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Feb. 22, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:57
February 22, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Apparently, ladies and gentlemen, I'm getting a lot of grief out there for my uh highly civil comments about Michelle Obama eating short ribs in Vale.
These were highly civil comments for crying out loud.
I mean, people are going nuts every USA Today, the political.
Some people are suggesting that uh my comments are below the belt.
Well, take a look at some pictures, given where she wears her belts.
I mean, she wears them high up there around the bust line in just about everything about her below the belt when you look at the fashion sense that she has.
Hi, folks, great to have you.
Rushlyn ball, the EIB network.
Starting a million conversations.
Great to have you here.
Uh telephone number 800-282-2882.
And the square inch of my glorious naked buddy oozes with the truth.
Uh telephone number 800-282-2882, email address L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
It's election day in Chicago.
If you notice that nobody cares, it's uh also known as the Day of the Living Dead.
Election Day in Chicago.
And there's not a daily on the ballot for the first time in who knows how long.
That's what they say anyway.
There is a Democrat on the ballot.
There's a daily on the ballot, bulking in with a D. It's uh the way it is.
Folks, I'd say this thing in Wisconsin is getting interesting, and it's getting good and it's seminal.
This is a seminal moment for the union movement, the labor union movement.
If by chance the whole concept of public sector unions are blown up, that is effectively the end of unions.
I mean, in the private sector, they make up eight percent of the population, eight percent of the workforce is private sector unionized.
It's about what, 13% total, if you had government uh employees.
And what's happening?
People are beginning slowly to figure out Rasmussen has polling data out there, the independents, these precious independents, grab audio soundbite number 19, precious independents, sizable majority, support the Republican governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin last night, Actually, it's this morning on the Fox Business Network Varney and Company show.
Stuart Varney spoke with Scott Rasmussen about the protests in Wisconsin.
Varney said, what about the independent voter?
That's a key swing voter in American elections these days.
Where do they stand on Governor Walker's proposal in Wisconsin?
56% support the governor, hardly any support the unions at this point in time.
What we're seeing in the independent voters all around the country is a desire to rein in government spending that's even a little stronger than it is uh among some other voters.
They'd like to see it cut across uh all sorts of the federal government.
One of the big missing stories in all the debate about the budget is that most Americans are serious about cutting spending.
They support specific cuts, they're ready to make changes.
The question is, will their politicians follow?
And this is look at the Rance Muslim than everybody knows the independence in terms of political consultants.
Uh these people hire themselves out, the supposed expertise to get candidates elected.
Independence is where they go to work every day.
The so-called uh undecideds, the moderates, independents, whatever you want to call them.
Uh the 20%, basically, that are not ideologically tied to either the Republican or Democrat Party.
And here they are.
They've been siding with the Republic.
They've been siding against Democrats.
Let's uh uh more accurate way to say this.
They've been siding against Democrats since the middle of last year, and going into the November elections of 2010.
And as this unfolds, I mean, it they have an indefensible position.
School teachers out of work, fake doctors' notices, legitimately Elected Democrat senators leaving the state, running away from the issue.
And what people are going to ultimately, and I think they are starting to figure it out, is that public sector unions by definition negotiate against the American people.
The American people are their boss.
In a sense, this is not the same thing as a private sector union going up against big bad executives at General Motors.
Or big bad meanies at big oil.
This is going up against John Qublic, who makes, on average, half of what these government union people are making, and yet John Q public is paying that money.
Even someone as idolized by the left as Franklin Delamo Roosevelt said that the whole concept of unionizing government employees could not and would not work.
You want to hear what FDR said about.
This is the one time that the left will not quote FDR.
All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public sector.
It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management or employment.
The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations.
The employer is the whole people.
The employer is the population of the country.
The employer is John Q. Public Health.
Joe Sixpack.
Joe the plumber.
We are all their employees.
They are demonizing us.
Obama, one of their big representatives, demonizes us when it comes time to talk turkey.
We are the equivalent of big bad GM management.
We are the equivalent of big, bad big oil management.
We are the one, when you hear union people lamb based, their bosses, and talk about how they have no compassion, and they're always trying to squeeze an extra dollar of blood, dollop of blood out of the talking about us now, not some bunch of fat cat cigar smoking boardroom guys on the golf course half the time.
They're talking about us.
We are the big bad unfair evil.
We are the whole people.
And as FDR said, it's the whole people who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress.
Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided and in many instances restricted by laws which establish policies, procedures or rules in personnel matters.
Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees.
Tell that to Trumpka.
Tell that to Andy Stern, tell that to SEIU, tell that to Obama.
These unions that we are talking about are by definition militants.
By definition, they are agitators, community organizers, or what have you.
These are the people that show up and beat up black guys at town hall meetings in St. Louis.
Black guys in wheelchairs.
These are the people that showed up at town halls all over the country, intimidated.
These are public sector union enforcers.
And who are they an intimidating?
Us.
We are In common parlance, their boss.
And as more and more people begin to realize that in these people's eyes, we are the equivalent of all those horrible rotten fat cat management types against whom the salt of the earth workers have gone on strike against year after year after year.
You see, this is what Rinalvis Magnus knew.
He fired the air traffic controller union workers because they A violated a law they were not allowed to strike.
But B. They were striking against the citizens, the citizens of the whole people.
Again, FDR particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees.
Upon employees in the Federal Service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of government activities.
This oblig this is not at all what's happening.
Now these people in the public unions, particularly their leaders.
They have been running a scam.
They have been gaming the system.
They have inserted themselves essentially into this huge pile of tax revenue every year that rolls in.
And are simply making a claim on it via intimidation.
And militancy.
Rather than go to work, get a job and earn it, they have inserted themselves, and they're not the only ones that do this, by the way.
There's a reason why Arlington, Virginia, and the surrounding counties of D.C. are the wealthiest in the country and are not experiencing any recessionary effects.
Because they are, well, all those people got their hands in the till somewhere.
Somehow.
But they have gamed the system, scammed the system under the guise of public service.
This event is revealing who they really are.
They aren't teachers.
They are people who have gamed the system in an attempt to be paid for very little work, and then after doing very little work, retire and get all of their pension and health care paid for by us.
It's being revealed.
That's the game.
That's the purpose here.
And the leaders, of course, get the union dues, the big salaries, 500 grand a year, what have you, lots of power.
Trumke has access to the Oval Office two to three times a week.
Obama, then his own admission, we've got somebody coming up, Richard Trump, AFL CIO, meets with Obama more than his cabinet.
Again, FDR, a reminder, upon employees in the Federal Service, rests the obligation to serve the whole people whose interests in welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of government activities.
This obligation is paramount since their own services have to do with the functioning of the government.
A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operation of government until their demands are satisfied.
Such action, looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.
FDR, patron saint of the American left.
So what we have here, folks, is a giant expose taking place in front of everyone's eyes, the truth being revealed about public sector unions.
And what got me started on this was the Reverend Zach saying that Wisconsin is a Martin Luther King moment and a Gandhi moment.
And within a limited context, the Reverend Dax is right.
It is an MLK moment for American taxpayers.
In the sense that it could be said that we have a dream that one day all Americans, independence taxpayers alike, will rise up and take their country back from greedy public servants.
The voters put in office representatives who serve them.
Not public sector unions.
But who is it's being served?
Who is its interests or paramount?
Whose interests trump those of the country and those of you, the whole people, the public sector unions.
And the public sector unions are in the process here of being busted.
If that happens, political payoffs to Democrats stop.
My friends, that is why Trump and Obama and Sweeney and all the cannot allow this to happen.
They cannot allow Walker to win this.
They cannot.
They'll cave on the 5.8% increase in pension contributions, 12 point whatever it is, percent on health.
They'll cave on that.
But the collective bargaining stuff, they're not gonna this is gonna this this could be Egypt.
This could be Qaddafi.
By the way, I speaking of Dafi, I gotta take a break here.
But would somebody get to Qaddafi and have him tell.
I want to know.
How do you spell his last name?
There must be 32 different iterations.
And until he can figure out how his last name is spelled, I don't want to spend much time talking about.
Did you see he made a big appearance today?
He wasn't in Venezuela, he's in Tripoli.
And he spoke from the unrepaired bombed-out home.
Where Reagan hit back in some time in the 80s after the uh after a particular terrorist act, making it a point to speak from this decrepit, bombed out, unrepaired home of his to show something or other.
Anyway, folks, sit tight.
This is uh big day here at the EIB network, and we will continue with it all right after this.
House Democrats in Indiana have just fled the state.
Indiana House Democrats have just fled the state to avoid a budget vote.
They are leaving the state rather than vote on anti-union legislation.
This from the Indianapolis Star.
The source said the Democrats are headed to Illinois, though it was possible some might also go to Kentucky.
They need to go to a state with a Democrat governor to avoid being taken into police custody and return to Indiana.
The House went into session this morning with only two of the 40 Democrats present.
Those two were needed to make a motion and a seconding motion for any procedural steps the Democrats would want to take to ensure Republicans don't do anything official without a quorum.
House Democrats leaving the state of Indiana rather than vote on anti-union legislation.
Illinois and Kentucky.
That's where they're headed.
Democrats are fleeing.
Democrats are on the run for...
Folks, remember after the November election, I made mention of just how deep that election victory was, state level, local level, state houses.
It is now coming home to roost, if you will.
And just a friendly reminder to the Democrat party in Wisconsin was back in 2003, Democrats in Texas, their representatives ran to Oklahoma to hide from a vote.
The Democrats held a majority in the Texas House at that time, 88 seats to the Republicans, 63 seats.
The Democrats had a majority in Texas when they ran away in 2003.
Today, the Democrats have 49 seats in Texas.
The Republicans have 101.
You Democrats...
See, here's the thing, folks.
They're showing you.
All of you Democrat voters...
They're showing you what's important to them.
And this is something this is this is a frightening moment for any elected official.
These Democrats in uh in Wisconsin, Democrats in Indiana, and it'll happen in Ohio too.
They're faced with representing the voters or representing their donors.
And in their case, they're siding with their donors.
The union donors.
Public sector unions.
Whatever they want is what the Democrats are going to do.
That will take precedence over what voters, including Democrat voters.
So it's not just those of you who vote Democrat, those of you who are independent, those of you who vote, those of you who are participators in the American political process.
Take a look here.
Democrat senators, legislators fleeing, running away, off the job, Wisconsin, Indiana.
Not representing you.
They're representing their donors.
And we'll be back.
American voters, a question for you.
Look at me.
1995.
Budget shutdown.
Horrible thing if you listen to Democrat senators, if you listen to Democrats.
The 1995 budget shutdown was absolutely horrible.
How dare Newt Gingrich and the Republicans engage in that?
How dare they?
Why, even the sleigh ride concession at Yellowstone Park got shut down.
And government employees, those precious, most precious of Americans, government employees, did not get their Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys.
All because Republicans shut down the government.
Fine.
Who's shutting down the governments in Wisconsin and now Illinois?
It's the Democrats.
And let me ask you voters this.
When is the last time Democrats ever ran out on your behalf?
When is the last time Democrats anywhere ran off the job, simply left on your behalf?
Don't say Texas.
In Texas, they ran out because they wanted to stop the Republicans from writing the new districts, redistricting in Texas.
In Wisconsin and Indiana, they're running out.
They're walking off the job.
They're fleeing, they're hiding.
They are cowards.
Not only are they leaving the state, they're going to undisclosed locations.
Why?
Not for you.
It's exactly what FDR warned about.
Democrats and state legislatures are walking off the job in loyalty to union leaders.
They are walk-I cannot say this enough.
They're walking off the job in expressed loyalty to their donors, the special interests, if you will, not you.
When's the last time they did anything for you?
Look at who really matters to them, not the little guy.
You're the little guy.
You are paying these public sector union people.
You are paying their salaries, you are paying their pension, you're paying their health care, you're paying their retirement.
They are refusing to show up to work, and who sides with them against you, the little guy, Democrats, in Wisconsin and now Indiana.
Ask yourself, when was the last time?
These Democrats were ever this loyal to you.
This is precisely what Franklin Delama Roosevelt was warning about.
By every measure, by every and any measure, our public school graduates are as dumb as a bag of hammers.
Now, if you or I failed at our jobs as badly as teachers in the public school system clearly have failed, not only would we be fired, wouldn't be talking about lifetime pensions and health care benefits paid for by somebody else.
We might be put in jail for fraud, For taking money under false pretenses.
What are you talking about, Mr. Limbaugh?
This.
Two-thirds of the eighth graders in Wisconsin public schools cannot read proficiently.
According to the U.S. Department of Education.
Not according to me, not according to Sarah Palin, but according to the Obama administration.
Two-thirds of the eighth graders in Wisconsin public schools cannot read proficiently despite the fact that Wisconsin spends more per pupil in its public schools than any other state in the Midwest.
In the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests administered by the Department of Education in 2009, that's the last year available.
Only 32% of Wisconsin public school eighth graders earned a proficient rating.
Well, another 2% earned an advanced rating.
The other 66% of Wisconsin public school eighth graders earned ratings below proficient, including 44% who earned a rating of basic and 22% who earned a rating of below basic.
They're not even being taught to read.
They're on strike.
Doctors are writing them phony medical excuses.
They don't care about the children.
They don't care about you.
The senators, the elected officials.
I think donor is too kind a word.
They're not being loyal to their donors, they're being loyal to their paymasters.
The reason these Democrats are fleeing, cowardly, running away from their jobs in Wisconsin and now Indiana is because they fear the unions.
They're paymasters.
They are telling you who they really think is responsible for them holding office.
And it ain't you, and it's not your vote.
It's union money.
That's to what they must be loyal.
Not you.
I don't care what anybody else tells you.
You can watch the drive-by media, you can watch the state control media, you can watch and try to spin this all day long, but in the rooms behind the closed doors in the deep dark crevices of the minds of the upper echelon of the Democrat Party, there is abject fear.
Because the jig is up here.
Everybody can now see what's going on.
What's left is the power play.
Will the unions be able to hold on to this arrangement after everybody has figured out now what it is?
That the teachers are not about the kids, that they're not about education.
They are about the union, which is about the Democrat Party.
So it could it, folks, this is this I cannot emphasize.
This is a potential Armageddon for the entire relationship of organized labor, public sector organized labor, SEIU, Trump, AFL C IO, you name it, and the Democrat Party.
And are they just going to sit around and let their Armageddon happen to them?
They're not.
They're not going to say, well, it was good while it lasted.
We really scored big time while we were able to.
This is their link to power.
This is their link to money.
A lot of liberals run around and tell you they do what they do for the decency and goodness of it.
It's not about money.
It's always about the money, particularly when people about people tell you it's not about the money, it's always the money.
And believe me, not only is this about the money, this is about easy money.
This is about lifetime pensions, lifetime health care benefits.
Salaries that are on average double what people in the public or private sector make.
For doing what?
Nothing More than having a relationship with the Democrat Party.
A mutual back scratch arrangement.
It's the reason the Reverend Jackson has any power.
Reverend Sharpton, they have jobs to do.
Turn out a certain percentage of the black vote every four years of the Democrat, and they get a table or a seat at the table of Democrat Party power.
Same thing with that uh, what's that clown's name?
Um, the guy to replace Norman Lear at the People for the American Way, whatever this goof.
No, not Ed Asner.
This is I can't forget the guy's name, but his job too.
The civil rights coalitions, they exist for a specific reason.
They have power because it's granted to them by the Democrat Party for voter turnout and fundraising.
This is this is a uh a serious moment of truth here.
And Governor Walker, by the way, is brilliant in making his distinctions between private sector unions and public sector.
He's doing a great job of letting the private sector union people, this isn't about them.
He's got no brief for them on this.
That's not what he's doing.
Two-thirds of Wisconsin public school eighth graders cannot read proficiently.
The teachers walk off the job because they want to be paid handsomely for the rest of their lives for this kind of absolutely horrible work.
Can we talk about the merit in all of this at some point?
I've heard people make comparisons to Cairo.
In fact, I think I've got an audio sunbite somewhere here in the stack.
It's some Democrat saying that the people of Cairo are at one with the people of Madison.
And that the people of Cairo are sending a message to the people of Madison, Wisconsin to hang in there.
Well, again, let me shine the light of truth.
Madison, Wisconsin is not the next Cairo, Egypt, if anything.
Madison, Wisconsin is the anti-Cairo.
The people we see protesting in Madison are the Mubaric apparatus who are trying to hold on to their privileges.
Despite the will of the people who are being exploited to pay for them.
The people protesting and in the streets in Wisconsin are not the equivalent of the people in the street in Cairo.
The people who are protesting and who are in the streets in Wisconsin are the equivalent of those people living with Mubarik and working with and for Muboric.
The people in Wisconsin in the streets are trying to hold on to privileges.
They were trying to hold on to that special status of government worker if it says elite.
They have nothing in common whatsoever with the people in the streets at Teriries Square, which is a circle in Cairo.
Again, the people we see protesting in Madison are the equivalent of Hosni Mubarak apparatus who are trying to hold on to their privileges despite the will of the people who are being exploited to pay for them.
Do you know, ladies and gentlemen, Virginia?
State of Virginia does not allow their public sector workers to unionize.
They don't.
In fact, Virginia, it's interesting to note here.
Virginia does not allow public sector workers to unionize, and Virginia currently running a budget surplus.
Virginia is cutting taxes.
Now, is there a lot of starvation and other suffering being reported from the public sector employees in Virginia?
Are they dying in the streets?
Are there roads in Virginia?
Are the hospitals open?
Are people able to get food in Virginia?
Yes, they are.
In other words, the world has not come to an end because public sector employees are not unionized in Virginia.
They're not allowed to be.
And yet Virginia is currently running a surplus cutting taxes with a Republican governor.
And we're back.
It's Rush Limbaugh, the excellence In broadcasting network.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Michael Keegan is the current head of people for the American Way, but I'm thinking about his predecessor.
I'm having a metal block.
I can't remember the guy's name.
And the crooked face.
I can't, I can't remember.
Weird hair.
Anyway, uh, let's go to the phones.
We're gonna start in uh in Glen's Falls, New York with Sean.
Hello, sir.
Wonderful to have you with us.
Hello.
Hey, Sean.
Uh I'm sorry, Russ.
I keep hearing uh on TV and you just can't afford it, and the sacrifice is gonna have to be shared.
And I I've got a decent memory.
I remember just a couple months ago when we couldn't have increased taxes on the most wealthy, the people that have made more money over the last decade over the last 40 years, really than anyone else in America.
Right.
Um wages have, you know, kind of remained flat.
What I want to know is when Andrea Mitchell, Mrs. Alan Greenspan, and when Ross Limbaugh say we need to share the sacrifice, what kind of sacrifices are you guys making?
I mean, really.
What uh you guys, what kind of sacrifices are you guys?
What do you mean by you guys?
Well, like you said, you, Andrea Mitchell, all the rest of the uh rich folk in the media that love to get up on TV and talk about how this sacrifice must be.
Actually, just I I'm not avoiding your question, I'll answer it here in just a second.
I have never, I am not a proponent of shared sacrifice.
I don't believe in sacrifice, period.
I I think I think that's an absolutely defensive, stupid, self-defeating way to go about life.
I don't believe this whole sacrifice business is a democrat trick.
And it's a it's it's nothing more than a spin, a political spin game.
We must have joint sacrifice and that means we must accept, we must universal accept bad times, must just accept them and then all share equally in them.
Sorry, I don't participate in recessions.
I am not going to sacrifice to make somebody else feel good.
I'm gonna keep doing what I do, and I hope to prosper at every moment of my life.
I mean, that's what this country is all about.
Now, what do you think?
What kind of sacrifice should I be doing?
Well, I just want to know who's going to pay for the oil subsidies and who's going to pay for these wonderful wars you love so much.
I mean, if there's if we're going to have these things that you want, Rush, somebody has to pay for it.
And I'm sick and tired of people paying for it.
The people making $50,000 a year.
I draw a $25 million a year.
Well, I don't look at life the way you do.
There's a reason somebody makes $25 million and a reason somebody makes $25,000.
And it's not the guy who's making $25 million's fault.
There's a reason it's not your job to come along and say that somebody is at fault, and it's none of your business to come along and say it isn't right, and that somebody has got to make it fair by giving something up.
You are destined to fail in your own life if that's your attitude about success.
That somebody's success is owing to somebody's misery, therefore the misery must be honored.
Wrong all, pal.
Somebody in misery's got to be shown how to get out of it, not have it shared equally.
So I've never understood about people on the left.
Okay, so you have misery out there, but not everybody's feeling misery.
Unfair.
Solution?
Make everybody miserable.
Ergo, give us liberalism.
It works.
But sorry, I don't participate in it.
What is this wars that I love?
I love a safe United States of America and people.
I love a country willing to defend itself against those who would do us harm.
And sadly, my friend, I'll tell you something when the next hour starts.
Nobody fears this country anymore.
Four Americans killed from a hijacked yacht by Somali pirates.
And what are we doing about it?
We're worrying about the inequities of sacrifice in America.
Nobody fears this country anymore.
We've got the fifth fleet in Bahrain.
Doesn't stop what's going on.
Nobody fears this country.
And why?
Because our esteemed leader is running around apologizing for this country and asking people to forgive us for that period in our past when people feared us.
So nobody's afraid of us.
They're monkeying around with our currency, they're monkeying around With their currency.
The price of oil is skyrocketing, homelessness is on the rise, people are being foreclosed on in this country left and right, and we have an administration that pledged to stop all this, and it's actually getting worse.
Whether you know it or not, we're all sacrificing what otherwise could be a great life because of liberalism running this country right now.
And of all the things you could call here and talk to me about and learn from, you got your sidetracked on 25 million versus 25,000, and somehow it's unfair to spend money defending the country against people who want to kill you.
It's funny, everybody knew who I was talking about when I said the guy with a crooked face, the screwy hair, Ralph Nees, was the former head of people for the American Way.
He's now the CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care, working for the uh regime.
And uh we got much more straight ahead.
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