Oh, I just got a flash here that Washington Post columnist David Broder has died.
He was one of the last of the grown-up Democrats in Washington.
He was 81 years old.
David Broder, just heard, has passed away today.
Great to have you back, folks.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Here you go from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
And this bunch, it's a bunch of leftists who decide when the recessions began and when they end.
Keep in mind that these are the clowns that told us the recession actually started back during the Bush years when it didn't.
Anyway, according to this bunch of leftists, the share of the U.S. population receiving Social Security Disability Insurance, SSDI, has risen rapidly over the past 20 years from 2.2% of adults 25 to 64, that was in 1985, 4.1% of adults 25, 64 in 2005.
Disabled workers make up more than 15% of those receiving Social Security.
That's the bottom line figure.
The most important factor is the liberalization of the disability screening process.
And this occurred due to a 1984 law.
This law directed the Social Security Administration to place more weight on applicants' reported pain and discomfort, relax their screening of mental illness, consider applicants with multiple non-severe ailments, and give more credence to medical evidence provided by the applicant's doctor.
So there is, we must say, there is a working system.
There's a system for people to get on disability insurance, Social Security.
There's a pathway.
It's been spelled out, sort of like the Americans with Disability Act itself, which has allowed a lot of people to jump on the dole.
Just has.
Sorry to say it, folks, but that's the case.
And it just irritates me.
And again, the reason why this irritates me is above and beyond the fact that it's not sustainable.
Remember when I defined conservatism during my CPAC speech?
So we conservatives love everybody.
We want everybody to be great.
We want everybody to be happy and content.
We want everybody to have a shot.
We want everybody to have unfettered opportunity at their version of the American dream.
Now, we don't define the American dream as welfare.
We want people to be productive, to experience all that life can offer.
And I tell you, it just grates on me that we are in a war with a political party that does not share that view of people.
And furthermore, that that party somehow has been able to claim the mantle of compassion.
They're the ones that everybody thinks care about everybody.
And it's the exact opposite.
They're dooming people to lives of abject misery, all for their own benefit, their benefit, the political, politicians' benefit.
It just really grates on me.
This is not in any way a foundation for a great country.
This is building a foundation for tearing down a great country, tearing it apart, pure and simple.
This waste of humanity, this utter waste of human potential in the freest country ever to exist just makes me sick.
It just does.
I sit here and talk about nothing's real.
One third, one third, 35%.
One-third.
No, I didn't.
What is being done to them is a waste.
I didn't call them waste.
Their lives are being wasted.
It's a damn shame.
We all only get one life.
We get one life.
We conservatives want people to maximize.
It's just one.
There's only one.
And you don't get yesterday back.
Whatever happened yesterday happened.
You don't get do-overs.
And they all add up.
One day your life is over.
And look what we have consigned one-third of our people to.
Basically a life of servitude, indentured or otherwise.
Now, this is not how it's supposed to be.
We got more opportunity.
We have more opportunity for human achievement, accomplishment, greatness in this country than anywhere the world has ever known.
And we have a political system which has relegated 35% of our population to circumstances where they will never know.
They will likely never know what awaits them, what they've been cheated out of or what they're going to miss or what have you.
So it's just a shame.
I'm sorry.
I take it personally.
This stuff does grate on me.
If I were a presidential candidate, this would be issue number one.
National security, of course, this is, if you love people, if you really care about people, if you really want the best form, you cannot look at the statistic and be tolerable of it.
And to know that there are people who are not only tolerant of it, but are encouraging it and are attempting to feed off of it, benefit from it themselves, it makes me even angrier.
Here, I talked about Alan Colbs last hour.
He was on Fox.
He's all upset here at the way the NPR guys got punked.
He was on with Martha McCallum on America's Newsroom on Fox.
She said, Alan, what about what the man said on the tape?
That's what's wrong.
Meaning Schiller.
You know, Combs had just gotten through saying what happened.
It doesn't matter because the guy got punked.
Well, the guy got set up.
Well, who cares?
And she said, what do you mean?
What about what he said?
Whether or not Vivian Schiller resigned because of this, or maybe it was in aggregate because of the Juan Williams situation, it hasn't been addressed as to exactly why she did.
This man should not have said what he said.
I object to these tactics.
I just wonder if a liberal had gone undercover to kind of get some conservative group, would conservatives be as all welcoming of that kind of tactic?
Because O'Keefe has said, my goal is to really do this kind of so-called journalism, which it's not, and bust liberals.
That's what his whole goal is.
Alan, you ever heard of Mike Wallace?
Have you ever heard of Mike Watson?
How about that basement blogger liberal in Buffalo who called a governor of Wisconsin pretending to be David Koch?
Which, I don't know about you, Alan, but guys on your side had the biggest fun with that.
I mean, that was wonderful.
This guy was a hero.
And Walker didn't even say anything embarrassing.
Walker did not get tripped up by your punker.
But have you ever heard of Mike Wallace, the hidden camera, the hidden microphone, for crying out loud, this has been a statement.
How about the exploding Ford truck at NBC?
How about ABC going into grocery stores and planning whatever they did?
Food Lion for crying out loud, Colms, your side invented this.
I mean, I used to do stuff like this, but it was funny radio pranks when I was a kid and so forth.
But I mean, this is this love it.
Maine, Maine, ladies and gentlemen, has been granted a waiver from Obamacare and an entire state.
The federal government yesterday granted Maine a waiver of a key provision in Obamacare, citing the likelihood that enforcement could destabilize Maine's market for individual health insurance.
But isn't that its purpose?
To destabilize the market for individual health insurance?
Yes, it is, but after 2012.
See, all this terror, all this horror is not supposed to happen until after Obama's been reelected.
That's why all of these waivers, nobody's supposed to feel the realities of health care prior to 2012.
That's why all the waivers.
The U.S. Health and Human Services Department said in a letter it would waive the requirement that insurers spend 80 cents to 85 cents of every premium dollar on medical care and quality improvement.
Remember, this is another thing that a lot of us think is unconstitutional.
Here's the government telling private insurance how it must spend its profits.
And there's a requirement in Obamacare that private insurance spend 80 to 85 percent of every premium dollar on medical care and quality improvement.
That's going to run them out of business.
Which is the purpose.
But Maine has been granted a reprieve.
Maine has been granted a waiver.
Now, isn't there something in the U.S. Constitution called the Equal Protection Clause?
I'm going to have to consult my legal beagle buddies here.
Wouldn't that require the administration to give every state the same waiver?
Now, of course, if the regime cared one whit about the Constitution, we wouldn't even have this monstrosity in the first place.
But we do.
All right, have you heard about the old emails that have been circulating they found from Governor Walker?
The old email controversy.
The emails are old.
We got a media montage.
The media trying to say that Governor Walker is caving.
He's caving.
And you look at these emails, and he's not nearly as strident as he is in public.
He's a lot softer.
He's much more amenable to caving if you read these emails.
The problem is they're old, and the emails in question have nothing to do with recent polls.
If anything, what this shows is the Democrats want the standoff.
And in fact, from WTMJ in Milwaukee, Senator Fitzgerald claims Democrats using delay for recall efforts, which is not really the correct headline.
Here's the story.
Tuesday brought the 18th day that Wisconsin Senate Democrats stayed out of state to avoid a quorum and a vote for Governor Walker's budget repair bill.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, Republican from Juneau, believes the delay is actually a plan by organizers attached to Obama to get Wisconsin Republican legislators recalled.
There are many people beginning to believe this is a delay tactic by the Democrats in the Senate so that these recall elections can be organized by the Obama team out of Chicago, which they are, as we start to do the research on the people that have filed the petition.
When asked whether Fitzgerald knew that for a fact, he said, well, the organizer against River Hills Republican Senator Alberta Darling definitely has direct links to the Obama campaign, no doubt about that.
These guys might be out until June, meaning of Democrats.
Unfortunately, what they're trying to do is flip the majority, and I think that's becoming very evident.
The Obama team out of Chicago.
So it is now see the Obama team is managing what's going on in Wisconsin.
They're trying to delay this and delay this and delay this, trying to get a Republican recall.
Put themselves back in the majority.
Also, this from the tattler.
State Representative Nick Milroy is the Democrat state representative from Wisconsin's 73rd district.
He was on the radio.
He pointed out, one of the guests, one of the hosts pointed out that union membership was split by their votes in 2010, 49% for Democrats, 47% for Republicans, nearly an even split.
But despite the fact that union members vote almost 50-50 Republican-Democrat, unions donated 93% of their total contributions to the Democrats.
Only 7% went to Republicans, yet half of the union members vote Republicans.
So there's quite a disparity.
Union members vote 50-50 essentially, but 93% of their dues goes to Democrats.
So the question was asked if the Assemblyman could understand why Republicans were not in favor of having taxpayer-funded dues go to fund Democrat campaigns.
And the Assemblyman contended that public employees can opt out of the unions.
But when he was pressed about how even those that opt out must pay union dues, the assemblyman suggested that those people that didn't want to be part of a union could find other work.
He said, if people don't like paying union dues that are used to support Democrat candidates, they can always get another job.
So be it.
That's your choice.
You don't like the way your union dues being spent, quit the union and get another job.
People don't like paying dues that are used to support Democrat candidates.
They can always get another job.
Notice how this is a one-way street.
And how about these union members voting for Republicans, getting literally no representation whatsoever for their donations?
Zilch Zero Nada.
Of course, the point here is not quitting and getting the people don't like paying union dues.
That's not the point.
The point is, what about the taxpayers who don't like paying the dues?
Because that's who's paying the dues.
Can we go through this again?
Because what we have here is a money laundering operation.
You have public sector employees.
They are members of public unions.
These public unions support Democrats 95 to 100% of the time with money.
Who pays the salaries of state unionized employees?
Taxpayers do.
Not some evil CEO fat cat.
Joe Sixpack, Joe the Plumber, whoever it is, Mary the Riveter.
These people living in Wisconsin, their taxes higher and pay the salaries of public sector unions, which are already twice as high as what they make.
Then the dues From these union workers go to the Democrat Party.
So the dues originate in the wages earned by private citizens.
So it's Joe Sixpack and Joe the Plumber and all the other taxpayers in Wisconsin whose money is going to the Democrat Party via money laundering operation through the unions.
That's what's happening.
Pure and simple.
That's the real question.
That's what's going on.
And that is where we must take a brief pause.
Hi, welcome back.
You want to hear the latest take from the state control media on this poor guy Schiller at NPR?
Get this.
What's all the hubbub?
This guy was a fundraising executive.
The Schiller guy, the guy that O'Keefe punk there with the setup and the hidden camera is a fundraising guy.
And now this is tainting all of the wonderful journalists at NPR.
All of our wonderful journalists had nothing to do with this, but now this guy is just a fundraiser.
So the full-throated defense of the guy has now been launched first at MSNBC.
It's going to be all over the place.
And then, furthermore, Andrea Mitchell, NBC News in Washington, further stated that, well, so what?
He called a Tea Party racist.
That's no big deal.
Everybody's been calling the Tea Party racist.
She didn't say that.
What did she say?
Oh.
Well, he did call it Tea Party racist.
He called the Tea Party racist.
I'll guarantee you that they don't think that's any big deal because they think it's true.
They're calling the Tea Party racists.
They're like, why'd the guy get canned for that?
We're calling him racist.
We're calling him racist too.
So the guy's a fundraiser tainting all the journalists.
Well, what about, hey, Andrea, what about the Jews run the media?
What about the Jews run the newspapers?
What about the Jews are in charge of all the media?
What about the, you think that stuff?
Why, if it's no big deal, if the journalists have been unfairly slimed, why did the poor guy quit?
And why did Vivian Schiller resign?
You know, why?
If the journalists are clean and pure as the wind-driven snow here, and this punk, Schiller, is just some artiste in waiting.
It happened to be a fundraiser.
It's such a sad thing, isn't it?
This guy has ended up sliming the entire journalistic network at NPR.
He's objective and fair and balanced, only interested in the truth.
People have now all been slimed by Schiller.
And if they would have just not gotten rid of him, then it would have been if they would have just defended the guy and therefore defended all of the wonderful journalists.
And by the way, how about this guy saying we don't even need public money?
Anything that had a role in maybe this guy being aced out of there?
That's not good PR for a bunch of people who can't live without it.
We were talking yesterday about so many people on our side who think Obama is unbeatable.
People that are out recommending various people in our presidential field.
Obama's not really beatable.
The economy's coming back.
He personally liked.
He's very, very popular.
Andrew Malcolm has seen the latest Gallup poll, and it ain't good.
Gallup reports Obama's approval rating is down again, 1%, down to 45%, 45% approval.
Remember now, George H.W. Bush had a 90% approval rating in 1990 after the Gulf Wall.
They said he was unbeatable.
No White House ever pays any attention to public opinion polls.
That could imply the president shapes his actions to be approved, which would be a preposterous thing to believe, rights, Mr. Malcolm.
But if Obama did pay attention to his poll numbers, which of course he doesn't, he'd have to be a little disappointed today, or at least somewhat puzzled, now that we're less than 20 months from the election, the job approval numbers are down again, even without a viable announced Republican opponent, even with the unemployment rate down a smidge, even with Joe Biden out of the country.
According to the latest Gallup numbers, Obama's weekly number was 46% Peru Sunday.
And he's continuing to lose support.
Gallup, 45% approval.
Disapproval rate up 2% to 48%.
Just FYI, Mark in Marshall, Texas.
As we go back to the phones, great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Glad to talk to you.
Yes, sir.
I guess I had one point I wanted clarification on, and then I had a quick question.
You were talking earlier, and I don't care what you call Social Security, but you were kind of lumping people that were drawing Social Security that had worked all their life paying into Social Security into the same group of people who were drawing unemployment and other free handouts.
And I just kind of took offense to that a little bit because I've been in my life since I was 13 years old.
No, no, that's not what I said.
What I said was that the unemployment compensation, the cost of paying it, is almost as much as Social Security.
Okay.
I've worked all my life, and I worked for a government, in fact, a local government, and knock on wood.
We've had a balanced budget for 21 years that I've been there.
I wish the Feds could say that.
But I guess my question was, and this is totally different than what we were just talking about.
I guess I just misunderstood what you were saying earlier about Social Security.
I mean, I feel like it is an entitlement in a sense because I feel like I am entitled to it.
I paid into it all these years.
Unfortunately, that's not what the definition of an entitlement is from the budget writer's standpoint.
But you're saying it's yours.
You paid into it.
Yeah, I understand that.
And I don't, you know, I mean, I hate the way the government, I'm as conservative as they come.
I feel like if you don't work, you don't eat, you know, I mean, or you can eat dirt or whatever, you know, but if you can, you know, like the guy earlier that was disabled, I feel like, you know, it's our obligation almost to take care of the people like that.
But my question, I guess, was on the unemployment issue.
Whenever they figure the unemployment, do they actually get the number of people who have exceeded, even though it's now 99 weeks?
I mean, I know there's people out there that have drawn unemployment for 99 weeks.
I can't believe that, but they do, and then they go past that point.
Are they still counted in those numbers?
It depends.
After a certain passage of time, people are simply dropped from the category of unemployed.
And there's a category of unemployed, but not looking for work anymore.
And that number gives us the monthly unemployment number that we get from the federal categorization is called the U3, U-3 number.
Right now, that number is 8.9%.
And that number does not include the numbers of people who have simply given up trying to find a job after who knows how long.
We assume it's 99 weeks, but we don't know.
We can't find out.
We do not know how they know who has stopped looking for work.
They don't tell us this.
They just assume that after unemployment benefits have run out, then people stop looking for work, I guess.
So we really don't know.
But the U6 unemployment number that includes people who are out of work and no longer looking is about 17 or 18%, not 8.9%.
Now, I want to go back to this entitlement versus unemployed, Social Security, and so forth and so on.
I know there's a lot of sensitivity about this.
I know that the way I talk about this, no politician ever could, which I think is emblematic of one of the things wrong with politics.
From a budget writer's standpoint, an entitlement is something they can't touch.
Social Security is an entitlement.
That means it's written into law.
There cannot be any cuts to it.
You can't pare it down.
It's just there.
It's like it's etched in stone like a Ten Commandments.
That's what they mean by an entitlement.
To other people, an entitlement is something a bunch of lazy people think is theirs simply because they were born in America.
And that as Americans, they are entitled to their country giving them enough for them to live on.
There are two distinct definitions here.
What I'm talking about is the overall number.
I don't care what the subdivisions are.
35% of the American people are living on something produced by somebody else, not themselves.
Now, contrary to the knee-jerk reaction people have when I say this, I am not first condemning those people.
I could, and I would eventually get to it in my priority list, but that's not my concern.
My concern is for the country at large.
35% of people who have money coming in are not earning it.
I don't want to hear the sob stories.
You know, we got Social Security disability, and I understand that there are people that can't work, and nobody is saying don't take care of them.
Anybody with common sense, I don't even want to have to waste time defending that.
I'm talking about the United States of America as a structured system whereby a population manages its affairs, whereby a nation maintains itself as a superpower, whereas a nation maintains a manufacturing base, whereas a nation maintains itself as an economic power.
I'm simply saying that 35% and growing, by the way, of the American people receiving money that they are not earning is not a way to sustain anything that anybody thinks is great about this country.
Not possible.
And in this story, we're told, well, it could be worse.
I mean, Europe, 44%.
Yeah, and look at Europe.
Are they a world power, a leader in anything?
They have lost their countries.
They've lost their borders.
They're losing their cultures.
They have all these cradle-to-grave programs.
They've got 14% unemployment.
They've got rampant poverty.
They've got people that cannot get treated for months in line for simple medical procedures.
So to the point, they are reversing direction.
They're trying to cut back on some of these programs they can no longer afford.
We, on the other hand, are headed in the direction they are now trying to reverse.
If we were 35% and falling, let's draw a party.
We're 35% and growing, and we're growing fast.
And I am terribly sorry if the knee-jerk reaction to this is somebody taking it so personally thinking I'm insulting them.
I am not, but I could, if you want to.
I mean, I could, when I get to my list of things on the priority list that bother me about this, at some point, there's a group of people out there who could very well be working it or not.
And we all know it.
And I don't think that it somehow violates some contract to mention it.
Even Snerdley's looking at me, I can't believe you're saying this.
Why?
You don't think that there are people out there capable of working who aren't scamming the system?
Okay.
Well, they are.
But the aggregate of this, the aggregate, maybe I'm personalizing this too much.
I will acknowledge.
I don't know how I could avoid doing it, though.
But I think we all personalize things like this.
Just tell you, and I've mentioned this before, I can't stand gifts.
I can't, I don't like the obligation of having somebody give me something.
Birthday, Christmas, different thing.
You know what I'm talking about.
I don't, I just don't like the obligation.
Why I could ever run for office.
You've got to ask people for money, and they're going to want to be paid back somehow.
Well, now Snerdley says that I'm different because I always have to be on the lookout for people trying to bribe or scam or use me or what have you.
Well, that's true, but I've had this attitude long before that aspect of my life became paramount.
And I know I'm weird.
Well, I don't know.
Well, whatever it is, I know it's strange.
And I also realize how really fortunate I realize not everybody can live their life the way I've sought to and have succeeded in doing.
And I'm not suggesting that I'm any kind of a model lived by.
I'm just, I'm from the standpoint of a country and also making it personal.
I do look at my own life and I look at, I've been broke a couple times and I've been stretched thin.
I've had my house payment and my MasterCard bill due in the same two-week period of month and I could not pay them both no matter what I did.
So I'm not speaking from a silver spoon standpoint such as the Kennedys might or some such thing.
I just genuinely do because of the great fortune that I have had happen to me because I am an American, because I live here.
I would love nothing more than for as many millions of people as possible to experience it themselves.
And in the process of that happening, the greatness of this country would be undoubted, it would be unquestioned, and it would be prospering.
We would be continuing to grow.
The opportunity for prosperity, the greatest amount of freedom any human beings have ever had since the beginning of time, is the United States of America.
And to see it squandered by a political party promoting it, because this is how they get votes and maintain not just power, but control over people.
And the greatest, I guess that's it.
I don't desire to have any control over anybody.
I have no desire to have power over a single human being.
I really am, I'll take care of myself and you take care of yourself.
And whatever happens, happens.
And I'm not in any way, shape, man, or form into manipulation, domination, or any of that.
But I know I'm also odd in that regard, too.
I can't tell you the number of people into that kind of thing, power, manipulation, domination, or what have you.
I have no interest in that whatsoever.
I'm speaking purely and simply as a small little speck of a citizen here who has fortunately experienced all the great opportunities the country has to offer.
When I see 35% and growing, I've said for 23 years, and we talk about what?
We talk about the things that are posing threats to this country's existence, be it Obama, be it liberalism, be it what have you.
Here we're dealt with a slap upside ahead.
35% and growing.
The American people are living off of somebody else.
Okay, we want to be Greece, go for it.
But we don't, do we?
We want to be France.
Do we want to be the UK?
Do we want that's sadly, some of our leaders do want us to head in that direction.
What's wrong with those countries, Mr. Limbaugh?
Nothing's wrong with those countries, but the free people of the world can't depend on them.
And the free people of those countries can't depend on their own governments.
They have to depend on us.
The whole freedom aspect as part of this recipe is crucial as well.
So for all of you being taking this personally and thinking that I, El Rushbo, sitting behind my golden EIB microphone, are personally insulting, calling you a freeloader.
Well, if it fits, fine, wear it.
But that's not my point here.
I'm looking beyond individuals here, as far as my perspective is concerned, looking at this as an American.
If I'm failing to communicate what about this really bothers me, then it's my problem, and I'll continue to work at it to the point that nobody has any confusion with what I'm saying.
In the meantime, you freeloaders know who you are.
If your loafers fit, wear them.
To me, one more time.
To me, 35%, and they have some of this called wages.
Folks, we're losing.
35% of American adults on the dole, to me, is the single reason why I have been doing this show since I started in Sacramento.
Hoping that number would never be more than 20%, 25%.
The single reason, that number, 35%, everything you want to know about what's wrong with American politics is in that number.
Everything you want to know, everything that you want to know what's wrong with the Democrat Party and liberalism is in that number.
Everything you want to know about what's wrong with the way this country is managing its affairs is to be found in that number.
Everything you want to know about whether or not we have a military that can defend this country is found in that number.
Everything you want to know about whether or not we're going to continue to win medals, gold medals at the Olympics can be found in that number.
Everything you want to know about what's wrong and the future of American education can be found in that number.
Everything you want to know to explain why so many manufacturing jobs have left America can be found in that number.
Everything you want to know to explain how in the world the subprime mortgage crisis was how in the world did we ever get to the point where our government was demanding that banks loan money to buy houses people would never be able to repay is going to be found in that number.
Because once it has it's toqueville once it has been established that that many people figure out they can get whatever they get for nothing then America as we've known it is severely threatened and in peril.
It's that simple.
Bill O'Reilly talking to Charles Krauthammer on the factor last night he said to Krauthammer if I'm Obama I'm not quaking over there talking about our presidential field and Krauthammer kind of disagreed with him on that.