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March 9, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:03
March 9, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
It was funny.
Old Wolf Blitzer was waving and waving and waving and waving and waving for uh Gaddafi to make a speech.
He didn't make a speech.
And we've got the exciting audio of that.
Apparently, uh, ladies and gentlemen, Mohar Kadhafi still holding on in uh Libya.
And the amazing thing is he's uh he's apparently holding onto his grip on power without bussing in any union thugs.
I mean, I know he's sending in tanks and fighter planes against the opposition, but so far he hasn't really resorted to the really rough stuff.
Uh no union thugs in Libya yet, but that's probably still in the arsenal yet to come.
How are you, folks?
Great to have you here already Wednesday.
And this is the EIB network I, the one and only El Rush Ball.
This is the most listened to radio talk show in the country.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800 282-2882, the email address L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Look at this.
New York Times, the prison that won't go away.
Do you realize, folks, did the New York Times says the reason why Obama won't close Gidmo is because Bush.
Bush forced him into keeping it open.
No, I I kid you not.
The prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Oh, by the way, we have uh see what's just a second here.
Um, yeah, yeah.
We we we, you know, we have a thriving merchandise business at uh at Guantanamo Bay, and it's accessed at the EIB store at Rush Limbaugh.com.
Here, listen, uh Club Gitmo's still open for business, folks.
Don't think anything's changed there.
It's still open at our thriving licensed merchandise business.
Thus goes on.
It's available at Rushlimbaugh.com, the EIB store.
New York Times, the prison Guantanamo Bay has long been the embodiment of Bush era arrogance.
This is it's an editorial.
This is this is it's just too great.
Yes, it's long been the embodiment of Bush-era arrogance and lawlessness.
And Barack Obama raised the hopes of millions around the world in 2008 when he campaigned on the promise of closing it.
On Monday, that promise crumbled.
The victim of Congressional spinelessness and Obama's inability to create political support for a way out of the moral quagmire created by his predecessor.
The president announced that military commission trials for detainees would resume at Club Gitmo after a two-year suspension, and that Rush Limbaugh's licensed merchandise business would continue to thrive and stay open.
All that became inevitable in December after members of Congress and both parties, in an act of notable political cowardice, banned moving those trials to the United States.
And on and on and on and on.
Then they go down to the end of this thing.
There are improvements.
As in the uh the more obvious requirement that procedures comply with international laws that ban torture and other forms of inhumane treatment, but the Obama administration has still chosen to accept the concept of indefinite detention without trial, which represents a stain on American justice.
Now, ready, you uh wait for this.
The president made that acceptance clear in a speech in May of 2009.
To some degree, he was forced into it by the Bush administration's legacy of torture and abuse.
So the Bush legacy of torture and abuse has forced our young president to keep Guantanamo Bay open.
Now I don't care who's responsible for it.
If Obama is keeping Gitmo open, does that not make him a war criminal?
By his own calculations.
Imagine, my friends, a Nobel Peace Prize winner running a torture camp, a gulag.
Forced into this by his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was so incompetent he couldn't tie his own shoes, but look at all these rotten things, the gasoline price, the economy, joblessness.
I mean, I'm sure that uh the fact that no high schools want to hear Obama come do the commencement seat.
Some speech.
Somehow that's Bush's fault as well.
To some degree, Obama was forced into all this by the Bush administration's legacy of torture and abuse.
The torture has stopped.
It's good to know that this regrettable policy will not be applied to any future prisoners beyond the group of 47.
Perhaps in the future, Congress will wake up and restore the rule of law to Gitmo, including the transfer of some prisoners to other countries, but for now the wound to the nation's reputation remains unhealed.
Huh?
It's two different worlds.
It literally is two different worlds.
You know, Obama did.
You know, he was here uh sometime recently.
He was down in Miami.
He went down and and school kids were fainting.
And then they told me this.
It was an urban visit to urban areas of Miami and students were fainting, and I asked whoever told me this a why.
No, it was the excitement.
It was the excitement of seeing Obama said all this excitement, none of them want to hear him deliver their commencement address, but they show up at Obama rallies and faint.
Uh oh.
And then the New York Times, this this is.
I mean, the whole paper today.
Rising gas cost finds the nation better prepared.
Yes, the increase in energy prices beginning to resemble the rise in 2008, but this time the American economy may be better prepared for higher costs.
While the latest surge in energy prices is likely to cause some pain and slow the recovery from the recession, economists say the spike is unlikely to derail the rebound unless the prices rise a lot further.
One big reason is that consumers and businesses have learned lessons from the last oil shock.
Industries like airlines and trucking have passed on their higher costs almost immediately instead of waiting for the price increases to hammer profits.
And much of the rest of the U.S. economy is far less dependent on oil than it used to be just two years ago.
It's not possible, but that's what they're saying.
Ronnie Underberg, 50, Summerfield, Florida, started driving less in December when gasoline hit $3 a gallon.
Yeah, I started planning my errand, said Ronnie Underberg.
If if gas reaches $4, Mr. Underberg, a discipline clerk at the Lake Weir Middle School said he would scale back his cable TV package and his cell phone.
He's a disciplined clerk in a middle school.
What is that?
Don, you've had kids in middle school.
Did you have a disciplined clerk there?
So you don't know what that is.
Anybody know what a disciplined clerk?
A clerk is somebody on the other side of a desk at a bureaucracy.
see.
So far, consumers and businesses seem to have adapted to the higher prices much more quickly than in 2008.
So you see, folks, it is a problem, and you're not even that bothered by it.
And the economy's not even going to slow down.
It's a beautiful thing.
It's totally unlike when gasoline prices rose under George W. Bush.
But everything's so much better now with Obama.
We're far more mature.
We're far greater understanding of our problems, and uh we're better able to um to do.
Unemployed or better prepared.
Hell, yes, nerdly, you've got it.
You've nailed the unemployed or better prepared to deal with it.
More time with their families here if you can't drive.
It's all it's all uh it's all a positive.
It's all a positive.
And I just haven't even scratched the surface.
We got a whole series of stories here.
Uh that I guess you could be, you you could you could title uh the the thing is it's really not that bad out there.
Uh a bunch of stories that would fit under that rubric.
It just it's really not that bad.
And we'll have these details coming up.
By the way, Ron Schiller.
We learned last week quit NPR after this sting operation to go out to the Aspen Institute, where he was going to become some art director.
Well, now he's decided not to join the Aspen Institute.
Here's the here's the uh this the first story of this is yesterday from uh from Mediaite.
The fallout from the undercover video of NPR executives began with NPR's response, and now NPR has released Schiller's response.
While the meeting I get this, by the way.
While the meeting I participated in turned out to be a ruse, I made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR's values and also not reflective of my own beliefs.
He was lying.
It's like, yeah, he's lying to himself, lying to his diary or what have you, or it just wasn't him that day.
That's the latest excuse.
Latest excuse, somebody gets in trouble.
That's that's not me.
That's that's not who I am.
So Schiller said that uh he made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR's values and also not reflective of his own beliefs.
Possessed by demons, obviously maybe possessed by a Charlie Sheen.
I offer my sincere apology to those I offended.
I previously resigned from NPR effective May 6th to accept another job in an effort to put this unfortunate matter behind us.
NPR and I have agreed my resignation is effective today.
So in other words, Schiller now claims that he was not representing NPR's views, nor was he representing his own.
Now, how do you get away with that?
He's caught on videotape.
He said what he said about the bitter clingers and about the Jews running the media and about the Tea Party being racist, but now I I I was uh that statements uh run counter to NPR's views uh and my own beliefs.
So he joined the Aspen Institute to become uh director of the Art Institute there.
Oh, by the way, the NPR president CEO Vivian Schiller has resigned.
This happened uh this morning.
The um they they said, get this.
The board accepted her resignation with understanding genuine regret and great respect for her leader.
Well, then why did you let her leave?
Vivian brought vision and energy to this organization.
She led NPR back from the enormous economic challenges of the previous two years.
She was passionately committed to NPR's mission and to stations and to NPR working collaboratively as a local national news network.
I recognize the magnitude of this news and that it comes on top of what has been a traumatic period for NPR and the larger public radio community.
The board's committed to supporting NPR through this interim period and has confidence in the leadership team, blah, blah.
What drama queens?
Each of these two people got caught being too honest about their thoughts.
Boo-hoo.
Typical liberals can't tell you the truth about who they are unless they're talking amongst themselves, and then when a word gets up, no, that's not really who I am.
No, that's not what I really believe.
Speaking of which, you know, in her condemnation of Mr. Schiller's remarks, did Ms. Schiller suggest that he might have a mental illness as she did in the case of Juan Williams.
Suggested we might have to go to Juan Williams psychiatrist to be able to understand what Juan Williams was saying.
So the board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership.
Can't get out of here fast enough.
We'll write up a bunch of crap that nobody will believe, but they'll swallow it anyway.
And now, uh, ladies and gentlemen, the PS Derez Nuts, Aspen Institute Communications Director Jim Spiegelman has said in an email that Ron Schiller has informed them that in light of the controversy surrounding his recent statements that did not reflect who he really is.
He doesn't feel that it's in the best interest of the Aspen Institute for him to come to work there.
Meaning they called and said, Hey, pal, don't come here.
We don't want you here either.
We love you.
We understand how great you are, just like they're saying about Vivian, but do not come here.
So the Schillers, not related, on the beach, as it were, victims of a sting operation run by James O'Keefe.
I'd say this is a grand slam home run.
Grand slam.
Well, the Bayester Resistance was when this guy Schiller said didn't reflect NPR's views, nor frankly did what I say represented my views.
I'm going to keep a note.
I'm going to keep a record of all these things, and the next time, if it ever happens, if I find myself on a tight verbal squeeze, I'm going to try this stuff out.
I'm going to see if it flies.
I just signed up.
I just signed up.
Hi, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, having more fun than a human being.
And we are here daily at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
The uh the template here that I have uh I have detected as I pour through state control media outlets today is everything's fine.
Everything's okay.
Actually, much better than it would otherwise be because we have Obama.
And the first story from this template I've shared with you.
Rising gasoline cost finds the nation better prepared.
Everything's cool.
I mean, even the homeless do not care that the price of Sterno is going up.
Everything's just peachy.
Everybody involved has adjusted well to rising gasoline prices.
And there's no problem, nothing to see there.
Also, in this template, everything is fine, USA Today.
Report pensions not bankrupting states.
Two-part series by McClanchy newspapers.
Examines public and private sector pension plans and delivers this conclusion.
There's simply no evidence that the state pensions are the current burden to public finances that their critics claim they are.
Well, nothing to see here.
There really isn't a problem with all of these underfunded pensions.
I don't know who told you that.
But whoever told you that's wrong or they're lying to you.
Pension contributions and state and local employers are not blowing up budgets.
State and local pension contributions approximate the burden shouldered by private companies.
And nothing, nothing to worry about here.
That's USA Today.
From Bloomberg News, bonds show why Boehner is saying we're broke is a figure of speech.
Hey, everything's fine here.
This analyst says we can't possibly be broke if people will lend us money.
If somebody will lend you money, you can't possibly be broke.
And you can always raise taxes, even if you are broke.
So Greece, now that's broke, but we're not broke.
We're doing fine here.
Nothing wrong.
From the politico.
Americans want a budget compromise.
But if there is a shutdown, 45% to 34% say the Republicans come out ahead politically.
That's a Bloomberg poll of 1,001 adults.
That's not so particularly good as far as these people are concerned.
In the meantime, while everything's fine, nothing to see here.
A story from CNBC.
This really bothers me.
Bothers me.
It tugs at my heart.
It bothers me.
I can't tell you how much.
Handouts.
This headline alone.
Handouts, welfare, whatever you want to call it, make up one-third of U.S. wages.
One third.
Of course, we're really not talking wages, but I understand the use of the word in this story and in the headline.
One-third of us don't earn anything.
One third of us live totally on handouts.
One third of our great country live on handouts.
And even this story at the end says it really isn't that bad.
It could be worse.
It could be like Europe.
This is rotten.
This stinks.
I was watching Fox Fox News a little bit today in the process of doing show prep.
And uh it was Martha McCallum and Bill Hammer, and they had that idiot, uh Alan Combs on.
And and we're talking about the sting.
Uh the NPR sting and the O'Keefe guy and uh pretending to be Muslims and Colb's going on and on and on and on and on and on about he just doesn't like the tactic.
He doesn't like the tactic of uh, you know, punking people out like this.
This is just it's gotta soiling our politics.
And I'm looking at the screen and say you ever heard of that liberal blogger that called Governor Walker pretended to be one of the Koch brothers.
You know, and by the way, remember how celebrated that was.
Remember the left, the media loved that guy.
That blogger was celebrated, he was a hero.
I don't care what media it was.
That media loved it.
Anything to screw Governor Walker, and he didn't say anything to the impersonator.
He didn't embarrass himself at all, not at all the way Schiller did when he got punked by O'Keefe.
It's uh you know, it's it's I folks, when you look at these things and you compare them, the left right now get this.
The left wants ethics charges against Governor Walker for having taken the prank call from the basement living room of a leftist blogger who pretended to be David Koch.
So you've got a leftist blogger pretending to be a Republican donor or a conservative donor.
The governor takes the call and they want an ethics investigation against Governor Walker.
Well, now, where are the calls for ethics charges against NPR?
Maybe it is that people just know that NPR has no ethics to violate.
And maybe that's why there aren't any calls for this.
But it's just it's it's it is satisfying as it can be here to watch the same tactics these people employ come back and bite them in the butt and bite them in the butt big time.
So much so that this fool, Schiller, well, what I said, that didn't represent NPR's views.
Frankly, what I said didn't even represent my own views.
And he's one of the smart people.
This guy's an elitist, this guy wants to be in the ruling class.
This guy represents the supposed intelligence in this country.
Government payouts, including Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance, make up more than a third of total wages, about 35%, a third of total wages and salaries of the U.S. population, a record figure that will only increase if action isn't taken before the majority of baby boomers enter retirement.
We put it up on the website last week, and we showed that the three biggest entitlements in this country, we all know Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid.
Unemployment compensation.
The payment of unemployment benefits is almost as high as Social Security in this country.
Folks, I we we are not going to survive as a nation, not the way we've been founded, with this kind of sloth and laziness and feeding at the public trough.
It just it cannot, it cannot happen.
And even call this wages.
I actually kind of glad they did because it points out how ludicrous this is and how dangerous it is.
Handouts, handouts.
The redistribution of wealth makes up one third of U.S. wages.
Social welfare spending has increased three and a half times since 1960.
We declared war on poverty and it's given us this.
We declared war on poverty, and what do we have?
35% of our people living on the dole, 35% of American citizens living on handouts.
And where are the handouts coming from?
They're fellow citizens.
That's what's never talked about here.
It's all well, it's coming to government, Mr. Limbaugh.
It comes from their neighbors.
It comes from fellow citizens.
This is intolerable.
How did we ever survive before?
How'd this nation get along?
How did the people in this country get by before the great war on poverty declared by Lyndon Johnson?
How did it happen?
Now come we're always told we can't afford any war.
We can't afford Vietnam.
We can't afford Iraq.
We can't afford Afghanistan, but we've always had plenty of money for the war on poverty.
And look what it has done to us.
Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35% of wages and salaries this year.
And that's up from 21% in 2000 and 10% in 1960, according to TrimTab's investment research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
In other words, social welfare spending has increased three and a half times since 1960.
Unsustainable.
How did we ever get by before all this?
How did anybody ever survive?
Madeline Schnapp, director, macroeconomic research at TrimTabs in a note to clients, said the U.S. economy has become alarmingly dependent on government stimulus.
Government economy.
Has become alarmingly dependent on its neighbors.
Consumption supported by wages and salaries, a much stronger foundation for economic growth and consumption based on social welfare.
But no kidding.
But not according to Nancy Pelosi and Austin Goolsby, Pelosi and Goolsby say that this unemployment compensation generates a buck and a half return for every dollar of benefits.
It's an out and out lie.
No, this makes me so mad because we're destroying people's lives.
Thirdly, that's why it makes me mad.
One-third of the people of this country are being denied their full opportunity to reach their own potential.
And this is a this is on purpose.
This is a direct result of liberalism.
The Democrat Party create as much dependence as possible.
And it's increasing.
Cloud Pivon, don't care what you want to call it, puts so much stress on the system, the system eventually implodes because it's not capable.
35%.
What happens if the payments stop?
Riots happen, exactly right.
Riots happen if the payments stop.
Riots and who knows whatever the hell else happens.
With the full support, by the way, of the Democrat Party and the American left who are responsible for this boondoggle.
So the economist here, Madeline Schnapp, gives the country two stark choices in order to get welfare back to its pre-recession ratio of 26% of pay.
Either wages and salaries would have to increase 2.3 trillion dollars or 35% up to 8.8 trillion.
Or social welfare benefits would have to decline 500 billion or 23%.
Social welfare benefits have increased by 514 billion dollars over the last two years, according to TrimTab's figures, in part because of measures implemented to fight the financial crisis and measures implemented to buy votes, frankly.
But then there's this.
And this is the kicker, and this this is from again, Madeline Schnapp.
At the very least, we can take solace in the fact that we're not quite at the state welfare levels of Europe.
In the UK, social welfare benefits make up 44% of wages and salaries, according to Trim Tab Schnapp.
And that's right where we're headed by design.
And the big secret is that Europe's going the other way.
They've reached the point of tipping.
They cannot sustain it.
They are cutting back benefits.
They're cutting back tuitions.
They're getting the riots.
We're getting many versions of riots in Wisconsin.
They're coming to Ohio.
They're coming to Indiana.
They're going the opposite direction.
They have realized they can't sustain it anymore.
Is trying to get rid of its version of Obamacare.
But we have Obamacare yet to fully implement.
All the other goodies that Obama is handing out from his stash.
That number's going to hit 44% before you can say social justice.
Yes, it infuriates me.
It infuriates me for these people.
No, I'm not so much mad at them.
I mean, that's not that's a waste of time getting sure.
Sure, some of the 35% are genuine born freeloaders.
Every society is going to have some of those, but a lot of these people have been manufactured, they've been created.
A lot of people think this is what they are due as Americans, that this is their entitlement.
They haven't been taught the founding.
They haven't been taught industriousness, they haven't been taught self-reliance, all that stuff sneered at.
They haven't been, they haven't been taught the beauty of work and achievement and accomplishment, self-esteem that way.
This folks, this this is a crime.
There's not very much could make me cry, but this could.
This is to me is is totally unacceptable.
I saw this yesterday, and I said, I just I mean, it's something that you instinctively know that we all know that it's a lot of welfare.
We all know that Democrat Party is promoting it.
We all know that, but to see one third, one third of what we would all consider salaries, wages, is welfare checks.
I don't care what you call it, unemployment compensation.
I don't care.
It's welfare checks.
It's the redistribution of wealth, pure and simple.
The idea that this is desired, being done on purpose by an entire political party in this country.
Then you realize that Democrats want more people dependent on government, dependent on them so they can keep their phony baloney jobs.
Now the the yeah, the preferred politically correct term is income transfers.
BS, it's welfare.
My friends, just gonna tell you here, when you have in the budget pie on the expenditure side, when you have unemployment compensation as an entitlement.
I mean, that's it's there.
It's listed as an entitlement, and it costs as much as Social Security.
Oh, at least, at least with Social Security, there is the ruse.
There is the illusion that people have contributed to some of it.
You're gonna pay people 99 weeks not to work or longer, guess what?
They're not gonna work.
Pure and simple.
I gotta take a break.
We'll do that.
We'll get back in a jiffy before you know it.
Your phone call's coming up as well, 800-282-2882.
Ah, yeah, I know it's depressing for.
I mean, some people are so lazy that they will only be unemployed if they're paid to be unemployed.
I mean, that's where we're headed.
They're only gonna be unemployed if they're paid to be.
And they're gonna expect it's some kind of entitlement.
Yeah, the worse you tell them the economy is, the more evidence they think they have for not even trying to find a job.
But they still have to eat and live, and it's somebody's responsibility, it's not theirs.
It's the Wall Street guys, it's the rich, it's big oil.
I mean, this is the result of what the Democrat rhetoric has been all these years.
You know, if unemployment checks would stop, some people, not all, would be so incensed at being expected to sit around the house for nothing.
They'd probably do something about it, either protest, like in Greece or Wisconsin, or maybe they'd even go get a job.
By the way, more good news for NPR.
James O'Keefe is saying that there are more NPR tapes to come, which is probably why Vivian Schiller resigned today.
That's the way O'Keefe does it.
You parcel out the first, you get everybody worked in the tissue.
Oh, wait a minute, that didn't even scratch the surface.
Yeah, Vivian Schiller knew what was coming her way.
Don in Chicago, as we start on the phones today.
Great to have you with us, sir.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush.
28-day dittoes.
Thank you, sir.
Your opening um story has an obvious uh contradiction.
It said that the uh the rising gas prices isn't is not having an adverse effect on the economy because businesses are passing off the cost to their consumers uh a lot faster than they did in the past.
Yeah, I know.
Is that not inflationary?
Uh it's not just that.
It's it's silly.
It's I mean, to sit here and say that businesses are are are not as affected here because they're passing off costs to their to their customers sooner, a lot faster than they did in the past.
That's crazy.
It's totally crazy.
But the whole story is crazy.
The whole story is crazy.
Rising gas price, not a problem.
Everybody's prepared this time.
Everything's fine.
Everything's cool, everything's hunky-dory.
There's not one problem.
You're right.
Uh doing things like that would be uh uh inflationary, but it also is not happening.
And if if businesses are passing costs along, that ultimately has an impact on whoever's paying those costs.
They're either not buying or buying less, or what have whatever it ain't, fine.
But get ready.
We warned you of this.
We told you the rising gas price, it's gonna be a Bush problem that poor old Obama inherited, but everything's actually okay.
We know a lot more about this now than we did with Bush.
Everything's fine.
Well, they're really telling you don't start complaining about the gasoline price to us because we're not gonna do any stories on it.
We're not gonna have no compassion nowhere for you.
Rising gas prices hurt you at your tough luck.
Everybody else has learned how to deal with it.
Why haven't you?
Here's Bob in Glenwin, Illinois.
Bob, welcome to the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Hello, Mr. Limbo, how are you, sir?
Fine, sir.
Thank you very much.
I'm a longtime listener, and um, I just want to say it's an honor to speak with you.
Appreciate that, sir.
I have a question for you.
Um, you know, I'm kind of caught between a rock and a hard place.
Um been a conservative all my life.
I I don't agree with the welfare state of of our country.
That's right.
Um I ran into a little bit of an issue a few years ago when I got some severe cancer and battled it for a couple years.
Um cancer free right now, but uh unfortunately, you know, I cannot work, and uh I had to go on uh disability.
Yeah.
And um I was just wondering, you know, you know, like I say, I'm I'm kind of in conflict with myself because you know I'm one of No, you're not.
You're in conflict with me and what I just said.
Let me ask let me ask you a question.
Well, no, sir.
I mean, I I I you know I'm always been told that, you know, tax money and this and that goes to in case anything like this comes up.
Okay, look, you have a disability, right?
Yes, sir.
You can't work, right?
No, sir.
Okay, do you think I actually think you ought to be denied stuff?
No, sir.
Okay.
I don't think that.
I'm not talking about I'm not talking about people like you, but there are people who fudge this disability business.
I had a story not long ago of a bunch of drunks in jail getting disability payments because they were alcoholics.
No, sir.
I agree with that, sir.
But I just, you know, I want our country to survive, and and you know, I I just don't know where we can get.
Well, we are a compassionate country.
There is not a person in this country that does not want somebody who cannot provide for themselves to go empty.
There's not a person in the world who wants that.
That's not what we you don't fall under the headline definition free loader or what have you.
And that if if if you're bothered by it, I mean it's life.
Uh a lot of things affect a lot of people, but we're not talking about you.
And you are not the majority of that 35% on the dole anyway.
You're a small percentage of it.
You're not the problem we're talking about.
The share of U.S. population receiving social security disability insurance benefits is rising.
And it is rising rapidly, but it's got a long way to go to get to 35%.
Details are coming up, plus the other two hours.
Who knows what they hold?
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