All right, I've been paying attention here ever since last night when I learned about all these WikiLeaks.
Folks, there's nobody that pays attention better than I do to the stuff I pay attention to.
Many people wish I'd pay more attention to them than I do, but when I start paying attention to stuff, there is nobody better.
And I'm telling you, despite all this talk about the WikiLeaks, there really isn't that much outrage.
I mean, sure, holders going out there to lip service.
I'm sure you're not making fun of Obama.
Lip service to making criminal charges.
We got a Hillary statement coming up, but isn't this what they wanted, essentially?
I mean, this is the U.S. supposedly being diminished in the eyes of the world, but still, where's the level of outrage?
Do you realize there was more outrage over the leaks of all those fraudulent emails from the Climate Research Center at Hadley than there is over this?
And the reason, there's a good reason for it.
All this stuff's pretty much true.
Nobody really surprised by it.
The reason there was outrage over the stuff from the Climate Research Center at Hadley is the fraud was exposed.
And everybody participating in the fraud for the media and everybody else was ticked off that their participation in a fraud had been exposed.
Anyway, great to have you back.
I, El Rushbo, the bulwark here of conservatism behind the golden EIB microphone, nice to have you with us.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address LRushbow at EIBnet.com.
Snerdley, you know what this New York Post story, black market cigarettes costing New York $20 or a million dollars a month.
You know what this is really all about?
It's, hey, you Indians, you think you got away with that stinking deal on Manhattan?
We're coming after you guys on this taxless cigarette stuff.
Your freebie days are over.
You're costing us money now.
We've paid our debt.
We gave you the casinos.
Now you're going to start paying.
That's what this is all about.
Oh, whoa, is the poor state of New York losing all this money?
No, any of us care?
Well, they don't care when we are cost a lot of money with stupid stuff they do.
Nobody's out there crying for New York.
No, most people are reading this story and they're happy about it, even if they do have to agree with other people they hate, smokers.
This is a contest of who do you hate more?
State government or smokers.
And when you get right down to it, smokers aren't doing anything to you.
They're not doing anything to anybody, but the state, that's a different matter.
Now, there's one key element in this story I didn't get to.
So far, when we last left you, the state was beside itself.
It had been cost all this money.
And then all these taxable packs down.
The illegal black market cigarettes are out there.
This is like the drug industry.
Alleged gun-running and terrorist-loving ex-stuyvesant high school teacher Theo Burroughs.
Now, imagine being described like that.
Alleged gun-running, terrorist-loving ex-stuvant and Stuyvesant high school teacher Theo Burroughs busted on a sting two months ago, was trafficking in untaxed cigarettes along with assault rifles and handcuffs.
Black market handcuffs.
Who's he selling them to?
Elliot Spitzer?
Who in the world buys handcuffs on the black market?
Well, I mean, if they're a big black market, sorry, I don't know about it.
And that's, I've never been in the market for a pair of handcuffs, black market otherwise.
So if they're a big black market item, don't blame me for not knowing.
In fact, I'm generally very proud of what I do know, but in this case, I'm proud of something I don't know.
Black market and handcuffs.
At any rate, They go on to say here that even despite the lost tax revenue, they're still collecting more money with the higher tax than before they raised it.
And they make a big point of this, but you have to go all the way to the end of the story in order to learn that.
They're still ecstatic.
From the Wall Street Journal.
Sorry, another headline that makes me go, all right.
Another headline that goes, yeah, give me more of it.
Union drops health coverage for workers' children.
Rush, why are you happy about this?
Well, because all this stuff coming true that I predicted that I knew was going to happen because this bogus health care bill.
And now who's getting hurt?
The unions of all people is designed to help.
The unions whose skids have been greased by Obama since he took office.
The unions doing this.
I mean, behind every debacle at a business, you'll find a union, a union leader.
One of the largest union-administered health insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said.
Now, we all thought that you're going to be able to add your kids to your policy to Labor 26, right?
And we all thought that the poor were going to get their health care free.
And we all thought, oh, this, well, that's what we were told.
One of the largest union-administered health insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children.
Who gave us all this?
A bunch of libs.
Who care about what?
The children and us.
Dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants.
The union blamed financial problems that it said were caused by the state's health department and new national health insurance requirements.
Well, Shazam, now they tell us.
So the poor unions are getting hammered as well.
The fund informed its members late last month that their dependents will no longer be covered as of January 1st.
Currently, about 6,000 children are covered by the benefit fund, some until age 23, but no more.
In addition, new federal health care reform legislation requires plans with dependent coverage to expand that coverage up to age 26, but no, they're all being dropped.
Our limited resources are already stretched as far as possible, meeting this new requirement will be financially impossible.
So once again, another supposed beneficiary of Obamacare is going to need a waiver from the law in order to keep its children covered.
Notice the fund informed its members late last month, and we didn't hear about it till after the elections.
Did you notice that?
Now, let's be clear about who it is is getting hammered here.
I mean, you heard it.
You're right here.
Low-wage home attendance.
First off, do you know what a union home attendant is?
Do you?
I don't.
What is a union home attendant?
Okay.
These are health care workers.
Union health care workers.
Home attendants.
Sort of like hospice for the living.
Okay, hospice for the non-fatal.
All right, and so uh they're low wage, all right, and they are having their coverage dropped for their kids.
So there are 30,000 home attendants, i.e. in-home health care workers who have children.
They're low wage, means they don't get paid much for those of you in Riolinda who no doubt know what low wage means before anything else.
And 30,000 of their kids are being axed.
But note who's not being axed here.
Note, ladies and gentlemen, union workers, low-wage union workers and their kids are being hammered, but not the rich SEIU members and not the rich AFL-CIO members and not the rich United Auto Workers members and not their kids.
No, no, no.
The Richard Trumpkas and the Jimmy Hoffa Jr., no, they and their kids, they're doing just fine.
That Stern guy, S-E-I-U, and whoever his replacement is.
But poor old Fred Slobodnik and his kids up the river.
Too bad out there, Fred.
It's just, you know, it's because of Obamacare here.
Now, the union said in a statement that the state required the fund to participate in a new program, the Family Health Plus Buy-In Program, beginning in 2008.
The union said that it expected that by joining the program, many of its members would qualify for state assistance.
Ah, here we go.
Nobody has to pay for anything themselves.
We are all going to pay for it for them.
And now there's no money, especially with the vast cigarette shortage in New York.
By the way, that's another thing.
We're going to start hammering our Indians.
We're going to get tax revenue there.
We're doing everything we can to start collecting tax revenue and outlaw cigarettes at the same time.
Somebody tell me again, why are we supposed to legalize marijuana?
That's for tax revenue, right?
Yeah, somebody just sent me a note.
If you're having trouble getting your arms around what a home attendant is, just think of a Ukrainian blonde nurse working for Moa Markadafi.
Okay, that kind of crystallizes it for me.
So anyway, that's the story.
Union drops health coverage for workers' children from thehill.com.
Obama hits the court again, this time playing with his two daughters.
They're not big enough to elbow him in the lip accidentally.
I wonder if Obama talks trash to those little girls when he's not there.
I wonder if he does.
I wonder if he blocks their shots.
Ed, are you playing all the commercials today?
Yeah, substitute broadcast engineer just checking.
Greetings and welcome back.
Well, I'm sitting here watching Hillary remarking on the theft of our top secret documents.
And I'm, you know, is it just me?
Or is she starting to look more and more like Mao Te Tung?
Or is it her wardrobe?
I can't tell.
I guess I just got absorbed in that.
And the commercial break there went by much faster than I expected it to do.
Just said, by the way, when I was watching her, and I'm paraphrasing, but she just said that it isn't just government people who are hurt by these leaks.
You see what I mean about?
About coming back to this hellhole of reality here.
I mean, I live in Litteralville and it is absolute hell when these people are on television every day.
She just said it isn't just government people who are hurt by this leaks, as if We care about it.
Isn't just government people, really.
She actually said this, folks.
If an abused woman reports to a social worker what happened to her, such leaks put her at risk of imprisonment, torture, or even death.
Now, what is she talking?
She's talking about our national security.
And she says it's not important.
She's giving us her reaction to the leak of sensitive government documents.
And she's thinking of the women and children who might get hurt here by a woman social worker, abused woman tells a social.
How do you get from all of these State Department cables of so-called sensitive secret stuff to an analogy of an abused woman going to a social worker getting hurt?
I'm sorry, I don't understand the thought process, which is why maybe I, because of that, she's looking more and more like Maan Saitong.
I guess is what happens to you when you get four days off from these people.
When you're in the midst of it, you start taking what they say seriously.
When you're away from it for just four days, come back, you realize what blithering fools they all are.
I mean, a national security is not important.
No, no, no, no, but think of the women and children who might get hurt because of this leaks.
Think of the women and children who might get hurt because of these leaks.
What women and children who might get hurt because of these leaks?
Well, yeah, I guess she's talking about the people who talk to the State Department, the women and oppressed.
No, she doesn't care about women in oppressed countries.
No, don't tell me that Hillary Clinton cares about women in oppressed countries.
Do you think liberals in this country care about women in oppressed countries?
Do you give me one bit of evidence?
They don't even pretend they do, snurdly.
When's the last time Gloria Steinem wrote a damn word about the Burqa or anything happening with women in Afghanistan, Iran, you name it?
What have they written anything about it?
They don't write anything about it.
They write about me and Pat Buchanan.
They don't write about the oppressed women of the world.
That's why none of this makes any sense to me.
Speaking of oppressed women, I have a new tactic.
You people might want to try this.
Whenever I go to dinner with Republicans, which when I go to dinner, it generally is with Republicans.
And invariably the subject of Sarah Palin comes up.
And invariably, with Republicans, not conservatives, with Republicans, you know, I like her.
I really do.
In fact, I met her the other day.
I just don't think she's presidential.
Do you, Rush?
You really don't.
Now, it used to be I'd get into an argument with them.
But I figured it doesn't make any sense because they're really not even going to hear what I say.
They already have their minds made up.
So I said, you know, I totally agree with you.
Especially, I mean, can you, I mean, I, she especially is not president.
I mean, my gosh, you give me Obama any day.
And they kind of stop and they look at me.
They try to press this.
What I just, and at first they say, ah, there's old Rush making a joke.
And then they cock their heads and they still look like this.
What did you say?
I said, oh, I totally agree with you.
Sarah Palin, there's no way.
There's simply no way.
Give me Obama.
Give me four more years of Obama any day.
And some of them, it registers immediately, and others are still trying to figure it out from last week.
I mean, even McCain, get this.
McCain, somebody ought to call his daughter and make her listen to this.
This on State of the Union on Sunday morning, Cami Crowley talking to McCain.
I have to ask you about Sarah Palin.
She's got a new book out.
You probably know her better than any politician who does.
How do you read what's going on here?
I read.
I think she's keeping her options open, and I think she should.
I think she is an incredible force in the American political arena.
She's done.
I think that anybody who has the visibility that Sarah has is obviously going to have some divisiveness.
I remember that a guy named Ronald Reagan used to be viewed by some as divisive.
So she's sort of on a do you see her as a parallel?
I think she's doing a great job.
No, I think she's doing a great job.
I think she has motivated our base.
I think she had a positive impact on the last election, and I'm proud of her.
So I wonder what Megan McCain thought when she heard her dad running around talking like this.
You know, Megan McCain's made a career out of going on obscure television shows.
And after explaining to people who she is, and then after people still not really knowing who she is, after she tells them who she is, she then trashes Sarah Palin.
No, I'm serious.
Try it.
Next time you're with a bunch of Republicans, Sarah Palin.
I really like her.
You know, I just don't see her as president.
Oh, yeah.
No, no.
Give me four more years of Obama any year, any day.
So here's McCain.
This is what you get.
She endorsed him.
This is what you get.
I mean, he's not trashing her.
Let me grab a quick phone call.
James in Indiana, great to have you with us.
You're up first today.
Hi.
Thanks for taking my call.
Yep.
I have a question.
I'm a pretty moderate Democrat, and I listen to your show as often as I can.
Thank you.
I respect your opinion.
Very much.
How do you, I mean, I see our politics today and our society coming to a crossroads politically.
How do you see us bridging the gap between liberals and conservatives and actually getting something done?
There's no way of bridging the gap.
I, after 23 years, have learned personally there's no bridging the gap.
By that, I mean, how do we get the two sides together?
Not necessarily, but just enough, just close enough to get things done.
You know, I see the president from my party not doing anything, and I'm like, we've got to do something.
I really, just trying to be realistic with you here, it's not possible to bridge a gap close enough with liberals to want to get things done because the things they want to get done have literally nothing in common with what I want done.
We have nothing in common.
The Constitution is an obstacle to them.
It's the Bible to me.
And I don't know about you.
I don't compromise on the Bible.
And I don't compromise on the Constitution.
So to me, the solution to this is they must be beaten politically.
They must be beaten.
And then you, as a moderate Republican, have to learn that there's a Democrat as there's no such thing as a moderate Democrat.
If you're a Democrat of any kind, you're a Democrat.
If you vote Democrat, you're voting liberal in any constitution.
You have to be beaten too.
From the website email, Near Rush, why aren't conservative media people focusing on how inept Obama is?
I'm all outraged over this release, I guess, but these cables show how incompetent it is in Obama foreign policy.
Why aren't conservative media people focusing on how inept Obama is?
I don't think if you get down to brass tacks, if you're talking about conservative people, I'll speak for myself.
None of this surprises me.
This guy, Assange, could have been stopped.
Come on, folks.
People have been shot for far less than this.
I'm talking about state, intrastate deals of the Cold War kind of stuff.
This is these leaks happen because some buck private, some bug private got hold of it.
They're letting a guy walk around with a memory stick, with a flash drive.
You plug it in a USB port and you download.
None of this stuff used to.
None of this stuff happens unless either you're totally incompetent or inept or unless they want it out there.
And with Obama, that's an open case.
You know, the jury's still out on does he want it out.
And most people think he's not that upset about it.
Question is, why isn't he upset?
Not why aren't we?
He's out shooting hoops, getting his lip beat up, and the teleprompter says, ouch.
I mean, what?
Let's look at Julian Assange.
Let's, in a contest of Janet Napolitano and Julian Assange, who do you think would win?
Big sis, there's no question about it.
Now, if Janet Napolitano, big sis, can put her hands down our underwear at any airport in America she chooses, why can't she get her hands on the State Department leaker?
Why can't she get her hands around the scrawny little neck of Julian Assange and all the other people at WikiLeaks?
This little guy, this little waif, this little Peter Pan Julian Assange, does anybody really believe that is his real name?
Julian Assange, French or whatever it is, at any rate, this guy has been interviewed numerous times by the news media.
There's an example of this.
Oh, nobody could find Saddam Hussein except Dan Rather.
He went in for an interview.
We couldn't find Saddam Hussein.
And the next night he shows up on the CBS EV News with Dan Rather.
Hey, Dan, where did you find him?
Well, I can't compromise my address.
You mean to tell me that somebody like Mary Mapes at CBS can find what's his face?
And we can't.
The intelligence agencies have no clue where Saddam Hussein is, but CBS can find him just like that.
And that what's his face will show up there for, and we, and Rather did not do the interview blindfolded.
He's out there yucking it up, probably having a cigar with the guy when the cameras go off.
This brokoff on Charlie Tree News media finds all these people.
And Julian Assange has been interviewed numerous times by the news media in the UK.
He's been the BBC.
Any number of people are going to have gotten their hands around this scrawny little guy's neck, which is smaller than my big toe.
I mean, that's how insignificant a personage this guy is.
And we can't find him.
Why can't Big Sis and her goons go after spies as hard as they go after innocent, ordinary, everyday Americans?
This is what intelligent people like me look at this and say, this isn't what they're telling us it is.
This guy telegraphs weeks in advance when he's going to release stuff.
We sit around and do what?
You better not.
You better not.
And when we begged him, same thing.
He releases a subsidy.
Shouldn't have done that.
Folks, I just...
Even Greg Polcott of Fox News interviewed us, which means that Roger Ailes knows where he is.
Ailes knows where Assange is.
Give Ailes the order, and there is no Assange, I guarantee you.
And there will be no fingerprints on it.
But there is an Assange.
Now, what do we have here?
We have a 22-year-old who was made an intelligence analyst and given access to all of this information.
A 22-year-old.
You have to be 25 to rent a car legally.
Julian Assange, you've probably been renting cars since he was 12, getting from one hideout to the next.
Okay, back to the phones.
Jacksonville, North Carolina, Finley, great to have you.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Thanks for everything you do, brother.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, a comment on the pay freeze for civilian employees.
Seems to me, first, Obama spends us into debt for the next 20 generations, and then he cries about we got too much debt.
And then he says, oh, wait, we can save $2 billion by taking a pay freeze for the hardest working government employees, the career civil servants.
Just another example of the gross hypocrisy.
My wife is a civil servant working with the Marines.
I'm retired Navy, and both my son and daughter are career Navy.
And it's just frustrating, irritating.
I can imagine how you feel about this.
Well, your wife's civil servant working with the Marines, your retired Navy, your daughter's retired Navy, all this.
It tells again.
My daughter and son are both active duty Navy.
Active duty.
Okay, so why are you frustrated?
Well, it's just another example of the hypocrisy of Obama.
You know, he spends us in the debt, spends money we don't have, and then says, oh, we have to do something about the debt.
Oh, here's $2 billion.
We're just free to do that.
These hard-working people.
It's not right.
Exactly right.
And then once all this credit for this, it's going to be really tough on these people, Mr. Limbaugh.
Yes, this is Mr. New Castrati speaking.
That's right, Mr. Limbaugh.
This is very tough.
Only federal workers are forced to run a pay freeze, and that's a sacrifice they were making for the good of their country.
Yeah.
Well, how many of them have been hired?
The federal workforce is what?
Gone up by how many percent since Obama took office?
And now with the pay freeze, they're locked in to a salary that on average is twice what their counterparts in the private sector make.
And we're getting the swans.
All the violins have been pulled out for them.
And then on top of that, we're supposed to be impressed after $1.5 trillion of debt that we're going to save $2 billion.
Anyway, the pay freeze does not stop the step increase.
For example, there's GS1, GS13, GS whatever.
The GSs have been frozen, but if you move from GS13 to GS12 or whatever the direction, you get a raise.
All Obama's got to do is promote them.
There's no pay freeze here.
This is all a smokescreen.
And these step increases can be fairly big.
I mean, there's a difference between the various pay scales, the GS, I think there's 13 of them.
I don't know which is higher and which is lowest.
GS1 is low, 13 high, which is which, but when you step up, it's not insignificant.
Brandon in Michigan, nice to have you with us on the EIB network.
Hi.
Mega Rush, baby dittos, Rush.
Thank you, sir.
Absolutely.
One is the lowest, 13 is the highest, and we still get our annual increases.
They're only locking in the freeze on the call it the inflation component.
Right.
Oh, is that right?
Only on the inflation component.
Right.
You know, you have mandatory increases for inflation every year.
That's all they're freezing.
We still get our grade increases every year, which means my salary will jump up an extra $10,000, $12,000 a year.
Okay, so you've got – now tell me out here.
I think GS18 is the highest.
GS15, to my knowledge.
Okay, whatever.
But within all of these GS levels, there are steps, right?
Like GS13 is a grade, but you can be GS13 step two, GSP 13, step three.
Absolutely, absolutely.
You can be a GS13 step 15.
Right.
Which might put you higher than the GS14.
Correct.
Step one.
Correct.
All right.
So there you have it.
There's no freeze at the end of the day in real terms.
There is no freeze.
It's just semantics.
It's just designed to make the unemployed think that federal workers are also getting hurt a little bit.
Thank you very much, Brandon.
We'll be right back.
Morning, Frank, going to the back of the line.
And again and again and again for a pat down into TSA checkpoints.
Rachel and Queens in New York, nice to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Yeah, Rush, I'm glad about the wiki leaks about Saudi Arabia.
Now the lamestream liberal anti-Israel media here in the U.S. and elsewhere has to report that Saudi Arabia fears Iran getting the nukes.
And they can't blame tiny, tiny Israel for World War III.
I'm telling you, Rush, you are the friend of the Jews.
You, Rush, are Christian friends to the Jews in Israel.
You, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, and many, many others.
And we thank you for that.
I'm telling you, the progressive liberal Democrats blame Israel for everything.
Progressive liberal Democrats, and the Jewish ones, too, blame Israel for everything.
We can only depend on our Christian friends and Republicans that care about Israel.
So now the lamestream media we were watching today, MSLSD, MSNBC, that Jim Nikolashevsky, whatever his name is, he was barely, barely reporting that Saudi Arabia fears Iran.
Well, but that's not just that primarily because they know here's what they know.
You have to, Rachel, you have to dig deep to find this.
And I mentioned this at the top of the program, but Obama, on his way over to Cairo to make that famous worthless speech that he made with the faint hint of a mustache to show facial hair to his audience, had a meeting with, well, he did snurdly.
I mean, you can sit in there and laugh all you want, but he did.
He had a stopover meeting with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
And the story is that Obama went over there and he told the king what all he was going to do at Cairo.
And he was obsessed here with the peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
And the truth is that King Abdullah says, I don't care.
The biggest problem, we've got to run, and they're nuking up, and we expect you to do something about it.
And Obama kept talking about peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
I was at a dinner party the other night, Rachel, and all kinds of people saying, what do you think about the, even if, even, I said, do you think there's any chance for peace?
I said, no.
You really don't?
And these are the kind of people, they listen to mainstream media.
They think every time a peace talks process springs up, they have hope that, man, it's going to be the day there's really going to be peace.
I said, do you realize why there won't be any peace?
And they said, no, why?
Well, let me ask this.
Does Jesse Jackson want an end to racial problems in America?
Well, no, of course not.
He'd be out of business.
Same thing.
Do you think the Arabs really want peace?
Do you realize this peace conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis gives every Arab government an excuse to stay in power, blaming Israel and the Jews for everything?
Their own populations are starving, being put in jail or what have you.
If they really cared about the Palestinians, they would absorb them.
They don't want the Palestinian problem to go away.
It serves them too valuable a purpose.
And so Obama thinks he knows this, and he's over there talking to King Abdullah.
Oh, yeah, we're going to work hard on this.
And King Abdullah doesn't care because he knows that the Israeli peace process is going to be going on for as long as there is a Palestinian and an Israeli.
It's never going to be solved because they don't want it solved.
They don't want peace.
Look, Arafat was given everything he was asked for, everything he did ask for, and he said, well, so this is not enough.
The scariest day of Yasser Arafat's life was when Clinton and Ehud Barak gave him everything.
They called his card.
They called his number and he went away.
No, no, nope, nope.
I'm demanding even more.
And he demanded things that are impossible.
They don't want peace.
The only way they want peace is if somehow, and you know this, Rachel, is if somehow the Jews can be marched into the Mediterranean or worse.
That's how they define peace.
Other than that, there's not going to be a peace accord.
There's not going to be a Palestinian state.
All this talk about a only way there's going to be a Palestinian state, well, there won't be.
That's why realists, people like me who live in Littoralville, are so cynical about this.
Because all of this, all this talk about Middle East peace, BS, I mean, it's been going for 50 years.
What kind of fools do they think we are?
Every new administration, every new Jewish leader, ah, chance for peace.