Welcome back, my good friends, and happy holidays.
Merry Christmas.
Uh happy Hanukkah.
All of that to all of you from all of us here at the EIB network.
I, of course, the all-knowing, all caring, all sensing, all feeling.
All everything Maha Rushy.
800 282 2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address.
Lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
President Obama, all-time low approval rating.
Depending on where you look, it's 42% at one poll.
It's uh it's 45% in just one.
In every other poll, it's below 45%.
We have a media montage on how the media is spinning Obama approval.
Now remember, 42% in most polls, 43%, 45% disapproval or approval in uh one of the polls.
The president's job approval rating is at its lowest down two points from last month.
Forty-five percent approved, 48% disapprove.
45% remains very strong for this president.
It has some surprisingly good news for President Obama.
Contrary to the buzz, voters have not given up on the president.
The president's approval rating.
It's kind of static over the last year.
And our pollsters say considering everything he went through, including that shellacking in the elections, the fact that he's still at 45% is actually quite remarkable.
Yeah, it's uh it's uh still a very strong for this president, said Joe Scarborough.
Forty-five percent.
Never mind Congress is at what, 13 all-time low.
Remember when Bush hit uh a new low for him.
This is how it was treated in the media.
It's 4 p.m. here in Washington.
You're getting the first look right now at our brand new poll.
The president's job approval rating has taken a downward turn again, falling to only 36%.
This represents his lowest rating ever in the CNN USA Today Gallup poll.
The President's poll numbers are pretty bad, pretty awful right now.
Rock bottom as far as the CNN USA Today Gallup poll.
The president's a rock problem, and his new low point in the polls is approval and policies now are at new lows.
The president's job approval number in this new CNN USA Today Gallup poll, rock bottom, the lowest it's ever been.
It's 5 p.m. here in Washington, where President Bush takes a beating in our latest poll.
His approval rating at a low at our latest CNN USA Today Gallup poll just out in the past hour shows the president at an all-time low.
His job approval rating at a new low.
That's rock bottom as far as our poll is concerned.
It's 7 p.m. here in Washington.
The war in Iraq comes home to roost for President Bush.
Our latest poll numbers showing his approval rating and a new low.
Also, President Bush hits a new low in the polls.
Now back to our lead story.
President Bush's approval rating now at an all-time low.
As we noted, a new CNN USA Today Gallup poll shows his job approval rating at a new low.
President Bush's approval rating at a new low, 36%.
Yeah, so you see how these approval rating numbers uh are treated.
Uh given the party affiliation of the president.
All right, from the um uh Vale Daily News.com.
Dateline Eagle, Colorado.
The new car smell might have contributed to the driver losing consciousness in a hit and run accident.
Martin Erzinger was driving a new 2010 Mercedes Family sedan when he rear-ended bicyclist Dr. Steven Milo about 130 p.m. on July 3rd.
Erzinger's attorneys say their client suffers from sleep apnea.
He fell asleep at the wheel before driving off U.S. Highway 6 and onto the shoulder near Miller Ranch Road, hitting Milo from behind.
An accident reconstructionist says the new car smell may have contributed to the accident.
John Cosiel of Cozio Forensic investigated the accident according to court documents.
Erzinger had purchased the car about a month before the accident.
Cozio found in his investigation that it was emitting new car fumes.
Court documents show.
It might have been a contributing factor.
Documents said that car you believe that at Mercedes while it was I was it was emitting was emitting odors was emitting a new car smell harmful and noxious gases emitted from the upholstery can infiltrate the driver's compartment and potentially alter the driver, said John Coziel of Coziel Forensic.
While the new car fumes could have been a contributing factor, there's no scientific basis for that.
Once we found out that he suffers from sleep apnea, we were confident that was the cause.
In his report, Cosyl writes how the Mercedes performs, how it's constructed, how Erzinger, the driver, came to be driving through the ditch alongside Highway 6.
Erzinger suffered a temporary loss of consciousness or just fell asleep, Kozil wrote.
In reconstructing the scene, Koziel found that Erzinger drifted onto the shoulder off the edge of the road into the ditch.
The same finding as police reports.
Now there was no variation from that path.
There was no evidence of breaking.
The driver was unaware he had struck anybody.
Kozil concluded that Erzinger was driving between 28 and 32 miles per hour as the car drifted off the road.
It's difficult, if not impossible, to observe anyone behind from that position and angle.
Calls to Mercedes Benz in New Jersey about their new car smell were not returned by deadline.
So the new car smell made the driver flee the scene of the accident, too?
Imagine if he'd have been in an SUV emitting new car smell.
If you have new car smell, you think it's dangerous, roll down the windows or take the car back.
But frankly, I I have anybody ever heard of anything other than gosh, I love that new car smell.
So, bottom line.
Erzinger runs over an annoying bicyclist, and let's admit it, we all find these clowns annoying.
We do.
Oh, come on, Don, don't try to escape out of this.
There's always has to be one in every crowd.
No, no, I actually admire them for being physically stuff it.
I don't know about you, but we can end up behind a virtual brigade of these things.
On Saturday morning where I live, you can be behind a hundred and fifty of them in a pack.
Uh anyway, Martin Erzinger.
This is the guy that was sleep apnea that was um, I guess added to the problem was the new car smell.
He manages a billion dollars in assets for Morgan Stanley.
He ran over a cyclist with his new car.
The cyclist is a doctor.
Uh was on the street with big cars on a shiny.
I'm sorry, I'm digressing here again.
The bicyclists sustained spinal cord trauma, internal bleeding in the brain, and a whole lot of bad stuff.
Now, Erzinger's very imaginative attorneys claim one of the reasons for the accident is that new car smell in their client's Mercedes.
May have led him to momentarily lose consciousness.
This sounds like something on a television show.
This sounds like something John Edwards could get rich over.
So how do you get rid of new car smell?
That's what I say.
It takes about six months to give it a new car, so how do you get rid of it?
Anyway, this is does anybody believe this?
Okay, I don't I don't either.
What are taxes for?
Daniel Henniger Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Mitt, several Tea Party groups say the tax compromise with Obama is a bad idea, sells out the Republicans' anti-spending promises.
Worst of all, helps you know who's re-election chances.
But Newt, Mike, and Tim think it's a decent deal.
Far be it from me to interrupt the GOP's holiday spirit.
This is Daniel Hanegar knew in the Wall Street Journal.
Let us stipulate, however, that the furtive, ragged tax bill being let out the back door of a lame duck Congress proves that tax policy in the U.S. has hit the wall.
What are taxes for?
Maybe it's possible this question hasn't come up in a serious way.
For centuries, no one has doubted the textbook answer suffices.
Taxes are levied on behalf of some public purpose.
But the modern taxpaying peasant insists on asking with a U.S. budget at three and a half trillion dollars every year.
With Harry Reed this week offloading a 2,000-page omnibus spending bill, what is the public purpose of taxes?
Someone's going to answer that question because suddenly tax reform is gaining momentum, a phenomenon that occasionally interrupts what Washington does the other 99% of the time.
The more serious question that lies beneath the disaffection with government is this.
What balance between the private and public economies will best allow the U.S. to remain the world's preeminent economic and military power for the next generation?
Does anybody think the Democrats look at that question at all when putting together tax policy?
No.
What balance between the private and public economies will best allow the U.S. to remain the world's pre.
In fact, we got a president presiding over the US U.S. country, you our country's decline.
And happily so, he's out there telling me in the days of the American consumer, uh the American citizen leading the world economy.
Those days, those days are over.
By asking themselves what our taxes for, the Republican Party's presidential contenders may find a way to offer us a system of taxation that puts the country's economic aspirations ahead of Washington's.
That would be an historic reversal and a worthy achievement.
And it really boils it down to those two things.
Taxes are for what?
The country's economic aspirations or for Washington's?
Now, I can tell you what Obama's purpose of taxation is.
Redistribution of wealth.
Obama's purpose is...
He thinks the reason for taxes is to destroy the upper classes.
That's what his purpose.
He couldn't care less, as we see.
What happens to the country?
Democrats look at taxes as a way to get even.
And more importantly, taxes give politicians the money they use to buy our votes.
The idea that the Democrat Party cares a whit about the tax code having any relationship to the U.S. economy?
Why?
They don't ever think about that.
Not once, not ever.
All right, to the emails.
Your bicyclist comment, dear rush.
You are lame comment democratic bicyclists or bicyclists.
Sounded like a new Castrati complaint about secondhand smoke, or maybe John Kerry's arrogant.
Do you know who I am?
I.e.
get the heck out of my way because I'm an important person.
Is that what my bicycle comments sounded like?
Tell me the truth, Dawn.
Is that what you thought I said?
Uh it just sound.
It just made it sound like I don't like bicyclists.
I have nothing against bicyclists, but in the street?
Oh, jeez.
Look at has nothing to do with whoever I think I am.
Important person or not.
Gee whiz.
It seems like everything designed for a person is being infiltrated by other like roads were built for cars.
Well, first for horses, then for cars, and now everybody's using them.
So I have my car, and all of a sudden my car is subordinate to a bunch of bicycle people who ought to be driving it somewhere else.
Let them build bicycle roads.
Or head to the park.
You know, let the ducks get out of your way.
Anyway, I know I can't win this.
I just I just I know I'm never gonna win it.
There's something holy about bicyclists.
Holy about people engaging in physical exercise.
Something just you just can't you can't sing about them.
You can be critical of them.
What if they turn over roads to people who want to walk?
Not the sidewalk, but walk in the road.
Well, Mr. Limbaugh, you would have to defer.
Fine, that happens, I'm driving on the sidewalk.
Just guarantee you.
No, I know I'm a lot of g nobody's gonna ever understand me on this.
Um see, this is the thing.
Everybody's telling me that I'm the one being smug here.
It's the other way around.
Well, the other oh, is that right?
I might be surprised other people just won't say it.
Uh well, that's isn't that typical.
I am not anti-bicycle and I'm not anti-bicyclist.
But I also don't want mothers in baby carriages in the street either.
Unless they're crossing it, and that even makes me mad.
Uh Walt in uh they ought to have to wait till I make the turn instead of I haven't to wait till they cross the street.
But what's the road for?
I know there's no winning here, and I'm not upset about it.
It's just a little daily observation here.
What's the bicyclist guy?
It's a look it's it you you bicyclists, you never know where you're gonna have an investment guy managing a billion dollars with sleep apnea, not in bed, but driving a car, getting sick because of new car smell running you down.
Not me.
Walt in uh in Garner Valley, California.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Rush, this is your buddy Walt.
Last time I talked to you, I got you all excited.
It is kind of funny that you're excited before you take me on the phone.
But I just wanted to say is people that are rich should be able to keep their money.
I'm not rich.
Uh it's not right, and I'm tired of the government with the this class warfare.
And I want to say real quick, you know, I had a retired 50, and there are jobs out there.
You got a cowboy up and do them.
And what I do for fun is I I DJ and but uh I was gonna make some money on it, but it's mostly volunteer stuff.
You'll remember who I am when I get done.
I didn't wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
You do volunteer DJ work?
Yeah.
Is that what it's come to now?
Pardon me?
Is that what it's come to now?
DJ work is volunteer work?
Well, this is for fundraisers for the Lions Club for the some churches in the community.
I did something, I did a thing for the uh Pendleton Marine uh corps core uh uh on the beach.
I bought I uh I'd play music for the VFWs.
All right.
I'm the guy that asked you to come out and talk at our support the troops thing and you said you couldn't do it.
But uh I might be doing another one for the Marine Corps at Pendleton.
Could you come out to that one?
Cam Pendleton?
Camp Pendleton, sir.
You know what?
People in this country whine and cry, and these kids are putting their lives on the line.
Well, after I did that thing on the beach, I came home and I was depressed because all these young kids are going over to Afghanistan and Iraq, and I'm not against the war.
But they're all gentlemen and and beautiful women.
They're all just great kids.
They're heroes in my my book.
Well, the least you can do is DJ for 'em, I know.
Well, uh yeah.
You know, I mean, I made their day.
I mean, they were they were they're great.
But uh that they are.
But if you do want to do it, come out, you just go out to Anza, Circle K and ask for big walt, and you'll find me.
But we'd love to have you come out and talk at the other Circle K where?
In Anza, California.
Anybody knows anybody goes with Circle K. In what California?
Anza.
East of Temecula.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Hey, and I give you a 98% uh approval rating.
Two percent I don't agree with.
All right.
You're a good guy.
Thank you, Walt.
Very much.
Appreciate it.
Roger, Jacksonville, Florida.
You're next.
Make it count.
Hello.
Hey, how's it going, Rush?
I I got a question for you because I haven't heard it out there in uh either TV or radio is about the temporary job agencies, how they're killing the job market.
And I haven't heard anything about that.
Uh I haven't either.
Well, I mean, I I've been I was employed for twelve years with the same company.
They opted to go with the temporary job agencies for the subtle fact that they don't have to pay benefits whenever they go to the temporary job agency.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Job agencies is only charging like $15.
Okay, so now if I want a job, I have to go and sleep with the devil, basically, and not have any benefits or anything.
And they're not temporary because people are on it for three, four years.
They don't use them for temporary services.
Well, there is an alternative.
Okay.
And that is get a job that a temp can't do.
Well, I'm 48, and I'm gonna go back to college and see what I can't do there.
But for right now, I'm 48.
Nobody wants to hire me for the business I was in.
What was that?
I was in the warehouse business.
I I worked in a warehouse, and I made almost thousand dollars a week doing it.
And they decided they was going to downsize basically and got rid of the guys that had been there a while and just hired a bunch of temps to come in and uh work for us.
And now the the company is making good bucks because they don't have to pay the benefits, paying less money.
You know what I'm saying?
And I've never heard anybody discuss this before.
Well, I'm sure they have.
I uh people are discussing uh various aspects of this uh phenomenon uh all the time.
What what I've got twenty seconds.
What what do you think is the purpose of your company there?
Uh purpose for the company was to make uh for them to make more money and not have to pay benefits because of the health care plan, because that's exactly what was sold to me.
They were scared of the health care plan, so that's why they got rid of everybody and they don't have to.
Oh, it all comes back to Obama.
Nope.
Didn't happen before he showed up, did it.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, left to me, L. Rushbow for Tough Economic Truth.
Tough love, tough economic truth.
John Lott Jr., a recovery like no other.
Now, this was posted as an editorial on Fox News.
If anybody wants to look for it, you can also go to John Lott's website where there's more discussion of this phenomenon of temporary help service.
Mr. Lott says that this is the first entirely temporary help service job recovery.
Our current recovery might be in its 17th month, but the few new private sector jobs have come from companies temporarily hiring staff on a contract basis.
What were once jobs reserved for people hired to cover seasonal demand or permanent employees on sick leave have become the standard employment for many workers?
Companies simply don't want the risk of hiring workers that they might soon have to get rid of.
Now that's the key, and I'm gonna explain why here in just a second.
Simply don't want the risk of hiring workers they might soon have to get rid of since the recovery started in June of 2009, supposedly.
We'll we'll just go with the flow here since this is his piece.
The total number of private sector jobs has increased by 203,000.
But these were not regular permanent jobs, indeed, permanent private sector jobs in the recovery.
Are you listening?
Permanent private sector jobs since June 2009 have fallen by a quarter million two hundred and fifty-seven thousand.
The explanation behind temporary job creation is pretty simple.
Uncertainty.
Uncertainty.
Companies do not want to make longer-term commitments if they don't know what the next couple of years will look like.
And by the way, it's two more years of these tax rates, that's not gonna help somebody make a five-year business plan, which is what they do.
Companies don't want to make long-term commitments if they don't know what the next couple years are going to look like new regulations are being imposed on companies, be it health care, finance, the environment, and other areas, as Obama's path of destruction widens and deepens.
There you have it, uncertainty.
They have to stay in business.
They are doing what they have to to stay in business.
How about this recovery?
Like we got this big news here today.
Fewer people apply for unemployment benefits.
AP, oh goody, goody goody.
Yeah, well, we've lost 257 permanent private sector jobs.
257,000 since the recovery began.
Many of the new jobs are temporary.
Why hire somebody and then have to let them go?
I mean, now what a mess that is.
So uh the market responds to realities.
Temporary service agencies have sprung up because entrepreneurs have sensed this is how companies will fill their employment needs.
It's not because anybody's evil.
It's not because anybody is mean.
They have to stay in business.
They have to deal with the circumstances that are, and those circumstances are being did dictated to a swath of destruction in the private sector, unlike we've ever seen.
Authored, instituted, implemented by Barack Obama.
Now, Mr. Lott, John Lott Jr. points out a truly bizarre phenomenon.
Nine point eight percent unemployment rate is now higher than when the recovery supposedly began this summer of 2009.
And a two-year extension of the Bush tax rate's not going to change this.
It won't give any company any sense of confidence.
Why or high somebody for two years have to pay them unemployment benefits for three?
Obama's not doing anybody any favors here.
Why am I saying if I'm a Republican in the Congress and I hear Obama say my presidency hinges on this, I say, bye-bye.
Very simple.
It's called spoof cards, legally sold online in convenience stores.
These spoof cards uh allow thieves to present themselves as bank officers and then try to trick customers into disclosing personal data.
According to Gregory Pavlitas, the Bureau Chief for Economic Crimes in the Queen's DA's office, it's all happening because shoppers increasingly favor internet merchants.
Uh so new forms of cyber thievery and ID theft have appeared to exploit unwary buyers, customers.
Spoof cards.
You can buy them online in convenience stores.
Thieves get them, present themselves as bank officers, and try to get you to surrender your information.
Bye-bye identity.
That's nothing to laugh at.
But you don't have to have this happen to you.
Life lock, best thing you can do to protect your identity.
When it comes to protecting your identity, don't try anybody else.
Life lock by far and away the industry leader.
They help protect your information.
They do not sell it.
They have the best identity alert system that there is.
And hardly costs anything.
We had a new number, 888-Safe 840.
That's triple eight SAFE 840.
Safe 10% off your life lock membership if you mention my name, Rush.
Lifelock 888 Safe 840.
Who's next?
Dan in Albany.
I'm glad you called, sir.
Thank you for waiting, and welcome to the EIB network.
Uh hey, Rush, uh, Dan here and Megadiddos, and uh, we miss you here in New York.
Uh especially your uh tax revenue.
Uh thank you, sir, very much.
Hey, hey, I was talking to snerdily, and uh I sell multiple products from gloves and abrasives into an industry uh that's in dire need of people, and that is uh welders.
And even though I'm uh you know, Penn State grad and have my MBA and some things like that, it's ironic that we have veered so far away from the trade, believe it or not, we still do and make a ton of things in this country.
And uh welding is uh uh a wonderful way to make a living working for someone, and with all the energy prices going up in the Marcellus shale here in New York, that's going to come to fruition at some point in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and all the natural gas in Canada, there are not enough certified welders in this country.
They are begging people to get in this industry and easily, if you're working and do in your own business, you know, the the the sky's the limit.
And if you want to work for somebody, it's still a great paying job, uh, and you always have a job.
Or I should, for the most part, as long as the demand's there, you'll have a job.
Well, uh, what does it pay?
Uh it just depends.
If you work for somebody, you know, with overtime and stuff like that, you can be, you know, 50 plus.
Uh, you know, down here in uh state below us in Pennsylvania, where I'm ri originally from, it's all Texas and Louisiana plates.
It's all people that are certified pipe welders from the gas industry down in Houston and uh and and Louisiana.
There's no one up here that can do it.
These guys are all contractors, probably making 100, 150 plus.
Wait a minute.
Are you telling me that people live in Houston, Louisiana traveling to New York for jobs?
Uh the work here because of the natural gas find here in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York.
Wow.
People really do that, they move for jobs.
Yeah, it's surprising, isn't it?
Because I'm originally from Pennsylvania and been Minnesota to Minnesota and uh uh now uh New York.
I like these liberal states.
Well, what kind of training do you need to be a welder?
Well, there's there's certain, you know, going to schools, uh, you know, welding schools and practice and getting hired and getting certified.
There's there's people that that you know go through it's it's a whole step-by-step process.
I don't know exactly every step, but I sell into it, and I know they're hurting for welders at all levels, from certified to you know, just regular general fabrication shop.
I I guarantee you there are people listening to this that are shocked.
I know they are.
Uh what about are are you are you a union welder?
You said you had an MBA.
Are you a union welder?
I don't weld, I sell products to that market.
Oh, you sell products.
Well, okay, but okay, so uh then do the unions make it hard to get into the welding business.
No, not really.
Um, you know, here in in New York, a lot of it is unionized, uh, but the the jobs are still here.
Well, you have to do what you have to do if you uh if you want to work.
What is it between 14 and 20 bucks an hour, would you say is what a welder makes?
I would say working for somebody, yeah, maybe even a little more uh because of the unionization and not count not counting benefits on top of that.
So it's it's not a and then they get they can get overtime pretty much, you know, uh quite a bit.
But uh the what what you don't realize is most of these guys then have shops in their house or things like that that do work on the side.
So at the end of the day, I don't know what their total revenue or or income can be.
Interesting.
Sky's the limit.
Nobody would ever I would never have, because I don't have any experience in that field uh kind of work, but thanks for that tip.
I uh I appreciate it very much.
That's Dan in uh in Albany.
By the way, uh, ladies and gentlemen, this from the uh I guess this is the Chicago Tribune.
Let me look and see.
Yep, it is.
It's the Chicago Tribune.
Government bans traditional cribs in an effort to eliminate hidden hazards that caused babies.
Now listen to me on this.
Look at me.
Government bans traditional cribs in an effort to eliminate hidden hazards that caused babies throughout the country, babies throughout the country to die in their cribs.
The nation's top regulator of children's products today passed the toughest safety rules for cribs in industry.
One person did this.
The head of the consumer product safety commission, that czar, that one person passed the toughest safety rules for cribs in industry, including a ban on the sale and manufacture of models with sides that drop down.
What do you nodding your head in understanding for?
Oh, you uh you read this?
You know where this is going?
All right, tell me where this is going.
What?
Tell.
But uh here here's the thing.
This it well let me let me just go to the end of the story.
The end of the story.
Remember now, folks.
This is the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Who is it's it's a woman.
Uh yeah, Inez Tenenboom, or Inez Tenenboom.
And she made crib safety one of her top priorities when he she assumed her job in 2009.
She directed staff to investigate the backlog of complaints about potentially deadly cribs.
An avalanche of recalls followed.
The crib business had to stop retool and redesign.
So, okay, wow, this must be a really big problem.
I I hadn't heard about it.
Crib deaths.
So I kept reading.
And here you go.
Since 2007, more than 11 million cribs have been recalled since 2007.
Between November 2007 and April of 2010, basically two and a half years.
There were 35 fatalities attributed to structural problems of a crib.
So 35 divided by two and a half.
Basically looking at ten.
Less than ten deaths a year.
Less than ten deaths a year, eleven cribs recalled, an entire industry retooled.
Because some wacko has a has a fetish about this.
And now she's in the government and unilaterally makes rules.
Less than ten deaths a year and the whole crib industry turned upside down.
And yet, people who want babies to have the right to be killed through abortion.
Uh which is 1.3 million a year.
Um where's that czar?
Folks.
Here's Laura in Lule.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Oh, hi, Rosh.
Merry Christmas.
Thank you.
Same to you.
I just want to start off by saying that my daughter is going to be graduating from Halesdale College this spring, and uh everything that you say on air about Hillsdale is really, really true.
Congratulations to you.
Oh, thank you.
Well, the reason I wanted to call because I had been listening or you know, hearing about these this 2000 page omnibus spending bill.
And uh it reminded me of uh back in uh of May 2009 when um Obama signed off on the uh credit card uh accountability, responsibility, and disclosure act.
And so I really wanted to uh to hear from myself and make sure I remember correctly.
So I went on YouTube and uh I I watched a video clip of him uh explaining the reason for this bill, and what he said wasn't these are his words, and I've jotted some things down here was that um it was wrong for Americans to have to fear uh what was in these these new credit card offers with these head and strings attached, and that they would need magnifying glass and a reference book to um to re to read an application uh to find what they're in the forty.
I get your point.
So we got all this new legislation.
You gotta read the credit card thing, find out what's in it before you sign up, but not legislation.
Don't dare read our legislation.
Don't dare, but read what those evil credit companies have planned for you.
Yep.
Great point.
It's open line Friday tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen.