All Episodes
Previous Next
Oct. 13, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:31
October 13, 2010, Wednesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
There's some new polling data out, ladies and gentlemen, from Reuters, and it is not good.
It is.
I think it's, well, yeah, it has to be one of the worst ever approval numbers.
4353 is the number.
See, it is an all-time low.
All-time approval low from state-controlled Reuters.
4353.
43 approve, 53 disapprove.
Now, the margin of error is plus or minus 4.
You could say, I mean, you could posit that the president's approval number is under 40, given the margin of error.
Hi, great to have you back here, folks.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882.
Here's Russ Feingold.
He had a question.
I don't know if it was a Senate debate in Wausau.
Question was, I would like to ask you, why didn't you vote?
I mean, you're only one of, I think, 25 senators that refused to vote for the resolution condemning your support group, moveon.org, when they placed that very shameful ad in the New York Times that talked about general betraillus.
Why didn't you vote to condemn that ad?
I'll tell you why, because I believe in freedom of speech.
I don't think senators should be sitting around spending time condemning people's comments.
I don't think our troops want us sitting around all day passing resolutions going, hey, he said that.
And, you know, the next day we've got to pass a resolution about what Rush Limbaugh said.
That's all we'd ever do, Ron.
This is serious work we do in the Senate.
Standing around monitoring these people on the extremes is not what we should be doing.
Aha.
I would be honored to be the target of a Senate resolution condemning what I say.
Depending on who ought to be, what I say the truth.
Documented to be almost always right 99.6% of the time.
Oh, folks, you have the Rush Hawkins singer standing by, Mike.
I was telling you all the other day about the movie Secretariat.
I saw it on Friday night.
It came out over this weekend.
And it's a good movie.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
And I found out how much more I enjoyed it when I told you about a review of this movie in Salon.com or Slate.
I think it was Slate.com.
One of the most outrageous reviews of a movie suggesting it's tea party oriented.
I mean, all this movie does is stand up for some decency.
American values.
A woman inherits a horse farm from her father.
She doesn't know anything about the business.
The quirk of fate, she ends up with this baby horse secretariat.
She's told by people how great this horse's potential is.
At one point, she's offered $8 million for the horse.
She owes $6 million in estate taxes.
She doesn't have the money, nor does her husband or family.
She refuses.
She wants to honor her family, business, and her father.
She wants to make it a go of this horse because she's been told this horse could be worth three times what she was offered.
So she sticks with it.
And this is all about finding people who'll go in with her.
Now, there are a lot of people.
Fred Thompson is in this movie, plays one of the prominent characters at the beginning of the movie.
And there's also a point that early on the movie, there is a song.
I think one of the reasons, in fact, I have to think about it, one of the reasons that the guy at Slate.com and so many of the mainstream so-called entertainment press have panned the movie is because it does have Christian references in it.
And that, I think, as I look back on it, and they're not prominent and by no means preachy.
They're just there.
And I look at this to be one of the reasons why the left just despises them.
They feel threatened.
This is the thing that got me.
There's no harm.
This movie does not threaten one person.
But somehow a bunch of leftists in the entertainment business feel threatened by this movie.
Threatened by the era.
It takes place in 1973, and I'd forgotten.
I was 22, and I had just left home a couple years earlier, and I was living in Pittsburgh, and I was starting on a trail that would eventually lead to radio stardom and all of this.
And I was singularly focused on that.
I remembered Secretariat winning a triple crown.
I knew none of the backstory.
I had even forgotten that Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 and a half lengths.
That's a feat and a time that has never been duplicated since.
So a lot of this was new to me.
There was nothing in it that was threatening.
Yeah, I was 73, and this woman's kid, she's got some kids.
One of them is a long-haired maggot-infested dope-smoking, you know, peace and love.
Let's go to Woodstock type babe.
But they acknowledge that.
But there is no mention of Watergate.
There's no mention of Vietnam War, which a bunch of leftist reviewers don't like.
Well, it wasn't about the Vietnam War.
There were a lot of things going on in 73 besides Watergate.
A lot of things going on besides Vietnam.
Clearly, they were front and center.
One of the things about sports, horse racing is definitely that, is it's a distraction.
It's a way to get away from all of that.
It's a way to take a break from the humdrum.
So one of the great things about sports, it's a repository.
Go there for a couple hours and forget your problems.
Fantasize.
Pretend that you're part of that world.
That's one of the attractions.
But nothing in the movie was threatening.
I mean, even the values of the day, which were hard work, stick-to-itiveness, don't quit, never give up.
What is threatening about it?
I'll tell you what's threatening about it to people on the left is that it brings back, I mean, if you're going to have those kinds of values, you're going to have judgment.
You're going to have clearly defined morality, right and wrong, as a bunch of perverts obviously don't want to live under such circumstances.
They'd rather have the chaos and the unpredictability and the seeming nothingness and meaninglessness of so much of today's culture.
Because they find solace and comfort in it because there's, you know, no reason to stand out.
There's nothing remarkable.
You don't have to do anything remarkable to get known or to achieve anything in this culture today.
Fame is its own reward, whether you achieve anything to gain it or not.
And this song that came on was a spiritual.
I played this song on the radio.
You've got the original tune?
Well, go ahead and start it.
It's got a long post on it.
It's in 1969.
And this was a hit.
I mean, we played this in my hometown of Cape Girardo, Missouri.
See, Edwin Hawkins Singers.
I mean, it was number one in New York that year.
I mean, it was a popular hit called Oh Happy Day.
And I'm sure this is one of the elements that the leftist entertainment people were offended by.
Now, you sit tight, folks, because Edwin and his singers are going to kick it up here in just a second.
And they're going to let loose.
And so that's a taste of it.
Edward Hawkins singers are no happy.
That's five minutes long.
And we're not going to play the whole thing.
Affiliate program directors will go nuts.
He'll start shouting PPM to me and so forth.
But at any rate, the song plays in the movie on the radio.
Somebody's got a little transistor radio sitting by, and Diane Wayne, the lead character, plays Penny Chenery.
Penny Tweety is the owner of the horse and the horse farm, inherits the farm from her dad.
And the song just happens to play.
It's not a focal point, that it's just there.
That song, The Edwin Hawkins Singers, inspired the Rush Hawkins singers many years later.
By the way, the guy who wrote the movie Secretariat is a guy named Mike Rich, and he is a devout Christian.
I think that was probably known by some of the leftist entertainment critics.
He also wrote The Miracle, which was about the 1980 U.S. hockey team beating the Soviet Red Army in the Olympics.
So he's patriotic, too.
Oh, a dangerous mix for the entertainment left.
Here's CJ in Fort Worth, Texas.
I'm glad you waited, CJ.
Welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush.
It's GJ and Ditto's from Texas.
I've been listening for many years.
Thank you very much.
I'm sorry.
Is it GJ or DJ?
G is in George.
J is in George.
Okay, well, some just call you a JJ, I'm sure, but GJ it is.
It is.
Okay.
I've been listening to you talk about how Obama says that Medicare Advantage costs may go up for some seniors.
I am 75, a seasoned citizen on Medicare Advantage.
I'd just like to read a couple of things for you from a couple of letters I received, and it'll explain my position.
If I might, this is a letter entitled Medicare and the New Health Care Law, dated May of 2010.
A message from Kathleen Sebelius: Your guaranteed Medicare benefits won't change whether you get them through Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan.
Wait a second, wait a second.
You got a letter from the Secretary.
I did.
Kathleen Sebelius.
I did.
And it says that your Medicare benefits will not change.
Yes.
Okay.
And then another little quote here: During open enrollment this fall, you will continue to have a choice between original Medicare and a Medicare Advantage plan.
Yeah.
If you are in a Medicare Advantage plan, you will still receive guaranteed medical benefits.
That was in May.
On October 2, I get a letter from my insurance company.
It says Secure Horizons Medicare Direct Retiree Plan.
That's the Medicare Advantage plan.
A health plan with a Medicare contract will no longer operate as of January 1, 2011.
So your coverage to Secure Horizons Medicare Direct Retiree Plan will end December 31, 2010.
I've been going to meetings for the last week and a half about this, trying to decide what to do.
What meetings?
Who's having the meetings?
With insurance, with insurance representatives.
Okay.
Try and make a decision.
Now, there are thousands of us, Rush, in this area.
I talked to the agent about that, and he said there's thousands of people in the same boat that you are.
My latest meeting was yesterday with my insurance agent, and it's going to cost me at least $3,600 for my new plan.
Oh, no, no, no.
Obama said it's going to go down $2,500.
Yeah, I know.
That's what he said.
But the actuality and the truth is that it's going to cost me $3,600 at least.
Well, versus what are you paying now?
My plan, I had a good plan.
I had no premium because I didn't have prescription drug coverage.
I have it on a separate plan.
So you had basically you had no premium, you just had a deductible.
Right.
Oh, yeah, I was filled with deductibles and $225 a day for a hospital stay and that kind of thing.
But lots of people have the same plan, you know, that they pay a premium.
It depends on your options.
Well, I've seen stories of this is happening all over the country.
Yes, it is.
Like they told you that there are a lot of people in the same boat you are.
Happening all over the country.
Companies are stopping cover.
They're not offering it anymore.
That's exactly right.
That's the truth.
And, you know, you want to get away from that.
And why?
Why aren't they offering it?
I don't know.
It can't afford it.
The whole point of healthcare is to do just this.
The whole point is to get all of these insurance companies eventually out of business.
Well, GJ, so that people like you will eventually have nowhere to go but the federal exchanges or the they're not calling it single payer, but the public option.
I mean, that's where this all is aimed.
Their goal is to destroy the advantage plan, and that's exactly where they're headed.
Well, the problem for them is that this wasn't supposed to happen until after the 2012 election.
But now it's happening.
Insurance companies, the Democrats think they're so smart.
They pass all these laws that are going to punish people, and they think people are just going to sit around and be punished.
Well, that doesn't happen.
They're going to find a way to escape the punishment.
If it means stopping offering this coverage, that's what they're going to do.
Now, they're not supposed to do this till 2013, so Obama can't take the hit for it in his re-election.
It's going to happen next year.
And I guarantee you, the White House is not happy about it.
Not why this story is out today in the Politico.
The regime is conceding that some seniors are going to have to dig deeper into their wallets next year thanks to the health care law.
A new analysis obtained by Politico finds the health care overhaul will result in increased, higher, out-of-pocket costs for seasoned citizens on Medicare Advantage plans.
Richard Foster, the actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, told us Senate Republicans that the overhaul will result in less generous benefit packages for Medicare Advantage plans next year.
Democrats have long contended that Medicare Advantage plans, private insurance, alternatives to Medicare, overpay private insurers, increasing premiums for everybody and needs to be reformulated.
But Republicans say dramatic changes to the program mean some seniors won't be able to keep their plans, which is a promise Obama made during the debate.
If you want to keep your plan, you want to keep your doctor, you can.
This is going to affect 11 million current beneficiaries who are relying on the program.
And now the regime is not even trying to say that this is not going to happen.
They're trying to limit the damage, but they're not even trying to lie their way out of this.
Now, I know a lot of people are looking at this and Russ, this is a senior citizens.
I mean, this is 75 years old and 60 years old.
Everybody should pay attention to this because everybody is going to someday.
This is going to affect everybody.
This is just, it's going to start in waves, but it's going to affect everybody.
Everybody's premiums are going to go up.
Everybody's costs are going to go up, except the rare people who are going to quote unquote get it free.
And there are some of those by design.
They are Obama voters in a bunch of different categories.
GJ, thanks for the call.
I appreciate it.
This is Zach in Indianapolis.
You are next on the EIB network.
Hi.
Beautiful, sir.
Hey, do you remember when you were a kid riding your bike and all of a sudden you came upon a dead animal that's been baking in the street for a while?
Yeah, that happened all the time to me.
Driving around town, and you see possums, opossums.
Yeah, roadkill.
You see it all the time, yeah.
That's correct, sir.
Remember the smell?
Remember the stench?
Well, that didn't order the stench.
I kept moving.
Okay, great.
I was on the bicycle.
I kept moving.
Skunk, yeah, couldn't escape it.
But other than that.
Regardless, sorry.
I just heard my first Elliot Spitzer show advertisement during your program, and believe me, when I heard it, the feeling I had reminded me of the smell of that dead animal baking in the sun when I was a kid on my bike.
Wait a minute now.
You say that you had that reaction to an Elliot Spitzer commercial on this program for their show?
That's correct, sir.
And believe me, I understand that you're a money guy, and I understand the angle, and you're a businessman, but I'd rather you advertise for Pinocchio Rudolph for the Congresswoman just for free.
Well, you're looking at this the wrong way.
I don't have time.
I've got to come to a break here, but I want you to keep your radio on.
I'm going to explain to you what this is all about after the break, because we don't do anything haphazardly here or accidentally.
There are no coincidences here.
And there's a reason that this is happening.
You are, I have to say, the first guy who's ever referred to a sponsor on this program as Roadkill.
Okay, here's the backstory, ladies and gentlemen, on Spitzer and the Ditzer, the new show on CNN.
Spitzer and the Ditzer.
They ought to change the name.
What is it, Parker Spitzer?
Change the name.
Something's this bad.
This is the same problem that Don Draper's agency is having in the series Madmen.
They got clients leaving them in droves.
So you've got to change the name of the agency.
Well, it's a sad thing.
I mean, this show is turning in, I think, what did I read?
The worst ratings in this time slot in years on CNN in the 8 p.m. hour.
They're having trouble getting guests because their ratings are so low because other CNN shows to go on.
But also, they are impacting negatively Larry King Alive.
They're the lead-in for Larry King Alive, and his 2554 numbers were lower than they've been in eons.
Last night, he was interviewing Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan for the full hour, and his ratings were down too.
So they're running commercials on this program for the Parker Spitzer program.
The first thing I would suggest is to change the name of the show, Spitzer and the Ditzer.
Now, the first week this program was on, I don't think a show went by where my name wasn't mentioned.
Now, clearly, they were hoping that I would play soundbites of people on that show mentioning my name and comment on it, therefore calling attention to the program.
Well, I am wise to this game.
I'm well aware how I am used by people to draw a crowd to their enterprise.
So I didn't mention the show, nor did I play any soundbites.
So late last week, I got a phone call from my vice president of sales saying that they have a request from CNN to buy some spots this week for the Parker Spitzer show.
And do I want to accept or not the money?
I said, do they want me to do the commercial?
No, no, no.
They're going to produce the commercial.
You care if it runs.
I said, no, we'll take their money.
I totally understand.
They want an audience.
They want to advertise the existence of their show to another large audience.
I totally understand them coming here to do it.
So we happily, gladly accepted CNN's advertising money for Parker Spitzer.
I honest to God, I did not know this guy on the phone was going to call it Roadkill.
I'm embarrassed.
This is the first time a sponsor of this program has been referred to as Roadkill.
I feel horrible.
I feel like I ought to give him a couple bonus commercials.
Well, no, it's too late to hit the delay button.
I mean, the guy said it.
No, no, no, no.
In fact, do you have the Parker Spitzer commercial?
Can you grab it?
Do you have it handy?
Get it.
We owe him a couple of bonus.
I mean, I have a guy call here and refer to the commercial as roadkill.
That, I, that, that, that, it sort of, it's, well, that, okay, remind the stench of roadkill.
What's the difference, Nerdley?
Roadkill of the stench of Roadkill.
I've never had that said about any of our advertisers.
So we owe them a couple of bonus.
Here, this is a commercial for Parker Spitzer.
Did she just say he's a politician, I'm a journalist, so we don't always trust each other?
Did she say that?
Are they married?
What does that have to do with whether or not it's not for me to ask him?
Well, I don't know.
I learned some things there about Elliot Spitzer I didn't know.
I mean, the stuff I know about Elliot Spitzer is not in that commercial.
So I guess it's good from that standpoint.
Here, let's play it again because we owe them a couple of make-goods.
I just feel horrible.
They had a caller refer to this as stench of roadkill.
It's not that bad, really.
8 Eastern on CNN, Parker Spitzer.
So there you have it.
It's either perfectly fine commercial.
We're honored that they chose our program to advertise their program.
Here, one more time.
One more make good.
One more make good because I don't want to leave the program today feeling guilty about this in any way.
Parker Spitzer, 8 Eastern on CNN.
Okay, now I want to go back to something we were discussing earlier today, and that is Obama and his minions pressuring the Chamber of Commerce to release their donor list, claiming that foreign money is influencing the chamber.
Foreign money finding its way into the American political process.
The New York Times, just to prove that this is a technique of intimidation and thuggery, the New York Times had an editorial yesterday about Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginny.
Ginny Thomas has set up an organization called Liberty Central, a non-profit.
It's a 501c4.
And by definition, it is designed to promote education, civil discourse, and activism focusing on protecting core founding principles of the United States.
They have a website.
I currently have a pledge drive going, a number of other things.
And this editorial in the New York Times was excoriating both Ginny and Justice Thomas because she's not releasing her donor list.
And they are suggesting here that Justice Thomas is going to have to recuse himself from a number of court cases should any of the donors to his wife's enterprise find themselves in legal circumstances before the United States Supreme Court.
And therefore, the New York Times is demanding, and they've been doing this, not the first time, they're demanding that Ginny Thomas release her donors.
She's not required by law to do so.
And here's the last paragraph of the New York Times.
Well, Shannon Coffin has written about it.
Here's his last paragraph about what the Times did.
The Times' real goal here is to publicly root out the donors and tar and feather them, thus getting them out of the business of funding viewpoints, which the Times editors disagree with.
This is how the left works.
This is what the Chamber of Commerce business is all about.
Find out who's...
Well, look, it happened with Target.
Remember, Target Corporation supported a conservative gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota and a bunch of people who intimidated Target into not doing this anymore because Target's a commercial enterprise and they don't want any pressure being applied by leftist activist groups that will harm your business.
So there's the same objective here with the Chamber of Commerce and now with, I mean, Ginny Thomas is what in the world is wrong with an organization that seeks to promote education, civil discourse, and activism focused on protecting core founding principles of the U.S. Why in the world does that threaten the American left?
It answers itself, I know.
But that is so threatening, that is so damaging to the New York Times that they are demanding that Ginny Thomas release the donor list so the Times can pressure them into not donating anymore.
But you have to ask, what's the threat posed here?
Shannon Coffin writes, the all-too-familiar charge is that Liberty Central is funded by undisclosed donors, and Ginny Thomas gets paid by Liberty Central.
Therefore, Justice Thomas, quote from the Times, is a beneficiary of that pay and has a responsibility under federal law to inform himself about who the donors are because they have an impact on Mrs. Thomas's personal financial interests, unquote.
The Times admits that Liberty Central has no legal obligation to disclose anything, but in the same breath, they assert that it does have a duty to do so.
What?
They have a moral obligation, though it's not clear to me, says Mr. Coffin, when the Times editorial board became a great arbiter of morality in society.
Well, Ergo, we go back to my point earlier in the day.
Okay, if this is how the left wants to play the game, then let's play it out.
Who is funding the U.S. government debt?
Who is paying the salary of the United States president and members of his cabinet and his czars and Senate and congressional leadership?
It's the CHICOMs, the communist Chinese are underwriting the policies of Barack Obama.
They are paying his salary.
We have seen him bow down.
We've got pictures.
I put them on my website and my Facebook page.
We got pictures of Obama bowing down to the Chikom premier, bowing down to the king of Saudi Arabia, bowing down to the emperor of Japan.
I want to play this out.
We've been looking for, why is Obama seeking to destroy the U.S. private sector?
Now we know.
He's working with the ChiComs.
The ChiComs look at us as an enemy.
They want what we've got.
They've got an agent in the White House.
They're paying his salary.
They're underwriting our debt.
They're funding his expansion of big government.
Ergo, Obama's destroying the American private sector.
If this is the way Obama wants to play the game, we'll play it out.
So I demand that Obama tell us what portion of his salary is being paid for by the ChiComs and that of his czars and that of the Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton, at all.
He's saying, he's saying in the Chamber of Commerce and the New York Times are saying that Jenny Thomas has got some dubious members that contribute a few hundred thousand dollars to them.
And therefore the money that they use is being paid for by foreigners unless the chamber can prove otherwise.
Well, it works both ways.
If foreign money taints the chamber's money, and if whoever's donating to Jenny Thomas is tainting what she's doing, that's what Obama's arguing.
Then the same can be said of foreign money coming into the federal government.
And more and more of it is coming into the government because of Obama's spending in his deficits.
So acting defensive about this is silly.
Need to go on offense.
Fine, okay.
Now we know why he's destroying the U.S. private sector.
The ChiComs are paying him to do it.
What do you mean I have no evidence?
I don't care if I have any.
It's up to him to prove he's not being paid by them.
That's the whole point.
He's saying the chamber has to prove they're not getting foreign money.
So it's up to him.
Seriousness of the charge.
They say that counts much more than the nature of the evidence, right?
There's no evidence that the chamber's getting foreign money.
There's no evidence there's anything untoward about Jenny Thomas's website or organization.
So let Obama prove that everything he's doing is clean and pure as the wind-driven snow as well.
You know, I don't remember the New York Times being concerned at all when Tom Daschell was the Senate majority leader and his wife was a lobbyist for the airline industry, Linda Daschell.
Nobody seemed to be concerned about any conflict of interest there.
And more money went to Tom Daschell's wife than Mrs. Justice Thomas is getting.
I can guarantee you that she was the breadwinner in that family for crying out loud.
Quickly the phone, Jacksonville, Florida, this is Susie.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Hello, Rush.
Hi.
Basically, Obama wants to get rid of the old people.
He's reducing the health care.
This ties in with your Medicare caller.
Yeah, it's death panels.
Death panels.
Because if they die, then they're also off Social Security rolls.
And they don't have to pay for that.
Congress got their cost of living increase in 2009 2.8% of $174,000.
2010 came to 3%.
That's right.
But you on Social Security, you're not getting your cost of living.
All you're getting is a check when you die.
And what good does that do you?
They send out checks to dead people.
Social Security cost of living compensation checks.
And don't think the ChiComs are not involved in this.
For a second, don't think that's not the case.
There's Obama promising everybody $2,500 premium deduction or reduction.
You get to keep your doctor.
You get to keep your insurance plan.
And you find out that if you're on Medicare Advantage, you are SOL.
You are PhE.
The plan is being canceled.
The insurance companies can't, and this is by design.
Pure by design.
And The reason why the Social Security crowd is not getting their cost of living increase is because that money is going to youthful younger union thug type voters, Acorn-type voters, who organize round up votes and vote themselves for Obama.
Yes, I checked email Rush.
Come on, you know, you say these things and you expect us to get away with it.
Why does Obama not like old people?
Come on, folks.
I mean, I've explained these things over and over again, and I'll be glad to do it again, but at some point, start listening.
Obama said that there are no shovel-ready jobs.
The only thing shovel-ready are seasoned citizens.
In his world, citizen citizens are shovel-ready.
And the reason is they remember the country the way it was, and they can teach people the way it was.
And he doesn't want that to be remembered.
Nor do a lot of other Democrats.
All right.
▲
Export Selection