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March 7, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:37
March 7, 2011, Monday, Hour #2
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Did you see this?
A Wisconsin Senate Democrat leader has asked for a meeting with the governor of Wisconsin on the Illinois border for crying out loud.
A single Democrat has offered to meet with Walker near the DMZ, the demilitarized zone, the Wisconsin-Illinois border.
I love it.
I love it.
Great to have you back, folks.
How are you?
Rushland bought a brand new week of broadcast excellence.
Happy to have you.
800-282-2882 is the phone number.
If you want to be on the program email address, LRushbaugh at EIBnet.com from the New York Times talks to resolve Wisconsin battle falters.
Senator Fred Risser, one of 14 Democrats who left Wisconsin last month to prevent the Senate from approving the collective bargaining measure, said it now seemed conceivable that he and his fellow Democrats would return to Wisconsin at some point in the future without a negotiated settlement.
And now one single, I'm not, folks, they've asked Walker to come alone.
This one Democrat senator has asked to meet with Walker near the DMZ, the Wisconsin-Illinois border, and they want him to come alone.
I mean, if this doesn't sound like a good old-fashioned mafia ambush, I don't know what it is.
Talk about gangster government.
Now, this New York Times story is, as is everything in the New York Times, curious and questionable.
If the Democrats return, comma, the Republicans, who hold a 19 to 14 majority in the Senate, are expected to pass the measure.
The Democrats say that while they can't permanently block that outcome, they believe public opinion has turned against the measure and that the Republicans may lose their majority in a recall effort that is now underway against senators over the issue.
Okay, the way I interpret that is the Democrats say that they cannot block the outcome, but that the GOP has lost support and may lose the majority in a recall effort, but still they won't return.
Now, what's wrong with this picture?
Have you heard anything about this, Snerdley?
No, no, have you heard public sentiment has turned against the governor?
Well, that's, I'm saying, of course, we've been hearing from liberals.
I'm saying, is there polling?
Is there reliable polling data that says the Wisconsin public sentiment has turned against Governor Walker?
Because the New York Times says there is.
It's totally done to 180 now.
There's a Rasmussen poll.
We're looking for it.
It's a Rasmussen poll, apparently, that says Wisconsin voters are now with the Democrats on this.
Well, then why come back and vote for the thing?
Why come back and make it happen?
Unless you're trying to cement the days the Republicans to defeat, if that's what the switch in public sentiment means.
It's been 125 days since the elections in Wisconsin.
Well, I want to say this Rasmussen poll.
Because if this is true, if the Democrats have now won the issue, why not come back?
Why ask for the governor to show up alone and unarmed, by the way?
At the DMZ.
Okay, it's a Milwaukee Urinal Sentinel poll.
It says the public has turned on Walker.
Opinion polls show sharp division on Walker.
The Milwaukee Urinal Sentinel online.
So we've got the.
Yeah, no, I did.
I did.
I said credible.
Now, there have been conflicting stories, too.
There was a story earlier that over the weekend that Wisconsin Democrats were going to end the standoff pretty soon.
And then the UPI was a story this morning.
Oh, no, Wisconsin Democrats deny standoff to end soon.
Democrats say they don't plan to return to Madison until workers' rights are preserved.
Lawmakers denied a report in the Wall Street Journal that they would return to the Capitol soon, saying a newspaper took a statement out of context.
The newspaper quoted Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller as saying we are now looking at returning to the state capitol, requiring the senators to take a vote and have them declare who they're with, the workers or the governor.
Neither statement was in the newspaper story when UPI reviewed it early Monday.
It's peculiar here, folks, how these people all sound more like union negotiators than they do elected state senators.
Of course, they have to say and do what their paymasters are telling them to do.
That is the unions.
So it somewhat makes sense.
We'll keep a sharp eye on this.
Here where we live in South Florida, West Palm Beach gasoline prices up 42 cents in one month.
It's nearly actually nearly 50 cents.
In one month, West Palm Beach has the highest gasoline prices in Florida.
Now, normally I don't talk about local issues, as you know.
But in this case, this is where I live.
I just want you to know that damn straight.
I mean, I have to pay the price of the pump just like anybody else does.
So I just, I'm just, I'm at one with everybody else on this.
I'm at one with the little guys.
Everybody else getting sandwiched here by these high prices, nearly a half a buck.
Libyan is a CNN story.
Libya crisis sends U.S. gas prices up 33 cents in two weeks.
U.S. gas prices up nearly 33 cents.
Second biggest two-week jump in the history of the gasoline market, according to a new survey of filling stations.
Now, it's interesting.
They surveyed filling stations.
And from that, we learn that it's the Libya crisis sending the prices up.
So you go out to your neighborhood gas station if you're seeing it and you do a poll.
Okay, what's your price up here?
Well, our price, we've had to raise a price 33 cents in the last two weeks is because of what's going on in Libya.
Yeah, it is interesting.
It used to be the evil speculators that were that one guy.
Remember O'Reilly?
O'Reilly was looking for the one guy behind the curtain in the Emerald City that was in charge of the lever that sent gas prices up or down.
And when they couldn't find that one guy, they were looking for those damn speculators.
Now it's Gaddafi.
Who's responsible for gasoline prices going up?
Ladies and gentlemen, there's a, you know, some of the greatest stories, finest reporting is coming out of the UK today.
And I marvel at how on point a lot of it is.
Here's a piece that ran on Sunday in the UK Telegraph by James Dellingpole entitled There's Nothing Smart About Rationing Electricity.
And this generally is about the program in Britain that we have in some places already here called Smart Meters, which gives the government the power to wirelessly control your heat, your air conditioning, your water flow, your electricity, all from the cozy central office.
Think death panels in your home.
I mean the ultimate method of nagging.
Mr. Dellingpole writes about the circumstance in the UK.
Tonight on Channel 4, Niall Ferguson will be explaining why Western civilization is on its last legs.
The reason for this is very simple.
We no longer understand the value of our civilization.
Indeed, many of us feel rather embarrassed about it.
We've been taught to view all of our great historical achievements through a filter of post-colonial guilt.
Now, he's writing for the Brits, but isn't that how Obama looks at this country?
Post-imperialist guilt.
Too big, too big a superpower, dominating the poor peoples and everybody else in the world, stealing their resources, stomping all over whoever gets in our way on our way to superpower status.
And now we're all told that we need to apologize for the way we've been and we need to feel a collective guilt about it.
We have learned the weasel art of cultural relativism, where in their own special way, cultures that practice female circumcision and bury homosexuals under walls are just as vibrant and valid and meaningful as the one that gave us Michelangelo, penicillin, and the splitting of the atom.
We've been persuaded that elitism and authority are undesirable.
We've bought heavily into the fashionable meme that mankind's a cancer on the earth and that the proper thing to do is abandon progress, destroy our economies, limit population growth, and try to recapture an agrarian idol, which, of course, never existed.
To show how desperate the guilty are, let us consider the words of Steve Holliday, the chief executive of the National Grid, through electricity system, interviewed last week on BBC Radio 4's Today program.
He said, the grid's going to be a very different system in 2020, 2030.
We keep thinking that we want it to be there and provide power when we need it.
It is going to be much smarter than that, though.
We're going to change our own behavior.
We're going to consume it when it's available and available cheaply.
I have one simple question here.
What on earth is this imbecile still doing in his job?
Obviously, one might accept this kind of insanity from green MP Caroline Lucas.
She is, after all, the leader of a party ideologically committed to its manifesto to raising taxes, destroying economic growth, and restricting personal freedoms.
That's also known as the Democrat Party in this country.
National Grid, on the other hand, is the organization which distributes Britain's power supplies, not just the power supplies of the kind of hair-shirt loons who believe there must be limits to growth and that the answer is therefore to deny our children an economic future, raise taxes, and force us to use crappy, flickery yellow light bulbs and get used to our rubbish being collected once a fortnight, no matter how much we pay in council tax.
But also the power supplies of the rest of us, that is, most of us, who just want to get on with living our lives, pay the rent, make the most of our short span on earth, and enjoy our hot showers and baths as and when we choose, rather than when some eco-fascist busybody tells us it's permitted.
This guy is railing against the smart meters in the U.K., which control where your thermostat's set, how much hot water you're going to have, and when it's going to be hot.
It's coming here, and they've already got it in several parts of Europe where the environmentalist wackos, the green element, actively want to revive wartime-style rationing and who welcome shortages and inconvenience because they believe this is the price we must pay to save the planet.
So the point here is that these environmentalist wackos in the U.K. have moved forward.
All of this guilt, we're destroying the planet.
We must stop it.
And that means forced rationing on everybody, and the government's in charge of it over there.
Now, how many of you have heard of smart meters and you've maybe been sold on the concept?
Somebody wants to bring them, put them in your house, save you a lot of trouble.
Save you a lot of money.
Somebody from afar is going to control when your thermostat lowers to cool your house or heat your house or whatever it is.
You don't have to worry about it ever again.
It's not going to be under your control, though.
They're already offering smart meters in certain parts of the country with certain financial incentives, like we'll reduce your electric bill X number of dollars per month per year in exchange for putting this thing in and so forth.
What you're doing is signing up for losing total control over your use of electricity and other forms of power within your own domicile.
And his point is, for the UK to go along with this, how much guilt must there be?
How much must our people really now have been convinced to hate ourselves to throw away this kind of freedom?
Just how much guilt do we have that they forced on us that we think in order to get back in the good graces of everybody, we have to punish ourselves this way?
There's a lot of that going around in our culture today.
I'm going to take a quick break.
We're going to come back and we'll get some questions, some answers actually on the phones from the question I raised in the first hour over just how should our presidential campaign manifest itself up against Obama when it begins in earnest.
Back after this.
All right, very quickly, the Wisconsin poll in the Urinal Sentinel was actually a Wisconsin Policy Research Institute poll.
And here's how skewed it was.
The Republicans sample 30%.
The Democrats sample 38%.
And the neither or just Independent were 24%, refused to identify were 8%.
Well, you skew a sample that way, you're guaranteed to get the outcome that you want, which is an anti-Governor Walker result.
And that's the poll that appeared in the Wisconsin paper.
All right, here's Matt, Charleston, South Carolina, as we start on the phones.
Great to have you here, sir.
Hey, Rush, in regards to your question, in the first hour?
Yeah.
We got to just kind of caution you here a little bit.
All right, we don't need Civil War on our side.
Number one, that's what Obama wants more than anything.
This is not the campaign of 08.
He's got a record now, and in two years from now, he's going to have four years to pick apart.
And we have you and Hannity and Beck to, you know, go Bachman every day.
So I just, you know, what do you think?
Well, let me, about the last thing you said, that's all well and good to have all these media people, but frankly, these candidates are going to have to have the message.
At some point, the Canada, whatever the message is, they're going to have to have it.
And If they want to have a hard-hitting message, they're going to have to be the ones to articulate it.
Well, you know, I may be a little biased here, but coming from South Carolina, nobody does it better than Jim DeMet.
Yeah, exactly.
Although I don't know that he's running.
I hope he does, but it doesn't look like it.
But let me, for those just joining, let me rephrase the question.
And you really, you haven't, I mean, you've gotten close, but you haven't really answered it.
The question is for you.
I know what you think.
Obama's got a record, but that's the exact thing I'm talking about.
Do you want a Republican nominee who simply points out the differences between himself and Obama as policy differences?
Well, nobody who's out there right now, Romney Gingrich, nobody impresses me.
But Jim DeMet has got such a strong, every time you see him on TV, he doesn't need a teleprompter.
He doesn't need notes.
He just bam, bam, bam.
Bachman's pretty good, but she just rubs people the wrong way.
Kind of like Palin, to an extent.
Why does she rub people the wrong way?
Just the so-called Saturday Night Live types are just.
Screw them.
I know, but whoever we nominate other than somebody that's a wuss is going to rub them the wrong way.
That's the point.
They need to be rubbed the wrong way.
If we're going to go out trying to make sure that they're not offended by what we do, hell, we may as well mail it in and just say, what?
Republicans are not going to run anybody.
We're going to save our money for 2016.
Obama, it's yours.
Here's the question, folks.
It's really not that complicated.
And I'm asking it within the context of winning the election.
Here you got Obama here.
I guarantee you that everybody running, if you talk to him privately, tell you he's a bad guy.
This guy, I mean, four more years of this guy, and we're looking at generations to fix what gets broken, what's already broken, generations.
But we can't say that.
Can't say that people don't want to think of their president as purposely breaking the company.
They're going to reject anybody who says that.
So we've got to focus on policy.
We're going to focus strictly on policy.
For example, we're going to say the president's policies have led to $4.50 a gasoline or whatever the price is.
The president's policy has led to a Middle East on fire.
And here's why.
The president's policies are leading us to never-ending unemployment.
The president's policies are leading us.
And then, you know, go A, B, C, and D, what the president's policies are and why, and then what our policy differences are going to be.
In other words, don't get personal.
Don't say socialist.
Don't say some Marxist.
Don't any of this stuff.
Don't question his motives.
Don't even go there.
Can't win that way.
That's going to be one argument.
The other argument is: hey, reality is reality.
He is who he is.
And we don't have time to pussyfoot around anymore.
Here's what we're doing.
And the cutting edge of societal evolution, Rush Limbaugh serving humanity simply by showing up here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, WSAU.com.
Governor Walker's approval numbers are dropping.
Four months after he was elected, Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker's approval rating has slipped precipitously.
And all this is designed to make him cave.
By the way, we shall see if that indeed happens.
Now, this smart meter stuff, I know a lot of smart meters are being installed in this California, in Texas.
A lot of smart meters are being installed as we speak.
And people have no choice over the matter.
Now, let's not forget, folks.
Yeah, we'll have tape of this.
Governor Walker is now speaking before he goes to the DMZ, before he goes to the Illinois-Wisconsin border to meet alone with that one Wisconsin Democrat.
He's got a little presser going, and our tapes are rolling, and we'll have high-life sunbites when he finishes.
On the smart meter business, the stimulus, the porculus bill, advocated or allocated something like $4.4 billion for smart meter technology, including $4 million of the next generation smart meters.
This is a story, again, from the UK, International Herald Tribune.
That's the international version of the New York Times, February 10th of 2009.
And the same article goes on to say what a big stake Google has in smart meters.
Google has a big stake in smart meters.
Who's next?
Mike in Covington, Kentucky.
Hello, sir.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Mega Dittos, Rush, longtime listener.
Thank you, sir, very much.
I think that whoever the Republican nominee is does not need to go out and attack the president himself.
He needs to attack the president's policies and the president's issues.
Okay.
I'm a professional truck driver, and if fuel goes up to $4 a gallon, it will cost me roughly $1,400 every time I fill up.
So that has a big impact on me directly.
Yeah, but let me tell you something.
I've had two stories on that so far today.
And guess who's blamed?
Gaddafi.
It's Mu Mar Gaddafi's fault.
Our brave president, our brave president, Mike, doing everything he can to get rid of Gaddafi, except get rid of him.
He's doing everything he can.
Gasoline prices are going up despite our efforts.
The best president has, and it's Gaddafi's fault.
It's not Obama's fault.
Well, Rush, can I make a quick comment?
Well, for sure.
You're a paid actor.
Go for it.
To a certain extent, Bill, you talked about Bill O'Reilly earlier.
To a certain extent, yeah, the oil speculators have something to do with it.
I mean, every time there's a crisis in the Middle East, the price per barrel always spikes up, but I don't think that's 100% of the issue.
You've got the president now is not allowing any drilling.
He's banned it.
He's against it.
He's pushing this electric car from Obama Motors.
And right now, we need to drill everywhere we can drill, and we need to find every barrel of oil we can find right here on our shores.
Right, right.
We need to.
Yes, which people have been saying for a long time.
Yes.
And on the Stick to the Issues deal, whoever the nominee is also needs to push home that we've got a health care plan out there that nobody wanted, that everybody is against.
That 34, I could be wrong on the number of states, have voted to try to repeal it.
A judge in Florida that has ruled it totally unconstitutional, yet they're putting it down our throats anyway, and they're disobeying the judge.
The nominee also needs to bring that home.
Okay.
This is interesting.
It's, by the way, it's 26 states, but who's quibbling?
Sarah Palin was destroyed, mocked for saying drill, baby, drill.
A lot of people have been destroyed for suggesting that the way out of this is to drill for domestic oil because the template is oil's the enemy.
We got to go green now.
This is the perfect time to go alternative.
I don't want to get sidetracked here.
You're clearly of the frame of mind.
Simply remind people of the policy realities.
Just because of Obama, we've got X, Y, and Z. We've got a health care plan that nobody wants.
See, where I come from, I find it fascinating.
How do I say this?
Obamacare is why the Democrats lost the elect.
It's why they got shellacked in November.
I'm not going to have to be reminded by a candidate anything about the negatives of Obamacare during the presidential race.
I already know.
It already animates me.
I'm not going to have to be reminded of any of these things.
I'm not going to have to be reminded the president shut down drilling in the Gulf.
Now, understandably, some people are going to have to be informed in a campaign.
Some don't pay attention to stuff until that happens.
And I am not choosing a side here yet.
I'm merely presenting the options to you.
Let me put it another way.
Let me, obviously, I've gone about this the wrong way.
I fashion myself as the premier communicator, and obviously I've failed here based on the calls that Stergley has found.
What I'm asking you here is during the presidential campaign of 2012, how best to put this: should the Republican nominee I'm going to have to think about.
I thought I had put this out pretty clearly.
Well, I'm still struggling here for another way to frame this.
Okay, let's make myself the nominee.
What would I do?
If I were the nominee, I wouldn't hold back.
If I were the nominee, I'd go way beyond policy.
I'd tell you why this guy's policies are what they are.
I've realized the risk inherent here.
You're going to have the press.
Oh, you think he's a gangster?
You think he's anti-American?
No, that's not what I'm saying.
He's got a different view of Americanism than we do.
He's got a whole totally different idea and understanding.
This guy's got a chip on his shoulder about he doesn't believe in exceptionalism in America.
He doesn't believe in America's greatness.
One of the reasons he's not doing anything in Libya with Gaddafi.
Has anybody got a clue?
He doesn't believe we have the moral authority to do anything other than mouth a bunch of words in the first place.
Who are we to tell him what to do?
That's the way he looks at it.
Who are we?
Obama's whole worldview is: who are we to tell anybody in the world what to do?
Whatever gave us that right, whatever gave us that authority, whatever gave us that moral authority, whatever gave us that power.
Who the hell are we?
I mean, we can clearly, I can, as president, I can clearly express my disagreement and I can denounce in the strongest terms what Gaddafi is doing.
I have the right to throw him out of office.
What the hell?
Who are we?
United States.
He doesn't hold that kind of Moral view of this country's superiority in these kinds of things.
The Wall Street Journal has a piece that touches on this today, which I guess I'll share with you excerpts here in just a second.
Let me take a brief time out and we will come back and continue right after this.
Don't go away.
I think maybe I am, well, I think maybe I am assuming way too much of my brain will be utilized by others in this whole for example.
I'm assuming that most people are going to be as curious as I would be.
I know that's not true.
I know that the vast majority of people are nowhere near as curious as I am.
This is a characteristic trait.
So I'm a voter and I'm sitting here and I'm listening to the presidential campaign.
And let's say that we got 9% to 10% unemployment during the presidential campaign.
So gasoline is at $4 to $5 a gallon.
Let's just say that it is.
And we know that nowhere in the media is Obama going to be held accountable or responsible for this.
It'll be Libya or Gaddafi's responsible for gasoline and business sitting on all that cash, evil big businesses refusing to hire, wanting to make our young president look bad is why we've got unemployment.
So that's going to be the media spin.
In the midst of all this, we're going to have a Republican nominee who is going to say, we need a change, and I'm the man to be the change.
The president's policies have led us to 10% unemployment.
The president's policies have led us to $5 a gallon gasoline.
Now, if I'm a voter, my natural reaction in hearing that is, why?
Why would anybody want 10% unemployment?
I'm going to assume that no president would want 10% unemployment.
I'm going to assume that no president, no American, no American period wants gasoline prices at $5 a gallon.
I know leftists do.
I'm talking about an American president.
So I've got the Republican nominee saying the Republican or the president's policies have led to 10% unemployment.
$5 a gallon gasoline is time for a change.
I'm sitting here.
So why?
How?
What are these policies?
What are the policies that have led to 10% unemployment?
Okay, well, that's going to require an explanation of what was wrong with the stimulus.
Doesn't it demand an ideological explanation?
If you're going to sit there and be critical of a president's policies, which have led to this kind of stagnant, deteriorating economy, doesn't it seem to you that people are going to say, well, why?
Is he just mistaken?
Is he incompetent?
Is that your case?
Are you saying that President Obama is just not up to the job, that he's incompetent?
His policies are wrong.
My natural reaction, why are his policies wrong?
I guess what it gets down to is motivation.
Well, that's what I'm saying, sturdily.
I know it's not the typical voter.
It isn't.
I just, you know, I sit here and I look at, I don't care about the presidential campaign.
I'm looking at it now.
8.99%, 9.4, whatever it is, unemployment, rising gasoline prices.
And then you measure this against all that we were promised by this president and his party prior to the 2008 election.
It hasn't worked out that way.
So that's what I'm saying.
Most people do not have anywhere near the curiosity I have.
Most people may not actually want to hear the president's motivation for his policies.
I do.
I want to know why does somebody who claims to want to lower employment or unemployment, why does somebody who's claiming to focus like a laser on jobs, how does that guy end up with so many jobs lost?
How does that guy end up presiding over an energy policy that's led us to $5 a gallon gasoline?
How does that happen?
Well, I guess that's just me.
Here's the prevailing view.
I'll just tell you this.
The prevailing view is that to delve into this in the context of a presidential campaign any further than simply delineating policy differences is a loser because people do not want to hear that their president's a bad guy.
That is a losing proposition to try to make that case.
And by bad guy, I mean somebody who has reform ideas for this country that are really nothing like the country was founded.
I'm not talking about criminal bad guy, that kind of thing.
Just a policy bad guy.
There's just a lot of fear.
I'm telling you, a lot of fear going there, they think is a guaranteed loser.
So it's going to come down to, I mean, you know what the Democrats are saying?
Jim McDermott, the Republicans are trying to destroy the economy so they get back into power.
See, my problem is they've got a free ride.
The Democrats can say that about us all they want.
They can run around and say the most personally destructive, damaging, untrue things they want.
And nobody ever says they're going to go too far.
Nobody ever says they are going to step in it.
Nobody ever says the Democrats are going to send people running away to the independents and Republicans.
They can be as mean, vicious.
They can lie to their teeth all they want.
We, on the other hand, tie both of our arms behind our backs.
Well, we can't go there, Rush, we're going to lose.
All our voters are going to transfer over there to the Democrats.
Independents are going to run away.
Meanwhile, the foundation of all this is we've got a guy who is purposely trying to transform this country who is destroying the private sector health care industry.
He's destroying it.
Destroying private sector job creation.
Destroying it.
We can't say that.
Can't say it to scare the voters.
Voters don't want to believe that we've elected someone.
So we've got a strict focus on policy differences.
Let me grab somebody quick.
Helen in Scotts Valley, California.
Hi.
Hi, Rush, mega unwilling user of a smart meter in California.
Thank you.
This election has got to be black and white.
It has to be showed so much what a I got to keep the words down.
Let's say red and blue versus black and white, can we?
Okay, red and blue is good.
Very, very good.
Yeah, red and blue, I guess.
I agree with you totally on that, by the way.
Yeah, anyway, we can't pussyfoot around about policies.
It's time to get into what kind of a person Obama is.
That's it.
That's it.
And I'm just going to tell you, I don't know a single Republican nominee who wants to go there.
Potential nominee.
I don't know a single one of them that wants to go there.
Okay, time to go to the top of the hour break here as the three hours in this program just zipped by.
And I'm still feeling like I haven't put this together the right way.
I haven't presented to you the two options I'm talking about as clearly as I intend to.
So I'm going to keep taking a stab at this till I finally come out of my mouth the way I intend it to.
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