And greetings to you once again, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
I'm Rush Limbaugh, this, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address, ilrushbaugh at EIBnet.com.
I got an email from a subscriber, rushlimbaugh.com.
The subject line is Rush.
You are being too nice.
Rush, I don't believe the Republican leadership is afraid of being blamed for government shutdown.
Maybe they don't want to defund Obamacare.
Maybe Orwell's book, Animal Farm, applies to the Republican leadership.
Maybe Marco Rubio et al. are beginning to realize the truth.
The emailer is from Plano, Texas.
Interesting.
Maybe they don't want to defund Obamacare.
You're Republicans?
They say they do.
They most certainly do, certainly.
They most certainly do say they want to defund Obamacare.
What are you giving me that hoity-toity nose-in-the-air look for?
You are used to saying some of them said it.
I'm talking about the leadership.
I'm talking about, anyway, talking about this, and I didn't get all the sound bites in here.
Here is Boehner last night on the Kudlow report on CNBC.
Kudlow said, on Friday, Mr. Speaker, you unveiled a new continuing resolution, I guess, to stop a shutdown this Friday.
You got another $6 billion of budget cuts in there towards your $61 billion target.
Can this one get through?
The continuing resolution this week will pass for another three weeks, keeping the government open.
And yet, cutting some $6 billion, which means that over the last several weeks, we'll be able to accumulate $10 billion worth of real savings.
All of this because the Democrats did no budget last year.
They did no appropriation bills and dumped this mess in our lap.
I want the continuing resolution through September 30th finished as soon as possible.
But that's going to mean real cuts.
It's going to mean real limitations on what this administration can do for the balance of this fiscal year.
And I'm hopeful that we'll get it finished as soon as possible.
All right.
So we're going to have another extension here, and we'll then have accumulated $10 billion worth of real savings.
Let me try a different perspective.
We spent, for all intents and purposes, $1 trillion on Obama's stimulus.
How about getting at least 10% of it back with spending cuts?
How about just $100 billion?
Wasn't that the original figure used, by the way?
Even at $61 looks good compared to now $10.
But here, the thing is that that stimulus we now know was nothing more than a money laundering operation for public sector employees in the various states run by Democrats.
Nothing about that stimulus was to stimulate the American economy, nor private sector jobs.
Okay, so we're now going to accumulate $10 billion worth of real savings because the Democrats did no budget last year.
Yeah, and they're not paying any price for that at all.
They are getting exactly what they wanted by not passing a budget.
Boehner said they did no appropriations bills and they dumped this mess in our lap.
He says, I want the continuing resolution through September 30th finished as soon as possible.
That's going to mean real cuts.
That's going to be, I mean, that's real limitations on what this administration can do for the balance of this fiscal year.
Now, they have said the Republican leadership has said, and it might have been cantor, that their original idea of $100 billion was given a full budget year, not a continuing resolution period of time.
So they're saying that that $100 billion in cuts, that's on the table for next September when that budget gets implemented.
And that budget is what Obama has submitted.
Of course, his is just required by law.
But how about repealing that which must be repealed?
By not passing a budget, the Democrats have locked in their programs, and that's the real spending, and that's the trick.
By not doing a budget and going on the continuing resolution and having our leadership remain loyal to the rules, Democrats are getting exactly what they want.
No cuts.
No cuts in any spending whatsoever.
All of this new spending, all this stuff that happens is now locked in.
$10 billion worth of real savings.
I know they don't like us, certainly.
At the end of the day, I know they don't like us.
I'll bet you, I'll bet you that in the deepest, darkest corners of Washington, D.C., the Democrats and the Republicans get together and start bellyaching about the respective outside agitator influences they all have to deal with.
The Democrats complain about the kooks on MSNBC.
The Republicans complained about the kooks on talk radio.
Too much democracy going on.
I wouldn't be surprised if that were an opinion held by some.
Let's see one more.
Well, one more, one more Boehner, and then we've got Steve King.
Kudlow, Kudlow says, Do you believe that President Obama has turned pro-business?
I get this question all the time.
He had a charm offensive.
He spoke to the Chamber of Commerce, particularly his new Chief of Staff Bill Daly.
Have you spoken to Mr. Daly?
Have you heard from him that they want a pro-business, pro-growth agenda?
Talk is cheap.
Actions speak louder than words.
I haven't seen any new actions yet.
What kind of question is that?
Pro-growth, pro-business?
Pro-specific business, pro-Chrysler, pro-GM, pro-General Electric, not pro-ExxonMobil.
Steve King, yesterday on ABCNews.com webcast the top line, the host Amy Walter.
Steve King, a Republican from Iowa.
You're circulating a letter right now with Congresswoman Buckman saying that if we do not see in the continuing resolution being able to cut off the funds for the healthcare law implementation, that you will vote against this CR, the short-term budget fix.
How many people do you have signed on right now?
How much support do you think you're going to get?
Enough so that this might shut all the talk down of a short-term budget deal.
We have a leverage point, and it is the funding for the government for the balance of fiscal year 2011.
This is the place to pitch the fight.
If we shut off the funding to implement Obamacare and the Senate or the president refuses to go along with it, that is their decision, not ours.
I don't understand.
Well, I don't want to sound naive here, folks.
I do understand it, but I mean, in real world terms, I don't understand our side having any argument whatsoever about wanting to defund Obamacare.
That's why they are all in the majority.
Mr. Boehner is Speaker because people want Obamacare defunded.
Ryan and Cantor have leadership positions because people want this spending stopped.
They want it checked.
They want it rolled back.
They want Obama's presiding over the decline of this country stopped, and they want Obamacare repealed.
That's why they have the leadership position.
How can there be any confusion about this?
You got an opportunity, $105 billion.
You got an opportunity here to shut it down.
You don't take it.
And of course, the prevailing explanation is, look, well, that'll cause a government shutdown.
The Democrats aren't going to agree to Obamacare being defunded, and we get to blame.
And then I'm back to my emailer.
They don't care about a government shutdown rush.
Elmer was his name from Plano, Texas.
They don't care about that rush.
They don't want Obamacare.
Now, I'm just going to tell you, I don't know whether Elmer's right, but Elmer's one of us.
And if some of us, if there are Republican voters, see November, December, January, February.
See, you know, December, January, February, March.
Four months.
If there are Republicans four months after voting for Republicans, starting to think the people they voted for don't want to defund Obamacare, we have problems.
They got problems.
As promised, back to the phone, Summit, New Jersey.
Jeff, I'm glad you waited, sir.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Mega taxpaying, gun-clinging, religion-loving ditto.
Thank you very much, sir.
Great to have you here.
I called to talk about John Conyers, but so much has transpired since I first called in.
I have to make one comment about Mr. Boehner, the clip you just played.
Don't you find some delicious irony in his statement that talk is cheap?
It's actions that actually mean something?
Well, yeah.
Because he talked very much about wanting to repeal Obamacare, wanting to defund Obamacare, and his actions say that he wants everything but.
Well, now, he says they're going to get to it.
He just can't get to it this way because of the rules.
Well, if I'm not mistaken, didn't they use, didn't they circumvent this particular rule several hundred times?
Yeah, this rule is like every other rule has been circumvented.
Right.
But see, the problem is, as has been explained to me, the Pelosi Congress just spat on every rule that was out there, and we're not going to be known for that.
We're going to run this House in an ethical way as though people are taking notes.
So even to put things back in their proper order, to undo what the other Congress did by violating the rules, they won't simply circumvent this one rule to put things back the way they're supposed to be.
So it has been said, yes.
Well, I'm John Conyers.
I heard your comment before that Mr. Conyers said that he voted for the health care bill because it was a perfect platform or it was some sort of a platform from which they can then leap towards universal health care for everyone.
That's right.
Single payer.
If I'm not mistaken, when the health care bill was up for a vote and Mr. Conyers was asked about the health care bill, the details, didn't he have a quote in which he said, I couldn't understand it.
It's too long.
And if I had an army of lawyers, I still couldn't understand it.
You know, it's actually right.
You're absolutely right.
He said he hadn't read the bill.
He said they don't read any bills up there that you need lawyers to do all this.
So how can Mr. Conyers now say that he had any kind of a substantive or factual reason for voting for a bill, which he at the time said he couldn't understand, even though he had lawyers interpreting it for him?
Great question.
Answer it.
I think that politicians think that enough time has passed that they can make statements that completely contradict a proposition.
He didn't need to know what it said word for word.
He knew what the objective was.
The Democrats have had this health care bill in a drawer for 40 years.
National health care, single payer, whatever you want to call it, has been their objective.
He didn't care what the 2,700 pages said.
He knew that's what it was.
How it got there, he didn't know the details.
He didn't care.
So you're saying now he's telling the truth?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was probably in his own way telling a version of the truth back then.
I don't need to know what's in it.
I already do.
I don't need to read this.
I know we're liberals here.
We know what we're going to do.
We're going to put this government in charge of it.
I mean, how this staff has written it, I couldn't care less.
I'm not going to waste my time reading it because I know at the end of the day what it says in there.
Well, I've got to say that feeling the way I do about Obamacare, about the Pelosi Congress, about the out-of-control government, that people like Mr. Boehner and others, just to jump back to the other track, they ignore our will at their own peril.
If they think that we have short memories, if they think that we had a victory in November, and that's our pacifier, we're all going to go back home and worry about it.
I'm sure, in addition to remembering the budget shutdown of 95, they remember losing the House in 2006.
So I know they haven't forgotten that.
They know that you are thinking, and there are people like you out there thinking the way you are.
There are many, it's why we're called the silent majority, but we were not silenced back in November.
We made our voices heard, but we did it in the proper way, not the way the other people did it just recently in Wisconsin.
Yep, that's right.
But you just don't know what all they have to do up there to get things done.
You know, it seems that they are so focused on where to deflect blame.
I would suggest to Mr. Boehner that perhaps he should focus more on taking credit rather than making sure he doesn't get saddled with undue blame.
I think if it's not.
Now, that is well stated, and that, I think, is a great way to frame this, offense versus defense.
Absolutely.
Look to take credit for positive steps.
Don't play defense.
Don't be afraid.
And look to simply not get pinned with blame.
Well, remember, it's like I told you yesterday, fear kills.
I think we're seeing a living example of it right now in Washington.
Yeah, it does.
Fear kills.
Paralyzes you.
Snake could come up and bite you in the left breast, die of silicone poisoning if you had an implant.
But fear kills.
It just does.
Tim, Salem, Oregon.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB network.
How does it feel to be in the path of the next tsunami, the next destructive earthquake, and to have no chance whatsoever to survive?
Well, I think my property will become beachfront.
I'm in a Willamette Valley.
But it's going to be so contaminated you can't live there.
I've been reading it in the media.
Well, we're used to that, Rush.
Anyway, thanks for the call.
What's up?
Well, if there's no meaningful action taken on this budget, what will the Tea Party do and when?
Third party.
That's what will happen.
The Tea Party will throw out in nominating fights the people they think are not up to snuff.
And if that doesn't work, eventually they're going to go third party.
I think what everybody misunderstands, this Tea Party business, I guess one of the reasons why it's resented.
And I think one of the reasons that the intelligentsia on both sides has problems with Palin because she's associated with it.
Tea Party doesn't have a leader.
It's not of Washington.
It's not of Yale.
It's not of Harvard.
It is not of Brown or Temple or Trinity or any of these other places.
It's right out there in good old-fashioned grassroots.
And if you want to kill the Tea Party, there's no one person to go to kill it.
You've got to kill principles.
You've got to wipe out total ideas.
And that constitutes a threat.
So there's no real getting rid of the Tea Party when you boil it all down.
So the Tea Party is, I mean, they do have some fundraising arms.
I know this because I get the spam email from them.
And I say that with great affection.
But I know that they haven't...
Look at Wisconsin.
They haven't slackened off.
Their passion hasn't wavered.
Their expectations are just as high as ever.
And if they're not met, they have come to life and organized on the basis of real events and real principle.
They've not been talked into anything.
They don't exist because some rabble-rouser has gotten them all worked up.
They are the Tea Party people and whole organization, as it's defined, is the epitome of genuine.
So third party, who knows where they'll go, if that's what they think it takes to affect the outcome that they want, especially they know that they're the majority of thinking in the country, too.
They know that they represent the majority of thinking of the people in this country.
So best answer I have to your question is what do they do if things don't manifest themselves to their pleasure is resort to ways that would.
And they'll probably do third party.
The best I can think.
Because it ain't going to take them long to figure out that there's no influence on the current crop.
Not going to waste their time on that, I don't think.
Back in a second.
Stay with the phones to Tom and Rapids City, South Dakota.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB network.
Wonderful to have you with us.
Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh.
With that disaster taking place over in Japan right now, I was wondering if you knew how much of our debt Japan owned and if they were going to cash in on it.
I have the latest statistics on that from the U.S. Treasury.
The CHICOMs hold $1.154 trillion in American debt.
Japan has $885 billion of our debt currently owned.
UK, $278 billion.
Now, that's the latest.
That's of January 2011.
Well, they could do a lot of rebuilding with that.
Well, but they can also print their own.
True.
They can print their own.
In fact, thanks for the call out there.
Let me get to some of this stuff here that I titillated you with at the beginning of the broadcast.
Mr. Felix Salmone, who is degreed, I believe, in art literature or art criticism or something.
He's an artist.
But he has a piece that Reuters today in their analysis and opinion section.
And his piece is entitled, Don't Donate Money to Japan.
Individuals are doing it.
Banks are doing it.
Faced with the horrific news and pictures from Japan.
Everybody wants to do something.
And the obvious thing to do is to donate money to some relief fund or other.
We went through this after the Haiti earthquake.
And all the arguments which applied there apply to Japan as well.
Earmarking money is a really good way of hobbling relief organizations and ensuring that they have to leave large piles of money unspent in one place while facing urgent needs in other places.
Now, I don't know about you.
Does Japan strike you as being like Haiti?
I don't think there's going to be a lot of money unspent in Japan, frankly.
But anyway, let me continue here with Mr. Felix Salmone.
As Matthew Bishop and Michael Green said last year, we are all better at responding to human suffering caused by dramatic telegenic emergencies than to the much greater loss of life from ongoing hunger, disease, and conflict.
That often results in a mess of uncoordinated non-government organizations parachuting into emergency areas with lots of good intentions, where a strategic official sector response would be much more effective.
Meanwhile, the smaller and less visible emergencies where NGOs can do the most good are left unfunded.
So this guy's complaint is.
So we have this thing in Japan, these horrible pictures of people say, oh my God, oh my God, we got to do something.
Send money.
That's the wrong thing to do.
It's the wrong thing to do to send money to Japan because elsewhere around the world, ongoing hunger, disease, and conflict is responsible for much more damage, many more deaths than happening in Japan.
Japan is all the more reason not to donate money in their specific case.
Japan's a wealthy country.
They're responding to the disaster, among other things, by printing hundreds of billions of dollars worth of new money.
Money's not the bottleneck here.
If money is needed, Japan can raise it.
They can print it.
But the Haitians can't.
And the third world countries can't.
So this do-gooder liberal doesn't want you to send any money to Japan because the money you send to Japan will not end up in Angola or whatever third world country where there is conflict, starvation, thirst, death, and what have you.
So never, you got this, folks?
Never donate money to a wealthy country, no matter the size and scope of their disaster, because they can always print more money.
Never mind that Japan's current debt is 220% of its entire economic output.
You are supposed to save your donations for third world countries, preferably ones run by dictators.
Swiss bankers have to eat too.
On top of that, Mr. Salmone says it's extremely unclear how or where organizations like Global Giving intend on spending the money that they're currently raising for Japan.
So far, we're just told that the money will help survivors and victims get necessary services, which is basically code for we have no idea what we're going to do with the money, but we'll probably think of something.
So this guy's out there now ripping the people raising money.
They got no idea what they're going to do with it.
They're just doing it to feel good about themselves.
Don't you care?
Can't you spare a dime for these poor people?
Global Giving, I should point this out.
He says, he says, was created to support projects in the developing world where lack of money is much more of a problem than it is in Japan.
So Mr. Felix Salmone of Reuters seems to be annoyed that a group that started out to help Third World would help Japan.
Why the outrage?
That said, he concludes here: it's entirely possible that organizations like the Red Cross or Save the Children will find themselves with important and useful roles to play in Japan.
It's also certain that they have important and useful roles to play elsewhere.
So do give money to them and give generously and give money to the other NGOs too, like Doctors Without Borders, which don't jump on natural disasters and use them as opportunistic marketing devices.
Just make sure it's unrestricted.
In other words, make sure you only give to dependable left-wing charities and be sure to let them do what they want with your money.
But don't give it to Japan.
They're a rich bunch of creeps.
They can print their own money.
They're a bunch of, they don't deserve your money.
Only approved left-wing organizations should get your money.
ABC News, economy, gas, partisanship, and war gang up on confidence in government.
Confidence in the U.S. system of government has dropped to a new low in more than 35 years.
Public attitudes burdened by continued economic discontent, soaring gasoline prices, record opposition to the war in Afghanistan, and a letdown in hopes for political progress after some bipartisanship last fall.
Only 26% of Americans in a new ABC News Washington Post poll say that they are optimistic about our system of government and how well it works.
That's down seven points since October to the fewest in surveys dating to 1974.
Almost as many.
23% are pessimistic, the closest these measures have ever come.
The rest, a record high or uncertain.
The causes.
Ladies and gentlemen, the causes are many.
Despite a significant advance, more than half still say the economy's not yet begun to recover.
What significant advance?
These people in the media keep talking about a significant recovery.
Where is it?
I don't see it.
And neither apparently do the people they're polling.
And there's trouble at the pump.
71% of this poll report that financial hardship as a result of rising gas prices is occurring.
44% call it a serious hardship.
They're also upset about Afghanistan.
At the same time, the Politico has a story.
Republicans sound alarm over American decline.
Republican activists in this key presidential state, the story out of Iowa, have a dark, foreboding feeling that America is in decline.
They believe the nation is hurting and hurtling in the wrong direction and worse, on the brink of losing its unique place in the world.
That sentiment is hardly new to American politics, but it is one that's been reanimated by the presidency of Barack Obama.
Some see him as hostile to the notion of American exceptionalism.
Others simply don't believe he's an American at all.
Together, it's fueling the rise of an emerging debate on the right that could overshadow the traditional focus on social and fiscal issues and create an opening for a candidate who can speak to a volatile element that's roiling the conservative grassroots.
It's not that culture wars and tax revolts are about to be displaced.
Rather, the very issues that have typically energized Republican primary voters, abortion, faith, gay marriage, debt, military power, are being subsumed into a larger debate about the country in decline.
They're not separable.
This is Jonathan Martin writing the story.
I would submit that all of these, this is another attack, you know, social issues.
Republicans have got to forget this social stuff.
Oh, speaking of that, speaking of that, let me proffer a theorem.
I have shared with you on some occasions one of my first ever big-time dinner parties in the Hamptons in the early 90s.
When after dinner, I was approached by a well-known, wealthy, moderate Republican financier, fundraiser, big-time contributor on the deck of this large house in the Hamptons after dinner comes up and pokes me in the chest and says, what are you going to do about the Christians?
They're killing us.
This abortion business is killing us.
We're never going to be able to win elections.
I said, what do you want me to do about it?
Well, yeah, they listen to you.
That's who listens to you, isn't it?
The Christians?
The pro-lifers?
I said, well, I don't know that all of them do, but I'll tell you, I don't think you guys can win elections without on their 24 million votes.
Well, you got to do something about it.
Well, what?
Well, we just can't keep it up.
I mean, my wife is nagging me.
All of our wives are nagging us about this.
They don't want to go to conventions with these hayseeds that show up from the South and are part of this belief system.
I'm listening to this.
You understand now.
I've been doing, I'm into maybe the third or fourth year of my show here.
And Clinton has just been elected, and the Christians are the problem.
And these guys think I have a pipeline to them.
Well, it got me to thinking last night, you know, I raised the question yesterday, what is it these same people, the intellectuals, hate about Sarah Palin?
You know, they were discussing this on MSNBC today.
In fact, we got the soundbite.
Here, grab soundbite number four.
In fact, let's wait.
Let me take the break.
We'll play the soundbite.
I'll come back with my theorem that I evolved last night.
Okay, audio soundbites.
Yesterday's discussion that we had on this program where I finally had to ask you, what is it that all of the conservative intellectuals hate about Sarah Palin?
And these guys at the political start, listen, you hear, Rush was really, really puzzled by this.
I was struck by the transcript of Lem Blox.
I read it last night.
He seemed to be genuinely struggling to figure out why exactly these conservatives were criticizing Sarah Palin.
But he thought about a lot of ulterior motives, but I don't think he ever considered the fact that maybe some of them do genuinely have concerns over her practice of identity politics.
Some of these folks, there is some conviction here.
They genuinely do think what separates the right from the left, Chuck, is the practice of identity politics.
That's what they do on the left.
And I think seeing Palin on class card that the left has done in their eyes for the last 40 years, I think there is some genuine concern about her doing that.
Now, Jonathan, you know, I love you and I respect you, but is that an idea you put in their heads?
Is that an idea you had for a story and then you went and asked them?
Or did somebody call you and say, you know what, the reason we don't like Palin is because all this victim stuff she's getting into?
Of all the things I've heard to explain why they don't like Palin, the fact she's running around making herself out to be a victim, and that that's what separates us from the left for crying out.
What separates us from the left?
Gee, freedom, spending.
Raina didn't rush.
Victimology?
I don't even look at her as trying to make herself out to be a victim.
My problem with this is, you know, you talk about Palin and her identity.
What is the woman supposed to do, Jonathan?
I mean, I'm really at a loss here.
And I'm at a loss for two reasons.
Why do conservatives not like a conservative?
That's what she is to me.
She articulates conservatism as well as anybody else out there doing it.
She has the ability to reach people like Reagan does.
What the hell's wrong with this?
I can understand having this kind of vitriol for a liberal.
I can understand this kind of vitriol for a Democrat.
But she's a conservative.
Okay, so what then is really happening here?
Well, it could be this.
This is not my theorem, by the way.
It could be this.
It could be what I was saying earlier.
They really are scared to death.
Everybody in Washington is of the Tea Party.
And there isn't a Tea Party leader.
There is not a single person you can destroy and take the Tea Party with it.
Well, maybe they're trying to make her to be the leader of the Tea Party or me or their favorite person of the week because the objective is to take out the Tea Party.
Well, you couldn't, you can't take out the Tea Party because there isn't a Tea Party leader.
The Tea Party is like, it's like the NFL.
Your starting tackle goes down.
It's next man up.
This candidate takes it in the shorts.
Okay, next man up.
Well, we're not going to be determined here by single individuals because we're a movement of ideas, genuine grassroots.
So I don't, I just, it is a genuine intellectual disconnect for me to think that the real problem these conservative intellectuals have with Palin is rooted in the fact she's defending herself and claiming, I didn't pull a trigger in Arizona.
She's supposed to sit there and smile.
I don't know if, I don't know if there is a one of them who could take one week of the media anal this woman's head and shut up, not say anything, remain of good cheer like she has, go about just so.
Another theorem.
Don't really have enough time here to get into detail, but remember when these guys told me that their wives were nagging them about pro-life, pro-choice?
Well, what if these guys happen to dig Sarah Palin?
Well, look, I have talked to people with actual experience.
She first shows up, she makes that speech at McCain's coming out party, VP.
A bunch of guys are raving about her.
I had a bunch of them tell me their girlfriends and their wives gave them static.
Oh, you love Palin, huh?
Don't discount this out of hand.
Ladies and gentlemen, Senator McCain has spoken, claiming that he's now open to reviewing the use of nuclear power in the United States.
That's right.
I'm not prepared to say we should abandon it, but we look at it.
I'm open to reviewing the use of nuclear power in America.