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July 2, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:22
July 2, 2009, Thursday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Yeah, yeah, I know.
I'm fighting a little fatigue today.
I was up late last night teaching a new puppy how to go up and downstairs.
Which means you gotta put your hands on a puppy's butt.
Secure to slittle, it's an old English sheepdog.
It looks like a stuffed toy that's alive.
It looks like a panda, which in case you didn't know it is a raccoon, not a bear.
And then, of course, there was the obligatory hissing from pumpkin.
Puppy jumps on the bed.
They had to follow the cat around the house, consoling it.
Greetings.
Welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network.
Great to have you here, folks.
Fastest three hours in media.
I don't think, I was just telling Snerdley, and he agreed with this, of course.
Not because he has to, because it's true.
I don't think there's a three-hour radio show or TV show anyway that packs more in the three hours than this one does.
I'm I'm still stuck here on this.
If you missed it, we just had a story from the Los Angeles Times.
Megan Daum said that the only reason the Mark Sanford story is still alive is because many men, most men see themselves in Mark Stanford.
And I I had to ask myself, what part of Sanford do most men see in themselves?
No, seriously.
The part that has the mistress?
The part that loves the mistress, the part that doesn't cheat on the mistress.
What part of Mark Sanford do all of us men have in us, according to Megan Daum of the LA Times?
Yes.
All right.
The part that never crosses that line is probably true.
At any rate.
Dawn was reading the Palm Beach Post.
I don't read it, but she does.
And she's uh sent me this most amazing story.
The headline.
Hungry Palm Beach County residents failing to claim, and Port St. Lucy is in Martin County.
Right?
I'm sorry, St. Lucy County.
St. Lucy County, yeah, yes, but it's not in Palm Beach County.
Hungry Palm Beach County residents failing to claim $83 million in food stamp aid.
Now the first thing wrong with the headline is hungry.
If they were hungry, they'd be collecting the food stamps.
And this stupid story goes on to lament the poor people, they don't know all the food stamps are available.
They don't know it's out there.
And so the county's trying to figure out ways with their limb on an advertise so they can alert people that it's You telling me that since 1964, 45 years, Americans, particularly in a 78% or 70% Democrat county like this one, don't know where the food stamps are.
Don't know how to go get the food stamps.
I got an idea.
We like to bring solutions to things here at the EIB network.
The journalism business is in deep doo-doo, right?
Newspapers are bad shape.
Palm Beach Post has laid off a lot of people.
They have cut the size of a newspaper.
It's no it it's a tabloid.
is not printed that way.
It's still printed as a broad shape, but there's nothing broad about it anymore.
I'm sorry.
So why not get some stimulus money and use that to buy advertising in the Palm Beach Post to tell these people that are hungry and starving that there's 83 million dollars worth of food stamps they haven't claimed?
Well, the reason is that the people who are hungry and starving supposedly probably don't read the paper in the first place or can't, one of the two.
This is just every year.
Wouldn't this tell a responsible something?
Well, maybe that's money we don't have to spend then.
Maybe we're over budget by 83 million dollars, because the idea that a bunch of people who are totally dependent on food stamps don't know where to go to get it's just unbelievable.
It's the stories by Jennifer Sorin, true.
Uh more than 80 million dollars in food stamps available to Palm Beach County residents are going unclaimed.
The head of the county's food alliance told commissioners this morning, Alex uh Stevens, director of the county's community food alliance.
You know, I would love to go back, say, hey Thomas Jefferson, did you ever think you would live in a country, create a country, found a country that ended up with things called the County Community Food Alliance.
The County's community food alliance, Alex Stevens.
Imagine when Alex Stevens was four years old, five years old.
Little Alex, what do you want to be when you grow up?
I want to run the county community food alliance, Dad.
Good little Alex.
Except there isn't one, Alex.
There will be dad by the time I grow up.
I want to found it.
The county's community food alliance.
This is the United States of America.
We're not talking about Honduras here.
We're not talking about Venezuela.
We're not talking about Afghanistan.
We're talking about the richest country in the earth.
All right.
Um used to be, I'm that's right.
Now we're banana republic.
And we got a new national anthem.
That's coming up in a minute again, too.
Alex Stevens, director of the county's community food alliance, said there's been a 30% surge in the number of people registering for food stamps with the state's Department of Children and Families.
So, okay, so we have the county's community food alliance, which interfaces with the Department of Children and Families.
And there's been a 30% surge in the number of people wanting to be fed by the government, and still there's $83 million in food stamps unclaimed.
Commissioners said, get this.
The commissioners of the community food alliance said that number is unacceptable.
Damn right it is, but we're not we're not talking for the same reasons here.
Uh number is unacceptable and urge state and local leaders to do more to reach those who may not know the quality or how that they qualify for the benefit.
Commissioner Bert Aronson of the Community Food Alliance, or maybe he's a county commissioner.
I've okay, so we're now three groups are involved.
The county commissioners, the community food alliance, and the department of children and families.
Three groups, and they have failed to alert all the people despite a 30% surge in demand for food stamps.
They have failed somehow to get rid of 83 million.
Why don't you do what Democrats do and go take the money yourself and say you gave it away?
Well, you could give it to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office or police.
We're always hearing about how these agencies are going to be cut.
Well, give it, yeah, give it to the sheriff's department.
Or give it to the fire departments.
Um you can't let 83 million dollars slide off the table.
It won't.
Will it?
You still have it, right?
If it's unclaimed, it's I know.
Budget-wise, use it or lose it.
That's why they want to spend it because they don't want to get their budget cut for food stamps next year.
Commissioner Shelley Vanna agreed.
If we are leaving 83 million dollars on the table, this is really going to improve my coverage in the Palm Beach Post, by the way.
I just want to make that observation.
Shelley Vanna said, if if we are leaving 83 million dollars on the table, that's just crazy.
We need to figure out what is it that we need to do.
We need to do it now enough with the talk.
We are in the twilight zone.
They get 83 million dollars in unused food stamps.
We got three agencies.
The County Community Food Alliance, the Department of Children and Families, and the County Commissioners, and they're in a panic over $83 million in unclaimed food stamps, thinking that there are people starving to death because of this.
Now the market will tell us if people are starving, they're gonna find a way to get food.
They're either gonna steal it or they're gonna find a way to get the food stamps.
You imagine.
You imagine all of the chicken McNuggets you could buy with $83 million in food stamps.
You could keep that you could open $25 brand new McDonald's in Port St. Lucy and never run out of chicken McNuggets and never have to pay the expense of another 911 call.
Ever.
These people make Barney Frank look responsible and smart.
Oh, wait, wait, wait, you know what?
Uh calls for emergency assistance made to the 211 help hotline have increased by 30 percent.
I would say then that you're maxed out.
If you still get 83 million unused and people know to call did you know that 211 was a I didn't till I read this story.
I had no idea.
Uh I guess this is the uh work of the Community Food Alliance, uh, the Department of Children and Families and County Commissioners, 211.
Hang on a bit.
Can I can I call them?
Well, you can't hear it because my microphone moves the phone.
I want to call 211 and see what happens.
Can you call 211 and put it on the air?
Can you do?
All right.
You sure you can do this.
I don't want to sit here and have to vent.
All right.
We're gonna call them up.
This is I just want to see who answers.
I'll, you know, I'll report.
I'll report a star.
I'll report starvation.
You know, somewhere in Loxahatchee.
Don't...
Thank you for calling 211.
But I continue on in an español of name and número siete.
If you are calling about a homeless hot team appointment, please press six.
Call a what?
If you need information on community resources, or if you need somebody to talk to, please press three.
If you are having thoughts of suicide, please press two.
Calls to 2-1-1 may be monitored for quality control purposes.
Calls to 2-1-1-1 may be monitored for quality control purposes.
What did they hang up on us?
What is that?
Well, they're waiting for a response.
That's what you get at 211 when they're waiting for a re Well, what was the suicide?
Hit that.
I feel like that after reading the story.
No, don't hit that.
Hang up.
I don't want to deal with that.
I don't want to deal with that.
Because that you know what they'll do?
They'll send a fire truck out here and it'll all hella break loose.
We'll be.
One thing we've learned, and uh this is probably more applicable for Port St. Lucy than Palm Beach County, but it's gonna spread everywhere.
You go to McDonald's and they don't have McNuggets, call 211, not 911.
That's what they need to advertise, is a 211 number.
If people knew at the 211 number, and obviously a story in the Palm Beach Post is not enough to get it out to a lot of people.
I'm doing more to help starvation in Palm Beach County right now than anybody else has.
2-1-1.
Can you imagine the number of people calling them now just to play jokes?
Oh press six for McNuggets.
They need to have yes, six or McNuggets, seven for food stamps, and do you want them FedExed overnight or second day?
That's what I'd do if I were on the Community Food Alliance.
Keeping with the comedic theme of today's program, ladies and gentlemen, we have news out of Washington.
Barney Frank and TARP profits.
This is the banking queen.
I'm still thinking here, uh, ladies and gentlemen, the uh community food alliance of Palm Beach County and 211.
We call them up.
That's what you call if you're anywhere from thinking from suicide to out-of-food stamps.
And I'm thinking for 83 million dollars, you get a live human being to answer the phone.
You get two live human beings, one in Spanish and one in English.
Oh well, Barney Frank update.
This is from Byron York at the DC examiner today.
When President Obama announced on June 9th that some financial institutions would be allowed to repay their TARP dollars, troubled asset relief program dollars, he said the massively expensive TARP bailout had made money for the federal government.
Big whoop.
You see the deficit?
This is what I mean.
The economy's coming back.
We're at 9.5% unemployment.
TARP profits made money for the government.
Deficits over two trillion dollars this year alone.
It is worth noting, uh, the president said that in the first round of repayments from these TARP recipients, the government's actually turned to profit.
But now Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, the man largely responsible with Christopher Dodd in the Senate for the subprime lending uh fiasco and crisis.
Barney Frank has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers.
Last Friday, Barney Frank introduced the TARP for mainstream sorry, the TORP for Meat Street Act of 2,500 nine.
It is a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.
Just recycle the problem.
In exchange for receiving the TARP money, financial institutions are required to hand over shares of preferred stock that paid a dividend for the government.
So they were forced to take the bailout money.
When they wanted to give it back, they had to give up equity.
In theory, if a financial institution paid the dividend faithfully, then repaid the TARP money, then the government would turn a profit.
Last month the GAO reported that uh through June twelfth, two thousand nine, the government had received six point two billion dollars in dividend payments.
The original TIRP legislation required that money made from the program should be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of public debt, but now Barney Frank wants to spend it before it gets to the treasury.
I'm sorry.
Oh I I can't I can't stop laughing about all this stuff.
I mean, I'm angry as you are about it.
It is just it's just but it's so brazen, it's so out in the open for everybody to see.
Where's that sound bite?
You just get a sound bite from uh the I put it here somewhere in a ah, number 20.
You got a count sound by number 20?
Yeah, here it is.
I want you to hear this.
Uh June 25th, a week ago, Senate Judiciary Committee, Eric Holder testifying, and this is the question that Jeff Sessions presents a hypothetical.
Minister gives a sermon, quotes the Bible about homosexuality, is thereafter attacked by you know what the media didn't pick up yet?
Whether liberalism is chosen or whether you're born with it.
I once they get to the fog of the Jackson death, media matters will get that to them.
I'm sure they have it.
It's just a matter of the uh it hasn't penetrated the fog there at the editor's desks.
Anyway.
Question uh uh hypothetical, minister gives a sermon, quotes the Bible about homosexuality, is thereafter attacked by a gay activist because of what the minister said about his religious beliefs and what scripture says about homosexuality.
He said, Well, is the minister protected, is what Sessions said.
Here's a portion of the uh answer, the testimony from Eric Holder.
Well, the statute would not would not necessarily cover that.
We're talking about crimes that have a historic basis.
Groups who have been targeted for violence as a result of the color of their skin, their sexual orientation.
That is what this statute tends uh is is designed to cover.
We don't have the indication that the attack was motivated by um a person's desire to strike at somebody who was in one of these protected groups.
Um that would not be covered by the statute.
In other words, ministers and whites are not covered by the hate crime statute because uh we're talking about crimes that have a historic basis, groups who have been targeted for violence as a result of their skin color sexual orientation.
So hate crimes are reserved exclusively uh for blacks and homosexuals.
Everybody else can get to the back of the bus on this one.
So if you're a minister, if you're white, I don't even he didn't even say sexual well sexual orientation, that's not gender.
Not unless you get a adictomy, and he didn't talk about that either.
So I guess at the front of the bus are blacks and gays on the hate crimes.
All right, just to clarify this, uh more Eric Holder here from a testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 25th.
Senator Tom Coburn asked uh the attorney general if the Muslim radical who killed the Army recruiter Private Long committed a hate crime.
And here's the portion of Holder's response.
There's a certain element of hate, I suppose.
What we're looking for here in Terms of the expansion of the statute uh are instances where there is a historic basis to see groups of people who are singled out um for violence perpetrated against them because of who they are.
Uh I don't know if we have the same uh historical record to say that members of our military have been targeted in the same way um that people who are African American, Hispanic, people who are Jewish, people who are gay um have been targeted over uh over the many years.
All right, so the list has been expanded now.
Uh the hate crime legislation will apply to African Americans, Jewish people, gay people, uh so we add Jewish to this.
Uh African American, Jewish, and people who are gay, but the military really uh haven't been targeted in the what in the world is he talking about?
Military hasn't been targeted.
Liberals have been targeting the military hate crimes for as long as I've been alive.
And Islam fascists have been targeting Americans for decades.
Doesn't matter who the Americans are.
There you have it.
There's your new attorney general under Obama.
It's DEF CON 1.
Every day is DEF CON one.
I had a guy say to me, you know, I've never seen a summer where the news never stops.
It's the news cycle just bam, bam, bam, bam.
And that's true.
All right.
Uh this is Dustin in Indianapolis as we head back to the phones.
Great to have you here.
Hello.
Hi, Rush, Megadedos from uh State Not in Financial Distress, thanks to a conservative governor.
Thank you, sir.
Um just wanted to point out real quick here, kind of a quick hit before I get into the real jobs number.
I think I may have figured out where Obama's getting this saved number when he's talking about jobs.
It's made up.
It well, it may be because of uh how many uh employees are still employed at Acorn since he's been the president.
Maybe that's where he's getting that.
But um, you know, just uh uh back to the real jobs number that came out today at 9.5% unemployment.
Um I find it real interesting that over the last six months, the first uh half of this year, we've shed over three point two million jobs.
But ironically, there is a private sector that has added 122,000 jobs, and that's health care.
The only private sector that's gained jobs.
Is it possible, Rush, that Obama is going to make sure that the only uh sector that's going to grow government or grow the economy is government jobs, and so therefore that's why he's trying to start with the government.
Well, that's that's that's uh wa wait regardless of the mechanics of it all, regardless of the mechanics, the one area that's really growing is government employment.
But they're even threatened now with all these states in trouble, government employees are in trouble.
But it's it this is a systematic wrecking ball taken to American prosperity.
There is a war on prosperity, it's being led by Colonel Obama, and it is specifically has as its aim to um deplete the private sector.
Now, if health care happens to be uh an exception to the rule, uh I would have to say that the market is dictating this in the private sector.
Obama's not doing anything to cause jobs to be hired in the private sector, folks.
Nothing.
Zip zero nine.
What Obama is causing to happen is jobs to be lost.
Who is next?
Mike in Mapleton, Iowa.
You're up on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
Just fine, sir.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I find it funny that the drive-by is they're so jealous of you and your success that they can't see that in order to minimize you so that you could go off and go golfing, all they'd have to do is report the truth, and they could make you disappear.
They could do what they're supposed to do and make you disappear, and you could go golfing and enjoy your retirement.
You know, but you see, here's the thing.
It's a gets it's it's a great thought and a good idea, but they think they are imparting the truth.
I don't know.
I'm not buying it, but uh I'm glad you're out there pitching for us, and I got a couple kids.
My twelve-year-old son listens to you with me all the time.
I said I'm turning him into a ultra conservative, and uh but we're out here, we're out here pulling for you.
I appreciate that.
More than you know, I really do.
Thank thanks very much, Mike.
Um I want to get this story in before I uh have to end the program today.
For $25,000 to $250,000, the Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record non-confrontational access to those powerful few, quote unquote Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.
Can I tell you this again?
The news is so incredible each and every day that it takes twice two reports, maybe more, for it to sink in.
If you walk into the Washington Times and pay them $25,000 to $250,000, they are offering you access.
Lobbyists, association executives, off the record, non-confrontational access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.
This offer is detailed in a flyer circulated yesterday to a healthcare lobbyist who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels like it's a conflict for the paper to charge for access, as the flyer says, to its health care reporting and editorial staff.
The offer, which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist official accounts, is a new sign of the links to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.
The flyer is uh is called underwriting opportunity, an evening with the right people can alter the debate.
Now, forget for a moment the most outrageous aspect of this, which is the Washington Post is charging people and putting them together, promising non-confrontational sessions with members of Congress and the Obama administration.
Would somebody explain to me what members of Congress and the Obama administration are getting out of this?
What does the W how can the Washington Post guarantee non-confrontational access to members of Congress and Obama administration?
Why they're supposed to be reporting on those people.
Now it seems that they're out there flacking for them.
I mean, the excuse that there's uh the tight money.
Big whoop.
This is uh Catherine Graham, even Catherine Graham got to be spinning in her grave over that.
If somebody Well, I'm not I'm not surprised they're backtracking from it.
They never intended it to get out this way.
They thought that whoever got the flyers would shut up.
You imagine that somebody went to Walter Cronkite and said, hey Walter, uh, we at CBS, we're gonna start charging people 25 grand, 250 grand to put you and these people together with uh Lyndon Johnson.
And non-confrontational, Walter, you gotta respect the man Johnson can't be confrontation.
You gotta just get we're good access.
You imagine that.
Speaking of uh all of this, an agreement between the McClatchy Company and its banks puts the country's third largest newspaper chain at risk of defaulting on its debt by the end of the year, according to uh credit analysts.
If that happens, Bank of America and other creditors could either slow a show leniency and rework the terms of their agreement, or push the publisher of 30 newspapers, including the Miami Herald and the Sacramento Bee, into bankruptcy.
So the question must now be asked.
Is McClatchy too big to fail?
Here's the last paragraph, and it's quoting somebody here named Lombard, mentioned earlier in the story, I don't know who it is.
The Clanchey's fate looks increasingly out of its hands, Lombard said.
A lot of it depends on the economy.
If internet advertising and print advertising rebounds before McClatchy manages to avoid tripping its covenants, then maybe it's one newspaper chain that survived the recession, certainly within the realm of possibility.
Screw that to start selling access.
How about this?
Why don't you go out and and and charge $50,000 to sit in on an editorial board meeting for the privilege of writing the day's editorial?
Why not do that?
Oh no, we can't turn over the trusted work of journalism to rank gambling.
Can't do that.
I gotta go.
Quick timeout.
Don't go away much more straight ahead.
All right.
All right, all right, all right.
Everybody's delusion me.
Even people I never heard of from the political.
Washington Post has canceled the lobbyist event amid uproar.
Uh Washington Post publisher Catherine Weymouth, who is the daughter of Catherine Graham, said today she was can't get this, she canceling plans for an exclusive salon at her home.
Where for as much as 250 grand, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off the record access to those powerful few.
Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper's own reporters and editors.
I know everybody's focusing on the selling access, but how in the world can they guarantee these people?
Well, the answer to that is they're no different.
The Washington Post is no different than the Obama officials.
They're on the same side.
And Democrat members of Congress, I guarantee you they're not going to put them together with Jeff Sessions.
Or John Boehner.
Man, was going to be at her house.
Yeah, salon at her house.
I'll bet what really happened here, Sally Quinn, who is the entertainment doyen of D.C. heard about this and said the only salon is my place, because her husband's the ex-editor.
Editor emeritus.
Benjamin Bradley.
This is probably a squabble here between because it's an entertainment thing.
It's like high tea in the afternoon with the Obama administration and members of Congress for 250 grand.
And uh Gannett is cutting more than 1,000 jobs.
The country's largest newspaper chain plans to continue scaling back in 2009.
Last year, Gannett got rid of 4600 jobs and now plan on cutting another 1,000 to 2,000.
Gannett publishes USA Today.
They have uh more than 80 dailies.
They already mandated two unpaid furloughs this year in an effort to save money, but it didn't work.
Now this reported at Politico, and if you read the comments, you you remember uh uh the movie Apocalypse Now?
You remember Robert Duvall, I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
Somebody posted on the comment section as political story.
I love the smell of liberal reporters getting laid off in the morning.
How mean spirited.
Dick Maple Valley, Washington.
Nice to have you with us.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Twenty-year impact dittoes.
Thank you, sir.
Yes, the Washington Post a pimp.
I mean, if you want me to say it, I'll say it.
I'm sorry, Dick.
Go ahead with Inside Baseball here.
Okay.
Um, I found out yesterday one way the Obama's maybe keeping score on jobs created or saved.
Uh my wife and I own a manufacturing company, and one of our customers received stimulus money.
And so they sent us a form from the Department of Administrative Services, about 50 questions to go through, and two of them were how many jobs were created or how many jobs were sustained.
So I put zero because there really wasn't any, and sent it in.
Um they called back and said, Well, didn't anyone?
Well, no, wait a minute.
Hold on, I'm confused.
You didn't get the stimulus money, somebody else did.
Why are you filling out the form?
Uh, they bought our product.
Oh, oh, they so stimulus money bought your product and then you had to report back to Washington.
Correct.
Yeah.
And so they said, well, how can it be zero?
Didn't someone, you know, process our order or make the product?
And I said, Well, to me, a job sustained is if I didn't have to lay off or fire someone because you ordered something, and that's not the case.
And he had a guide that the government provided that explained their logic on each line item, and they said, No, sustained would mean that someone actually, you know, worked on the product and made it, and so that counts as a job sustained.
And so I said, So the person that answers the phone would be one, the person that boxed it up would be two, and I said, I I can't do that.
What happens if a machine answers like if you call two one one?
Yeah.
So I you know, I I gave them one, but you know, that's one too many, and you know, uh that's the I'm sure what they're gonna use.
This administration uh it's it's just it's it's a it's phony from from top to the bottom.
By the way, the hate crimes legislation, I am happy about one of them.
My mark my good friend Mark Levin.
I'm now I'm comforted he is covered.
Mark is Jewish.
And uh I don't he's not having any historical uh problems here with uh people who hate him attacking him, but he's protected now anyway, thanks to the uh Obama administration.
Here's Linda in Brighton, Michigan.
Nice to have you on the program.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Russ.
I'm just thrilled to death to talk to you.
Thank you.
I have about one minute, but I wanted to get to you.
Well, listen, what I had heard today on uh Fox television was and and I almost fell right through the floor, I couldn't believe it, where there's some talk now that Obama's wanting to change the constitution so that a president can live forever as a president.
And I'm really concerned about that because the last election with acorn and their tactics and that, if he does that, I mean we might have to do that.
I mentioned this.
Linda, I mentioned this the other day on the uh program.
Um I don't know that he would have to change constitution to do it, but I got people emailing me, come on, Russia sounding insane.
Presidents can't have any kind of authority.
They can't do that kind of stuff.
So whoever you heard it talking about it on Fox is also insane.
Uh and you're insane for believing it.
I'm surprised at all of you people on this.
I ask you again, if you wanted people, if you're President Obama, you want people to demand free health care, would you want to drive their bills through the roop?
If you want people to buy these little clown cars that you're gonna force them to buy that they don't want, wouldn't you want five dollar a gallon gasoline?
Wouldn't you want all this chaos if you want more people to depend on you and government?
I'm telling you, the unemployment numbers, the economic statistics, a systematic destruction, purposeful destruction of the U.S. economy underway by the Obama administration.
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