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Aug. 13, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:29
August 13, 2010, Friday, Hour #3
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Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
I am the revved up Rush Limbaugh, mind over chatter the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, all-concerned, maha rushy, meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open live Friday!
An exciting day during the busy broadcast week here at EIB.
We go to the phones and we never know what's going to happen.
Well, Snerdley knows, but I don't.
Whatever people want to talk about is fine.
In fact, Snerdley, I need to talk to you about something because there hadn't been one call about anything that I don't care about today.
But there have been a lot of calls about things I haven't cared about other days this week that you fed me.
So I'm going to have to go back and review the, we do a post-mortem on everyday show.
I'm going to look at the call roster to refine myself which days this happened.
Our Facebook page is up.
We went live on Wednesday at Facebook.
Facebook finally progressed to the point that our standards were met and could handle our load.
We're over 282,000 friends now, having launched on Wednesday.
And the reason was we started a Facebook page to a number of things, have immediate contact and access with our friends, so to speak.
Also, we wanted to, there was such a clamor for pictures from our wedding on June the 5th, which is the wedding of the year, by the way, that we decided to put them on Facebook.
There are 20 pictures there, and they're all fabulously great pictures, works of art.
Donna Newman, the photographer, we weren't going to do this.
We weren't going to put any pictures out because we don't do things for the publicity factor.
We don't do anything to get noticed.
Plus, we didn't want to upstage Chelsea Clinton's wedding.
So we waited till that was all done before we decided to put our pictures up.
In addition, to celebrate launching our Facebook page, we're giving away nine iPads.
Top of the line, 64 gigabyte iPads.
And our iPads are 3G capable as well as Wi-Fi, which means you can still use them to connect online if you're not in the Wi-Fi hotspot.
You do have to sign up with AT ⁇ T.
It's not a contract.
It's a monthly fee.
You choose the price you want for data.
You don't have to do that to use the iPod.
It's just the iPad.
It's just an option.
But these iPads are nine of them.
Well, now there's eight because we've given one away.
They are special.
You cannot get any of these anywhere else but our Facebook page.
They are engraved on the back, the EIB logo and the Rush Limbaugh signature as well.
And all you have to do to register is just go to the Facebook page.
It's facebook.com slash Rush Limbaugh or simply go there by linking to it at rushlimbaugh.com.
You'll see at the top of our webpage.
And either before or after you look at the wedding pictures, hit on the sweepstakes tab and just follow the instructions.
It's very simple.
And there's no strings attached.
Whatever information you enter is not going to be sold or given to anybody.
It's not going to be used for any reason whatsoever.
If you want, you can sign up for our Rush in a Hurry Flash Blast email.
It goes out between a half hour and an hour after every day's program.
It's a summary that is a prelude to the full website update, which happens around 5 or 6 p.m. Eastern.
Now, these iPads are going to become historic artifacts.
And Question: There will be one of these in the Limbaugh Broadcast Museum.
No question.
All you have to do is register.
If you register once, you've already registered, you are registered for every drawing.
There are eight more to give away.
The next one will draw one late tonight and have that winner announced Monday.
The first winner is Bruce R. from Kansas City.
The Facebook address is facebook.com/slash Rush Limbaugh.
We just did a test at Google results for Limbaugh plus Facebook.
You know how many results, Snerdly?
8,940,000.
Limbaugh plus Facebook, 8,940,000 results on a Google search.
And of those, about 285,000 have actually clicked and signed on as friends.
And you ought to read some of these people's comments next to the pictures.
You will find this audience is the backbone of America.
It is just, these are the people that make the country work, as I've always said, and as I have always known.
So thanks to all of you who've signed up and all the nice emails you're sending about the wedding photographs as well.
That is facebook.com/slash rushlimbaugh.
And don't forget to register for one of eight more free iPads that we are giving away engraved on the back with my signature and the world famous EIB logo.
Fox News Opinion Dynamics put out their poll yesterday.
The approval number, Obama at 43% in this poll.
That's as low as he's been in this poll.
But there's a more interesting question.
76% of the people in this poll think Obama needs to man up.
76% say it's time for Obama to stop blaming Bush for all of these things that he ostensibly inherited.
47% in this poll think that Bush's policies are mostly to blame for the economic problems.
32% think it's Obama's problem.
But 76% think it's time for Obama to start taking responsibility and stop blaming Bush.
It sounds like he's whining.
That, by the way, don't worry, this 47%, that number is going to shrink and shrink and shrink.
Because if Obama doesn't change his policies, the economy is going to get worse and worse and worse.
I mean, we've got tax increases coming in January.
This is a great story.
Virtually certain, U.S. virtually certain to fall into a new recession.
CNBC story by Jeff Cox from this morning.
Here's a key phrase.
The risks of a double dip recession, if we ever got out of the first one, are actually a lot higher than people are talking about right now.
I think it's almost a foregone conclusion.
But Rosenberg said this recession is different than others.
He pointed out that the household employment survey has declined three months in a row, a condition that indicates a recession 98% of the time.
You got all these economists out there speculating.
Are we going to have a double dip recession?
Could we have double dip?
Oh, God.
Here's a guy, CNBC says it's automatic.
Folks, there's not one economic policy in place that's going to change anything.
I just want to tell you, and I saw another piece today making the case for a VAT tax, consumption tax, on top of all these other tax increases coming.
VAT tax wouldn't be bad if they got rid of the income tax, but they're not going to do that.
The VAT tax, which is a sales tax at every level of a transaction or process, they're going to do it.
You watch this Irksome Bowls Commission, Alan Simpson Babe, they're going to recommend this in December.
Obama's going to say, I didn't do it.
They did.
All these tax increases are coming.
There's not one policy in place that's going to change the economic direction the country's in, folks.
I mean, it's just no more complicated than that.
What do you mean, Rush?
Obama's stimulating.
That's right.
Everything Obama's, where were the jobs?
All of the 800,000 jobs or 500,000 jobs a month that Vice President Bitmey said we'd be creating by now.
All this wonderful economic uptick activity, where is it?
We're over a year and a half into Obama's policies.
Bailouts, stimulus, bailouts, stimulus, take over this company, that industry.
Where is it?
Where's the progress?
Isn't any I'm here to tell you, not one policy in place as we speak that will change the economic direction that we're going.
In fact, it's just the opposite.
Every policy in place is going to further retard economic activity.
You know, I'm curious, how come every news broadcast is not leading with Obama's historic low approval ratings?
We heard them every day the last years of the Bush administration.
I mean, Bush might have hit 37%, but it didn't happen a year and a half in.
It would be racialist.
Well, I don't think racist has anything to do with this, Snerdley.
I think it's that the media put this guy in power.
They don't want to.
It's like George Stephanopoulos.
They don't understand why people don't like him.
They're looking at 9.5%.
So, what more could he do?
Please, he's done enough, George.
Please.
What more could he do?
We're not a liberal country, George.
The people don't like this.
They didn't vote for it.
They're not down with it, George.
And they are awakening to this.
Here's a story.
I'm only going to mention this to you because it confirms something that I have said earlier.
Actually, I didn't say it.
I repeated it.
A Harvard sociologist told it to me when I worked for the Kansas City Royals in sales and marketing.
Story out of the St. Louis Post of Scratch.
It says special here.
Caskets.
Caskets, our final show of baseball loyalty.
Chase Shaw was a loyal Cardinals fan.
He would often chide his father, Steve, for abandoning their post in front of the TV if the cards fell behind late in the game.
He'd come into my bedroom and he'd say, You better turn it back on.
They're getting ready to rally, Steve Shaw said.
He liked to repeat Mike Shannon's home run call.
He'd say, Get up, baby, get up, get up.
Chase Shaw died in a car accident in December age 22 near the Saints Avenue cafe he managed in Canton, Missouri.
He was laid to rest in a Cardinals jersey and hat with a Cardinal's bat and ball inside the casket, which was placed inside a burial vault adorned with the Cardinal's logo.
The top inside lid of the casket had the St. Louis Cardinals logo, which is a red bird on a baseball bat.
And this story is about the company, Eternal Image, began selling caskets with Major League Baseball themes in 2008.
The price, are we boring you, Dawn?
She's in there yawning.
The price of the casket, $3,500.
Now, what is it that I have said over the course of many, many years?
What is it about sports?
Pass away Cardinal logo here.
What is it about sports?
Well, one of the people quoted in this story, Hal Wilkes, the director of the Christie Vault Company, which distributes Major League Baseball caskets and urns, people take their sports loyalties with them even to the grave.
People are more loyal to their sports teams than they are to their spouses, said Wilkes.
It's a second religion.
It's sports worship.
It's eternal optimism.
The Harvard sociologist said to me, and we were a bunch of us from Major League Baseball, the annual marketing meetings at the end of the season.
I think this was in Scottsdale.
I think it was 1980.
Somewhere around 79 or 80.
And a typical academic, he's got a pipe.
He's wearing a jacket with leather sleeves, leather patches on the sleeves, and he's got that ruling class air about him, talking down to us.
The appropriate stutters.
I really want you to understand what I'm about to say.
Sign of intelligence.
He said, the secret, the secret sports, understanding marketing and selling sports is to know this.
Sports is the one thing in life that an adult can invest total passion without consequence.
Well, this casket salesman, people are more loyal to their sports teams than they are to their spouses.
It's a second religion.
It's sports worship.
It's eternal optimism.
Oh, he said one more thing.
The marketing guys were all guys.
So there was an all-male audience.
He said, the thing you have to know about selling and marketing sports is that sports is the one thing that adults can invest total passion without consequence.
He paused and said, try that with your spouse.
We all chuckled because we knew what he was talking about.
Everybody's guarded in every relationship.
You don't want to get hurt now and then.
So you hold yourself back.
You don't put yourself out there.
If you really, really love somebody, you just, you don't show them that much.
You don't show them as much of it as you can because just afraid you're going to get chopped off.
But your sports team will never kick you out.
Although the owner might, the league might not let you in.
But your team, your team will, they're never going to divorce you.
They're never going to take half of what you've got unless they start charging you PSLs in New York.
But he's right.
It's the one thing you can invest total passion without consequence.
That's the beauty.
Because everybody has always been looking, what is it about sports that people look to?
And all the analysts say, well, we all want to be athletes.
We all want to be Adonis.
There's so few people are athletes.
We all wish we could do that.
Yeah, that's part of it, too.
But it's more than that.
It's a deep-seated sociological thing.
It's rooting.
Without fear of being laughed at, you can just give in everything you've got.
And the only thing that'll happen is the team might lose and disappoint you.
But they'll never take half of what you own.
And ask nor ask you for your house.
Quick timeout.
That's what he meant when he said, try that with your spouse.
That's what he meant.
Back after this.
Well, I may have spoken too soon back when I was analyzing the political story when they were talking about all the offbeat Republican candidates.
And I said, Alvin Green, I mean, the only reason we're making fun of this guy is because the Democrats are laughing at him.
Long shot, U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Green has been indicted on felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student.
Court records show a grand jury in Richland County handed down the indictment today for disseminating, procuring, or promoting obscenity.
A Democrat nominee was also indicted on a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.
Alvin Green was arrested in November.
What do you bet the Democrats are behind this to get him off the ballot?
Normally, if he's a guy and if he's a Democrat and he's involved in pornography, he's in the clear.
That doesn't harm Democrats.
Hell, if you're a Democrat, you can drive a woman off a bridge and she dies and it doesn't hurt you.
And that might help you.
I mean, certain things are resume enhancements in the Democrat Party.
And now all of a sudden, Alvin Green's been indicted here for disseminating pornography as a Democrat, and somebody thinks that's unusual.
By the way, I want to ask you a question.
These poll numbers, because I asked a moment ago, when is the media going to ask every day, report every day?
They're about 43%.
Let's take the opposite of that.
What changes, and this is just an illustration, what changes would be going on in America if Americans heard every day that 56% of Americans disagree with this administration and that 70% disagree with Congress.
In other words, if the American people were bombarded every day, if Wolf Blitzer would do a 30-minute lead-in to the news that 56, 57% of the people in the country oppose Obamaomics, as Wolf Blitzer and the rest of the drive-bys did all during the Bush administration, what changes would be taking place?
Stop and ask yourself that because it could be reported because it's true.
43% approve.
Only 43%.
And it's just barely a year and a half into a first term.
Somebody said in an email during the break, folks, Rush, you might be wrong.
This Harvard sociologist could be wrong because there are a lot of liberals who invest total passion in liberalism without consequence.
Except for the fact that they're all miserable.
They're miserable even when they win.
Even when their team wins a Super Bowl, they're still enraged.
So there are consequences for liberals.
They're never happy.
Sports fans are when their team wins.
In fact, some of them are even happy when they lose if they happen to be at the game to share the experience.
Brief timeout.
More of your phone calls, I promise, coming up when we get back.
Get this email.
Rod Stewart, by the way, 65 years old and just announced that his wife's pregnant.
Have another baby, Rod Stewart.
Yeah, that's all right.
That's right.
Whoa.
Anyway, I got an email during the break here.
Dear Rush, I can't believe you today.
You are in a different century today.
His sports team won't take your house.
No, not today.
They'll just demand you pay for a new house for them or they will leave town.
My team left me, the Houston Oilers.
I have to grant, Mort has a point here.
They may not take your house, but if you don't build them a new stadium, they threaten to split the scene on you.
And then if you do build them a new house, they're going to charge you PSLs for the right to buy tickets.
Mort's got a point, but he wasn't through.
And there's another media thing I saw that was bogus.
There was a study in USA Today that said that women, I saw this, women would rather give up having sex than gain 10 pounds.
Who said it was unbelievable, snurdly?
I'm just telling you that it was reported.
Study in USA Today said that women would rather give up having sex.
This might be confusing to people in real life.
Let me there might be too many words here.
Let me rephrase this.
There was a study in USA today that said women would rather quit banging than gain 10 pounds.
So Mort says, Mort says, yeah, right.
My wife said that 50 pounds ago and she hasn't left town yet.
My wife said it 50 pounds ago and she hasn't left town.
Here's Tim in Fort Worth.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Hey, Coach, you're rocking the box across Texas.
Thank you very much, sir.
With all this talk about the upcoming tax increases and new taxes, I wanted to get your thoughts on something from the opposite direction, and that is the ending of the direct taxation of the people by the federal government in its entirety and moving to a system where we tax the states, let them raise the money however they want.
Well, I'm interested in all of these theories: the flat tax, the fair tax.
There's any number of taxes.
The problem I have with all of these theories is that they'll never happen.
I don't deny that, Rush.
I know it would take an amendment, and I know Congress would not go for that.
But just from a computational standpoint, the federal budget is what?
$2.50 to $3 trillion in good times.
you divide that by 50 states, that would be an additional $50 to $60 billion per state every year.
And if the states got more of that money...
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Additional to what?
Additional to what they raise for themselves.
Oh.
It would be on top of that.
And if they got hold of that kind of money, Arnold's in debt $20 billion this year.
How much of that would come off the top before he sent it to the federal government?
Well, exactly.
How much would the feds get?
Because the federal budget may be $3 trillion, but there's a deficit of $1.4.
So in effect, we've got a almost $5 trillion budget.
I think the states would hold the federal government in line on spending for that.
impossible.
Because they can print money, and the states can't.
But it's the people that represent the states that would be giving up that money and spending them into deficits.
Now, I agree.
It would be tough, and it probably would never happen.
But just from a logistical standpoint, that would neuter the federal government.
Anyone that can reach into your wallet whenever they want to take what they want has the power.
That is the power that the federal government has.
That's having us in jail.
The problem, the reason why this is never going to happen.
And look, I'm not trying to throw cold water on this.
I'm really not.
I understand.
I happen to live in reality.
I happen to live.
The name of my city is Literalville.
And it makes a lot of people uncomfortable.
I am a very, you would not believe.
In fact, this is an interesting thing.
You would not believe the communication challenges I have with certain people because I'm a literalist.
I believe what people say.
When they say it, I think they mean it.
The biggest challenge I have is to learn when somebody doesn't really mean what they're saying.
Because I don't say something I don't mean.
I live in Litteralville.
So if somebody tells me they want something or they want something to happen, and if it's in my power to make it, I start working on it, thinking they meant it.
And then I come to find, oh, I was just talking.
So I live in Litteralville.
What I know is that taxation, as far as liberal Democrats is concerned, is not about money.
It's about power.
And they are never, all this talk about the fat tax, the fair tax, the vet tax, all this is wonderful.
Members of Congress, and I would even venture to say in both parties, are not going to surrender the power they have in social architecture alone in writing the tax code.
The power.
This is why Charlie Wrangell's in trouble.
He's chairman of Ways and Means.
That's the most powerful committee in this country.
They write the tax law.
Every tax bill is originated there.
No matter what a president wants, no matter what some senator wants, it starts at the Ways and Means Committee.
That's where the lobbying starts.
That's where all the arm twisting.
How do you think we have the home mortgage deduction?
We have it because way back when it was determined that the American dream equaled homeownership.
And everybody knows that the vast majority of the American people will never be able to write a check for a house.
You have to finance it.
Well, that creates a lot of businesses.
Homebuilding business, the mortgage business itself, lending and so forth, all of the ancillary businesses that arise from that, the various contractors engaged in building a house.
A lot of people depend on houses being built.
And so as an incentive, guess what we'll let you do?
We will let you deduct the interest on you.
That alone has caused more people to buy houses that had no business buying them than anything else until Subprime came along.
That's power, folks.
What kind of political contribution do you think you can get from the home builders of America?
What kind of contribution do you think you can get from Angelo Mozilla, whatever his name was, countrywide, if you can deduct what you're borrowing?
Why do you think people went nuts?
The 86 tax reform that eliminated credit card debt deduction.
Remember when people went nuts over that?
And I recall in this program, in Sacramento, when I was there, when I got here, people were still upset about it.
And I said, why do you want to spend yourself in debt?
Why do you want to incur debt on your credit card?
Because I want the deduction.
You're not getting a deduction.
You may get a deduction, but just costing you more money.
I don't care.
I can deduct the interest.
And people have begun to live their lives that way, deducting, and they'd go out and use their credit cards because they thought they were screwing the government by deducting interest.
And then it was taken away.
The rules changed.
And it caused, I mean, it was as big a controversy as ATM fees going up 50 cents.
So my point is that here I am in Litteralville.
The power of social architecture alone to build whatever kind of society you want via the tax code.
You want to reward certain people, give them in that business or for that activity, a tax break, a deduction, a credit, or what have you.
They're never going to get rid of that power.
Republicans included.
It's not about raising money.
It is for us conservatives.
We're interested in tax policy that raises money because we don't like being in debt.
We're interested in power too, but power for you, the people, not power for bureaucrats and politicians and office holders and all the like.
You can use the tax code to make people smoke less.
You can use the tax code to make them smoke more.
You can use the tax code to make them buy beer or buy less beer.
More booze or less booze.
You can screw the tax code around to make them make more charitable contributions.
You think they're going to get rid of this power?
Ain't no way, fool.
As our official Obama criticizer would say, ain't no way, yo.
You'd be digging on that.
It's real simple.
That's why people get mad at me when I just want to fluff off the, what about the fair tax?
Fine.
I love it.
Intellectually, fabulous.
The only way to get rid of it is tear everything apart and start over.
Power.
It's about the power.
Social architecture.
Not just that.
Think of all the campaign contributions you can get with tax breaks for certain business activity or what have you.
I mean, it's, look at how big that tax code is.
What do you think the reason for the size is?
It ain't about raising money.
Yo.
It's about staying in office.
It's about paying back friends for campaign contributions.
Now, see, here I am.
I'll bet you half of my problems with liberals in the media.
I live in literalville.
And I say what I mean.
That's politically incorrect.
Most people don't say what they mean.
I do.
A brief timeout, ladies and gentlemen.
Sit tight.
Open Line Friday will continue.
Sorry, wrong button.
Right after this.
I want you to keep this in mind when you hear about the Obama family vacation stop in Panama City this weekend for a full day.
A full day on the Redneck Riviera.
The president is going to spend all kinds of time talking with local business leaders about the effect of the oil spill on them, but he's not going to spend any time talking with out-of-work oil employees.
He's not going to spend time talking with jobless workers in other Gulf states.
He's just going to go to Florida.
He's not going to go to Mississippi, where the Signal International shipyard is like an eerie floating city of ships nicknamed Rig Row by the locals.
They're not going to go to Mississippi.
He wants nothing to do with that conversation.
He doesn't want to talk to one oil worker that has lost his job.
Even though Obama knows he's why, thousands are out of work because of his moratorium.
In Mississippi, in Louisiana, in Alabama, he's only going to Florida.
Most people in the Gulf states don't agree with the moratorium.
ABC News' latest poll in that part of the country shows 60% don't want the moratorium.
But that hasn't stopped the administration.
60% don't want Obamaism Pure and Simple.
Imagine if that were reported every day.
60% of the country oppose Obama.
Maybe if they could just say Obama is surprisingly disappointing.
Just say that.
Because they are surprised.
All of this is in detail at the homepage of AskHeritage.org.
It's the top story there right now, by the way, published in the past couple of hours, made available to you as you consider your own membership to Heritage Foundation.
Check it out at askheritage.org.
Over, I think we're up to over 600,000 members now.
25 bucks is all it costs.
And 25 bucks helps them to keep thinking.
I mean, they're a think tank.
That's what they do.
When they get through thinking, they write it down.
And that's where you can go see what they've been thinking.
And they're conservatives.
They're inside the beltway.
They have been untainted.
They're great people.
Askheritage.org.
Toronto, Canada, Jonathan, our second Canadian call of the day.
Nice to have you on the program, sir.
Hello, Rush.
Great Canadian ditto to you.
Thank you, sir.
I have two questions for you real quick.
My first question is, when will you have an AM radio affiliate in Canada?
And my second question is, when will you go on a speaking tour in Canada?
A speaking tour.
Well, I don't do speaking tours much anymore.
I try to do as little of that as possible.
And we have, way back when, Canadian radio stations, the problem is the Canadian broadcasting is so regulated that I forget what the reason was.
We tried, part of it is advertising revenue.
We're a national advertising revenue vehicle for American products.
But there was also something to do with the CBC that CBA, the Congressional, or the Canadian Broadcast Authority, whatever it is, that gave us a problem.
I can't remember what it was.
Well, the regulatory authority up here is the CRTC.
They control all the radio and television up here.
No, that's right.
Okay, CRTC.
Yeah, that's what it is.
CRTC.
Yeah, they usually give us the most problems.
Probably have to be balanced as the way they define it.
Speaking tour in Canada.
Now, that's intriguing, though.
There's some really, really cool spots in Canada to go to.
Snerdley says three.
More than three.
There's more than three great spots in Canada to go to.
Just don't go up there if you think you're going to have a medical problem.
Cordova, Tennessee, this is Susan.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hi.
Rush.
The first hour you gave, you told a story, read some information about Iran being ready to basically launch a nuclear attack against Israel.
No, no.
It was John Bolton who was on Fox, and he said that when they put the rods in the reactor, the Russia's going to help.
That is going to make an Israeli attack on the nuclear plants in Iran dire.
The consequences will be dire, and that happens on August 21st when the rods go into the reactor.
It's not about nuclear weapons in Iran.
It was about when those reactors have the rods put in them, as Bolton was saying, that's when an attack on them has dire consequences.
Well, my question is, what option does Israel have before the 21st to launch an attack?
Well, they have all kinds of options that I'm sure they've had on the drawing board.
The point of this was that after the 21st, if they hit one of those reactors, you've got a huge nuclear cloud reacting from.
You blow up a nuclear reactor.
You've got more than just a cloud of dust.
And that's what Bolton was talking about.
So it's not a question of what can they do.
It's they've got the capability of doing it.
Only problems getting permission from us.
The problem is when they do it.
And I wish I had more time to explain on this, but I don't.
I got to go back after this.
Look, the big deal on this Iranian thing is that by getting this done so fast, thanks to the Russians, they've made that nuclear power plant virtually untouchable after August 21st, and it will produce plutonium, which could be upgraded to weapons grade.
That's what this is all about.
And that's why August 21st appears to be a very important date.
Good weekend, folks.
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