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Sept. 22, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:33
September 22, 2009, Tuesday, Hour #2
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And once again, greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, and conversationalists all across the fruited plain.
It is the award-winning thrill pack, ever exciting and growing by leaps and bounds to this day, even after 21 years.
The growth continues, thanks to all of you.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program.
We are live from Los Angeles today and tomorrow.
Mark Stein on Thursday.
We'll be back in Florida on Friday.
The telephone number, if you want to join us, 800 282-2882 and the email address, Lrushbaugh at EIB net.com.
Memo to President Obama.
It is a tax.
This is from state-controlled AP.
Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance and fining them if they don't isn't the same thing as a tax increase.
But the language of Democrat bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble.
Both the House Bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.
And the reason that the fines are in the legislation is to enforce the coverage requirement.
Clint Stretch, head of the tax policy group for Deloitte, a major accounting firm said, look, if you put something in the IRS code and you tell the IRS to collect it, I think that's a tax.
And if you don't pay, the person who's going to come and get it is going to be from the IRS.
And that is authorized, by the way, in the House Healthcare bill.
Now, uh, it's a tax.
Of course Obama's out there saying, oh, George is not a tax.
The man's incapable of telling the truth.
But it's still interesting to me.
If this were Clinton, instead of doing a fact check with the story of being, Mr. President, I'm sorry, but it is a tax.
This story would marvel at how clever Clinton is in lying about it.
He lies to our face, and yet we believe him because we love him, because he's such a roguish, fun-loving character.
With Obama, they don't get that.
I'll tell you why.
Even though they're totally in a tank for Obama, Obama's not a fun-loving, warm, cuddly guy.
This is a cold, calculating and potentially very mean guy.
And so there's there's not this instinct to cover for him on things like this.
I know it's a it's a fine line because they're in the tank for his agenda anyway, and this is just a momentary blip, and somebody at AP is probably going to get suspended or fired, you know, for running the story.
But still it's important that there is no there is no marveling at how good he is at lying, like there was with Clinton.
Now, I think, ladies and gentlemen, the uh vice president, the bumbling Joe Biden, has given us perhaps a new battle cry.
Vice President Biden said yesterday that if Democrats were to lose 35 House seats that they currently hold in traditional Republican districts, it would mean doomsday for Obama's agenda.
Biden said Republicans are pinning their political strategy on flipping these seats.
And then he said this: "If they take him back, this is the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do." He said this at a fundraiser for Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat from Arizona in Greenville, Delaware.
Well that's the new battle cry: "It's the end of the road!" This guy is running the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do.
Good.
Somebody, somebody in this administration acknowledges that there needs to be an end of the road.
Now, this is this is hilarious too.
When Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu thinks of the American people, he apparently sees a bunch of unruly teenagers who need to be told how to act, asked at a seminar on reconstructing America's electrical grid about the Obama administration's efforts to persuade people to conserve energy.
The energy secretary Stephen Chu said, quote, the American public, just like your teenage kids, they aren't acting in a way that they should act.
The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is.
Stop acting like teenagers, says Obama's energy.
Who do these people think they are?
Stop acting like teenagers.
Well, we're not.
We got people out of work, no hope finding a job.
Obama even says high unemployment for at least another year, and this administration is telling everybody stop acting like teenagers.
What?
We're not putting in any screwball light bulbs fast enough.
We're not buying these cheap little bubble cars fast enough.
What do we what do we what are we doing?
Or what are we not doing?
I'll tell you who this guy is.
The name Stephen Chu, you know, we don't hear much of his cabinet secretaries.
We hear about the czars.
This guy spoke up and the name rang a bell to me out there.
So I went out there and I did a little check.
And this was from uh the UK Times back in May 27, 2007.
This is before Stephen Chu ever even had dreams of being an energy secretary.
As a weapon against global warming, it sounds so simple and low tech, it could not possibly work.
But the idea of using millions of buckets of whitewash to avert climate catastrophe has won the backing of one of the world's most influential scientists, Stephen Chu.
The Nobel prize-winning physicist appointed by Obama as energy secretary, wants to paint the world white.
A global initiative to change the color of roofs, roads, and pavements so that you remember this story so that it reflects sunlight and heat could play a big part in containing global warming.
This guy wants to paint everything white.
This is who the energy secretary is, and he tells us to stop acting like teenagers.
The Club for Growth has highlighted an interview of David Axelrod by Wolf Blitzer, in which the CNN correspondent presses Axelrod on why not to allow health insurance to be sold across state lines.
We have two sound bites on this.
This is from September 9th.
So it's uh what is this the 21st?
You know, 12 days or so ago.
Blitzer said the cooperative option, a series of health insurance cooperatives, it wouldn't be the public option, but it would be some something in between.
Is he gonna get into a detail like that and uh say he liked the idea?
He will acknowledge the fact that there is that idea.
There's the idea of putting a trigger on the public option so it goes into effect uh at some date when it's clear that the that a market is uncompetitive.
There are a number of ideas, but what is very important is that we have the kind of competition and choice that will help consumers.
Okay, that's the key.
That's the money portion of the sound bite.
Very important, we have the kind of competition and choice that'll help consumers, because the next bite he stumbles and bumbles and gets all blown to hell, even though Wolf Blitzer bombed out on Celebrity Jeopardy.
He came up with a good question here.
Blitzer says, well, then why not break down these state barriers and let all these insurance companies compete nationally without having to simply focus in on a state-by-state basis?
Because uh, we are trying to do this in a way that advances the interests of consumers without creating such disruption that it makes it difficult to do.
Why would that be disruptive if Blue Cross and Blue Shield or United Healthcare or all of these big insurance companies, they don't have to worry about uh just working in a state, and they could just have uh the opportunity to compete in all 50 states.
But insurance is regulated at the at this time.
But you could change that state.
The president could propose a law.
That is not endemic to the kind of reforms that uh we're proposing or that's the same.
Why not?
Why not?
We think we're we're proposing a package that we believe will bring that stability and security to people, will help people get insurance, will lower the cost, and that can pass the Congress, and that has to be the test.
We're not into uh symbolic expedition here.
Now, this is just great.
So Axelrod says, in answer to the first question, what is very important is that we have the kind of competition and choice that'll help consumers.
Okay.
Blitzer, amazingly, stumbles into the truth.
Get rid of the state barriers so people can buy insurance from anywhere in the country they want.
You talk about competition.
Oh, no, no, no, no, can't do that.
Uh no, and uh we're not we're not gonna go that route.
We're gonna styonize our watches out there.
We can't, we're gonna do this.
Why?
Blitzer, why are you competent?
Oh, because it doesn't fit the reform package that we're so what this illustrates is they use the language of the experience that reflects the experience of their audience.
They know that Americans respond to the whole concept of competition.
They know that Americans understand that in business, competition lowers price and increases supply of a product or of a service.
So they run around and tell that their health care plans have a lot of competition.
The public option or these health care exchanges.
That's where the competition is going to come.
There is no such competition because these health care exchanges or the public option, the government do they don't have to make a profit.
You can't, if you're in a business to make a profit and thus survive, you cannot compete against somebody who doesn't have to make a profit and who also can print their own money.
This is what they know.
They want the government running it.
Axel Rod is just disingenuous.
He got caught and he stumbled and bumbled through the answer.
What it illustrates is that you should not listen to what they say in terms of what their plan is going to end up providing you.
There will not be any competition.
You are not going to have anywhere else to go once they fully implement their plan.
But they're telling you it's going to be full of competition, because that's what they think you'll buy, and that you'll believe.
I know that doofuses on the left, uh, you know, who the amount of their brains that understand economics would not even equal an amoeba.
They'll believe any trash the left says.
Oh, yeah, competition, federal government, yeah, that'll keep the insurance companies honest.
No, it won't put them out of business.
So great punch of sound bites there because it's an indictment just like Obama saying at this climate thing today in New York, that we've uh reduced carbon emissions in the last eight months, more than at any time in our history.
Just happens to coincide with his immaculation.
We have done nothing policy-wise to reduce carbon emissions.
Not one thing.
There is no new piece of legislation limiting carbon emissions.
All there is is a trashed economy, which is lowering carbon output because there's less economic activity going on, almost 10% unemployment.
And that's how you lower carbon emissions.
You wreck people's lives, you wreck the economy.
You can't you cannot have an economic uh circumstance where there is growth, and that's what the experience this country's always been.
The expectation parents have for their kids to live a better life than they did, that requires economic growth.
That it requires an expansion of prosperity and opportunities for it.
And when that happens, you're going to have more output of everything, leading to carbon and so forth.
And it's all it's all woven into this elaborate hoax that carbon dioxide is causing the uh climate to be destroyed.
It's all it's that's that's the big lie that props up all these other lies.
But I mean, we haven't done one thing to lower carbon emissions.
And yet Obama's taking credit for something that hasn't happened, just to give it to himself, the credit to himself, and now, oh yeah, we're gonna competition out there, uh, government option, uh, health exchanges, uh, lots of competition.
Uh, keep the insurance companies honest.
The only way you keep them honest uh is to let them compete with each other.
This will put them out of business, and that's the objective.
Uh more of your phone calls coming up right after this break.
Don't go away.
Now, one thing here before we get to the phones, because this infuriated me when I when I heard about this, uh Humana has put us and out of note, sent out an email, uh, an ad uh that that the Medicare advantage will be cut under the Baucus Senate health reform plan, and the same thing in the House.
And Bauchus read that the United States government sends a threatening note to humana telling them they can't say that and to stop it.
What gives them the right?
What gives Max Baucus or anybody in the U.S. Senate or in the White House the right to tell anybody what they can and can't say.
The First Amendment prohibits that.
But rush, but rush, I hear you saying, Humana deals with Medicare and they get federal money, and so the federal government has a link.
Yes, but in this in this circumstance, humana happens to be telling the truth.
Political intimidation, it's a Wall Street Journal today, political intimidation has always been part of the current Congress's health care strategy.
If you're not at the table, you're on the menu is tattooed on every lobbyist and industry rep in Washington.
But Max Baucus's latest bullying tactics are hard to believe by even these standards, as the Senate Finance Committee Chairman has sicked federal regulators on the insurer Humana Incorporated for daring to criticize one part of his health bill.
Earlier this month, Humana sent a one-page letter to its customers enrolled in its Medicare Advantage plans, which offer private options to Medicare beneficiaries.
Humana noted that because of spending cuts proposed by Democrats, millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage Health Plans so valuable, unquote.
The Kentucky-based company also urges customers to contact their representatives.
Pretty tame stuff, but Baucus took it as a declaration of war.
He complained to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which on Friday duly ordered Humana to cease and desist.
CMS claimed the mailer was misleading and confusing and told the company it has opened an official probe as to whether the mailer violated laws about how the insurers that manage advantage plans are allowed to communicate with their customers.
As well as other federal statutes, please be advised that we take this matter very seriously, and based upon the findings, our investigation will pursue compliance and enforcement actions.
Humana could be fined or booted out of the Medicare Advantage program.
But here are the facts.
The Baucus bill slashes 123 billion dollars over the next decade from Medicare Advantage, which Democrats hate despite the fact that almost one-fourth of beneficiaries have chosen it over traditional fee for service Medicare.
And one reason seniors like it is because private insurers focus on quality and preventive care, try to manage benefits as opposed to simply paying the bills.
Now, this episode is another, I mean, clear as a bell.
Illustration of how all U.S. health care will operate if Baucus's bill becomes law, or if the House bill becomes law, or if Obama's bill becomes law.
All what does Humana do?
Well, they do they're a private sector insurance company, managing Medicare and Manager customers like it.
They made the mistake of trying to tell their customers the truth about what'll happen to their coverage.
And so now the CEO has got to go out and hire a team of lawyers, and they better be good.
They better better be fearless.
Because Obama and Bauchus are out to make the CEO of Humana an object lesson to the rest of the business class.
And that means they won't stop until Humana cries uncle or is ruined.
That's the objective.
You do not.
This is in addition to fascist.
This is Stalinist.
And that's who these people are.
And here's how Bauchus goes about being a hero.
This is from the Hill, Capitill newspaper.
Senator Max Baucus will redirect about $28 billion in his health care bill to make insurance more affordable for middle class families, and he will reduce a new tax on insurance companies.
That's it.
That's how you be a hero.
You reduce taxes on things that are not taxed yet.
Baucas lowers his own tax.
Oh, what a great guy.
Proposes a tax.
I'm going to be a good guy.
I'm going to lower my tax.
What I'm going to hear.
It's a tax cut.
And a tax that hasn't even been implemented yet.
And the media cheers.
What a great guy.
He's responsive.
In the meantime, he and the Obama administration have targeted Humana Incorporated now for destruction.
Because they dared tell the truth about what's in this plan to their customers.
All right, to the phones, Elaine in Babylon, New York.
Thanks and welcome to the EIB network.
Hi, Ross.
How are you?
Just fine.
Thanks.
I wanted to go back to the leaking problem from the White House.
If you might.
Yeah.
Okay.
I think that it's obvious he's doing the leaking.
I think it's the White House itself, because it's they can't come out and say, America, what should we do?
Because he's so indecisive that he has to try to roundabout way of polling the public to see what the reaction will be.
So you think it's maybe a trial balloon.
Put the leak out to see if the American people even care about Afghanistan.
Well, to see how mad the left is going to get, if they'll let him do it or not.
Uh well, that it could be.
That's that's uh always a possibility, but I think I frankly, I think they already know.
I mean, John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi last week and uh a couple others, some of the California congressional delegation delegation, I think the week before that warned Obama if you if you ramp up troop levels, we may not pay for no more expansion in Afghanistan.
That's that's uh that what preceded it.
Now that now the leak comes, and uh it could be it could be a trial balloon.
Who knows?
The uh uh it's one of two things.
The leak, they're either Obama is trying to help his position of not expanding, sitting tight, rethinking the strategy, or the leak is to embarrass Obama and protect the military here.
People's lives on the line.
I mean, this is not we're not playing beanbag here.
You know, we're we're we're not leaking about a proposed new piece of legislation on the snail darter.
The hell, even if we did that, we're gonna ruin people's lives.
People's lives in California being ruined because of attention to animals.
The water's been shut off.
The farmers in this in this in the Central Valley.
I mean, it's just uh it's crazy.
So uh I you know the leak, probably purposeful.
Well, no doubt it was purposeful.
The the uh end result of it will s uh is still unknown.
But watching the media coverage is still what's laughable.
Oh, Obama forgot, apparently forgot his previous position on Afghanistan that uh he announced in uh in March, and maybe Obama's trying to back himself into a corner here, uh, with uh by leaking his own uh indecision on what to do about whether or not we win.
How silly is all this.
Your guiding light, Rush Limbaugh, a household name in all four corners of the world.
Daytona Beach, Florida, this is Friend.
Great to have you with us.
Hello.
How are you doing, Rush?
Thanks very much.
Thank you.
I just want to make a quick point about this whole uh who sent the memo, why they sent the memo.
To me, it's a non-issue.
And as a United States Army veteran, it outrages me that people see this situation, they see we need 40,000 more troops, we need more supplies, and it's even a decision to them.
There's no decision.
Our general on the ground has said we may suffer a uh loss, we may fail this war effort if we do not get this support.
There's no issue.
There's no decision.
The only decision that needs to be made is what units get a phone call to start the duffel bag drag.
Now, wait a minute.
That in the uh in the America you and I grew up in, in the America, your parents, my parents, and grandparents grew up in, of course, but that's not America right now.
This country's being led by people to whom victory in foreign conflict sometimes is a sin.
Uh sometimes it's imperialism.
And not well, it is what it is.
You know, Bill Parcells used to say of a football team, you are what you are.
Your record is if you're four and twelve, you're four and twelve.
And there weren't any moral victories in there.
It is what it is.
Obama has got a request from a general underground, 40,000 troops, or I don't think we can win this.
And Obama's, well, let me reexamine the strategy then now.
I gotta worry about uh uh the left-wing base voting on uh my domestic I mean he he he's dialing back our nuke arsenal.
He withdrew the missile shield that was gonna be placed uh in Europe to defend the Czech Republic and Poland.
Uh he's making deals with Russia, he's propping up dictatorships in uh in Central and South America.
I mean it is what it is, friend.
Uh uh I I agree with you a hundred percent infuriates the heck out of me like you don't even know, Rush.
Well, I know completely I think it infuriates the heck out of millions of Americans that we don't yet know are infuriated because nobody's covering them, nobody's talking about it.
We get these, they still get these mythical polls where Obama's 54% approval or 52% approval.
I don't believe it's anywhere near that high.
I think people are shocked.
I think people are outraged.
I think when Biden speaks up and says, if we if we lose uh 35 seats in the House in 2010, uh that's the end of the road for what Barack and they know, they know exactly what's and they were counting on acorn, you know, to be the uh the balance in fraudulent elections.
Uh they're counting on acorn to help them over.
And now the acord's been exposed.
I mean, this this is uh you know this they know the problem that they're in, and yet their arrogance is such it's not gonna take them off their game at all.
They're gonna ram whatever they want down our throats, whether we want it or not, because that's who they are.
Now you couldn't have said it, you couldn't have said it better.
There's no there's no question.
I general says he need 40,000 troops or we lose.
Okay.
But that's not remember, for the first time in my lifetime, and I mean maybe not in the country's history, I don't know.
I haven't been alive for the entire 200 plus years, but in my lifetime, I have never seen a political party spend years trying to secure defeat in a military con conflict like the Democrats did in Iraq.
So it shouldn't surprise you at all that now that they're running the show, that victory is not a big deal with them.
Remember Obama said in Afghanistan.
The whole concept of victory troubles him.
Yeah, but up until now it was uh we need to get out of Iraq because Afghanistan's the big issue, and now it looks like uh Obama wants to turn tail around from that.
And I'll tell you, I'm red, right, and blue to the bone.
All right, and we don't run.
And a president that lets us run and secures a defeat in Afghanistan, I feel sorry for his chances coming up in 2012.
Well, we don't have we don't have time to wait till uh 2012.
Uh we got a rebound in 2010 in the midterm congressional elections.
Uh Robert and Staten Island, I'm glad you waited, sir.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
How are you?
Good.
Uh listen, I've got a the dilemma, parent dilemma.
So here I am.
My son is uh joined the military, and uh as an ex-marine, uh well, former Marine, but never an ex-marine.
I was all for it.
I uh, you know, I think it'd be good for him.
But right now, I feel that it's sort of I feel like they're gonna do to these boys that they did to them in Vietnam.
And the same party that was in charge then is in charge now.
And I just see that they've 55,000 American boys died in vain over there because of their shenanigans that they pulled over there.
And I see the say I see history repeating itself, and I don't as a father, I don't know what to tell my son.
It's like, you know, I I I'm proud of him, but I'm like, you know, Rob, are you sure you want to you want to uh do this at this point in time?
I'm in a dilemma, I don't know what to do.
And that's like it's really bothering me inside as a as a you know very patriotic person.
I'm sure that there are uh yeah, I uh probably a lot of military families with uh family members either en route or already in Afghanistan or scratching their heads over this and say, well, it is you know, if we're not gonna have the backing of the commander in chief, you know, is it is it is it worth it?
I I think frankly, a lot of people are asking that question about Obama on everything.
Is this worth it?
Is the historical relevance of his president, the first black president worth all this.
Clearly there are there are designs on the traditions and institutions that have defined this country's greatness, and one of those is the United States military.
So I uh, you know, I think this is even worse than Vietnam.
In Vietnam, they were trying to win.
I mean, they're but bumbling around and they were incompetent, but they're micromanaging it and everything.
And then but they they uh they were they were trying to win.
And even when we did win, we let Walter Klondike talk us out of it.
In this situation, I don't think there's even any pretense of trying to win.
In fact, I think Obama ramped up Afghanistan simply to follow through on what he was talking about during the campaign.
Ripping Bush, ripping the surge, ripping Iraq.
Yeah, it's a bad move.
We need to be focusing on Afghanistan.
That's where we need to go.
Uh we need to capture Obama, uh some, whatever.
And uh that's where we need to go.
Okay, so put some troops in there, announce a big bull policy, appoint a new general, and uh and and do it.
I mean, this is the left dream war.
You got NATO running things, you got a few other nations participating.
Uh, we've got rules of engagement that penalize our own troops, can't hit the enemy if they're in houses and so forth.
That's a perfect war.
And what does it get us?
It gets us gets us on the brink of defeat.
So that's um just another in a long line of illustrations of what happens when these people end up in charge.
Stephen in New Orleans, your next on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Rush, what an honor, what an honor.
I just I mean, I'm listening to all this, and I I can't believe we've we've got the general on the ground asking for more troops, and they're doing the two step, the Potomac two step.
I mean, if they're not gonna send them, why don't we get them the hell out of there?
That's that's pretty much my comment.
But this is this is that's a mistake, too.
I know what you're saying.
If we're not gonna win, get out of there.
And there are, by the way, there are there are a lot of people who um look at Afghanistan as the place empires die.
A lot of people think Afghanistan is the armpit of the world and is not worth going in there.
The uh, well, look, the Soviet Red Army, the only place ever lost was in Afghanistan.
We're gonna lose.
We need to get out of there rush.
I get emails of people like this all the time.
We're gonna get mired in there, we're gonna lose, they're gonna ruin our empire.
We are not the Soviet Union.
Well, uh to take that, but we may be closer to it than we ever thought we would be.
But traditionally, you know, we're this is the United States of America.
We don't lose.
But this is certainly not how you engage in war.
If you show up, you don't cut tail and run.
That's not who we are.
That's not what we are, and that's not who we've been.
So it's a little late to say, well, if we're not gonna win, let's get out.
That's to me not the question.
Unfortunately it is with this administration, but it's the wrong question.
Can you actually believe that we're discussing whether or not we can win?
I mean, who are we who are the enemy?
Who are we fighting?
Al Qaeda, the Taliban?
9 11, ring a bell.
The people look that we just had this big terror bust in New York.
They're still out there.
They're plotting future attacks.
That's who we're f Oh, we're gonna quit.
We're gonna say we can't win this.
We're gonna pull back so we can do health care.
And so we can do global warming cap and tax, so we can do all this other rigmarole nonsensical left-wing radical crap.
That is not at all what it pretends to be.
It's just the opposite.
It's a crying shame.
It is a crying shame.
What is happening to this country under the leadership of these boobs.
I gotta take a brief time out.
Be right back.
I just glance at PMSNBC here to my left during the commercial break, and I I you know Obama is uh pushing for the next G twenty meeting or AG twenty meeting uh to be hosted in Africa.
The only African nation that is part of the G20 next meetings of Pittsburgh is South Africa.
But I saw something go by, and I I'm certain I saw this.
But I got to find the details of this.
Obama said that everything that happens in Africa impacts the world.
Or not everything that happens in Africa, but things that happen in Africa impact the world.
I I I it's absurd, but I'm trying I would love to get the context of that.
Mrs. Clinton has weighed in on General McChrystal's warning, and Hillary Clinton says he doesn't know what he's talking about.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pushed back against the U.S. military's blunt warning that the battle against insurgents in Afghanistan would likely be lost within a year without more troops.
Clinton's comments came in an interview with PBS late Monday.
Amid reports, the Pentagon has asked General Stanley McCrystall to delay a request for more troops.
Clinton expressed respect for McChrystal's assessment that the U.S. would likely lose without more forces, but I can only tell you there are other assessments from very expert military analysts who have worked in counterinsurgencies that are the exact opposite.
Well, okay, that's settled because Hillary Clinton's smartest woman in the world.
And Hillary Crystal, or Hillary Clinton says a general doesn't know what he's talking about.
Are we comforted?
Are we made to feel better about Mrs. Clinton?
Says a general doesn't know what he's talking about.
In the meantime, Condoleezza Rice has them flipping backwards over at the Huffing and Puffington Post.
She gave an interview in Fortune magazine.
She said this the last time we left Afghanistan and we abandoned Pakistan, that territory became the very territory on which Al Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th.
So our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting Afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists.
It's that simple.
If you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan.
And they are just they are just beside themselves out there on the lefty blogs.
This is this is Cheney esque.
He's insane.
He's crazy.
Another attack, abandon Afghanistan.
This is what Al Qaeda.
That's why Somalia was that was important to a certain extent.
You know, the stateless nation, a stateless nation is ripe.
That's where Osama bin Laden moved it.
It's why it went to Afghanistan in the first place.
There was no government there.
Civil war strife and so forth took over.
Taliban ran the place.
Now they're trying to get it back.
Hell with it.
Back to the phones.
Uh, Ernest in Atlanta.
Nice to have you on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Pleasure to be here, Russia.
I wanted to refer back to your conversation between uh Axel Rod and uh Wolf Blitzer, particularly relative to this question of breaking down the uh state boundaries on uh plan insurance plans and coverage.
It occurred to me in listening to that that uh I'm uh I'm on Medicare now, and I have Medicare supplemental, which as you know is designed to cover the gaps uh that Medicare doesn't uh provide for.
And uh the way that works is that there are about five or six different uh descriptions of insurance coverage.
Uh and uh once a year for a period of about three months, uh these are open for competition.
Uh I receive a description of the plans as a standard description of each of the five or six plans in terms of what it covers.
And then the insurance companies compete on the basis of a price and service for me to uh subscribe to their insurance coverage for the next year.
So this occurs nationwide and is uniform and it serves as an excellent prototype for doing exactly what uh Axel Rod says uh it really doesn't said or couldn't be done.
Oh, it's not that it's it's it's not it's not that it can't be done.
He knows it can be that it's not what they want.
Let's go back and repeat these two sound bites because these are incredible and they're instructive.
And like like uh maybe I make a pig too big a deal about it.
I don't think so.
Obama saying today that we have done more in the last eight months to lower carbon emissions at any time in our history is so patently transparently absurd.
There hasn't been one policy, not one carbon emissions reduction policy yet implemented, and yet he's out there t in fact.
I don't even know how you document that carbon emissions the the the uh uh Financial Times has got a story saying worldwide carbon emissions are down.
But you know, that's as silly as that that that story we got yesterday, 45,000 deaths because people don't have health insurance.
They just make this stuff up.
You know, measuring worldwide carbon emissions.
I don't know how precise that can be done.
We can't even precisely measure the temperature everywhere on the planet.
Carbon emissions.
I mean, look how easily we get roped into buying all these false premises.
And then to it, well, we've we've done more to lower carbon emissions last eight months than any time in our world.
It's just absurd.
It's a patent lie.
Obama tried to take credit for something that has not happened, and it shows everybody exactly how they're doing it on everything else, take credit for the economy's roaring back as unemployment approaches ten percent.
We're gonna have competition in our new health care plan when they're going to shut down private insurance.
Here's Axelrod.
This is uh back on September 9th, Wolf Blitzer.
Uh, why don't you just, you know, uh the the cooperative option, health insurance cooperatives.
Uh, you're gonna get into detail like that.
He will acknowledge the fact that there is that idea.
There's the idea of putting a trigger on the public option so it goes into effect uh at some date when it's clear that the that a market is uncompetitive.
There are a number of ideas, but what is very important is that we have the kind of competition and choice that will help consumers.
Competition, choice to help consumers.
Bletcher says, Well, then why not let insurance companies sell across state lines?
Because uh, we are trying to do this in a way that advances the interests of consumers without creating such disruption that it makes it difficult to Why would that be disruptive if Blue Cross and Blue Shield or United Healthcare or all of these big insurance companies, they don't have to worry about uh just working in a state and they could just have uh the opportunity to compete in all 50 states.
But insurance is regulated at the at this time.
But you could change that.
The president could propose a law changing that.
That is not endemic to the kind of reforms that uh we're proposing or that.
Why not?
Why not?
We think we're we're proposing a package that we believe will bring that stability and security to people, will help people get insurance, will lower the cost, and that can pass the Congress, and that has to be the test.
We're not into uh symbolic expedition here.
All right, so no, competition and choice that'll help consumers.
But no, no, no, no.
Not that much competition.
Not that kind of choice.
No, no, no.
Because we have to come up with something that can pass the Congress.
That's what matters.
They're building monuments to themselves.
Gotta come up with something that'll pass Congress, and that won't pass the Congress.
But we're gonna say it's full of competition and choice because that's what you we know that you want.
And we're gonna tell you we're giving it to you, but we're lying to you.
That's Axelrod.
I have an idea.
I have a way that Obama can maybe pull his uh out of the fire on this Afghanistan thing.
Rather than call a troop buildup a surge, call it a stimulus.
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