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Jan. 26, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:16
January 26, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
This is the award-winning Thrill Pact ever exciting, increasingly popular, growing by leaps and bounds.
Rush Limbaugh program.
And this is the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Already Wednesday.
Only 10 days to the Super Bowl.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address, Elrushbo at EIBNet.com.
Egypt's president, Egypt president's son and family flee to Britain.
This would be Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian dictator.
His son, considered to be his successor, has fled to Britain along with his family.
The plane with Gamal Mubarak, his wife and daughter on board, left for London Tuesday from an airport in western Cairo.
The report came as violent unrest broke out in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, and hundreds of thousands of people reportedly took to the streets in a Tunisia-inspired day of revolt.
That's exactly what's going on here, folks.
This is an extension of the so-called Tunisian Revolution, also known as the Jasmine Revolution.
Now, the demonstrations and riots are reported to have started over high unemployment, rampant food and energy inflation, government corruption, and the suppression of freedom of speech.
But don't worry, it can't happen here.
Any wonder why Obama didn't talk about this last night, State of the Union?
I mean, he was one of our great Muslim buddy nations.
Big problems out there, and there's a major concern over whether or not Mubarak can hang on to power over there.
And what is frightening about this to a lot of people is an Islamist government replacing Mubarak's regime would be bad news for Israel.
Now, all of this is happening under the banner of hope and change and the bow.
And remember what was the, I dare say it was the Cairo speech, was it not?
That President Obama engaged in early on during his regime's early days to extend the hand of peace and so forth.
The reach out over there.
Over 30,000 protesters gathered in Cairo's square, big square, to take part in the day of anger.
Police used tear gas and water cannon to break up the protest.
They arrested 40.
They don't have official figures on the number of arrests all across.
Egypt, the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Washington believed the Egyptian government was stable and urged restraint on both sides.
This is not good news.
I'm going to sit here and take it lightly because we're not there, but this actually is not good news.
Let's take a look at some of the other media response to the State of the Union show last night.
Cheryl Gay Stolberg in the New York Times.
Obama pitches global fight for U.S. jobs in address.
President Obama challenged Americans on Tuesday night to unleash their creative spirit, set aside their partisan differences, and come together around a common goal of out-competing other nations in a rapidly shifting global economy.
In a State of the Union address to a newly divided Congress, Obama outlined what he called a plan to win the future.
By the way, let me translate that for you.
Win the future is all about 2012 and his reelection.
And I'm serious.
Win the future has nothing to do with American competitiveness or American advancement.
Win the future is all about 2012.
And this outline was a blueprint for spending in critical areas like education.
See, this is, you can't believe the stuff he says anymore.
It's just, it's mindless.
Like Jim DeMint said, spending on education.
I don't know if you're like me.
I'm insulted when I hear we aren't spending it up on education.
That's all I hear is we spend money on education.
We are paying taxes out the wazoo for a whole bunch of stuff.
And we're spending property taxes, income taxes.
I don't care what it is.
And every day we're insulted.
We need to increase our investments in education.
No, we don't.
Investments in education are not the problem.
Right here, New York Times.
Story is today.
Few students show proficiency in science tests show.
On the most recent nationwide science test, about a third of fourth graders and a fifth of Hashruel seniors scored at or above the proficiency level.
Just a third.
Only one or two students out of every 100 displayed the level of mastery that the federal panel governing the test defined as advanced.
The science test, known as the National Assessment of Education Progress, were administered in early 2009 to about 308,000 fourth graders and eighth graders and 11,000 12th graders.
They tested students' knowledge and abilities in the physical sciences, life science, and Earth and space science.
Because the Education Department changed the test since it was last administered in 2005.
The latest results cannot be used to determine whether science achievement has risen or declined.
Well, that's clever.
Change the test so we don't know if we're doing any better or not.
How'd they change the test?
They dumb it down like everything else the education department does, or did they make it harder?
A higher proportion of fourth grade students scored at or above the proficient level in New Hampshire.
47%, that's higher than any other state.
In Montana, 41% of eighth graders scored at or above proficiency.
The bipartisan panel.
Bipartisan panel?
What was by bipartisan panel?
The National Assessment of Education for the Bipartisan Panel?
What does that look like?
What the hell do you have a bipartisan panel for in education?
Well, holy moly.
You know what education is?
You know why these test results are going down?
Education equals money for teachers.
Education doesn't equal test scores.
By the same token, infrastructure equals money for public sector unions.
It doesn't mean new roads and bridges.
We already did that.
We did a stimulus bill.
And for what?
Nearly a trillion dollars to fix our crumbling roads and bridges.
And here's two years later in the present state of the union calling for more, but we didn't fix it.
Where'd the money go?
It got spent.
Well, I'll tell you where.
Money for public sector unions.
Education, money for teachers' unions.
That's how you translate this stuff.
Because anybody in their right mind knows we don't need to spend any more money on education.
Or put another way, everybody knows we're not short changing education.
And that's the implication in these speeches.
We need to invest more in our education.
No.
The assumption is we're not investing in our kids, and that's not true.
Well, maybe it is true.
We're investing in the teachers.
Well, we're investing in the teachers' unions, and that's a big difference.
But how do you put together a bipartisan education panel?
A liberal and a conservative, an evolutionist and a creationist, a warmer and a denier, union member, non-union member.
Let me summarize this for you.
We got Cheryl J. J. Cheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times, Obama pitches global fight for U.S. jobs in address.
We need a blueprint for new spending in science and all of this.
And we got a report here that says young skulls full of mush who excel at science are as rare in America as telephone booths.
But it isn't because we're not spending enough money on them.
Now, this is not surprising to those of us who have followed education issues.
But still, the results are depressing.
Here's the obvious question then.
Ladies and gentlemen, we're spending all this money.
We have been spending all this money for years.
We've got the president calling for, and every president, by the way, it's nothing unique to Obama.
Every president has exhorted us and our children to higher math scores and science scores.
There's nothing new there.
So the question is, if kids are not being taught and challenged in the sciences, what are they being taught?
Got to be teaching them something in there.
Well, let's go.
Okay, let's go down a list.
Self-esteem, sex education, gym, conflict resolution, MTV 101, sex education, sex education.
Oh yeah, polar bears, environmental destruction.
We're teaching them a liberal political agenda.
Exactly right.
There are only so many hours in a screwal day, and if they're not learning science, what are they learning?
That's right.
Self-esteem.
Self-esteem.
Eighth-grade students should be able to relate characteristics of air masses to global regions.
High school seniors should be able to evaluate two methods for helping to control an invasive species, the government said.
Well, what is the most invasive species?
The government is.
The government is the most invasive species out there.
Do you think that's being taught?
Okay, I'll put on my teacher hat.
I think some of what we do here is teach.
So let me put on my teacher cap here.
Seniors should be able to evaluate two methods for helping to control an invasive species.
All right?
For you students, I don't care how old you are, the most invasive species that we face today is the government.
The next logical question is, how do you control this?
How do you fight it?
How do you stop this invasive species of government?
It's very simple.
It's called vote conservative.
And we're back.
Great to have you here, Rush Limboy.
And who's next?
Chicago, this is Victor.
It's nice to have you with us on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
How are you doing, Rush?
Good.
Rush, I believe that history will show Obama was good for America.
May I elaborate?
Yeah, but feel free.
It's a free country.
You know, all that has been exposed under this president, he's been about as subtle as a pack of wolves in your kitchen.
It's bad for the media, for the other people in Congress, for all Democrats, for the party in general.
I mean, this guy is a disaster for us.
But what I'm planning to say is that they would have did this in a smaller step increment, and it would have been done in the long run.
This guy came out like a bull in a china shop, and it just went right at it, which is exposed and educated, brought the Tea Party to the forefront.
And I believe in the long run, that's his contribution to this country.
Well, I see your point.
I would not have recommended this as a way to advance the country.
Others did.
There were others who said, look, Rush, we need to elect these worthless liberals and to let them go and have free reign so people will finally see what they're all about.
And my fear was, yeah, but the damage they can do in the time it's going to take for them to expose themselves.
And this guy has set us back two generations.
I agree with you.
I've had a lot of people tell me that he's the best thing that ever happened to conservatism.
But the damage that he's done is real.
The damage the left has done is real.
And in terms of the spending, the indebtedness, all of the problems that attach to that, it's going to take years.
If we're successful even in starting to roll it back, it's going to take years to fix this.
If he would have not been elected, and let's say McCain would have been, let's say 10 years they did this real subtly, they would have dumbed down more kids in society.
I agree with you.
They're easier.
If somebody like McCain had been elected, so we had a Republican going along with half of this, we'd have been dead.
I agree with you.
Yes.
I agree with you.
But I'll tell you, the media can cover for this guy for a long time.
And it's awfully optimistic to think that this is a final death knell for these guys because it isn't.
The media is a very powerful budget.
Look at it this way.
A lot of people still, after 23 years, are struggling.
Why does the media do this?
Why does the media do that?
Think of this as a football game.
And the liberals are one team, the conservatives are another, and the media as the referees.
We've got a rigged bunch of referees.
We do not have referees.
So our side, the conservatives, the refs are against us.
The refs rule against us all the time, rule in favor of the other guys.
And plus the other guys are the team.
So it's always been this way, and it always will be this way.
Well, remember this, Rush.
We are the attendees to the game.
Eventually, we're going to stop showing up.
Yeah, it's in an Atlas-shrugged sense that you mean.
Yes.
But that's what I want to say to you, Rush.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
You bet.
Have a wonderful day in Chicago if you can.
Jay Middlebury, Indiana.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Thanks, Rush.
It's an honor to talk to you.
You bet, sir.
Hey, my question is, you know, the oil prices, you know, a couple years ago when the fuel prices were up, you know, four bucks almost, and the economy, you know, was decreasing, obviously.
I feel that we're at that point again where these oil prices are going up and it's putting construction, which is my experience that I do.
And I feel that they're getting back up there again and living in RV land.
What's going to happen here again if these continue to rise?
That's my question.
If the oil price and gasoline price continues to rise?
Yes, sir.
Take a look at the UK.
This is a story the American media is not covering.
In the UK, they've quieted down for the moment.
But last week and two weeks ago, there were veritable riots over the rising price of gasoline.
Steep, immediate, quick rises in energy costs put the brakes on almost every other aspect of a person's economic activity, spending power and all of that.
Energy is something that you have to.
You have to get to work.
You have to heat your home.
You have to be able to cook food.
There are certain things that energy is required for.
The more expensive it is, the more people have to give up in other areas of life.
And we've learned, I think, that $4 per gallon is the tipping point in this country.
That's when people will start throwing people out of office.
That's when an anger hits.
And it's probably going to be the same still if it ever gets to $4.
And I think this is something on top of the economy as it is.
The president last night telling people we're in the economy, we're in a recovery.
Nobody believes it.
The lunch focus group Hannity had last night on his show after the State of the Union speech.
They talked to a bunch of these people.
That was one of the points they made.
What economy is he talking about?
We still have millions of people without jobs and no prospect for finding jobs.
The guy's out there talking about a booming recovery.
We've got to keep it going.
There's a giant disconnect here.
I think people are tired of hearing from the guy, and it's the same thing over and over and over again.
So, I don't know.
I don't know if riots or what have you, but certainly nothing that would redound positively to anybody in power.
And should it happen here, you watch Obama's just dying, just aiming to blame all this stuff on the new arrivals in town, the Republicans, the Congress.
And he'll point out that's where all the laws start.
That's where all the legislation is.
The Republicans arrived this and that.
And it's going to heat up intensely as the 2012 election unfolds before our very eyes.
I'm glad you called, Jay.
Thanks very much.
Hi, welcome back.
Great to have you here.
It always is, ladies and gentlemen.
I, Rush Limbaugh, your guiding light, period.
Livonia, Michigan.
This is autumn, and welcome.
Nice to have you with us today.
Hi, Rush.
It's great to talk to you.
Thank you.
I had just two quick points to make about the Hollywood story that you were talking about earlier.
You know, who cares about the acting awards?
I mean, everybody wants to direct, right?
So here's the suggestion.
It was Larry King's most often asked question of an actor or actress to be sitting there with those hunched shoulders and the suspenders.
And he'd look at Cameron Diaz after she's just described the intellectual value of what it's like to be married or whatever the hell it was.
And he'd look at her and say, and do you want to direct?
Is the most often asked question.
So you have a great point there.
Okay, well, I have a great solution, too.
How about Hollywood has to use the same criteria that the NFL was forced to use when they were hiring coaches?
And they have to go through a panel of minority directors first before they can, you know, put Michael Bay in charge of running another picture.
She is talking, ladies and gentlemen, referring to the Rooney rule.
The Rooney rule is named after its creator, Dan Rooney, the chairman emeritus of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the current ambassador to Ireland.
And the Rooney rule is that you must interview minorities for coaching openings.
Those ideas to hire, but you have to seriously interview.
Yes, right.
And some teams do, and some teams have skirted it and been fined.
So what you're suggesting is that Hollywood directors, producers, executive producers must seriously screen test black actors and actresses before fully casting the film.
Well, to direct their pictures.
Sure, absolutely.
I mean, what that's only fair, right?
If it's fair for football, why, you know, another thing that Hollywood's exempt on, too, is if what the author of that story that you were talking about earlier is correct, why is it that Hollywood is allowed to be mandated by the dictates of the free market, but not any other industry in the country?
That's an interesting question.
Remember now, it was an African-American contributor on that blog who said, look, we've got to understand here, Hollywood has to make movies they think people are going to pay to see that year.
What he's saying is if the directors think that the time is not right for a black actor in that role, then it's okay, we've got to go with it.
And that's a great question.
Well, if Hollywood's allowed to go free market, why not everybody else?
Why can't Big Oil?
Why can't they?
Why do they have a car or the auto industry?
Like, why can't they make cars that people want to drive that will fit my family?
Why are they being decided to make electric cars and vehicles that nobody talked about?
How many electric cars did Obama promise to have on the roads last night?
100 million or something?
No, 100 million, but he promised a certain number, and nobody cared.
You're exactly right.
Autumn, what do you do?
Actually, I'm a homeschooling mom, and you probably hear some of my kids in the background here.
Well, I do, but they sound happy, and you are obviously a great educator.
Well, Rush, I have to tell you that as the kids get older and we start, you know, introducing, you know, great thinkers and philosophers, we will be incorporating the great El Roche Beau into our curriculum because, you know, in the modern era of thinking, you are a national treasure and will definitely be part of our curriculum in the upcoming future.
That's for sure.
Thank you very much.
I've learned a lot from you.
I appreciate that.
At what age do you plan on introducing the young skulls full of mushrooms?
Well, we already do at certain levels, you know, at a certain level that they can understand.
Well, I was going to suggest that it's never too early.
No, absolutely.
That's exactly right.
And so, you know, we try to squeeze a little bit that they can understand here and there.
But, yeah, we'll be going more into it in the little bit upper grade school.
Well, best to you, Autumn, and congratulations on your efforts.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, Rush.
Keep doing what you do because you're great at it, and we love you, and we need you.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
That's Autumn from Livonia, Michigan.
Next up is Edward in Shelby Township, Michigan.
Where are you, sir?
Oh, hi, Rush.
We're about 30 miles outside of New Fallujah.
I can't, you know, I'll never forget the trouble I got into with our affiliate in Detroit there, WJR, when I referred to it as New Fallujah.
The then president of the radio station, Mike Fezzi, called me and said, you gotta, I know what you meant here.
You gotta, you gotta.
I said, you can't be serious.
People took it seriously.
He said, well, I don't want to run the risk.
I heard your caller say that yesterday, and I hadn't heard it for a while.
I go, oh, yeah.
Well, we just changed it to Fallujah and threw away the new.
Yeah.
Honor to speak to you again.
I've been listening going on 20 years now, so it's been quite a while.
I appreciate it.
I'm stunned when I hear people have done that, and I really thank you.
Yeah.
We enjoy it, and we appreciate you very, very much.
What I was calling about was, of course, the president's speech and how I thought basically what you said, this was a kickoff for reelection.
I thought it was a speech for really useful idiots like the drive-bys, the unions, the left, the Hollywood group, and, of course, the independents, the people who can't make a decision for themselves.
Well, wait, they did make a decision for themselves, and it was to abandon the Democrats last November.
Yes, they did.
And this was one of the few times I can remember that happening ever since Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan when they went big for Reagan.
I don't know why we should listen to anything that he spoke about in his speech because he's lied to us in the past on just about everything he said.
He's done everything behind closed doors.
And then the one thing that really stuck in my craw was when he said this, and you know what he meant.
He says, we're either going to move forward together or not at all.
And pretty much saying that, you know, if I don't get what we want, we're not going anywhere.
Well, but even if he didn't mean it, even if he met it genuinely, we move together or we don't move at all.
Screw that.
I don't know about you, but I'm not waiting for everybody else to follow me as I climb the ladder.
No.
I mean, that's ridiculous.
Any thinking person who wants to get ahead in life or doesn't want to get ahead, either way, but to say something like that, I think, is kind of an insult to the American people who have been so innovative over the years.
I know.
That's exactly right.
One of my problems with the thing, and there were many, was it's hard to take any of it seriously because, you know, he doesn't believe half of it.
They put it on the prompter.
They don't believe half of it.
And that's why I think it came off flat.
You know, faking passion.
I put yourself in a position of having to give a speech where the most important thing, the thing that you believe in the most, and you want to persuade people to agree with you, is liberalism.
Ask yourself if you could do it.
If you are good enough to fake it and get away with that.
I don't think too many people are, and I don't think he had it in him last night to do it.
It was all part of strategy.
Let's make everybody think I'm moving to the center.
The media's got everybody thinking that.
People want to think that.
So let's go ahead and just say the words, and then we'll head out to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and say, that's where Sputnik fell.
I happen to come here.
Sputnik's a big deal, and we'll just keep moving to more 2012 reelection.
Thanks for the call.
I appreciate it, Edward, very much.
Audio Soundbites, Bob Schieffer, State of the Union last night, special coverage.
Katie Couric talked to him about Michelle Bachman delivering a Tea Party response.
Katie Couric said, how serious do you see this chasm developing?
The GOP leadership allowing Bachman to speak out there after Paul Ryan.
What's going on, Bob?
You have all the answers.
What do you say about that?
The fact that the Republican leadership is letting Michelle Bachman make a second response here just underlines that.
I mean, my heavens, can you imagine what Sam Rayburn, when he was Speaker of the House, would have done if one of his members had said, oh, by the way, I'm going to make a response too.
Or Blendon Johnson, when he was the leader of the Senate, they are letting her make this speech because they're afraid to tell her not to, because they know how powerful these Tea Party people were in the power they had in the last election.
What happened to diversity making us strong?
Whatever happened to that, Bob?
I thought diversity was a pillar, one of the foundational building blocks of our great culture.
Except when the Republicans exhibit some.
Have some of Michelle Bachman and her response.
Let's listen to a couple or three of them.
Let me show you a chart.
Here are unemployment rates over the past 10 years.
In October of 2001, our national unemployment rate was at 5.3%.
In 2008, it was at 6.6%.
But just eight months after President Obama promised lower unemployment, that rate spiked to a staggering 10.1%.
Today, unemployment is at 9.4% with about 400,000 new claims every week.
Media made fun of her for using charts.
They loved Perot when he did it.
And they also chided her for not looking into the camera.
She didn't look straight in the camera.
People wondered what she was looking at.
Here's the next bite.
And this is Obamacare and light bulbs.
What did we buy?
Instead of a leaner, smarter government, we bought a bureaucracy that now tells us which light bulbs to buy and which may put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama's health care bill.
In the end, unless we fully repeal Obamacare, a nation that currently enjoys the world's finest health care might be forced to rely on government-run coverage.
That could have a devastating impact on our national debt for even generations to come.
And finally, this.
I thought Paul Ryan did a wonderful job, and this wasn't at all competition with what the GOP official response was.
The Tea Party Express asked me if I would speak to their constituency right after the State of the Union, and we would do that via internet.
It was actually the media over the weekend that decided to make this a competition.
I spoke with the leadership, I've spoken with Paul Ryan.
They all know that this had nothing to do with the competition.
And we all go to the microphones after the State of the Union and speak to people across the country.
The Republican Party and the Tea Party are actually fairly sympathetic.
And CNN covered it.
Nobody saw it, but they covered it.
By the way, I don't mind somebody, Michelle Bachman, a little clumsy in the use of a teleprompter.
No, no, it's a little real.
I don't mind it at all.
Somebody that probably didn't need one, and that may be one of the reasons that she wasn't looking at the camera.
And one of the more hilarious headlines of the day is from salon.com.
Why does the GOP hide its agenda?
It's an article about Bachman and Paul Ryan's responses.
Hiding the agenda?
They laid it out.
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Representative Dennis Kucinich has filed a lawsuit over a sandwich he bought at a congressional cafeteria.
Basically, folks, he bit into an olive pit in a sandwich wrap in April 2008.
He said it led to serious permanent devil and oral injuries.
He's seeking $150,000 in damages.
The Terrytown mob just throw their olive pits in the water up there, but he didn't have the presence of his suing over an olive pit.
And, my friends, these Democrat women, I don't want to get in their way.
Behind closed doors, California Representative Democrat Loretta Sanchez has proposed removing Gabrielle Giffords from the House Armed Services Committee until she recovers.
The proposal sparked an outrage, according to those in the room, including from those in Sanchez's own party.
It's not appropriate, said Democrat Representative Sylvestre Reyes.
Reyes and Representative Adam Smith of Washington put up most of the fight against Sanchez and helped squash the idea.
From a woman who memorialized her cat, you think she'd show a little bit more compassion for a woman shot in the face, said one Republican aide, referring to Sanchez's 2010 Christmas card that paid tribute to her late cat Gretzky.
Man, oh man, oh man, Loretta Sanchez wants to kick Gabrielle Giffords off of her committee.
Party of compassion.
Don't get in her way.
Okay, folks, a programming note and reminder.
We're going to be in Los Angeles tomorrow, and that means there's no DittoCam.
Our remote satellite studio out there is not yet so equipped.
Our Ditto Cam here is permanently installed.
It doesn't travel.
So no Ditto Cam tomorrow.
Coco, you better put up a big reminder on the website.
And then Mark Stein will be here on Friday.
There's a couple super secret things taking place in Los Angeles.
So see you tomorrow from LA and look forward to it.
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