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Jan. 24, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
30:52
January 24, 2011, Monday, Hour #3
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Hi, how are you?
Great to have you here.
It's Rush Limbaugh, in the finest mood anyone could possibly be.
I don't know what all the carping's all about.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program, the email address.
Ilrushbow at EIBnet.com, State of the Union show tomorrow night.
And from Niall Gardner, once again in the UK media.
This is the Telecraft newspaper.
Barack Obama's State of the Union address could be a big government disaster.
Now, before we get to the details of Mr. Gardner's piece, I want to play you an audio soundbite of Ronaldus Magnus from his inaugural address January 20th, 1981.
For all of you who have, well, I don't know how many of you have read Obama's op-ed in USA Today about Reagan, Reagan great, Reagan this, Reagan that.
Obama cites Reagan a lot, and he's citing him now because he wants to convince people he's moving to the center, this phantom move to the center.
He's moderating his liberalism, moderating his tone in order here to, you know, he heard you at the election.
He heard the people.
And I want to play this short little 45-second excerpt from Reagan and ask any of you to find any similarities between what you know of Obama and even what Obama has said and Reagan here from January 20th, 1981.
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem.
Government is the problem.
From time to time, we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule.
That government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people.
Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?
All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden.
The solutions we seek must be equitable with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.
This is Reagan coming out of what was a prelude to Obama.
This is coming from the Jimmy Carter years.
One way of looking at the Obama regime is just Jimmy Carter's second term.
And yet this is the man that Obama wants you to believe now he's studying and learning from in order to move forward the next two years to his reelection and beyond.
It's all rhetoric.
It's meaningless.
And in many ways, it's offensive.
But even this, even this gets to my point here when I'm sure surprised a lot of you by focusing on us food and vegetable stuff.
Government's not the solution.
It's the problem.
We've been tempted to believe society become too complex to be managed by self-rule by ourselves.
Government, by an elite group, is superior to government by foreign of the people.
That's exactly the thing that I worry about, that too many people think, well, it's not a majority anymore, but there's still a lot of people that think some elite bunch of people in Washington know better and can lead us and protect us from ourselves, even what we eat.
And of course, the logical rejoinder Reagan had it, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, which is a Lep's mantra, you're not smart enough to make the decisions to get you through life.
You can't manage your own money well enough.
Well, then where is this one person that can manage all the rest?
And that's what Obama is.
That's the anointed one.
Finally, someone among us who can tell all the rest of us what to do and how to live.
And that's how he was positioned and promoted and so forth.
And that's the kind of stuff that scares me.
Because to me, the individual is paramount.
As human beings, there's no question about it.
The individual is paramount, and the individual is what's under assault.
The individual being replaced by groups and victims and elites in Washington making all these important decisions.
Now, Niall Gardner, while the British government has embarked on a large-scale austerity program to completely eliminate the nation's structural deficit by 2015, The Obama regime still remains committed to further stimulus spending in the United States, clinging to the naive and hopeless belief that big government solutions are needed to get government's economy back on its feet.
As the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, Obama's planning to unveil a series of new spending plans in the State of the Union show tomorrow night in response to Republican calls to cut $2.5 trillion in federal spending over the next 10 years.
The Obama presidency has been trying this high-spending approach for the last two years.
It has spectacularly failed to advance America's prosperity.
Over $800 billion of stimulus spending failed to create jobs and has simply added to America's ballooning national debt, which the CBO predicts could rise to 87% of GDP by 2020.
And worse, by the time we get out to 2035, could be 185% of GDP.
From the nonpartisan CBO.
By adopting this reckless stance, Barack Obama is demonstrating once again how out of touch he is with the views of the American people.
A New York Times-CBS News poll published on Friday revealed 56% of Americans think it's necessary to take immediate action to lower the federal deficit.
Just 38% say it's possible to wait for better economic times.
In addition, 55% believe it's necessary to cut back on government programs, as opposed to 39% who are against such cuts by a margin of 62 to 29 percent.
American voters support reducing spending rather than raising taxes.
The Fox News poll on Friday revealed that almost all American voters think the country's economy is in bad shape and few see benefits from the regime's economic policies.
Nine in ten voters giving the economy negative ratings.
In his State of the Union, Obama has a major opportunity to outline pro-growth measures that'll rein in the deficit, create jobs, revitalize the economy.
This can only be achieved by cutting spending, freeing businesses from red tape, lowering taxes, increasing foreign investment, and advancing free trade.
Economic freedom, not more government intervention, is the key to prosperity in America.
It's doubtful, however, that the president will seize this moment.
His chief advisors remain wedded to failed big government solutions that will only result in a weaker, more indebted nation that will increasingly struggle to compete internationally.
By all accounts, his speech on Tuesday could be disastrous not only for America, but also for U.S. leadership in the world.
Again, this is from the U.K. Telegraph, Niall Gardner writing on Friday about the upcoming State of the Union show.
And from the Washington Examiner on Friday.
Voodoo economics.
This piece totes up the jobs from Obama's stimulus.
It appears that the GOP Ways and Means Committee can handle the truth.
Hopefully, Paul Ryan will lay out the facts after Obama lays out the platitudes tomorrow.
But this is a story that the Ways and Means Committee report providing a number of striking reminders about the predictions the White House made in January 2009 while urging the passage of their stimulus bill.
By January 2011, the stimulus bill was supposed to have lowered the unemployment rate 7%.
It's now 9.4%.
The report notes the unemployment rate would be 11.3% if it included all the invisible unemployed.
American workers have simply given up looking for work.
The report also claimed the stimulus would create 3.7 million jobs by now for a total of 137.6 million jobs in the American economy.
Currently, there are 130.7 million jobs.
Since passage of the stimulus, 47 of the 50 states have lost jobs.
Overall, the private sector has seen 1.8 million jobs disappear.
And the Ways and Mean report goes on.
It is a basic summary of all of the platitudes and promises in the stimulus bill versus the reality of what has happened.
Okay, and we're going to roll it nice again here, folks.
We're going back to the phones at 800-282-2882 to Chicago.
And Ray, great to have you on the program, sir.
Hi.
Great pleasure to speak with you, Rush.
Appreciate that.
Back to your statement about food and controlling our food.
I remember some years ago they pulled coconut oil off the market and took one away one of my great pleasures, which was theater popcorn.
Somebody controlling what I eat and what I want.
That was the Center for Science and the Public Interest that did that.
They said that coconut oil is the highest in cholesterol, and you're going to die much sooner otherwise if you eat a couple kernels of popcorn popped in it.
However, let me give you a little hint.
You can still get it.
Well, not at the theaters, if I'm correct.
No, not at the theaters.
And you can't get it at the grocery store.
For some reason, well, now I haven't been to a grocery store in about 10 years, so I don't know what's in there now.
But I looked back when this happened, and you couldn't find coconut oil, raw coconut oil, to cook things in anywhere to grow it.
I'd go up and ask people.
I didn't even know what I was talking about.
But all you have to do is Google popcorn and coconut oil, and you'll find all kinds of places you can buy it.
It's not microwavable.
You actually got to grab out a pot and a pan, and you've got to shake it up there on the stove.
But you know why coconut oil is used or was the reason?
Aside from the unique flavor and taste, which was key, obviously, but almost as close, any concessionaire for like a stadium pops popcorn well in advance of the event.
Coconut oil holds the popcorn.
You can pop it on Monday.
If you keep it sealed in like bags and heat it up, five days later, it tastes like it was just popped.
You can't do that with Wesson Oil.
You can't do it with Crisco.
You can't do anything else.
By the time five days goes, no matter what you do, it's stale, it's gone.
The coconut oil holds it.
So it was an efficiency oil.
It allowed these people to not have to pop popcorn at the moment somebody wanted it or within five minutes to keep it fresh.
And when you're popping popcorn for a stadium or for a multiplex theater, it's got to be there when people want it.
And that's one of the beauties of coconut oil.
It has since been learned that coconut oil is among the healthiest of oils that are out there.
All of this was totally bogus, 100% bogus.
I have coconut oil popcorn at home in my meeting room.
When I have guests over, I love popping the stuff up.
It's amazing.
I'll lay out a sports bar menu for guests.
It's a Super Bowl or final round of the Masters.
And I'll have sliders and jumbo hot dogs from Allen Brothers and stuff.
And I'll have some of that popcorn.
And I can't tell you the number of people who rave about the popcorn because it tastes like the stuff I used to be able to get in theaters.
And I love that.
It's still entirely legal.
It's just they can't use it at theaters, but you can buy it.
Well, thanks for all you do, Russ.
All right.
I don't know if now, I don't know if I really don't know.
Theaters can buy this stuff too and use it if they want to get a machine in pop.
I don't know how that works.
I do know that this outfit got it banned from selling to the public in final form using its popcorn.
That may have been changed.
What they had to go to was canola oil after that.
It just does, it doesn't, there's no comparison in the taste, literally none.
So it's just, it's another one of these examples where a bunch of emaciated-looking waifs, miserable in their own lives, wanted to try to tell everybody else what they could and couldn't eat.
Here's Barbara in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
How are you doing, Rush?
Fine and dandy.
Thank you.
Good.
You sound like you're in a better mood.
I am.
I am.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Okay.
Listen, you have to be your own best advocate for what food you eat.
Forget the government.
Forget Michelle Obama.
You've got to do your own research.
You're absolutely right about coconut oil.
It's one of the best oils for you, and I know where you can get it.
I just was talking to somebody.
Well, I'm glad it's for sale then.
All of my life, I tried to get at retail places just coconut oil by itself, and I couldn't.
And also, probably because it was hydrogenated, you know, and that's that's become bad now.
That's yeah.
Well, you can't, you can't walk into the grocery store and blindly think everything in there is good for you, though.
You've got to read.
You've got to do your own research.
Well, good for you is relative.
I know.
Give me an example of what you're going through the grocery store and you see something's not good for you and you won't buy it.
What is it?
Cheese whiz.
Cheese whiz.
Yeah.
And I'm from Philly.
Why is cheese whiz bad for you?
It's totally processed.
There's so many chemicals in it.
You can't tell me cheese whiz in a can versus the package of cheddar cheese.
How many people have died from it?
Well, I can't give you a number on that one.
I don't think you've ever seen it on a death certificate.
You're right.
You can't.
So this is my point.
Some people would say Oreos.
What's wrong with Oreos?
They got hydrogenated oil in the center.
Come on.
Yeah, I know.
I know.
I know.
Everything in moderation.
You know, let's parent smartly.
Let's be our own best advocate.
Forget the government on this.
Well, you know, Jack Lelaine, I hate to keep bringing him up.
I knew him, folks.
Don't misunderstand me.
Jack Lelaine, I remember I met him years ago.
He was a fine guy.
He was a fan of this program.
But look what happened.
Jack Lelane never ate processed foods.
So he said.
And he died.
Jack LaWaine, it was just recently, passed away at age 96.
He never ate prostate food, but, or processed, but he did eat vegetables.
Watercress, and all that.
And Jack LaWaine, nevertheless, passed away.
Kicking off a brand new week of Broadcast Excellence.
I am Rush Limbaugh.
This is the nation's most listened to radio talk show, and happy to have you along.
Our telephone number is 800-282-2882.
This is E.J. in Boise, Idaho.
I'm glad that you waited.
You're next on the program.
Hello, sir.
I'm a woman.
Hi, Rush.
Oh, I'm sorry about that, E.J.
It's my fault.
Yeah, listen, I wanted to say you're living proof that a Harvard education is so overrated.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, listen, I wanted to say first off that I am praying for Congressman Gifford's recovery.
But, you know, when President Obama announced at the memorial in his campaign voice that Gabby had opened her eyes, I was just wondering if you thought that he would use the State of the Union to announce that Gabby spoke her first word since the shooting and then have the camera pan over to Gabby's husband sitting next to Jared Lofner's parents as part of the civility tour.
You know, I hadn't taken it out that far that her husband would be sitting next to Jared Lofner's parents.
I do know that the medical team from the hospital is going to be in the gallery.
Oh, okay.
I think that would be so momentous that Chris Matthews would have to strong-arm his own thrilling leg.
Yes.
Well, obviously there's going to be something tomorrow or not.
We know the medical team is going to be there.
And I have no problem with the medical team being there.
But on this one, the speculation is wide open.
Who knows how far?
I know that civility is going to be a major part of it.
And I know that the word investment is going to be frequently used.
And I do know that Obama is going to call for bigger government.
He's going to call for more spending.
And I wouldn't be surprised if he talks about how government and all that was responsible for the quick and very high-quality medical care that everybody got out of Tucson.
The thing to remember is that it's that very system that's at stake, depending on how far they actually get implementing Obamacare.
And the reason that it's at stake is how many people are going to want to go into the profession, you know, once government tells you where to live and how much you can pay and how much they're going to reimburse.
And it's a scary, scary thing.
But if you don't want to put up with that, like I tell you, I told people earlier today, at 9 o'clock, same time, there's the Haney Project with me.
And I guarantee you're not going to hear investments.
You're not going to hear any kind of message on civility or anything of the sort.
A much, much better viewing opportunity.
And this is episode three of the Haney Project with me because you know on Wednesday, we're going to, because we have to, it's our job, man.
We're going to be talking about the State of the Union show.
Why shouldn't you put, you know, you're going to be sitting there wringing your hands.
You're going to be getting angry and testy and irritated at a number of things because you know it's all going to be untrue or a lot of it is or misleading.
Why put yourself through that when there is clearly a much more pleasant entertaining option out there?
And it's me right opposite the president, 9 p.m. on the golf channel.
Here's Sean in Dayton, Ohio.
Sean, I'm glad you called.
You're next on the program.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush.
It's an honor.
I'm guilty of most of my years being a non-participant, politically speaking.
And after I woke up not having prior leadings, I consider myself an independent, not married to either party.
Right.
When Obama was elected, I thought, my God, with the across-the-board support this guy has, he could be one of the greatest presidents we've ever had if he tries to do half of what he talked about during his campaign.
Now, unfortunately, you know, the transparency, the no-shady people in the administration, none of this has proven to be true.
And in fact, I can't listen to any of them speak any longer with any credibility whatsoever.
And on the eve of the State of the Union address, I just want to remind people to keep their perspective and remember that these people work for us, not the other way around.
May I ask you a question out there, Sean?
I'm sorry?
May I ask you a question?
Certainly.
When you just moments ago cited the Obama campaign and you said if he would have just accomplished half of what he said, what were some of those things you heard him talk about wanting to do that you like?
Do you remember?
That's not a trick question.
I'm not trying to put you on the spot.
I'm just curious if you remember any of them.
Well, the one that most appealed to me was the transparency factor that it wasn't going to be business as usual.
You know, we were going to discuss things.
Everything was going to be on the table.
And that Obama healthcare, for example, not only do I not have any idea what all's in that bill, I would bet you'd be hard-pressed to find the Democrat who has any idea what's in that thing.
Well, as to that, specifically, you're right.
But summarily, they know exactly what it is, which is why they supported it.
They know that it transfers power to the government to the tune of one-sixth of the U.S. private sector, that it's one of the greatest transfers from the private sector to public sector ever.
They know that it gives them more and more power over the lives of individuals in this country than they've ever had in areas of life that people consider among the most important, their health, life and death.
It's insidious in that way.
Do you take pride in not being an either or?
Do you take pride being independent or undecided?
I try to take each individual and each question on its own merits.
Okay.
Fair enough.
Now, again, I'm doing this for my own education.
I don't want you to misunderstand my tone of voice or the questions.
Okay.
And if you don't want to answer any of these, you just feel free.
But I'm using you as a learning experience for myself.
Fair enough.
Do you see universal differences between Democrats as a party and Republicans as a party?
Absolutely, 100%.
Okay, so when a Democrat candidate for president, whoever it happens to be, starts talking about wanting the government to take over health care, or they don't use those terms.
What does that mean to you and if you hear a Republican say that they don't think that that's the right way to go?
How do you hear those two positions and decide?
Well, I'm a huge believer in individual freedom, and I would submit to the somewhere between 0.01 and 2.5 of my fellow Americans who blindly follow this administration that if you are doing that, you are part of the group that they consider so stupid, they need to be told what's good for them and what they should do.
Are you still an independent?
I am an independent with, well, you know what they say.
If you're 20 years old and you're not a liberal, then you got no heart.
But if you're 40 years old and you're not a conservative, then you got no brains.
Yeah, heard that.
Well, you don't sound like an independent.
You sound more like a conservative to me.
Well, I am now because to me, every administration has done their share of deceiving and networking and outright graft to the point it's always the American people on the short end of the stick.
And it's just high time that we stop being hyphenated Americans, this, that, and the other, and we just come together as Americans.
Were you listening to this program during the campaign?
Yes, I was.
Okay.
Again, now there's no wrong answer.
You have to believe me.
There's no setup.
This is entirely an attempt on my part to be educated about something.
When I listened to the Obama campaign, when I listened to Obama's supporters, when I listened to people speak in favor of him, support of him, when I listened to him, I didn't believe any of it because he's a liberal.
Not one word of it.
And I didn't want any part of what Obama was talking about because he is a liberal.
I happen to know what that means for me and the country when liberals get power.
Not because it's an opinion.
I've seen it.
I've seen it around the world.
I've seen it in this country.
My question to you is: at that time, you're an independent.
You're hoping Obama means it.
I mean, if he is able to accomplish half of what he's talking about, and with this much public support, my gosh, what a great bunch of changes we could have, correct?
So my question is, when you heard me basically trying to persuade everybody this is not what you think it is, what was your reaction?
Did it turn you off?
Was it mildly persuasive?
Did you think I didn't know what I was talking about?
Did you think I was just being partisan for partisan's sake?
What did you think?
Well, I hoped that they would address all of these different areas of concern that you folks were warning us about.
And unfortunately, they really didn't.
Did you vote for Obama?
Well, they snuck up on us.
That's what they did.
Okay, there's no wrong answer here now.
Because again, unlike most times, I am making this about me.
Did you vote for Obama?
And if you did, why did you doubt me?
Seriously, you can't hurt my feelings.
There's no wrong answer here.
And you don't have to tell me what you think I want to hear here.
Just if you voted for Obama, it means you didn't believe me, you doubted me.
What did you doubt?
Actually, when I was in the voting booth, I could not pull the lever for Obama.
Ah.
Hmm.
Now, that in itself is interesting.
But you walked in there prepared to?
Well, I wanted to have an open mind and try to do what I thought was in the best interest of the country.
What does an open mind mean to you?
Meaning you'll decide you're not going to let somebody like me make up your mind for you.
You're going to do it on your own?
Exactly.
I mean, even Jesus told his disciples, question everything, even me.
Right.
Well, don't doubt me.
So I just wanted to remind the American people to keep their perspective when they're watching the State of the Union.
And remember that these people work for us, not the other way around.
Right.
And they've misled us.
They've misled us since the first time they started talking.
Something else I agree with Sean about.
When I made CPAC speech, I made a point to talk about with as much support as he had and with as much talent as he's got, what a great nation he could inspire people in this country to make if he chose to do it.
If Obama had chosen to inspire people to be the best they can be rather than paint them all as victims that want to get even with some aspect of this nation's past, could you imagine if he'd chosen that route?
And he could have effectively ended the Republican Party.
But I knew it wasn't going to happen, but it was an illustration of the opportunity that he could have been the next Reagan if he really wanted to.
Hey, Janet, can you say it in about 35 seconds?
That's about all the time that I have.
Sure, I can.
Go.
Thanks so much for taking my call.
I just wanted to say that you're absolutely right about Jacqueline.
My mother-in-law was almost 95 years old.
She died last Monday.
She never exercised a day in her life.
And she was the original junkie junkie.
Wow.
Talking cookies, cakes, donuts, sweet rolls for breakfast, you know, ice cream, chips, you know, the whole 90s.
According to the experts should have passed away a lot longer ago.
And she lived by herself until she was 93 and a half.
Yeah, my grandfather lived to be 104.
He did.
A lot of it is genetics.
Janet, thanks much.
I got to run this segment short because I had such a brilliant monologue in the previous one, folks.
CBS News reporter Mark Knoller has counted Obama's speeches.
This will be number 901.
If you count speeches, statements, or remarks he's issued since taking office.
State of the Union tomorrow night, number 901.
And he is still said by people he's not getting his message out.
901 speeches, statements, and remarks.
We'll see you tomorrow, folks.
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