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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, but it could 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.
There's some expert looking dour and dire.
You know, folks, it's all a sham.
It's all a sham.
They're not going to cut any heating assistance to the poor at the final analysis when this thing all gets done.
Great to have you back.
Rush Lynn Baugh, the EIB.
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 who 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 grow up, little Johnny?
I tell you what I want to do, Dad.
I want to run a heating agency that distributes resources for the poor who do not have adequate furnaces and heat in the wintertime.
Where are you going, little Johnny?
Where are you going to 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 commissions 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 the 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 the House, Obama avoids politically dangerous recommendations to wipe out cherished tax breaks and to restrain safety debt programs for the elderly put forward last year by his own bipartisan fiscal commission as a strategier for reining in a soaring national debt.
Alan Simpson, babe, question for you.
Do you feel used?
Irksom Bowles, question for you.
Do you feel used?
Irksom.
I have it on good authority.
Irksom really thought this meant something.
I mean, Irksom 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 Irksom has said from the first weeks of what the commission was going to propose until it actually was released, you can tell Irksom Bowles took this very patriotically seriously.
And the guy who asked him to be the co-chair has just, he's thrown it on the pile where the home heating assistance for the poor is.
Or where it's all going to 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.
They 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 going to 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 Irksome Bulls, 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?
He was ripping Rush Babe for not taking this kind of stuff seriously.
Do they feel dissed?
I wonder, are they thinking something as basic as, you know, this man does not have any manners?
I mean, he asks us to do this.
How many months did these people spend working on this?
Not one suggestion.
Not one.
I mean, not even for show.
Not even just not even a little bone toss these people's way.
Anyway, what else we have here?
Oh, Americans are tax reform.
I meant to mention this 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-bys 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.
The regime wanted to do that last fall, but they fell short.
And the regime said, we're going to do this.
In the next two years, we're going to raise the rate.
So that's a given.
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 $5 million, $10 million for couples, to $3.5 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 one of the first budgets or one of the first budget statements shortly after the emaculation.
We've all known this charitable thing was coming, and we've all suspected that the mortgage interest deduction was not long for the world if these guys get their way.
We've all known this.
Let's see.
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.
Life insurance company taxes totaling $14 billion over 10 years, massive new taxes on energy, including the LIFO repeal, a super fund, 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 Obama budget that was submitted.
You want to do it now?
Okay, let me find them.
I didn't get them handed.
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, at this point in time, deliriously happy.
Mubarak's gone.
I mean, really gone.
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.
The 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 supports.
He searched for his own burden and the Sushi people seeks for our freedom and democracy.
Any democracy country should seek for the people, not for it, own Burmese.
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 because President Obama said that he wants to extend support and assistance to Egypt and Egyptians if they want 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 going to 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 Owana's views were kind of conflicting during the last week.
But now he's saying 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 premise is 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 very happy to now 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 kennel.
Okay, back to the phones, people patiently waiting for a long time.
This is Dan in Lul.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Your comments regarding CPAC 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 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 when you say the pandering of the right to win over people to the left?
What did you hear specifically that that was that as you're as you're analyzing the CPAC speeches and and saying that the get rid of the social issues and the things like that.
Right.
We are not identifying ourselves as something different, something conservative.
Instead, we, well, and I shouldn't say we, I should say the members of CPAC and the members of the Republican Party are, or the Republican elite, are trying to cast themselves as something more moderate, more acceptable, and more appeasing.
I would substitute appealing than appeasing.
I think 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 rubes.
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 got, yeah, but we understand we've got some of the things they care about, the social issues.
That's not us.
We have to move beyond that and so forth 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 you could say the same thing today after the 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 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.
When did it start?
Last year, the year before, even before that.
But I've warned everybody: 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, it's 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 that bunch.
You have to do what we can.
And the only reason I made my comments, this is normally what I'm saying to you is what we would have heard from CPAC in traditional years.
We didn't hear that other than from a couple of great keynoters.
Nicholas D. Christophe.
Nicholas D. Christophe in the.
Wait a second here.
By the way, I think, yes, I'm being reminded in my CPAC speech.
I issued the same warning that Reagan did.
You know, 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 a constant, 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.
Back to life.
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.
See, yeah, we had lots of great conservative speakers at CPAC.
Don't misunderstand, but we also had some people saying some pretty word questionable conservative things.
It'll all get ironed out.
Just sharing with you my analysis of it up to the point.
Nicholas D. Kristoff, 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 the mob.
Obama told the mob they're going to get what they were.
Obama told the mob to stick in there.
Obama told Mubarak to go.
So much so, they're out there 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.
Or maybe.
Well, maybe that wasn't the headline.
I'm not sure.
At any rate, I'm confused by the note here.
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. Kristoff, could you point to me where American paranoia has caused 3,000 people to die in two buildings, a Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania?
Paranoia?
I don't know.
I listen 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 do they suggest they're going to do?
Where is the paranoia here?
Did anybody say that Hitler was paranoid?
Besides Neville Chamberlain?
Did anybody say that Churchill was paranoid?
They probably did.
Hell, I don't know.
But, I mean, this is ridiculous.
You know what?
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 that Arab countries were inhospitable for democracy or that.
Well, 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 Afghanistan and Iraq, 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.
You know, 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 have to give, if this is the democratic uprising in Egypt, you'd almost have to give Bush credit for it.
Domino effect.
Okay, created in 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 shattered the stereotype that they're not capable of democracy.
Again, 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.
But 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?
And they're saying, yeah, the Muslim Brotherhood is secular.
We need better intelligence, the kind is derived not from intercepting a president's phone calls to his mistress.
What am I missing?
What is that?
Is that Clinton and Wilinski?
What is that?
Or Mubarak?
What was it?
Is it Qaddafi?
Mubarak talking to his mistress?
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 cost of repression.
What is this entitled with things we have to learn?
You know, what Egypt can teach.
Oh, you mean like the Tea Party?
Oh, I get it.
Mr. Kristoff is suggesting that 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 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've got to 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. Kristoff, but you just Got through complaining here about people who think that the Middle East could be democratized.
Not in the peace, but during Iraq.
No, can't democracy.
What is this democracy?
Everybody was mocking it.
Condi Rice was mocked when she said this.
Now, all of a sudden, she's a wizard.
After a long, wishy-washy stage, President Obama got it pitched 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.
We need to learn what we were doing wrong and what the 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 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 common 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 timeout, my friends El Rushbo, 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 dittos 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, you know, Twitter down and everything was down.
Who the heck was he talking to?
Last Friday, when he was doing his speech, is that when they closed down all communications in Egypt?
Yeah.
No Twitter, no Facebook, no My Butt, no, 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 did not know that 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 who are they going to talk to now?
I know that they've all been kicked out.
I don't know.
Wait a minute.
I know that they over 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.
They just, and Twitter was online and so forth.
How did they, anyway, your question, let me answer your 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 are you spending 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 to whatever they throw over there.
Lucky he got his report out.
Hey, Old Bridge, New Jersey guy faces 10 years in prison.
Now, listen to this.
He pled guilty to taking part in a scheme that netted $3 million in fraudulent tax refunds.
Johnson Coker's name, sentenced May 26th by a federal judge, he pleaded guilty to a counterconspiracy 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.
$3 million 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, better than anybody else, is stopping your identity from being stolen.
LifeLock's at 800-440-4833.
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Salem, Oregon, this is Tim.
Thank you for waving, sir.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Dittos, 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 more Republicans get defeated in 2012 as well.
This is something that, you know, if, 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 it 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.
I tell you, folks, if it all bombs out, if all these promises, look, if the attempt is not even made to defund Obamacare, repeal it 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.
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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