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Jan. 14, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:39
January 14, 2011, Friday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Somebody needs to help me out here.
Is the word gringo an ethnic slur?
It's a quasi-quasi-slur.
What makes it quasi?
Aha!
Aha!
Right.
Precisely.
Gringo is an ethnic slur because white people don't get offended by it.
It's no big deal.
We don't run around saying, that offends me.
You can't say that.
They don't have anybody appointed to run offended interference for us out there on that.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open line Friday.
Crude oil price got up to close to $99 a barrel, folks.
As we warned you earlier in the program, it is one of the many stories that the American media is ignoring and substituting stories on the brilliance of Obama's speech and the dangers of Sarah Palin and the lack of civility in the American political arena.
That's what the White House wants the media talking about, the media dutifully following orders.
But food prices are rising.
Energy prices are rising.
Price of oil.
The average price of gasoline is over $3 a gallon in the country now.
Remember, the tipping point was $4 a gallon.
That took an oil price of $130 to $140 a barrel.
When I got to $150 a barrel, it didn't last.
It then plummeted back down.
But this is a coming problem.
It's already affecting business and the economy in the U.K., throughout Europe.
So keep a sharp eye.
Many things in the news that the drive-bys are refusing to report.
Wall Street Journal today, the latest poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press shows 46% of Americans approve of the job Obama is doing.
That's a two-point drop from a similar poll taken last June, while 44% disapprove.
The numbers are similarly static when it comes to Obama's handling of specific issues from health care to Iraq to the budget deficit, all of which are not being reported on by the media, the White House News Center, steering them to Palin and the lack of civility of the American political arena.
And the brilliance of Obama's speech.
A Quinnipiac University poll released today, actually yesterday, showed a slightly bigger bounce in Obama's approval ratings.
48% of those polled approving of the job he's doing, up from 44%, but the trend still relatively flat from polls taken in the months heading up to the election.
The much-heralded lame duck comeback was most notable for how low it set the bar for comebacks.
So anyway, they wanted to try to tell us there was a huge, huge surge in Obama approval numbers after the lame duck.
And there wasn't.
And make, they can't wait for the polls after speech.
Folks, I'm warning you right now.
Polling data likely, let's see, the speech was on Wednesday.
I wouldn't be surprised if we had polling data in time for the Sunday shows, which shows the American people by 150% thought the speech was the best Obama had ever given.
Something like that.
From New Bedford, Massachusetts.
This is from the Boston Herald, and it is from yesterday.
Calling the U.S. Commerce Department's attitude toward the fishing industry unacceptable and angry, U.S. Representative Barney Frank is threatening to withhold cooperation with the Obama White House on a number of important issues.
In a scathing op-ed commentary, Barney Frank, Democrat Massachusetts, said last week, the Obama regime violated assurances that it was prepared to work constructively with the fishing industry in New England.
The administration had begun to follow through on some of what it promised last fall, but the wholly negative tone, both of its decisions last week and of the language it used to justify them, undermined my confidence that we can count on these commitments going forward.
You're probably, what the hell is this all about?
Exactly.
I don't even know.
I've only read as far as I've told you.
A public meeting of Mayor Scott W. Lang's Fishing Advisory Council set for yesterday at 4 to discuss the refusal of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke to invoke his emergency powers to raise catch limits and supply financial help for the regional fishing industry as it struggles with a new catch share system.
So I guess the government is regulating how many fish somebody in a private business can catch.
Against what they call a new catch care system.
And as the Fishery Council meeting approaches, anger remains unabated over Locke's refusal to provide help.
There's also anger at NOAA, National Aeronautics, the weather bunch in the Commerce Department.
Assistant Administrator Eric Schwab for an accompanying letter that explained Locke's rejection in greater detail.
He wrote, Commerce Secretary Locke's adamant refusal to consider the scientific evidence regarding fish stocks and the callous and dismissive tone of NOAA Assistant Administrator Schwab's refusal to acknowledge the economic crisis is facing fishermen were unworthy of their responsibilities as federal officials.
There's a sad contrast between what they told us they were prepared to do last October and what they blatantly refused to do in January.
Well, I mean, who are we talking about here?
We're talking about the regime.
And Barney, the regime will screw you just like they'll screw anybody else.
Doesn't matter.
You're all Democrats.
But learn it, love it, live it.
Until, well, Barney Frank has got to learn that he lives in the land of Obamaville where the leader lies about everything.
So yes, I know it's about the, yeah, it is, Bernie, it's about the environment and animal rights and all kinds of things.
It's now clear that the Secretary is unwilling to exercise independent judgment and that an anti-fishing attitude prevails in the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Barney Frank says, this is unstoppable.
I have worked with the regime on a number of important issues since the president came to office.
I will continue to be supportive of our common public policy goals.
But the president must understand that if the administration persists in such a serious default on the livelihood of the working men and women in the fishing industry, it will make it difficult for me and others to maintain this degree of waiting.
There is a companion story to this in the Boston Herald.
U.S. industry's hopes sink is the headline here.
Excuse me, folks, while I wipe my mouth.
There.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke in October raised the hopes of the local fishing industry by agreeing to consider higher catch limits on certain fish species, which the fishermen argued was the only way to keep the industry afloat.
On Friday, he crushed those hopes.
Despite pleas from the New England fishing industry, from Governor Duval Patrick and dozens of elected officials, Locke refuses to increase catch limits on certain protected species.
Oh, I love this.
I finally find out what this is all about now.
The left is being hoisted on its own petard.
They're the ones that have given us all these stupid regulations of animal rights and all this other stuff.
And yeah, Barney, why don't you try drilling for oil and find out what that's like with this regime?
So the regime promised them they're going to raise fish catch limits.
And so, no, you can't because it's a protected species.
So, Barney, guess what?
Your constituents' livelihood doesn't matter a hill of beans compared to the species.
Add to that, the leader of the regime lied to Barney about this.
Under new federal rules, once they hit their annual catch limit on one species, they are prevented from fishing for others that may be in much greater abundance, thereby leaving sustainable catch in the ocean.
Patrick estimated direct losses and foregone catch at $40 million.
Now, this is once they hit their annual catch limit on one species, they're prevented from fishing for others that may be in much greater abundance, thereby leaving sustainable catch in the ocean.
Now, the link catch means fish.
While smaller boats claim it'll drive them out of business, the new catch share system is viewed by some as a more equitable way to manage stocks and prevent overfishing.
Yeah, socialism makes everything equally miserable, equally undersupplied, equally woeful.
And by all means, don't let the market have anything to say about this.
No, the regime and Gary Locke.
So, Obama's killing another industry.
The New England fishing industry is being killed by Obama, the Gulf oil industry, the Alaskan oil industry.
And we don't hear about this in Boston.
I mean, it's in the local news, but the drive-bys haven't picked it up because they haven't found a way yet to blame it on Sarah Palin.
Open line Friday, Rush Limbaugh, talent on loan from God.
And this is Nick in Chicago.
Nick, welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here, sir.
Thank you.
Greetings, Maharashi.
I was hoping you would elaborate more on your commentary on Chinese moms.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Where did I leave off?
Well, you didn't get into it too in depth.
Well, I think, here's what I think I said.
I'm all for pushing kids because they won't push themselves.
The vast majority of them won't.
I think if you ask any adult who their favorite teacher was, for example, in high school or college, they'll tell you the teacher that got more out of them than they thought they had.
The teacher didn't necessarily like.
So I think we all have to be pushed.
Very few of us are self-starters.
I am very wary of the self-esteem movement in this country.
I think we have been conditioned to treat our children as fragile pieces of China.
And I think we have too many parents who seek to be friends with their parents rather than parents rather than teach them, rather than guide them.
A kid really is a genuine skull full of mush.
And if we're not careful, they can end up running the show given the current societal trends in this country.
The Chikom example here, so I don't find anything wrong with high expectations.
I love high expectations.
I don't, what point is in assuming your kid can't get an A in anything?
Why not push them to try to get an A?
It's the, when they don't get an A, if they're genuinely trying, the Chikom thing is you basically give them a bunch of swatches.
I think the Chikom way to me goes a little bit overboard because you can end up with total mind control where the parents or the state or somebody ends up totally dominating the kid throughout the rest of his life, makes him an obedient rather than an independent individual.
But there's things to learn from it.
I don't think that this country has the ability.
We don't have the makeup.
And we don't have yet the resolve to make all of our children identical.
But we're getting there.
You know, we really are.
Regardless of the outcome, everybody must be equal in this country because anything else is unfair.
Well, that's a bad thing because under the Chinese mom system, an El Rushboat never developed.
You went against that, Crane.
You did things differently and turned out the best in your field.
That's true.
That's true.
But my parents were Chinese moms.
Right.
I just defied them.
My parents were, there was no kid gloves.
I'll never forget my dad telling me how disappointed he was one time he caught me lying to him.
He'd never trust me again.
I remember how devastated I felt.
I remember he made me feel like garbage a number of times without saying it.
You know, when I brought home an A in penmanship, they were not impressed.
That doesn't count for anything.
Sit there and practice handwriting.
Where's the A in history?
They were all, my dad was constantly on them.
My dad, I've told the stories.
My dad, until he died, until a year before he died, was determined he was a failure because he couldn't have convinced me to go to college.
So my parents were far more like Chikom moms than parents of today are.
Yeah, yeah, the Chikon moms are too extreme, but you're right.
They're correct about a few things, such as fun follows mastering and endeavor, and you shouldn't enable or coddle a child to be a quitter.
Yeah, that really is true, but the things do become fun when you get good at them.
Absolutely.
Which is one of the reasons that I decided to do this Haney project.
I want golf to be more fun.
I'm not that good at it.
Right.
And so there is a tremendous amount of wisdom in that.
And once you do get good at something, you're prone to do more of it on your own than to have to be instructed to do it.
And as I was reading that Chikom mom story, there's a book.
I think it was Malcolm Gladwell and Outliers.
The people that really succeed at what they do worked 10,000 hours, hours that nobody ever saw to get to the point where they were.
People with various skills and talent.
And it was another one.
I think it was Malcolm Gladwell.
It could be outliers.
I might be confusing it with another book.
But it was a situation where all this hard work was done.
And the thing about that I have found, and I even peppered my dad with this growing up.
Would see the result of hard work, but I never saw the hard work in people.
And I always said to my dad, Well, they don't work that hard, son.
You'd have no idea what it took them to do to get there.
I've learned that.
We never do see the hard work with people, particularly with athletes.
We just assume that comes naturally to them and that they're born with it, that they're born champions, and they don't have to work very hard at what they do.
And it's not nobody, nobody, other than people who inherit their money and station in life.
Outside of that, nobody gets where they are without hard work and really committed hard work to it.
And that takes a passion.
That requires a passion.
I believe that's true, and you're certainly evidence of that.
Well, yeah, in a convoluted way.
The great thing Snerdley wants to know if I agree with the parents picking the extracurricular activity.
Remember, there weren't the things, look, I don't like play dates.
I don't like the whole construct of play dates.
No, Don, I mean, when I send out like play dates, I never had one.
We just went out and played.
You have to make a frigging appointment for it.
Well, why don't they let their kids play?
Because they're worried Sarah Palin's out there with a gun or whatever the hell the media is scaring them.
Play dates?
That's another liberal creation.
Oh, gosh, I could tell you a story about play dates and how it made somebody turn out of the wishy-wassy-wush that they are.
But picking extracurricular activities, there were only too many piano or violin for the Chi-Coms.
That's what it was.
Guess what?
You ask me what I think about it.
My mom picked the piano for me.
I had my hands slapped with a ruler by some ancient grandmother-type person teaching me piano lessons.
And I ended up playing the trombone.
When I didn't work out of the piano, it didn't get me out of playing an instrument, had to play the trombone.
So, and I was the, you know, I was rebellious.
Okay, trombone, you've got the long slide.
Well, junior high marching band, they had to move the trombones to the front row because I kept poking people in front of me with the slide on purpose just to agitate.
Because I really wasn't crazy about being there.
In band practice, I would routinely, when during trombone solos, hit flat notes just to ruin the whole thing.
A conductor would look at me.
I was always, I was just, I was rebelling in my own way.
But the point is, my parents were not in football, baseball, the things I was interested in, I got to do, as well as the things I was forced to do.
Foreign language.
My dad, my dad's son, forget French.
You'd better learn Spanish.
It's going to be the language of this country before you die.
Abby and Wellesley, the dogs do not have play dates.
Oh, for crying out loud.
Play date is a.
I said, I got no way to win this.
I mean, they're just so popularly accepted now as part of childhood rearing.
I don't even know why I'm bringing it up.
Back we are Rush Limbaugh Open Line Friday.
And back to the audio sound bites.
Listen to this.
This is Mark Udall, who is related somehow to Mo Udall.
He's maybe a son, nephew, niece, adopted brother, whatever of old congressional hand Mo Udall.
He's from Colorado, Democrat.
This was on MSNBC yesterday afternoon during a discussion about his proposal for Democrats and Republicans to sit together during the State of the Union address.
Did this idea, he was asked, this idea come to you after Sunday's horrific shooting?
It just seems like it's an idea that whose time has come.
And I'm pleased to tell you a number of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans alike, seem to like the idea.
And I think you'll see it happen at the State of the Union by week from Tuesday.
A group of us will do this.
I intend to go over to the Republican side where the senators sit, and I'll sit over there at the State of the Union.
But I think you're going to see an upwelling of commitment and support for this idea in both the House and the Senate.
Okay, so the Republicans and Democrats, House, and Senate going to sit together in the House chamber?
That's the plan.
That's the idea.
Yesterday afternoon, I guess anchor Thomas Roberts on MSNBC said this.
We went from fourth grade to fifth grade.
They mixed up our homerooms and none of us liked it at the time.
Then we liked each other in fifth grade.
It all seemed to work out.
Oh, we did it when we were in school.
Okay.
That's the level of analysis she got on MSNBC.
They made us switch fourth and fifth grade homerooms, put us together.
We like the fifth graders.
Okay.
We go back to MSNBC's morning joke.
Kirsten Gillibrand was asked if she liked the idea.
It's a great idea, and I'm going to encourage my colleagues to do exactly that.
I think to have a vision of our elected body sitting together, not on opposite sides, and one side standing up while the other side sits down, I think it would be a wonderful message and something that the American people would appreciate seeing.
I think it's a great idea.
Yeah.
What's going to be right around the corner?
Play dates.
Well, this is the kind of garbage it leads to.
Utter symbolism.
Utter symbolism.
We're going to sit together as a result of the shooting in Arizona.
Yeah, well, okay.
This is really going to make it.
Here's Kirsten Gillibrand on this, let's see.
Senator, she's a dear friend of yours.
Tell us something between you and Gabrielle Giffords that's happened.
Let us know more about her.
Obviously, she's an extraordinary woman of five years.
Tell us so we know more about her beyond the tragedy we've witnessed.
She's the most nonpartisan person I've ever met.
She represents a very conservative district, a border district in Arizona.
She loves her constituents.
She's someone who always gravitates towards solutions and finding compromise, working with Republicans.
She's the vision of hope for this country right now.
She embodies everything that President Obama was trying to say, that we have to be better than we are, that we all have to conduct ourselves better than we do.
Why?
Obama said none of that mattered.
None of that had anything to do with what happens.
What I don't like about this is the assumption that we are no good.
The premise that we are no good.
Yes, that's true.
We really stink.
And we have to really work a lot harder to become better people.
We are going to have to really work harder to become better than we are.
Who are they to castigate all the rest of us?
If they want to categorize themselves as not good enough, fine and dandy.
But who are they?
Why do we have to sit around and listen to these people tell us we're not as good as we can be?
What message are we supposed to hear here?
What's the message that we have to, that we're all ready for improvement?
That the GOP is supposed to capitulate.
That's how we get along with everybody.
Here's Roger Simon today on MSNBC.
Question, how important of a moment has this been for President Obama?
Did he lay down a marker that we will all that this will be one of those points on the timeline that all of us will look back on?
Or are we overhyping this a little?
I think it was a heartbreakingly beautiful speech and important in that respect.
And he did make an important point.
Underlying that speech was the statement that we are not worthy as a country right now.
Oh, come on!
These problems.
without springing off into more heightened rhetoric and disagreement.
And that we have to become better in order to make our country better.
Speak for yourself.
How dare you people characterize 300 million people upon the actions of one?
I think the underlying point in that speech was the statement that we are not worthy as a country right now to solve these problems.
Okay, well, then let's stop solving them.
Who the hell did Obama even say that?
Did Obama say we are not worthy?
Well, wait.
He might have when he admonished all of us to make the America that the nine-year-old hoped existed.
Well, maybe he did.
Maybe that's how a liberal would hear that.
We're not worthy.
But liberals run around thinking that anyway.
We're all defined by our imperfections, Mr. Limbaugh.
You too.
We are well aware of your imperfections, Mr. Limbaugh.
We are all defined by that's how we know who we are, Mr. Limbaugh.
Well, fine.
You want to go around and govern yourself and define yourself by your imperfections.
Underlying that speech was the statement that we are not worthy as a country to solve these problems without spinning off into more heightened rhetoric and disagreement and that we have to become better in order to make our country better.
What we have to do to make our country better is defeat Obama in 2012.
That's what we have to do.
You know, Mr. Simon, what is this business about conducting ourselves?
What we need to do to save the country is to put the brakes on spending.
It's real simple.
Back to the phones, Randy Trucker, in California on the open road.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
My God, I've listened to you since the very, very beginning in Sacramento when you had that fascination with chocolate-covered donuts.
But I'm so blessed to still have you in my life, and I appreciate your hanging in there all these years.
And Happy New Year, happy birthday.
Thank you very much, sir.
I appreciate that.
But I took some offense when you started reading a story about the Chinese moms.
Why?
Because I live here in one of the leftist countries in the world, the country of California.
And it's a very conservative, blue-collar guy.
And I've raised two daughters.
I live in Clovis, California.
And they both graduated from a high school there.
Can I name the high school?
Sure.
Buchanan High School.
In 2001 and 2004, both daughters are extremely exceptional.
I gave them nothing extra other than my love and told them where the line was drawn and they couldn't cross it.
And they were average to just above average students.
One of them, they both give their lives, put their lives on the line today.
One of them is a firefighter, my young one.
And my eldest, 27-year-old, she's a Navy fighter pilot.
Oh.
So they're extremely well-educated, and I'm so proud of them.
And I just want you to know that I'm in part of that fly-over-country California conservative because once you leave the coast out here, it becomes very conservative.
Yeah.
Well, not quite.
I mean, you still got places like Sacramento to put up with.
I'm Rio Vista.
You've mentioned so many times.
Riolinda, but that's, I mean, you can't really categorize Riolinda politically.
That's more of an IQ problem.
But what were you offended comparison to ChiComs?
Well, you started reading the story.
I guess I could be Chi-Com mom because I raised my kids that way.
They knew what the rules were.
I didn't let them get away.
They did not have cell phones.
Well, you know, here I think the fact of the matter is that most American parents were closer to Chi-Com moms a generation or two generations ago than they are today.
There's no question.
You probably were more like a Chi-Com mom than you know.
Well, I was certainly raised that way.
I come from, my dad was a police officer all his life.
We were very conservative in the state of Virginia out in the country.
And we knew where his bootleather started.
And it was, you know, they raised me well, and I tried to raise my kids that way.
Well, Jessica, okay, now I understand.
You were offended that the ChiComs seem to be do better job raising their kids than Americans do.
And I think the point that the authoress was trying to make was just the differences.
Not just the differences in how strict parents are, but the whole attitude about parenting and the whole attitude about children.
At any rate, I'm glad you called, Randy.
You're very nice.
I appreciate your kind comments.
We must take a brief time out and be back before you know it.
Okay, a couple of things here, folks.
Mo Udall, son, who is this?
Mark Udall.
And Kristen Gillibrand want us to all sit together on the House chamber during the State of the Union show.
Why?
To show togetherness, to end partisanship, just like we did in fourth and fifth grade homeroom.
Now, what is leading to this?
What is leading to this, and there are two answers here.
What is leading to this outpouring on the left of affection for us?
They wish to embrace, actually sit next to us in the House Chamber.
Disasters.
Disasters are ending partisanship.
Well, a logical continuation, and that would say what?
The Democrats are telling us disasters, one disaster, could possibly end partisanship.
But what if it doesn't?
What if one disaster is not enough to end partisanship?
Maybe we need more disasters.
If disasters end partisanship, and the left is so desirous of ending partisan, is that not a good thing?
Have the left not been demanding and striving, screeching, praying, they don't pray, hoping for an end to partisanship.
They want bipartisanship.
The American people want us to all get along.
What is promoting the left here and motivating and moving them in the area of together is getting along and has been a disaster, has it not?
So why not more disasters?
If that's what it takes to end partisanship, we just follow the left's logic all the way out to its conclusion, and that's what we get.
Here's the real answer.
And Snerdley was waving at me, and I was ignoring him because frankly, he's interrupted me too much today.
He was waving at me when I was talking about his most Stuart Mark, whatever it is, you'd all effort to sit together anyway.
That's not what this is, he told me during the break.
For the first time in years, Republicans have a noticeable majority in the House chamber during a state of the union.
And what the Democrats want to do here is dilute it so that obvious Republican stand-up lines, it's not apparent how many Republicans there are if they're all sprinkled out among the Democrats.
So Snerdley is suggesting that the Republicans not fall for this.
Go ahead and you occupy your side of the aisle, let the Democrats occupy theirs, and let's see how few Democrats there are in there anymore.
And I have to say that I agree with that.
Good catch, Snerdley.
Good catch, right alongside my logical conclusion.
Two go hand in hand.
It's a sad thing.
Look at what one disaster they think is perhaps going to cause.
What bliss.
Schenectady, New York, next up, John.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Great to have you here, sir.
Hello.
Thank you, Mega Dittos.
High praises to you.
This has been one of the best weeks in EIB Entertainment, I have to tell you.
Really?
Thank you very much, sir.
Been listening for a long time.
And high praises to you again, because, you know, you're an idea man, Rush, and someone to admire.
And I'm very glad that you don't do what those in the media have been doing lately and using this term, which drives me nuts after listening to some of these clips that you've been playing.
The term that they use all the time is moving forward.
Going forward.
It really infuriates my wife and I because it's like, what does that mean?
If I'm not going forward, am I moving backwards?
These people are horrid in their wordsmithing.
You, on the other hand, you're one to admire because you're an idea person, and these people are just wordsmithing us to death.
And all these clips that you've been playing have just been making me sick listening, especially with the senator in my own state right here in New York.
Which one?
There are two.
You were playing Gillibrand?
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, it's anywhere you go.
Even Fox, and I watch Fox all the time.
They talk about moving forward.
I mean, what the heck does that really mean, Rush?
Means getting rid of Republicans.
Well, they must have anticipated a Republican win because they've been doing it for about a year now.
I mean, moving forward, getting rid of Republicans, getting rid of conservatives.
It's all part of the same.
The Democrats, Udall's idea to split up during the chamber is to is to disguise how big the Republican victory was.
And this whole notion that we how about this?
We're not alone.
A conventional wisdom phrase, we're not alone.
And we're not worthy.
We can all be better people.
Yeah, well, look, I appreciate your comments.
I really do.
I love that you have that perception and understanding of what happens on the program here.
I routinely avoid conventional wisdom by rote.
it's ingrained in the conventional wisdom is is just anathema to me so you will never mistake this program for that's why i always say if you don't see it in new york times read the washington post If you don't see it there, go turn on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MS. If you miss it there, read the L.A. Times.
If you miss it here, you've missed it.
Maybe in the name of civility, folks, the Fox All-Stars could broadcast side by side with Olberman, Matthews, and Sergeant Schultz.
Wouldn't that not be a great display sitting together, doing commentary side by side, simulcast the networks on one studio set?
Here are your weekend NFL Division Playoff winners, the Baltimore Ravens, the Green Bay Packers, the Seattle Seahawks, and the New England Patriots.
Those are your four winners.
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