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Feb. 14, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:52
February 14, 2011, Monday, Hour #3
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Look at look at what they're doing up in MSNBC right now.
You see what they're doing?
They're ripping Obama for his heating assistance budget cuts.
And we can be cut by 50%.
And they got, oh, look at the pictures of furnaces being idled.
Freezing people pictures are coming next.
Heating assistance program cut back to 2008 levels of some expert looking dower and dire.
You know, folks, it's all a sham.
It's all a shame.
They're not going to cut any heating assistance to the poor in the final analysis when this thing all gets done.
Great to have you back, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB.
And Obama knows this.
Here are these useful idiots at MSNBC getting right in the of all the things they could be talking about the budget.
It's cutting home heating assistance to the poor.
How could they?
Not how could he?
How could they?
Yeah, Mark Wolf, the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, also a guy runs a welfare agency, is the expert up there on this.
The national welfare assistance heating, whatever, agency.
What do you want to be when you're up, little Johnny?
I tell you why I want you, Dad.
I want to run a heating agency that distributes resources for the poor who do not have agile quick furnaces in heat in the wintertime.
Way to go, little Johnny.
Where are you gonna go to school for that?
Wouldn't you figure that's what you wanted to do, little Johnny?
I knew when I was six years old, Mr. Crispy, that's what I wanted to do.
Wonderful.
Laurie Montgomery in the Washington Post writing about the budget.
Obama's spending plan criticized for avoiding deficit commission's major proposals.
President Obama drew fire Sunday.
Now let's see, you get this now?
What's he in trouble for?
Not the spending.
Not the deficit, not any of the deeds.
No, he ignored his own blue ribbon panel.
President Obama drew fire Sunday from congressional Republicans and independent budget experts for his reluctance to advance a plan that would tackle a nation's biggest budget problems in the spending blueprint that he has presented today.
In the first statement of his budget priorities.
Since the Republicans regain control of House, Obama avoids politically dangerous recommendations to wipe out cherished tax breaks and to restrain safety net programs for the elderly put forward last year by his own bipartisan fiscal commission as a strategy for reigning in a soaring national debt.
Alan Simpson babe, question for you.
Do you feel used?
Irksome bowls, question for you.
Do you feel used?
Irksome.
I have it on good authority.
Irksum really thought this meant something.
I mean, Irksome Bowles took it very seriously.
He thought that he had been asked to do something vital to serve his country.
And if you look at what Irksham has said from the first leaks of what the commission was going to propose until it actually was released, you can tell Irkson Bowles took this very patriotically seriously.
And the guy who asked him to be the co-chair has just thrown it on the pile where the home heating assistance for the poor is.
Or where it's all gonna end up.
So bottom line.
Typical.
Obama, with great fanfare, proposes this blue-ribbon commission to come up with ideas to seriously cut spending and the deficit.
And the purpose of the blue ribbon commission is to get unelected people to go on the line.
We get unelected people to stick their necks out, to get unelected people who can't pay any consequences to tell us all what we're gonna have to do without.
And they take it seriously.
And they roll up their sleeves.
And they get in there and they have their expense accounts and they're staying at nice Washington hotels and they're working very, very, very hard.
And then it's For nothing.
Not one thing.
Not one thing they suggested.
Makes it into Obama's budget.
They study.
They explore the issue.
Reports.
Reports and reports and reports.
Recommendation after recommendation.
And they submit it.
And the only sound you hear is of the crickets outside the Oval Office.
Chirping away.
So Irks and Bowl's Democrat chairman, fiscal commission said the White House budget request goes nowhere near where they'll have to go to resolve our fiscal nightmare.
Alan Simpson babe cannot possibly be happy.
And during this whole process, who was it that Alan Simpson babe was ripping me, Rush Babe?
Rush Babe for not taking this kind of stuff seriously.
Do they feel dissed?
I want I wonder are they thinking something as basic as you know this man does not have any manners?
When he asks us to do this, how many months did these people spend working on this?
Not one suggestion.
Not not not one, I mean, not even for show.
Not not even just not even a little bone tossed these people's way.
Anyway, what else we have here?
Uh oh.
Americans are tax reform.
I meant to mention this uh in the last hour.
ATR has looked at Obama's budget and they found 15 tax increases.
They say hidden.
They can't be hidden if they found them.
But they had to look really hard.
The drive-by's are not reporting it.
Here are the 15 tax increases, raising the top marginal income tax rate to 39.6%.
Now that really not a surprise.
Um regime wanted to do that last fall, but they fell short.
And the and the regime said, we're gonna do this.
In the next two years, we're gonna raise the rate.
So that's a given.
Uh capital gains and dividends rate up from 15% to 20%.
Raise the death tax from 35 to 45%, lower the death tax exemption amount from five million dollars, 10 million for couples, to three and a half million.
Cap the value of itemized deductions at the 28% bracket rate.
That'll effectively cut tax deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, property taxes, state and local income or sales tax.
Now, this is not new either.
Obama said he was going to do all this stuff.
This was in the one of the first budgets or one of the first budget statements shortly after the immaculation.
We've all known this charitable thing was coming, and and we've all suspected that the mortgage interest deduction was uh not long for the world if these guys get their way.
We've all known this.
Let's see.
Uh new bank taxes, bank taxes totaling $33 billion over 10 years.
I don't know what that is.
New international corporate tax increase, totaling $129 billion over 10 years, new life insurance company taxes, uh, totaling $14 billion over 10 years, massive new taxes on energy, uh, including the LIFO repeal, a superfund, domestic energy manufacturing, and many others, increasing unemployment payroll taxes by $15 billion over 10 years, and on and on and on.
So total of 15 tax increases in the uh Obama budget that was submitted.
You want to do it now?
Okay, let me find them.
I didn't get them handed on it.
Yeah, grab 13 through 17, Mike.
If you were not here in the first hour, even if you were, these are worth hearing again.
I love these.
CNN has a reporter stationed right out there in the crowd in Cairo, right amidst all the protesters, on Friday, after Obama has made his speech, which is after this program ends.
Nick Robertson first finds a protester by the name of Ahmed.
Now, as you will hear, Nick Robertson of CNN, in the midst of this Military coup.
These people are uh at this point in time deliriously happy.
Mubarik's gone.
I mean, really gone.
Uh they're thinking that they have been heard.
They're thinking that they're going to get what they want, whatever it is.
In the case of Ahmed and his compatriot you'll hear from soon, Mustafa, they really think freedom is coming.
Economic and otherwise.
They're all excited about it.
Here comes this American reporter with a British accent asking them what they think of Obama.
I mean, just that is hilarious to me.
So these are kind of tough to hear because there's crowd noise and a number of other things, but listen carefully, Nick Robertson in Cairo, CNN's newsroom live after Mubarak steps down last Friday.
Ahmed, you've been here down on the square for many days.
United States and international community have just listened to President Obama say that America will support Egypt if it wants help and assistance and hopes that there'll be a good transition for jobs for the young people.
What would your message be for President Obama?
We don't know actually who he supported.
Yeah, uh his own verb is and the people seeks for our freedom and democracy.
Any uh promo country for the people not for a this is Ahmed taking a tennis ball and stuffing it down Nick Roberts' throat.
What would your message be for Obama?
Now these guys have just been as far as they think, they've just been granted their freedom.
I mean, this is Christmas morning.
It's like asking George Washington, hey, what do you think of what the King of Spain thinks about your revolution?
Hey, Ahmed, what is your message for Obama?
And Ahmed says, We don't know who he supports.
He serves his own purposes.
We don't care about Obama, but Nick Robertson is undeterred.
He heads on down the path and finds another peasant to try to praise the pharaoh, and he doesn't find what he wants again.
This time he runs into Mustafa.
Mustafa's joining me now.
We just had President Obama saying that he wants to extend a super assistance to Egypt and Egyptians and once any hopes that there are more jobs for the young people in the future.
What's your message for President Obama?
Well, my message for President Obama is just we started this revolution without any outside help, and we are going to finish it also without any outside help.
Okay, so Mustafa says, who?
Basically, he says, Who?
What is your message for President Obama?
Who wants jobs for the young people?
Who?
We started this without him, we're gonna finish this without what do you mean Obama?
Nick Robertson undeterred continues to probe Mustafa for the answer that he, CNN, and Obama want.
Are you pleased that President Obama has come out, however, now and said he supports this change and supports the people and supports the young people and what they've done?
Well, actually, Britain Obama's views were kind of conflicting during the last week.
But now you say that he's supporting the change.
Well, actually, Obama's views were kind of conflicting during the last week.
So they're not buying the whole premise.
Nick Robertson's premises just jammed right down his throat.
Yet you heard, you've just heard Ahmed and Mustafa both told Nick Robertson, go pound sand, buddy.
Here's how Nick Robertson told CNN viewers exactly what they had just seen.
The view from here is one of very happy to now to hear that President Obama has swung behind the people.
This is incredible.
They told him who?
We don't care, he didn't care about us, it doesn't matter.
And yet the report ends with the view from here is one of the very happy to now hear that President Obama has swung behind the people.
It's all about Obama as far as the American media is concerned.
I just I think it's instructive, interesting, hilarious, all in one cable.
Okay, back to the phones.
People patiently waiting for a long time.
This is Dan in uh in Lou.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Your comments regarding CPEC and the pandering of the right to win over people to the left.
I think your analysis is brilliant.
I think you could go one step farther and say that not only will it not win people over, but it will create apathy.
Because those who could potentially be swayed.
Instead of seeing something different to to come over to the right, will simply say, Well, there's no difference.
There's no reason for me to be involved.
Wait a minute.
What do you mean uh when you say the pandering of the right to win over people to the left?
What did you hear specifically that that was that?
Well, uh as you're as you're analyzing the the CPAC speeches and saying that the get rid of the social issues and the uh things like that.
Right.
We're we are not identifying ourselves as something different, something uh conservative.
Instead, we well, and I I I shouldn't say we, I should say the members of CPAC and the members of the Republican Party are are or the Republican elite are trying to cast themselves as something more moderate, more acceptable, and more appeasing.
Uh I would substitute appealing and appeasing.
I think the um the establishment, the ruling class, whatever you want to call them, made up of Republicans and Democrats.
And so they unite together against any perceived threat from the quote unquote outside.
Well, the Tea Party would thus constitute a threat.
The Tea Party are not professional political people.
They're just average citizens, and as such, they are rubs.
And they are to be humored, and they are to be serviced.
But they also can be an embarrassment.
And so the message has to be subtly sent that, yeah, we've we've got yeah, we've but we understand we've got a some of the things they care about the social issues.
That's that's not us.
We've got a we have to move beyond that and uh so forth and uh and and so on.
Let me read to you something Reagan said, and I like citing Reagan because it just irritates these people.
It just irritates the heck out of them.
Reagan's first CPAC speech in 1975.
I don't know about you, but I am impatient with those Republicans who, after the last election, rushed into print saying we must broaden the base of our party.
When what they meant was to fuzz up and blur even more the differences between ourselves and our opponents.
It was a feeling that there was not a sufficient difference now between the parties that kept a majority of voters away from the polls.
When have we ever advocated a closed door policy who's ever been barred from participating?
That's what Reagan said.
That's 1975.
That's 35 years ago.
And he could he, you can say the same thing today after the speech CPAC that we just had.
Impatient with those Republicans who, after the last election, rushed into print saying we have to broaden the base.
We have to broaden the base of our party.
That's what some of these people were saying when they said we have to go beyond X and we have to go beyond Y, we have to go beyond Z. And what you know, Reagan said then is applicable today.
They are really trying to fuzz up and blur the differences between ourselves and our opponents, because if I dare say so, those differences embarrass our ruling class people.
But this is nothing new, folks.
I mean, I, El Rushbo have been warning you about this.
I can when did it start?
Last year, the year before, even before that.
But I've warned everybody, don't don't don't think for a moment here that there's not a battle going on within the Republican Party, too, for who's going to run it.
It's not just, you know, is the Democrat Party falling apart because of whatever, there's also a battle going on in the Republican Party as to who's going to define it.
Why do you think the Tea Party sprung up?
That's a totally spontaneous thing.
Sprung up because the traditional home of those people did not seem all that inviting, i.e., the Republican Party, so they sprung up.
Well can't do anything about it.
You have to humor it a bunch, you have to do what we can, but the only reason I made my comments that this this is um normally what I'm Saying to you is what we would have heard from CPAC in traditional years.
We just didn't we didn't hear that.
Other than from a couple of great keynoters.
Nicholas D. Christoph.
Nicholas D. Christoph in the uh wait, wait a second here.
By the way, I I think, yes, I'm being reminded that in my CPAC speech, uh I I issued the same warning that Reagan did.
You know, I remember when I gave my CPAC speech, that was in the middle of total conservative slash Republican Party depression, desperation, all's lost, all's over, all's gone, we got nothing.
I have to drag out the text of mine anyway, but it's it's a constant uh constant fact that there are factions in the Republican Party that do not like conservatives.
They're either rhinos or they're liberals or libertarian Republicans or what have you.
Fact of life.
You just the evolution of CPAC is that those people had to have their own meeting in the past to speak.
It didn't show up at CPAC and say it.
CPAC was where the contraindication was to all that, which is essentially my point in analyzing this year's C. Yeah, we had lots of great conservative speakers at CPAC, don't misunderstand, but we also had some people saying some pretty what's the word questionable conservative things.
It'll all get ironed out.
Just sharing with you my analysis of it up to the point.
Nicholas D. Christoph, the New York Times a couple days ago, what Egypt can teach America.
What's your reaction to that headline?
What Egypt can teach America?
Well, the point here is that how can the New York Times even write that when the whole thrust of Egypt is for Egypt to learn from Obama?
What am I missing here?
They're trying to construct this whole thing that this Obama was behind this.
Obama took control of mob Obama told the mob they're gonna get what they Obama told a mob to stick in there.
Obama told Mubarak to go.
So much so they're out there in the in the press asking the crowd, what do you think of Obama?
It was almost Obama's revolution.
And yet here in the New York Times, what Egypt can teach America.
Okay, um.
Or maybe.
Well, maybe that wasn't the headline.
I'm not sure.
At any rate, I'm confused by the note here.
Uh here's here's the thrust of his piece, though.
It's a new day in the Arab world, and let's hope in American relations to the Arab world.
The truth is the United States has been behind the curve, not only in Tunisia and Egypt for the last few weeks, but in the entire Middle East for decades.
We supported corrupt autocrats as long as they kept oil flowing and weren't too aggressive toward Israel.
Even last month, we sometimes seemed as out of touch with the region's youth as a bin Ali or a Mubarak, recognizing that crafting foreign policy is a thousand times harder than it looks.
Let me suggest four lessons to draw from our mistakes.
Number one, stop treating Islamic fundamentalism as a bogeyman and allowing it to drive American foreign policy.
American paranoia about Islamism has done as much damage as Muslim fundamentalism itself.
Mr. Christoph, could you point to me where American paranoia has caused 3,000 people to die in two buildings, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania?
Paranoia.
I don't know.
I listened to these people.
I listen to the leaders.
What Egypt can teach America is the headline.
I have it right.
Okay, I listen to these people and...
They make it clear that.
I mean, we're infidels to them, and what did what do they suggest they're going to do to it?
Where is the paranoia here?
Did anybody say that Hitler was paranoid?
Well, besides Neville Chamberlain.
Did anybody say that Churchill was paranoid?
They probably did.
Hell, I don't know.
But I mean, this is ridiculous.
Yeah, I you know what?
I've I frankly think.
Folks, that many of us are not serious enough about this threat.
We tie ourselves in knots when we act as if democracy is good for the United States and Israel, but not for the Arab world.
For too long, we've treated the Arab world as just an oil field.
Well, I know it's insulting.
That's the whole point.
Well, it starts with a headline, it's insulting.
What Egypt can teach America.
For too long we've treated the Arab world as just an oil field.
Well, he means the United States when he says we.
Too many Americans bought into a lazy stereotype in Arab countries were inhospitable for democracy, or that oh, you know, all I remember is that when George Bush talked about democratizing the region, guys like Christoph made fun of him.
When George Bush talked about democratizing uh Afghanistan and Iraq on the whole left came out with cat calls.
Talked about how silly it was.
When we talked about democratizing Russia, many on the left said those people don't want freedom.
They don't know what it's like.
They have no way to make freedom work.
They've never been free.
Yeah, they did say Churchill was paranoid until Hitler invaded Poland.
In hospital for democracy.
I mean, we had a whole second term of George Bush that was oriented toward bringing democracy to the Middle East.
And in fact, if these people were consistent, you'd might, you'd have to give, if this is the democratic uprising in Egypt, you'd almost have to give Bush credit for it.
Domino effect.
Okay, create it in uh Iraq.
Egyptians saw in Tunisia, Iraq what they wanted for themselves.
More convoluted.
Tunisians and Egyptians have shattered that stereotype.
The biggest loser will be Al-Qaeda.
I mean, they've sh they've shattered the uh the stereotype that they're not capable of democracy.
Again, I I only remember the vaunted American left in our news media making fun of the whole concept of democracy in the Middle East and freedom.
Number two, we need better intelligence, the kind that's derived not from intercepting a president's phone calls to his mistress, but from hanging out with the powerless.
What in the world?
Still defending Clinton?
We need better intelligence, the kind that is derived not from intercepting a president's phone calls to his mistress, but from hanging out with the powerless.
I mean, like we need CIA spies on the ground, I thought.
What?
What?
Um just we just had Leon Panetta say he knew that Egyptian leader Mubarak was going to leave because he saw it on CNN.
What better intel could you get?
Well.
We need better intelligence, the kind is derived not from intercepting a president's phone calls to his mistress.
What what what am I missing?
What is that?
Is that Clinton and Wolwinsky?
What is that?
Or Mubarik?
What was it?
Is it uh Qaddafi?
Mabarik talking to his mistress?
That's what.
Number three, new technologies have lubricated the mechanism of revolt.
Facebook and Twitter make it easier for dissidents to network.
Mobile phones mean that government brutality is more likely to end up on YouTube, raising the costs of repression.
What is this entitled?
The things we have to learn?
Yeah, well, Egypt continue.
Oh, you mean like the Tea Party?
Oh, I get it.
Mr. Christoph is suggesting that uh we need to learn from things that the Tea Party did.
They use Facebook and Twitter, they network, they use their social networking sites to uh to create their supporters and get messages out about when rallies were to be held and what time town meetings were going to happen.
But instead, Christoph tells us we gotta learn from Egyptians how to do that.
Not the Tea Party.
Number four, Christoph says, let's live our values.
We pursued a Middle East real politic that failed us.
Condi Rice had it right when she said in Egypt 2005 for 60 years, my country, the U.S. pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region.
Here in the Middle East, we achieved new.
Wait a second.
Fine, Mr. Christoph, but you just you just got through complaining here about people who think that the Middle East could be democratized.
Or not in the peace, but during Iraq.
What is this democracy?
And everybody was mocking it.
Now all of a sudden Condi Rice was mocked when she said this, and all of a sudden she's a wizard.
After a long wishy washy stage, President Obama got it pitch perfect on Friday when he spoke after the fall of Mubarak.
He forthrightly backed people power while making clear the future is for Egyptians to decide.
Let's hope that reflects on a new start, not only for the Egyptian people, but also for American policy toward the Arab world.
I guess, okay, I guess the sum total is it's our fault.
Whatever happens, our fault.
We need to learn from it.
Need to learn what we were doing wrong and what the um Egyptians are doing right.
Nicholas Christoph famously attacked and made fun of Bush's moral clarity about invading Iraq.
He claimed, Christoph, he claimed that constantly the U.S. missed a grand bargain with Iran.
Well.
When we could have made a deal with them about their nuclear program.
And we could have created calm of the reason.
We didn't have the foresight to do that.
Now I know why these guys love Obama.
He runs around apologizing for us all over the world, and these guys at the New York Times and other places in the media like it.
Because we're the ones making all the mistakes.
We're the ones that have things to learn from all these authoritarian dictatorships.
Right.
Brief time out, my friends El Rushbow with much more after this.
And we are back, ladies and gentlemen.
Wonderful to have you with us, Jim in Syracuse, New York.
Hello, sir.
How are you?
Hey, Rush, man.
Mega no bandwagon dittoes to you, brother.
I'm telling you, man.
I just got a quick question.
When Obama was talking on the airways here, and they had all in Egypt, they had all the uh, you know, Twitter down and everything was down.
Who the heck was he talking to?
Uh last Friday when he was doing his speech.
Is that when they they they closed down all communications in Egypt?
Yeah.
No Twitter, no Facebook, no my butt, no uh no television.
All that good stuff.
Yeah, who was he talking to?
I don't get it.
Huh.
Well, now that's a good question.
I I I did not know that uh during the pharaoh's remarks that they had closed down all media in Egypt.
Well, it was down the way I understood it by the media, and uh who are they gonna talk to me?
Now I know that they're all been kicked out.
I don't know.
Wait a minute, I know that they over in a couple or three times shut down all internet service during the course of this thing.
I do not know that they did so after Mubarak announced he was leaving or whatever on Friday.
Not disputing it, I just Twitter was online and so forth.
How did they uh anyway, your question to answer a question?
It doesn't matter whether they heard it or not.
Remember now, Nick Robertson and the boys at CNN and whoever else is over there.
It doesn't matter the Egyptians heard it.
The point is this was Obama's revolution.
All that was for our consumption, not theirs.
The coverage of the Egyptian revolution, whatever it was, was for our consumption.
It was an attempt by state-controlled media to shape events for Obama in the minds of the American people.
Pure and simple.
Which again, I explained last week, and somebody said, Why do you spend so much time on this?
Because it was an object lesson in media, not an object lesson in freedom, uprisings, Revolutions or democracy.
I mean, really.
Folks, think of this now.
These people are in the throes of euphoria, and some CNN reporter asks them what they think of Obama.
This guy's lucky that he wasn't tomatoed to death.
Or pomegranate or dated, whatever they'd throw over there.
Lucky he got his report out.
Hey, Old Bridge, New Jersey guy faces ten years in prison.
Now listen to this.
He pled guilty to taking part in a scheme that netted three million dollars in fraudulent tax refunds.
Johnson Cokers' name, sentenced May 26th by a federal judge, he pleaded guilty to a counter conspiracy to defraud the IRS.
Well, what this guy was doing was stealing people's tax refunds.
He was getting their tax refunds by stealing their identity.
Three million dollars worth.
What if one of those people had been you and you didn't have life lock?
You'd be in heap big trouble.
Don't take the chance.
Life lock's at 800-440-4833.
The membership there is ridiculously inexpensive, and you'll save 10% even more if you mention my name when you call.
Lifelock 800-440-4833.
Promo code Rush saves you 10%.
Salem, Oregon, this is Tim.
Thank you for waving, sir.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Diddles Rush.
Thank you.
If nothing changes as a result of the recent elections, and the Tea Party doesn't get what they want.
Rush, what happens next?
Then more Republicans get defeated in 2012.
And Obama, of course, loses, but but but more Republicans get defeated in 2012 as well.
This is something that you know, if if I here let me let me put it to you in terms you can understand.
All right.
Final comment of the day during the substantive programming content portion of the program.
After the election in November, repeal Obamacare defunded all doesn't happen.
Number of other things that voters who sent all these freshmen to Washington to stop, arrest, cease and desist.
If it doesn't happen, we go Egypt on Obama.
If if I tell you, folks, if it all bombs out, if uh all these promises.
Now look, if the attempt is not even made to defund Obamacare repeated or whatever, then we go Egypt on Obama the next election.
That's what happened next.
And by the way, Obama can't complain if we go Egypt on him because he said that's how democracy works.
That's what he said on Friday.
This is the way real democracy works, so he can't complain if it happens to him, and it will.
Email question Where's tomorrow's Haney episode?
It's in Hilton Head.
North Carolina's tomorrow's Haney Project episode.
I must be honest, my least favorite.
It's not a bad episode, but it's my least favorite of all of them.
Just saying.
Quick timeout.
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