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May 10, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:05
May 10, 2010, Monday, Hour #2
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I mentioned something on Friday on this program that one of the worldwide lending agencies, the International Monetary Fund, had advised Greece to get out of the healthcare business, the government to get out of the healthcare business.
Over the weekend, the New York Times did the same thing.
Yes, you heard correctly.
Greetings, my good friends in Rush Limbaugh, back at you here on the EIB network.
800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program.
Another reform high on the list, this is from the New York Times over the weekend, is removing the state, i.e. Greece, the Greek government, from the marketplace in crucial sectors like healthcare, transportation, and energy, and allowing private investment.
Economists say that the liberalization of trucking routes where a truck license can cost up to $90,000 and the healthcare industry would help bring down prices in these areas, which are among the highest in Europe.
I'm not making this up.
The New York Times, one of the biggest advocates of socialized medicine in this country, one of the biggest advocates of Obamacare, is suggesting that one of the things Greece can do is get out of the healthcare business, privatize it, privatize transportation, and privatize energy.
You got to have a truck license.
You got a $90,000 for a truck license.
A trucking license costs up to $90,000.
Now, the point here is we are headed where Greece is.
The IMF, European Union, and the European Central Bank have all said that New York Times agrees with this.
You got to get out of the healthcare business.
The only way to get out, the only way to lower prices in energy and healthcare and transportation is to get the government out of it and have private investment.
So to fix, this is, it buttresses my point, to fix what's wrong, we need conservatism in Greece.
We need to get rid of socialism and liberalism.
But where are we headed?
We're headed right down the path that Greece is on.
And nobody in this country, the New York Times and all the lives are advocating that Obama take over energy, that Obama take over health care, that more and more people ride public transportation.
Among the most significant features of the plan, a Greek government official said, would be a measure making it easier for the government to lay off some of the many thousands of public sector workers whose low levels of productivity and high wages are a big contributor to Greece's debt problem.
Until now, the government has not been able to lay off civil servants whose employment rights are in effect constitutionally guaranteed.
I know it sounds like the twilight zone here.
Union and government officials said that Greece had also pledged to raise its VAT tax to 25% to freeze civil servants' wages and to eliminate public sector bonuses amounting to two months' pay.
They said the government intended to increase taxes on fuel, tobacco, and alcohol.
But get them out of health care, get them out of transportation, get them out of energy, and make it easier for the government to lay off some of the many thousands of public sector workers whose low levels of productivity and high wages were a big contributor to Greece's debt problem.
I'm stunned.
So the solutions are well known to everybody.
The solutions are known to the people who create the problem.
The people who got Greece in this mess know what the solution is, and the solution is to get rid of liberals and their ideas.
The solution is conservatism.
At some point, the same thing is going to be said in this country.
It's just going to be very interesting to see who says it outside of this program.
Now, President Obama delivered a commencement speech at Hampton University in Virginia.
Is that an all-black school, Mr. Snerdley?
It is.
Now, this guy, Obama, I'm sure that the youths of America who voted for the guy thought he was Mr. Tech Wizard.
He was on the cutting edge.
This guy was, I mean, he was post-racial.
He was post-partisan.
He was post-accomplishment.
And he was post-analog.
This guy knew everything.
He was top of the mountain when it comes to technological smarts.
U.S. President Barack Obama lamented yesterday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy.
My friends Fidel Castro nor Hugo Chavez could have said it better.
In fact, they probably have said it exactly the same way.
Now, this is a French news agency story, and they leave out a device that Obama included in his rant, and that was the iPod.
The other news agencies include Obama's inclusion of the iPod and the iPhone.
Obama, who often chides journalists and cable news outlets for obsessing with political horse race coverage rather than serious issues, told a class of graduating university students that education was the key to progress.
You're coming of age in a 24-7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content, exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter.
With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, none of which I know how to work, information becomes a distraction.
Now, let me repeat this because this is very salient.
Our dear leader has just admitted that information is a distraction.
Like Pelosi, the health care bill, we have to pass it to know what's in it.
You know, information.
He said that information is a diversion, a form of entertainment rather than a tool of empowerment.
But ladies and gentlemen, Obama says here that he doesn't know how to work any of these things.
None of which I know how to work, he says.
Let's see.
Barack Obama, I still have Michael Jackson on my iPod.
U.S. President, this is July 3rd of 2009.
U.S. President Barack Obama has revealed he still has all of Michael Jackson's music on his iPod.
Obama is also known to include hits by Stevie the Boy Wonder, Jay-Z said Jackson will go down in history as one of our greatest entertainers.
Now, was he lying then or is he lying now about never having used or knowing how to work an iPod?
Remember the Obama campaign mocking and making fun of McCain for not knowing how to use email and not knowing how to, when McCain can't type because of his war injuries?
But they made fun of him.
It was an old fogey.
He was an old dude.
He didn't know how to use email.
And now here's Obama.
I don't know how to use an iPad.
I don't know how to use an iPhone.
I don't know how to use an iPod.
All this information, it's just horrible.
All this is not only putting new pressure on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.
What that means is that it is putting pressure on liberals who wither under the lights of information.
Because the dirty little secret here, we have always known that information is a problem for liberals and for Obama.
And he admits it in his speech at Hampton University.
Contradicts himself all over the place in this speech.
He admits he's not the super cool techie and all of his swooning young fans thought that he was.
Be it our cell phones.
There's still an all-out assault on cell phones.
You're going to cause cancer.
They're not crazy about you using cell phones.
You can talk to each other that way.
You can spread information about the regime.
You can get information you want other than that which the regime wants you to know.
You see, folks, information is king.
And Obama can't be king if we have information.
That's what bugs him.
What bugs him is that there is dissent.
What bugs him is that there is opposition.
And make no mistake about it, we've got soundbites backing this up.
He also mentioned talk radio in this.
And a number of analysts who are on cable shows to discuss this.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's still got, he's still bugged by Rush Limbaugh.
Two of those companies, by the way, are American giants, Apple and Microsoft.
They make the Xbox.
Sony makes a PlayStation.
Why does he always criticize our best companies and their products?
Why?
Why does he do this?
Plus, and they vote for the guy.
They give the guy money.
He's dumping all over Steve Jobs and Apple.
He's dumping all over Bill Gates and Microsoft.
And if he could get rid of these devices, he would.
He did say, look, the genie's out of the bottle.
We can't stop.
We have to learn to adapt to it, which means you have to know who to ignore.
And I will tell you who to ignore, Obama is saying.
In the meantime, folks, a quick timeout.
I've really said all you need to know about cake.
Well, not all of it.
There are a couple of interesting things that only I have dug up about Elena Kagan that you should know.
We'll get to that, plus your phone calls when we get back.
And we're back, Rush Limbaugh to the audio soundbites.
Here is Obama from his commencement speech at Hampton University today, or yesterday.
We have two soundbites here.
Here's the first one.
So many voices clamoring for attention on blogs and on cable and on talk radio.
It can be difficult at times to sift through it all, to know what to believe, to figure out who's telling the truth and who's not.
It ain't you.
Face and even some of the craziest claims can quickly gain traction.
I've had some experience in that regard.
Yeah, what he really wants here is the elimination of all these information devices so he can get away with his lies.
He doesn't want people to be able to counter his lies.
Now, this is where he says that information has become entertainment, not a means of emancipation.
You're coming of age in a 24-7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter.
And with iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, none of which I know how to work, information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.
Now, this is a commencement speech, and the guys up there BI itching about there being too much information to a bunch of students who are all about collecting information, ostensibly, and learning from it.
I don't know emancipation from what?
I guess we'd have to ask Jeremiah Wright, what does he mean here when he says that information is no longer a means of emancipation, but rather it's just entertainment, none of which I know how to work, okay?
From the New York Times, January 9th, 2009, for BlackBerry, Obama's devotion is priceless.
This week, Michael Phelps signed a deal worth more than $1 million to advertise Mazda or Mazda in China.
Jerry Seinfeld earned a reported $10 million to appear in Microsoft's TV campaign.
But the person who may be the biggest celebrity pitch man in the world is not earning a penny for his work.
President Barack Obama, President-elect Obama, has repeatedly said how much his BlackBerry means to him and how he is dreading the prospect of being forced to give it up because of legal and security concerns once he takes office.
And he did not give it up.
He still has it.
So, as usual, it's do as I say, not as I do.
They can have all the fun they want.
They can have all the conveniences.
Look at Al Gore.
Three 30-inch computer monitors.
Too much information for Al Gore.
They can have all the safety, all the efficiency, all the information supplied by technology they want.
But when they are being gored, when they are being exposed, they want to shut that down for us.
The little people.
Barack Hussein Obama.
Now, Sunday, unreliable sources on CNN, Howard Kurtz had this exchange with State of the Union host Candy Crowley about Obama's remarks.
He has on a number of occasions talked about Rush Limbaugh by name.
Is he pushing back against conservative opinions or all opinions, I sometimes wonder?
Well, this one, yes.
Well, I mean, mostly it's been, you're right, very targeted towards those who are criticizing him.
This was more blanket simply from the statement, but it fits in with the broader, I think, push that they've had, and that has been aimed at conservative radio and conservative 24-7 news.
Yeah, so what's he want to get rid of?
He wants to eliminate your access to people who criticize him.
AP had a story on all the artists on Obama's iPod.
Bob Dylan, Yo-Yo Ma, Cheryl Crowe, Jay-Z.
Back to the phones.
This is Fred in Homer, Alaska.
Great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
It's great to be here, and greetings from Alaska.
You bet.
Hey, Rush, clear something up for me.
I was at Dan's Bake Sale, and I was just far enough away from you.
You were elevated in the crowd.
Were you riding a horse when you came into town?
No, I was walking behind a horse and almost got kicked by the son of a gun.
The crowd, I was riding behind a uniformed police officer on a horse that was walking behind, and the crowd was descending upon the entourage walking, and that horse got spooked, and I was afraid it was going to start kicking.
Well, I remember being there, and it's always been a puzzle in my mind if you were on it or what.
No, in fact, I think at the time, Colorado Senator Hank Brown actually got kicked by the horse.
I'm not.
Yeah, it was Hank Brown got kicked by the horse.
I almost did.
Well, I'm glad you didn't.
Anyway, my question is kind of a two-part one.
What if we just had everybody forgive their debt and we all just started over, and then it would give us an opportunity to have how many decades to get back in the current situation we are now.
And the other side of that is my grandfather, who died in 1964, I was nine then, so I don't know how old I was when he told me this, but he said if you took all the wealth in the land and you distributed it equally amongst all the people, those that had it before would have it back again.
Your thoughts on that?
That's true inside a certain time frame.
If you take the money away from entrepreneurs, they'll find a way to get it back.
That's just who they are.
Well, now this forgiving debt, that's really magical.
That's a wonderful idea.
Just forgive the debt.
They aren't going to pay it anyway.
That's a great idea for everybody except those who lent the money.
You know what?
What?
Yeah, you get to keep the house.
You get to keep the car.
You get to keep everything you've bought on your credit card, but nobody's going to get paid for it.
Nobody's going to even get the interest on it.
With as much indebtedness as there is, if we forgave every loan out there, we'd still be in the same economic circumstance because even more people would be in trouble who have zero income coming.
I mean, there are people who lend money as a business.
There are people who finance other people's actions, lifestyles, purchases as their business.
So we're going to say to the consumers, guess what?
Everything's been free for the last 30 years.
You don't have to pay a damn thing anymore.
The people who lent the money, sorry, you got to start over.
Well, the lenders are evil, and this is why this argument has some traction with people because the lenders deserve to take it in the shorts.
The lenders deserve to get kicked in the gut.
The lenders deserve to be poor.
The lenders deserve to be out of money because that's the way they've made all the rest of us.
Goes the theory.
There's no magic out of this.
There's no way a lot of people don't get hurt here.
And your solution honors the irresponsible.
Your solution, forgiving the loans, rewards those who have been irresponsible and penalizes.
Now, you might say, well, some of these people have lent money they shouldn't have lent.
People they knew couldn't pay it back.
Yeah, because that's people, Chris God, and Bill Clinton and the runners made them do it.
But yeah, forgive all the loans, forgive all debt, and just start again.
Anyway, yeah, it's like Christmas.
Healthcare for everybody, no charge.
Welcome back.
serving humanity simply by showing up while having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Since we're talking about money today, and since we are talking about commencement speeches, there's another one that I would like to clue you in about.
JC Arenas, the American thinker, reminds us that the AP reported on Ben Bernanke's commencement address to the newest class of graduates from the University of South Carolina.
On this special day, when graduates officially transformed from kids just trying to amass credits to earn their respective degrees to grown-ups just trying to earn a living, they were treated to Bernanke's pessimistic anti-prosperity theme.
Money can't buy you happiness.
Said Bernanke, we all know that getting a better-paying job is one of the main reasons to go to college.
But if you are ever tempted to go into a field or take a job only because the pay is high and for no other reason, be careful.
Having a larger income is exciting at first, but as you get used to your new standard of living and as you associate with other people in your new income bracket, the thrill quickly wears off.
What would you think, Dawn, if your daughter went to a commencement speech and a chairman of the Federal Reserve basically said, don't try to earn a lot of money.
You're only going to be miserable when he himself is a multi-millionaire.
What I would think is that this guy knows where we're headed and is trying to set me up to understand I ain't going to earn a lot of money ever again because we're just in too much debt.
Bernanke then went on to cite a study conducted on lottery winners to substantiate his claim.
And of course, he can speak from his own experience.
He is a millionaire.
Now, comparing college graduates to lottery winners doesn't quite work for me.
I mean, we've all known lottery winners who win the big bucks and they've blown it inside of a year.
Well, there's even a group down here, some group of people that formed to start a business to help lottery winners manage their new wealth while taking some of it at the same time from them.
Of course, for the advice and the service.
As chairman of the Fed, Bernanke earns just over $200,000 a year in addition to his earned income.
He receives passive income from between $150,000 and $1.1 million from royalties for two textbooks he wrote and portfolio income between $25,000 and $80,000 from two annuities.
So Mr. Arenas writes, well, I'm sure the polite graduates were thankful to have such a successful and powerful individual address them on their special day and applaud him accordingly.
They should have flipped him the collective bird.
As Fed chairman, Bernanke has helped navigate this country's sinking ship as it continues to steer itself into one financial iceberg after another.
This class of graduates, among many others, will suffer for it.
They will have to prepare themselves to live in a country where high unemployment becomes normal, especially among 18 to 24 demographic.
And when their government decides to service its out-of-control debt, they will see more of their hard-earned money yanked from their wallets following the implementation of higher taxes.
Ultimately, many of these graduates will face the reality that they will not be able to provide their children with the same quality of life that their parents have been fortunate enough to provide them.
Bernanke knows this.
His message is preparing them for it.
He's conditioning them to not worry about high earnings, because after all, they'd be unhappy anyway.
I mean, you can trust Ben, even though he's rubbing his success in your faces.
He's still trustworthy because he's speaking from experience.
So the question is, if Bernanke is so unhappy, why doesn't he give up his wealth?
But he is right about one thing.
If you pursue the dollar and only the dollar, you probably aren't going to be happy, no matter how much of it you earn.
But that's not, I don't think that's the point he was making.
He didn't get specific enough on that point to convince me that's what he was really talking about.
So I think that Mr. Arenas here, the American thinker, is right.
He's just preparing them for the likelihood that they're not going to have the same opportunities their parents did.
And so take it from me.
I'm the guy in charge of all the money.
You're not going to have much, and you'll be happier for it.
Trust me.
Trust me, I have a lot of money, and look at me.
I'm miserable every day.
Although I'm not giving my money back, I'm still miserable.
You would be too if you had my job.
I'm the sole architect, along with the regime, of bankrupting the country and Greece.
And we're doing it for you.
More money.
The Associated Press.
The headline really says it all.
For more low-income children, dinner is coming from Uncle Sam.
We have school breakfast.
We have school lunch.
And pretty soon we're going to have government dinner.
This is a story from Brattleboro, Vermont, while other preschoolers were warming up to the vegetable pesto lasagna.
Three-year-old Avery Bennett dived in with no hesitation.
Can I have some more lasagna? She said from her booster seat.
I want some more lasagna.
She moved on to her seconds.
The other children at the evening care program in Brattleboro were also chomping down on the dish made of spinach, peppers, carrots, tomato, basil, and cheese.
More low-income screw children could soon have access to free, nutritious dinners like the lasagna that Avery loved.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture program in Vermont in 12 other states and the District of Columbia provides reimbursements for the suppers served at after-scruel programs for at-risk children in communities where at least 50% of households fall below the poverty level.
What it allows us to do is to provide these kids with an extra nutritious meal before they go home because some kids go home to nothing, said Susan Ekes, director of child nutrition programs for the food bank of northern Nevada in McCarran, Nevada.
Around the country.
Around the country.
Well, we'll get to that in a minute.
Around the country, ask me, what are the parents eating?
It's called Dr. Smirnoff.
Around the country about...
You can't say that, Russ!
You can't say that.
Around the country, about 49,000 children benefit from the after-school meals each day.
The program is expected to cost a total of $8 million from 2009 to 2013.
The USDA said it means you can triple that and be probably closer to the real cost.
With more families losing jobs and losing homes, the need is growing.
As the economy gets worse, we're seeing more and more kids, said Beth Baldwin Page, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Brattleboro, Vermont.
This place does not sound like someplace you want to move to, folks.
The kids have to be fed dinner at school.
Who knows what the parents are eating, but it's pretty much assumed that when the kids go home, there's nothing there.
In East Prairie, Missouri, not far from where I grew up, this ought to be interesting.
Children who may have skipped the meal from time to time are coming every day now, said Lester Gillespie, youth director at the Susannah Wesley Family Learning Center, which serves 150 meals a day at Tuesday.
This is Obama's America.
Who would have thought?
Post-partisan, post-racial, post-accomplishment?
We now, we're in such bad shape.
Parents are so irresponsible that the government has to feed kids dinner?
Where's that laser-like focus on jobs?
I thought everybody was going back to the workforce now.
Trying to find a gig.
They're all so excited.
A lack of nutritious food, especially in the first three to five years of a child's life, can have lasting effects on the health and development of children.
Filling their stomachs with nutritional meals helps them learn and concentrate, officials said.
So even parents are becoming unnecessary.
They're just the breeders.
And then Uncle Sam takes over with raising them and feeding them.
Programs in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, I would be so embarrassed.
I don't know.
Just don't know.
I can just see myself being married.
Catherine, take the kids to school at 6 o'clock.
Why?
So they can eat.
I just can't see myself in this programs in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin, the District of Columbia, now Vermont, are eligible for reimbursement for suppers.
USDA requires the sites to offer nutritionally balanced suppers with milk, a protein, fruit, vegetables, and bread, or a grain item.
And did you know somebody actually did a survey here?
The creative leaders, the advertise, creative advertising leaders behind the 67 commercials that aired during the Super Bowl, of those 67 jobs, 52 of them were held by white men.
White males held 52 of the 67 created jobs at advertising agencies that produced the 67 commercials, the Super Bowl.
Well, the problem here is that football is ethnically diverse.
The coaches and players are ethnically diverse.
The audience is diverse.
But a report released today in a press conference, the NAA LCP New York office, the roster of creative directors behind Super Bowl advertising is anything but diverse.
So if you felt more racist after the Super Bowl, this is why a bunch of white guys produce the commercials that you want.
I mean, this is actual news story.
It's an ad week.
That's not a football game, Sterdley, the Super Bowl.
Who's supposed to?
What we're supposed to have, it's just like we're doing the Supreme Court here.
By the way, you know, it's just speaking of that, you realize if she gets confused.
Best-looking justice is going to be John Roberts.
You know who's behind this school dinner program?
No, not the USDA.
The SEIU.
The Service Employees International Union is behind this.
They represent the food service workers who will prepare these meals.
Here from the SEIU website.
Tell Congress, strengthen our child nutrition program, successful, cost-effective child nutrition programs, school lunch and breakfast, child care and WIC.
Summer feeding, after-school snacks, and meals play a critical role in helping children achieve access to quality nutrition, child care, and educational enrichment activities.
It's all there on the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union website.
Provide fair wages and health care for food service workers.
Food service workers are often paid poverty wages with few benefits and no paid sick days.
The AP in this story does not give the name of this program anywhere in the article.
They don't want people looking it up because that would be a distraction.
It's called Campaign for Quality Services, Renew a Stronger Child Nutrition Act.
But the AP doesn't publish that.
It is a union-led initiative to feed dinner to as many kids as they can enroll in the program.
Food service workers.
Well, you know, canner chefs, you know, the people, not chefs, cooks, dishwashers, packagers, people that work in the food services industry.
People that, yeah, but there's not going to be, yeah, people that slop it on the plate when you go through the line, right.
Except, this is vegetable lasagna with pesto sauce.
Not exactly slop, snurdily.
Stephen Middleburg, Virginia.
Welcome to the EIP.
Yes, of course with government chiefs and government butter.
Well, who else do you think is providing it?
Certainly not the parents.
They're probably going to show up and eat too.
Bringing along Dr. Shmirnoff to have a little party with the SEIU food service employees.
All right, Stephen, Middleburg, Virginia.
Hi, and welcome to the program.
Rush, how's it going?
Pretty well, sir.
Thank you.
Hey, I wanted to provide a graphic example of what you were talking about about the new technology enabling people to essentially circumvent the administration and circumvent the state-controlled media, as you like to call it.
One is, and how it relates specifically to your show.
One is the iPodcast that you do.
There are a lot of people, millions probably, who are Republicans, Independents, Conservatives, who would like to listen to your show, but since it's Thunder in the daytime, they're working to support liberal freeloaders.
And the iPodcast allows people to actually download your show and listen to it at their convenience, exposing your words, thoughts, ideas to a lot of people that may normally not be able to listen to your show.
Everyone's not as lucky as I am and millions of other people can listen to you live.
I was wondering what you thought about that.
Well, I think it's a good point.
One of the reasons why we started the podcasts of the radio show is because of the high mobility of the audience and the portability demands that they have for all of their media, music, talk shows, television shows, whatever it is.
And the podcasts are ready for download via our website or via iTunes, if you're a member at Rush 24-7, every afternoon by 3.30.
And I know, I mean, people, hundreds of thousands of people are listening to this show via the podcasts, sometimes the next day when they're on the treadmill while taking time out from working in order to feed the freeloaders in society.
But yeah, it's a great illustration of the problems that Obama has.
Because even people who can't make time during the live broadcast of this program can access it at their leisure via a device Obama detests.
An iPod or an iPhone, and now even the iPad.
Your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, financial disaster, debt spiraling out of control, and even the good times.
Rush Limbaugh behind the Golden EIB microphone Ed Mies on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.
He says she's not written extensively on the role of a judge.
The little she has written is troubling.
In a law review article, she expressed agreement with the idea that the court primarily exists to look out for the despised and the disadvantaged.
Well, I wanted to know who she meant by that.
I found out.
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