh, or Rush Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh, Russell Limbaugh.
So MSNBC failing to report that I have resigned as titular head of the Republican Party and unable to go even a day without mentioning my name.
Listen to this from Mrs. Clinton.
Andy McCarthy.
Still have the radio on.
Buckle up.
We are being outcommunicated by the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
We have to do a better job of getting the story of the values, ideals, the results of democracy out to people who are now being fed a steady diet of the worst kind of disinformation.
This is unbelievable.
Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, says the Taliban and Al Qaeda are outcommunicating us that we have to do a better job of getting the results of democracy.
Mrs. Clinton, would you please tell me who it is that's been running this country down for the past seven years?
It's you and your party.
If anybody's responsible for a horrible image and somehow a lack of knowledge about the greatness of democracy, it's the Democrat Party.
It's Barack Obama who's been running around the world apologizing for this country.
You need to go make that speech inside the Oval Office, Mrs. Clinton.
Or accompany your husband down to Haiti.
Envoy there now, you know.
Bill Clinton, envoy to Haiti.
I'm just going to tell you, if I was named Envoy to Haiti, I'd quit government.
Envoy to Haiti.
You can't even pick up a prostitute down there without genuine fear of AIDS.
This is not Clinton's place.
The only thing advantageous about about Haiti is it's close to a vacation home he's got on the other side of the island in the Dominican Republic.
So maybe as envoy to Haiti, he never even asked to go there.
Why are you frowning at me, Don?
Would you would you accept envoy to Hay well?
Wait a minute.
Ambassador to Haiti.
That's what I I yeah, I'd quit govern.
Envoy to Haiti, yeah, just envoy.
You don't have to really go there.
Call him up on the phone and envoy them.
And I'll say you did the Aaron in Cleveland, uh, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
It is a longtime caller, first time uh longtime listener, first time caller, a little nervous, sorry.
I liked it the first time, long time caller, first time listener, but regardless.
Uh it's truly an honor and a privilege to speak to you, sir.
I I just wanted to comment.
I find all this talk about uh kicking people out of the Republican Party because they don't tow the party line, they don't you know follow your explicit instructions, whatnot.
I I I would like to hear Joe Lieberman's perspective on being kicked out of the party uh for not towing a party line.
Hmm.
That's uh it's an interesting point.
Well, we'll have to wait on the uh uh answer that question.
I, of course, cannot answer it as uh I am the former titular head of the Republican Party.
Uh Colin Powell now's the titular head outpass of the baton.
We're all waiting for marching orders for him and for his assessment on the uh oddity of Joe Lieberman uh joining the party for a while and uh not being kicked out.
A brief no, actually, folks, I need to tell you about life lock before we go to the break.
Identity theft.
I keep reading stories about how more and more pe computer databases are basically being corrupted.
Uh and and the the the number of people losing their identity or having it stolen in a day or a week is climbing.
It's a it's a facet of the economic times in which we live.
And uh credit card businesses is now changing, and people are gonna are trying to get in as much action using fraudulent credit card IDs and and your ID, your identity as they can.
Uh there are a lot of people, uh, credit card companies, people promise protection from all this, but there's really only one place that guarantees it, and that's life lock.
Life lock will stop identity theft before it began.
Just call them.
I mean, it's it's it it does it's nine dollars a month.
You never have to worry about your identity being and you don't want it to happen.
It is a it's a it's it's like somebody being able to get into your credit records and say you're bankrupt.
It can take you months to re to reverse that.
800-440-4833, use the offer code Rush.
Life lock is $10 a month when you use Rush, you save 10% like getting it for $9 a month.
$800-440-4833.
Promo code Rush.
Lifelock.
Protect yourself.
Back in a moment.
Yeah, that's it for another exciting excursion into broadcast excellence.
Folks, a lot of people at the end of the program will say to me, Great show today, Rush, and I very seldom agree.
So I always think it could have been better.
But even I, today, will admit that this was a good one.
And by the way, MSNBC just did report that I have resigned as uh titular head of the Republican Party.
That makes it official now.
Colin Powell runs the show.
▲
Export Selection