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May 26, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:14
May 26, 2010, Wednesday, Hour #3
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The views expressed by the host on this show, now documented to be almost always right, 99.6% of the time, Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network coming to you from the largest free educational institution known to exist in a free world, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
A telephone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800 282-2882.
The email address, lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
Check the email, top of the hour break.
Rush, you said that Brent Bozell told you you should plug this book, Mike, but you didn't give the title.
Did I not give the title?
I didn't give the title.
It's called Rush Limbaugh, an Army of One.
And it's by Zev Chaffetz.
Zev is the author of the book, the writer who did the cover piece on me, the New York Times magazine.
What was it, a year ago?
Yeah, just about that.
I spent 16 hours with him interviewing.
It's not a biography.
I mean, it's certainly an authorized biography.
It's got some biographical stuff in it, but it's not primarily a biography.
A lot of email exchanges.
I haven't, to this day, I have not read the whole thing.
I've thumbed through it, you know, page, check a page here, check a page there.
Well, Snerdley says, why not?
I don't read anything about it.
I haven't read the New York Times piece all the way through.
If they get it right, I already know it.
And if they get it wrong, it's par for the course.
So, you know, why bother?
It's that is what it is.
But I have talked to a number of people.
Snerdley thought it was okay.
HR has got a couple nitpicks with it.
I don't recall ever saying that George Bush was a preppy snob.
George Bush 41.
I don't recall ever saying that.
And Zev still doesn't understand my attitude about racial problems in the country, but minor things.
He tried.
He tried to get it.
Well, here's the way that came about.
He asked me the question.
I think he said he asked you about July 4th, Independence Day.
And he said that July 4th, no big deal to you.
Independence Day, no big deal.
Mr. Snerdley is African American.
And he asked me when I fought it.
I said, I think it's time to let all that stuff go.
This is the one country in the world that ended slavery.
500,000 Americans lost their lives.
It's 2010.
This country has the most opportunity for anybody who wants to seek it of any country in the history of the world.
No country's perfect.
No human being is perfect.
We still have digots and racists.
And we've got people that discriminate against people for all kinds of things in this country.
And Zeb kept saying, but do you not understand how an African-American might not be able to look at the founding of this country as something glorious?
I said, I can understand that.
But this is not the days of the founding.
And the people who wrote the Constitution allowed for an amendment process to fix it.
I said, look at, you go back and you look at John Adams.
In the days of the discussions, the Federalist Papers, they knew they had a problem with slavery in the South.
But in order to gain independence and to have a unity of purpose in seeking independence from the British, they had to get the Southern states.
They had to have the Southern states join them.
But John Adams quoted numerous times, we're going to have a problem with this.
All the founders were not slave owners.
They were not racists.
I think the continual focus on whatever original sin this country has is serving only to hold people back and not move forward to the present day.
And I think that's by design in a lot of cases, and I really resent it.
And it makes me sad to see so many people born in this country told every day that they don't have a chance here simply because of the color of their skin, which is not true anymore.
It's time to get with the present times.
But even saying this, I know I'm tweaking a lot of people.
You just don't get it, Rush.
You know what my problem is?
And I told him this.
I am the most colorblind person in the country.
I am not at all oriented toward political correctness.
And I assume everybody else is colorblind because everybody else says that's what they want, is a colorblind society.
So I believe people, and I'm a literalist.
Somebody tells me they want and wish we had a colorblind society, fine.
Well, let's act like we are.
Let's be that.
So I am that.
But still, there's the people who just want to take, you know, race is a provocative issue.
It is controversial.
And as such, it's something that you can build something interesting about.
But those are two little nitpicks.
He doesn't get it all wrong on race.
And the Bush 41 stuff is minor.
But everybody that's read it says it's pretty good.
And Brent Bozell said, you really ought to really hype it because the guy has shown that you can do a quality piece.
He was nice to you.
He was respectful of you, which is all true.
So the name of the book, I'm sorry, I thought I gave it in the first hour, but they're telling me that I didn't.
So it's Rush Limbaugh, an army of one.
I think one of the arguments against me, also, is I'm not an original thinker.
Anybody that's listening to this program for 20, 21 years knows that that's stupid.
It's just nuts.
It's laughable.
And Chaffetz, I think, captures that notion in the book, too.
So maybe I should sit down and read it cover to cover.
You know, just read a page here, flip to another chapter, read a page there, just try to get a flavor for it.
What?
What do you think?
Snurdly says he thinks it would be good for me to read it.
Well, it's like HR says, though.
I mean, if it's true, I already know it.
If it's not true, par for the course.
At any rate, I was not joking here at the conclusion of the previous hour.
New York Times labels urged for food that can choke.
Well, that's the point.
Isn't every food chocable?
All food is a potential choking hazard.
But the situation they describe here is not choking.
On a July afternoon in 2006, Patrick Hale microwaved a bag of popcorn for his two young children and sat down with them to watch television.
When he got up to change the channel, he heard a strange noise behind him.
He turned to see his 23-month-old daughter, Allison, turning purple and unable to breathe.
As a Marine, he was certified in CPR, but he could not dislodge the popcorn with blows to her back and finger swipes down her throat.
He called 9-11, but it was too late.
By the time Allison arrived in the hospital, her heart had stopped beating.
An autopsy found that she had inhaled pieces of popcorn into her vocal cords, her bronchial tubes, and the lung.
Her mother, Christy Hale, said, neither one of us knew that popcorn was unsafe.
Well, this is a tragic story, but this is not choking.
This is aspiration.
Aspirate into your lungs.
I mean, people have died in their sleep, aspirating reflux from their stomachs.
I mean, it can drown.
And that's what sounds like happened here.
So anyway, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the nation's leading pediatricians group, wants that to change, saying that food should be subject to as much scrutiny as toys.
It is calling the Food and Drug Administration to require warning labels on foods that are known choking hazards and to evaluate and monitor food for safety.
We're going to have to ban food because there isn't a food out there that is not a choking hazard.
But I mean, sadly, this situation was not even choking.
If the Heimlich maneuver didn't work, if the throat swipes didn't work, which they wouldn't if the popcorn remnants are in the lungs, I mean, that's there's nothing you can do there.
It's just, I don't know, it's tragic.
One more soundbite here before we go to the break.
I'll tell you what, the attention on Obama on this oil spill is intensifying.
This morning on CNN, this is Florida Democrat Senator Bill Nelson.
If this thing is not fixed today, I think the president doesn't have any choice any better.
Go in completely take over, perhaps with the military in charge.
Not because the military can do this, but the military has the apparatus, the organization by which it can bring together the civilian agencies of government and to get this thing done.
What?
In the world?
The military?
He admits the military, not because the military has the apparatus, but has the organization.
They don't have the military.
They can't do this, but they have the apparatus, organization by which to bring together civilian agencies of government to get this thing done.
This is a Democrat senator.
The military to work with civilian agencies of government?
So if this thing isn't fixed today, if this top-kill method doesn't work, and Senator Bill Nelson wants Obama in there, he'd go in there and completely take over.
Senator, it isn't going to happen.
Sad to say, Mr. Obama hasn't the slightest clue what to do here.
Don't forget, my friends, on this race business, it was I, El Rushbo, who warned all of you who called here prior to the election.
But, Rush, don't you think the election of Obama would be good because it'll end all this racist talk?
The country will approve is no longer racist because it's elected a black president.
I, El Rushbo, was the one who said no.
It's only going to get worse.
The race hustlers, the race industry is excited about this possibility, I said.
Because any criticism of Obama will be said to be racist.
And lo and behold, right again was I, El Rushbo.
Are race relations not more strained than ever now?
Everything's about race.
Everything is about skin color to these people.
Or however they classify people, however they seek to group them, whatever they're victims.
Everybody's a hapless victim of some magical, mysterious, powerful majority that wreaks damage and hell havoc on all these poor, unsuspecting people.
Here's David in Los Angeles.
Great to have you, sir, on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi.
Hello, sir.
I can barely hear you.
I'm still old.
I can't understand what the guy is.
We got a bad, no, we got a bad cell connection.
I don't think he can hear me.
See if you can have him get a better connection.
We'll move on.
Where are we going?
Memphis?
This is Dan, your turn on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Hey afternoon, Rush.
Meg Ditto from the home of Elvis and the best barbecue in the country.
Where is the best barbecue in Memphis?
Downtown at the rendezvous.
Downtown at the rendezvous.
Yes.
Cool, okay.
All right.
Look, we're missing the big picture here.
To quote Rah Emmanuel, never waste a good crisis.
Yeah.
You know, going on vacation during the oil spill and his lack of leadership in this scenario, I think it's deliberate.
I think the administration wants, subconsciously, this environmental disaster visited upon the coast so that, forget BP, he's wanting to clamp down on the entire energy industry, you know, and demonize oil, coal, nuclear, what have you.
And he's going to use this as leverage with all this stuff floating ashore to get some bills pushed through Congress to tighten up regulations even further.
Right.
Demonize the private sector at the same time in its entirety.
Yeah, I happen to think, I told people last week, they don't mind this disaster.
This is actually something that they can use.
This is an opportunity for them.
All it took for me to come to that conclusion was when I saw Democrats criticizing Bobby Jindal.
Bobby Jindal had an idea.
He wanted to get a federal permit to start building some barrier islands per se to soak up the oil before the oil got to the actual Louisiana shoreline.
And the Democrats came out and said, well, Bobby, Governor Jendal, you believe in small government.
You can't make a suggestion like that.
You can't an idea like that coming from you has no validity.
It's ever to take government to do it.
So if these people are willing to try to say, no, Governor Jendal, you can't do it because you don't have the bona fide to because you believe in limited government.
Well, that's all I needed to hear.
These guys are willing to use anything and everything about this to further a political agenda.
And there's no question that many leftists see in this a golden opportunity to do so.
Everything is political.
They want the disaster.
In fact, folks, I know this is a tough thing for some of you to believe and hear because we don't think of presidents this way.
But we've got one now and an entire administration who do think this way, that everything that happens must be seen through the prism of is it a political opportunity or is it a political liability?
And if you doubt this, it's been six weeks.
We now have Democrat commentators all suggesting that we know President Obama cares, but he's going to have to do something to show it.
He's going to have to use a little emotion out there.
The cool calm Obama is not what we want.
Now, you can't, these are not things that you can fake.
You care about something, you care about it.
If it really angers you, you get angry about it.
When you're a leader and things like this happen and you think people are being lackadaisical and fixing it, then you step in and you see to it that everybody heals too.
There hasn't been any of that.
There's been the usual political posturing.
We've had Salazar say, we're going to keep our boot tight on BP's neck.
And we've had all the czars sent down there.
We've had all the inspectors.
We've had the town hall.
Well, we haven't a town hall meeting, but we've had government bureaucracies that have met to discuss the problem.
There hasn't been any action.
Occasionally, there's been some harsh words of criticism aimed at British petroleum, but about all we got from Obama is plug-in-ho!
Plug-a-ho!
I'm tired of this.
I'm not going to take it anymore.
Look at it.
It's not easy to say these kind of things, but it is what it is.
Obvious is obvious.
Human emotion is human emotion.
When it's not there, it's not there.
It's not that it's being quelled.
It's not that it's being restrained.
It's not there.
We don't have a leader.
Obama's not a leader.
He's an exploiter.
He creates problems.
He exacerbates them for the express purpose of taking advantage of them.
Pure and simple, folks.
Let me give you a little history lesson right now from our friends at Hillsdale College.
This coming Monday is Memorial Day, obviously.
It is a day we honor those men and women who have died defending our freedom and liberty.
You know, Memorial Day was called Decoration Day when it was first observed just after the Civil War ended.
That's about the time Hillsdale College was created in the 1860s.
It started as a college that based its core values on understanding our country's constitution and our founding principles, the very ones that guided President Lincoln to stand tough during the divide, the Civil War.
The men and women of Hillsdale College will recognize Memorial Day just like all of us.
And all year long, Hillsdale College goes out of their way to recognize all of those that serve or have served in the military.
Just this year, Hillsdale's graduating class of nearly 350 had more than a dozen graduates heading towards officer candidate school in the Marines and other branches of the military.
Hillsdale has a long tradition producing young people who are proud to serve our country through military service.
Every one of them does so without taking any government assistance.
They support and believe the premise that Hillsdale College is to be free from government control by not taking any money or subsidies.
Now, there are a lot of ways that you can get connected to a college that started during the years of our Civil War and is as relevant and important today as it's ever been.
Imprimus is one way you get connected.
It's a free monthly digest.
Every month in the mail, they will deliver to you a digest featuring one of the latest speeches delivered with a conservative pointed view at the school or one of their satellites.
And there are quite a few notables in the Imprimus history.
It's yours free from Hillsdale.
Go online to rushforhillsdale.com and get signed up today.
You can also call them, use the phone number 1-866-Hillsdale.
But the easy way is rushforhillsdale.com.
That's the web address.
It's a great institution.
Dr. Larry Arne and all the people there are as proud of it as they can be.
And they simply are using the occasion of Memorial Day and their relationship with this program to let everybody know who they are, what they are, and how well they do what they do.
Marsha Kramer reporting for WCBS2 Eyeball News in New York on Governor Chris Christie in New Jersey.
We're not raising taxes, he says.
Governor Christie says he has residents covered through fiscal year 2011 despite an $800 million budget hole.
How did he do this?
Remember the budget freeze?
It looks like it worked.
On the surface, the news looked pretty grim for Garden State residents on Tuesday, thanks to an unanticipated drop in tax revenues of $402 million this year and $365 million next year.
One of the reasons for that is that what percentage of $70 billion worth of wealth has moved out of the state because of their high taxes.
So that's one reason tax revenues are down in New Jersey.
Another reason is that they've raised taxes on everybody, which always results in reduced revenues.
It just does.
But a new budget hole of nearly $800 million, the accommodation of 402 and 365, is not going to give Governor Christie a single new white hair, at least this time.
The governor's message has got you covered.
He said, we're very confident we've been able to close the additional budget gap in fiscal year 2010 and in 2011.
We're going to be able to solve that problem without any new taxes at all and without any real significant cuts.
Skipping the fiscalese, the legalese, what happened was the budget freeze imposed by Governor Christie when he took office generated more savings than expected, enough to cover much of the lost tax money.
He's like, I think we're going to be fine.
How do residents feel?
Well, I'd rather see a tax on millionaires also.
It's about time we stopped paying for everybody else, said Lionel Nazco of Carlstadt.
Taxing the millionaires sounds great.
The only concern I have is the millionaires have the ability to take their money and leave, said Anton Summas of Hackensack.
Bottom line is a budget freeze, the spending freeze.
I remember back in the, this would have been mid-90s, maybe early 90s, 91 or 92, I remember that the Democrats were just up in arms over a $300 billion budget deficit compared to our $1.4 trillion budget deficit this year.
I mean, it was a monster.
And I remember talking to several economists who said, you know, all you'd have to do is just freeze federal spending for five years.
Just freeze it and allow for inflation.
You know, increase government spending at inflation levels, which amounts to a freeze.
And in five years, you'll wipe this out.
Because it's all a spending side problem.
It's not that there's not enough tax revenue being collected.
It's a spending side problem.
And I remember I ran that.
I was on Charlie Rose one night.
And I was on with, let's see, who was Tony Quello?
I think Roger Altman.
I was the only conservative.
And I said, let me ask you guys a question.
I've heard, and you guys are much smarter than I am.
I said, I've heard from a lot of economists that if we just freeze the budget for five years at inflation levels, all this will be saying, oh, no, no, no, it's difficult.
It's a nice party.
I started laughing at me.
They said, it'll never work.
It'll never work because these people's job was to spend money.
It's how they stayed in office.
It's what they, it was the single greatest example of their power was to spend money.
But here's here's Chris Christie now, you know, some 20 years plus later with a budget freeze in New Jersey.
Guess what?
That budget freeze is going to result in closing our budget loopholes each of the next two years.
And we're not cutting anything.
Now, when you propose a budget freeze, of course, the Democrats say you are cutting.
Well, we're going to spend 8% more on whatever next year.
If you're not going to spend 8%, that's an 8% cut.
No, no, no, no.
You can't say that not spending an increase is a cut.
A cut would be if we actually spent less.
But there's never been a budget item, or let me put it this way, there has never been an entire budget, state or federal, where one year was smaller in total than the previous year.
And it's not going to be the case with Christie.
They're just going to freeze it.
And here it's working.
No tax increases needed and no significant spending cuts needed.
So the theory that was explained to me many, many moons ago seems to have credibility.
If we don't do this, where are we going to end up?
I was stunned to see this over the weekend in the New York Times.
Crisis imperils liberal benefits long expected by Europeans.
Now, it's funny, they write this story and they can find absolutely no correlation to what's happening in their own damn city, in their own damn state, not to mention the whole country.
They write as though Europe is an isolated example where this is all going on.
Listen to this.
Across Western Europe, the lifestyle superpower, the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt.
The deficit crisis that threatens the Euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II.
Europeans have boasted about their social model, its generous vacations, early retirements, national health care systems, extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.
Europeans have benefited from low military spending protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella.
They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net.
The Europe that protects is a slogan of the European Union.
But all over Europe, governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues, and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits with more bad news ahead.
With low growth, low birth rates, longer life expectancies, Europe can no longer afford its comfortable lifestyle.
Carl Bilt, Sweden's foreign minister, we're now in rescue mode, but we need to transition to the reform mode very soon.
A reform deficit's a real problem, he said, pointing to the need for structural change.
Changes have now become urgent, says the Times.
Europe's population is aging quickly as birth rates decline.
Unemployment has risen as traditional industries have shifted to Asia, and the region lacks competitiveness in world markets.
According to the European Commission, by 2050, the percentage of Europeans older than 65 will nearly double.
And they're all going to have their hands out because they've all been led to believe the promise that they're not going to have to work, that their benefits, their health care, their welfare is going to be provided for them.
The wondrous beauty of European socialism.
Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, a French lawyer who did a study of Europe and the global economy for the French government, said, the easy days are over for countries like Greece, Portugal, and Spain, but for us too.
A lot of Europeans would not like the issue cast in these terms, but that's the storm we're facing.
We can no longer afford the old social model.
And there is real need for structural reform.
But the unions are not happy.
And the Socialist Party opposes raising the retirement age.
This is in France.
Polls show that while most French see a pension overhaul as necessary, we have 60% say working past 60 is not the answer.
It's stunning to read this, as though Europe is the only place in the country where this is happening.
It's stunning to read this.
Stephen Erlanger writes this for the New York Times, and he can't bring himself to see the same model playing out right here, not only in America, but in his state and in his city, both called New York.
Crisis imperils liberal benefits long expected by Europeans.
Does the crisis not imperil liberal benefits long expected by Americans?
As I mentioned at the top of the program, when reviewing all the possible things I could have started with today, wouldn't it be amazing if the Bush recession, which is what they call this, if the Bush recession ended up destroying European socialism, much like Rinaldus Magnus defense spending brought the end of the Soviet Union.
The Bush recession destroys European socialism.
Wouldn't that just be classic?
And this story makes it plain that European socialism is a crisis.
It is in a crisis and it cannot be sustained.
And there needs to be structural reform, meaning socialism doesn't work.
It's right there in front of our eyes.
And yet everything that they are experiencing in Europe, we are four or five years behind them now and growing, emulating every move they have made.
It's a time of year when many people finalize their summer vacation plans, confirming travel, lodging reservations, dusting off the suitcases, looking for games to occupy the kids on long trips.
And this is a circumstance that identity thieves are waiting for.
Just be sure that when your brain goes into vacation mode, you don't ignore the same precautions you take during everyday life to protect your personal information.
If you write out your itinerary, guard it.
You might only share plans with a few friends, but who's to say they won't inadvertently pass it along?
You know, people send out these, yeah, we're going to be going for the summer.
We're going to be heading down here and we're going to go over there.
We'll send you pictures when we get there.
All it takes is that email to be forwarded to somebody and you've got a problem.
You know, identity theft is something can happen to everybody.
If it does happen to you, it's a nightmare to have your identity restored.
You don't want to go through it.
And the simple best way to avoid it happening is lifelock.
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That's 800-440-4833-LifeLock.
Call now, Chris in Atlanta.
Welcome to the EIB Network, sir.
Hey, Rush, good afternoon.
How are you doing today?
Very well, sir.
Thank you.
From a displaced Montana.
Real quick, one of the things that I notice, and it kind of carries on with what you say about, you know, the words have meaning, is, you know, sometimes it's not so much what people say, but how they say it.
And if you look at Obama's thing about, you know, his words about how, you know, how is this problem going to be solved?
You know, that's the passive voice.
That's the, you know, that's how an observer talks.
Right, exactly.
You know, somebody who's actively involved in solving a problem says, you know, what is the solution or what do we do to fix it?
And so I'm always very wary whenever I hear somebody speaking in the passive voice because that's somebody outside looking in that'll, you know, that'll that'll throw rocks or cause, you know, be one to stir up trouble, but not really one to get in there and take the risks, you know, of making decisions and trying to fix things.
Yeah, Ed, grab audio soundbite number three.
I want the audience, Chris, to hear what you're talking about.
The passive voice.
Great observation.
Thanks very much.
This was last night in San Francisco at a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer at the Getty home.
Getty family founded by big oil.
I mean, the Getty family is big oil.
And there's Obama out fundraising, and he was talking about the oil spill.
And as Chris says here, it's the passive voice.
Nobody is more upset than me.
Because ultimately, like any president, when this happens on your watch, then every day you are thinking, how does this get solved?
Passive voice.
Good way to describe it.
Like every president sitting there, you're waiting, how does this get solved?
Who's going to do this?
Who's going to fix this?
How does this get solved?
Not how am I going to solve this, but how's this going to get fixed?
And like I told the Boston Globe, you don't have leader here.
There's no leadership characteristics for Obama.
He's an agitator organizer.
What he does is create power for others to use, like the SEIU storming the front yard of a Bank of America executive.
There's a couple of families more upset than Obama is about this.
Very true.
Steve in Orange, California.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Can you hear me okay?
I hear you fine.
Thank you.
My favorite soundbite I've ever heard in the past 21 years on the EIB is that James Carville soundbite as he's complaining about the lack of response by the big government that he claims to love and that he supports and campaigns for.
And I think we may have heard, we might be hearing the future.
We might be hearing our future in that sound bite.
Well, let's play.
It's audio soundbite number six.
And we had this in the first hour.
This is Good Morning America Today and Carville talking to Stephanopoulos.
The political stupidity of this is just unbelievable.
Here you have a situation where you have 11 hardworking people blown up as a result of corporate malfeasance and maybe criminal negligence as a result of inept bureaucrats.
And the president doesn't get down here in a military.
This thing should be, his approval rating should be up seven points right now if he to come down.
And I have no idea of why they didn't seize this thing.
I have no idea of why that attitude was so hands-offy here.
It's just unbelievable.
I hope he sees it now.
He went on to say, man, you got to get down here.
Taking trouble is put somebody in charge of this thing.
Get this thing moving.
We're about to die down here.
That was Carville today.
And it's interesting when these disasters happen in your own backyard, how your perspective changes.
Back in a sec.
The New York Observer, a couple days ago, the press can no longer afford to keep up with the president.
It's a sob story about the declining travel budgets of news organizations.
They've fallen off, making it harder for them to keep up with the president.
The number of charter flights for reporters to follow the president on trips has sharply declined.
It's okay.
You guys don't need to worry about it.
Take the usual stenography from Gibbs and Ron Emmanuel, and you'll have a news covered like you've always had it covered with this administration.
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