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March 30, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:11
March 30, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Greetings, welcome back.
Openline Friday on Wednesday, El Rushbow, Mark Stein will be here tomorrow and Friday, ladies and gentlemen.
Happy to have you along today.
Whatever you want to talk about, fair game, as we suspend the normal rules.
The normal rules require that you talk about something I care about, but we're going to broom that today.
I don't have to care about it.
It's my career risk.
It could end up being open line stupid, could be open line bomb.
It could be great.
Time will tell.
We've only taken one phone call today, and Mary Joe from Madison, Wisconsin.
And just to remind you, I am not entirely comfortable with phone calls like that.
I'm not into yelling and screaming with people, but it was required because she wouldn't shut up.
I was, well, compared to others, yes, I was polite, but I spotted the filibuster going on.
The worst thing, though, about Mary Jo and our first caller, the most alarming and dispiriting thing is something that we're all fully aware of.
Her thinking demonstrates just how far we have to go to roll all this back.
It shows how far socialism has taken over in this country, how deep the roots of socialism are.
This country will not survive very long with too many people thinking their neighbors owe them a living.
Europe has shown us this.
Now, here we have Chuck Schumer, the Democrat Party.
They have spent nearly $5 trillion in the last few years that we don't have.
They want you to believe that all we got to do to be sensible here is cut another $10 billion.
They can live with that.
That's rational.
But anything beyond $10 billion is extremist and draconian.
But $10 billion in cuts, oh, yeah, they're rational.
They're thoughtful.
They're very moderate.
If we go along with this, if we go along with the notion that, okay, $5 billion here, $10 billion there, that we're making headway on reducing the budget and our deficit, we're not going to gain any ground at all.
We're not going to impress anybody, and we're not going to make anybody like us.
If that sadly remains the objective, they've spent nearly $5 trillion in the last few years that we don't have.
They want you to believe, and if we cut another $10 billion or so, that they're rational, thoughtful, that they are moderate.
That's what they're aiming for.
What it'll prove is the opposite.
They are destructive, diabolical, and a disaster.
The Democrat Party is a disaster for this country.
Barack Obama, as a Democrat, as a socialist, is a disaster for this country.
The Democrat Party is destroying the economic well-being of this nation.
The Democrat Party is destroying the economic well-being of millions of American families.
Well, look at it here.
In the real world, 20% unemployment and underemployment.
And despite trillions of dollars in deficits, massive government expansion, all kinds of programs supposedly to fix this, we had TARP, we had Porculus, we had Porculus 1, Porculus 2.
We've had all kinds of stimuli, and it was supposed to create jobs.
And everybody knows, and everybody knew going in that it would not create private sector jobs.
What it was, and what everybody now knows, some with the courage to admit it, the stimulus bill was nothing more than a money laundering operation to make sure that state and federal employees did not lose their jobs so that their union dues were continually paid because those union dues end up in the various campaign headquarters and coffers of the Democrat Party.
That's what the stimulus was.
The stimulus was a slush fund.
It was a pile of money, the percentage of which was earmarked for the Democrat Party under the guise of creating jobs and rebuilding schools and roads and bridges and all of that that has not happened.
It was never going to happen.
The money was never earmarked for that.
It was just said to be earmarked for that.
And then when there wasn't any noticeable improvement, what happened?
Not an admission that, you know, maybe this is not the way to do it.
No, come back for more.
Come back for more.
Let's be clear about this.
The Democrat Party is not taking on the Tea Party.
The Democrat Party is not taking on the GOP.
Our leadership seems perplexed how to deal with Schumer and these guys anyway.
They don't know quite what to do.
The Democrat Party is taking on every family in this nation.
The Democrat Party, as it attempts to prevail on issues that matter most to it, are taking direct aim at every family of this nation, every parent, every child.
Because when the Democrat Party succeeds with this agenda, it is the people of the United States who suffer.
And if that sounds a bit extreme for you, let me ask you to take a look at any protected constituency group of the Democrat Party.
And let me ask you, how are they doing?
Outside of the unions, how are they doing?
How are the unemployed doing?
How are the African Americans doing?
How are the poor Latinos doing?
All of these, how are the women doing?
How are the children doing?
Take a look at any constituency that the Democrat Party claims that they are there to defend, that they are there to protect, that they are there to promote.
The Democrat Party sought to protect homeownership.
How's that going?
Take a look at those who have been foreclosed upon.
Virtually every constituency group that the Democrat Party claims to love, help, aim, support, revive, what have you, is dying.
Except the public sector unions.
The Democrat Party is known as the party of pro-choice.
Who's dying?
Children in the womb.
Who wins?
Planned parenthood?
The Democrat Party.
What do they get?
Money.
Where does it end up?
Back in the coffers of the Democrat Party and its various campaigns.
Yet we were told yesterday we're the extremists.
And we were told that that's how we must be portrayed, that the Democrat Senate caucus was told, yeah, portray the Tea Party and every other American family is a bunch of extremists.
So what we have right now is the Democrat Party versus the U.S. taxpayer when they attack the Tea Party.
We have the Democrat Party versus virtually every group of people in this country.
They are kind of a little slack on the illegal aliens because those are potential voters to do what they can to help there.
So we're witnessing, it's happening right in front of our eyes, the destruction of the engine that produces prosperity and wealth in this country.
It's being destroyed.
And I submit to you, the people doing the destroying are the extremists.
Individually, collectively, we suffer.
The president today, let me see if you agree with me.
Grabs, I think it's soundbites 2425.
Yep, it is.
Broadcast engineer can't keep up with me.
Right before the break, I said soundbite 10 in order.
Now I'm changing my mind on the fly.
Here are a couple soundbites from Obama and his energy speech at Georgetown University this morning.
I watched this and said, oh, here we go.
I felt like it's 2007, 2008 all over again.
Same attitude, same arrogance, same kind of audience, enthralled, constant stops for applause.
Here's the first of the two sound bites.
We have been down this road before.
Remember, it was just three years ago that gas prices topped for dollars a gallon.
I remember because I was in the middle of a presidential campaign.
Working folks certainly remember because it hit a lot of people pretty hard.
And because we were at the height of political season, you had all kinds of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians waiving their three-point plans for $2 a gallon gas.
You remember that?
Drill, baby, drill.
And none of it was really going to do anything to solve the problem.
There was a lot of hue and cry, a lot of fulminating and hand-wringing, but nothing actually happened.
Imagine that in Washington.
It's as though he's not been president.
It's as though these last two and a half years haven't happened.
And all the destruction and the $4 a gallon gasoline now had nothing to do with him.
But when I heard this, as I told you when I opened the program, I got a little ticked off here.
Outraged politicians and their three-point plans and their gimmicks and their slogans.
What did he mean by that?
Here's the next soundbite.
Here's the bottom line.
There are no quick fixes.
Anybody who tells you otherwise isn't telling you the truth.
And we will keep on being a victim to shifts in the oil market until we finally get serious about a long-term policy for a secure, affordable energy future.
We're going to have to think long-term, which is why I came here to talk to young people here at Georgetown, because you have more of a stake in us getting our energy policy right than just about anybody.
He went on to rip drill, baby, drill.
Drill, baby.
It's a gimmick.
It was not serious.
It wasn't going to accomplish anything.
We've all had these quick fixes.
Well, just imagine if 30 years ago we would have tried one of these quick fixes.
Imagine if we would have tried one of these quick fixes 10 years ago.
Keep in mind, while you hear Barack Obama, the president of the United States, trash oil as a legitimate source of energy in the United States, never forget that we just gave Brazil $2 billion for their own oil industry, Petrobras, so that they can drill, so that they can explore, so that they can bring to market oil.
It's okay for the rest of the world to do it.
Not us.
A typical leftist, divert and distort.
Point elsewhere.
He's been in the White House for two years, and he's blaming others who had so-called quick fixes years ago.
Create a false scenario, the famous Obama straw man.
It's like what the Democrats are doing with the budget.
Senator Schumer goes out, oh, he tea parted people, a bunch of extremists.
The Senate has not passed any budget bill of any kind.
The Democrats control the Senate.
Harry Reid's on the floor of the Senate reading a CNN poll on how people hate the Tea Party now.
They're running around saying the Republicans are not serious about the budget.
All the Republicans want to do is shut down the government.
The Democrats run the Senate.
They have not passed a budget.
They're not even really debating one.
They don't want a budget.
They want continuing resolutions because the rules dictate that so much is off the table.
Talking about items to cut when you're talking about continuing resolutions.
All right, brief timeout.
We'll come back.
And your phone calls, I promise, are next here on the EIB network.
Don't go away.
Okay, we go back to the phones.
As promised, we have 17-year-old Tanner from Cleveland on the phone.
And thank you.
Appreciate your patience.
How are you doing, Rush?
Very good.
Thanks.
Good.
I've been listening to you for two years now, and I'm so happy that you're on the radio.
I love you and everything.
Congratulations to you, sir.
Thank you.
You made my day.
I appreciate it.
Oh, and I just want to tell you one more thing before we go on.
I work at a golf range, so anytime you come down to Cleveland, you just come to my golf range, and you can have as many balls as you want.
All right.
What's the name of the what's go ahead?
What's the name of the range?
Oh, it's called Southwest Golf Center.
Southwest Golf Center in Cleveland.
Yes, in Cleveland, Ohio.
Indoors and outdoors?
It's outdoors, all outdoors.
Outdoors.
Well, can't have everything.
Okay, I just wanted to comment on, I think you said it, I don't know if you were talking about it Monday or Tuesday, about how Joe Bite Me was talking about how he locked up a reporter in the closet.
Wouldn't he get in trouble for that?
Like, wouldn't he be thrown into jail for that?
Well, it was his staff.
I'm sure that Senator Bite Me, or Vice President Bite Me, had what's called plausible deniability, meaning he had no clue, which is not hard to convince people that he's clueless.
And what happened was his staff, there was this lone reporter, and they sent the guy into a custodial closet inside this guy's mansion because they did not want him mingling with the guests.
They didn't want the guests to meet this riffraff reporter.
The story here, let me tell you, Tanner, the story here is the reporter was not upset.
The reporter, for the most part, understood it.
He said, people are making way too much Over this, about this.
It's not that big a deal.
They let me out now and then, but they just didn't want me mingling with the guests.
You imagine if the vice president had been Dick Cheney and this had happened, I mean, every journalist organization in the world would be banning together.
It would have been the sole topic on CNN, MSNBC, for who knows how long.
But no, it's not actionable against the vice president.
You know, people, you have to wonder, people pay whatever they paid to get in there.
Would they rather have talked to the reporter or listened to Biden?
It's a toss-up.
But they never got a chance to meet the reporter.
Sharon in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Hi, you're next on the EIB network.
Welcome.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
Very good.
Thank you.
Thrilled to speak with you.
I think you may have answered my question already, but given your comments earlier in the program, I'd like you to address whether you truly think our president is a man-child who is naively doing the things he's doing, or if you think that this is a systematic plan to take down this country, as many of us do.
Well, let me answer it this way.
If the end result is that the country is being destroyed, does it matter why?
Does it matter?
Does it really matter if he's doing it purposefully or is just naive?
Because regardless how you answer it, it's happening.
I'm not trying to evade it.
I'm just trying to regardless however you answer the question, it still is happening.
I think it's a little bit of both.
I think there's a glaring incompetence.
I think there's a huge lack of qualifications for this job that this man has.
On the other hand, I think the way he's been raised and educated, he does have it in for this country on many things.
He thinks this country is unfair and unjust.
He thinks that this country has stolen a lot of resources from the rest of the world and time for us to pay the price.
It's a combination of both of them.
Well, I certainly agree with you, and I want to thank you for addressing the concerns of those of us who are out here working hard every day, trying to raise children the right way.
You know, when my 13-year-old son can say to me, Mom, our money is worthless.
It isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
He's 13.
When my 17-year-old son can say to me, China owns us, it's very discouraging.
Well, one hand, it's discouraging, but look, it's going to take people with knowledge like your kids apparently have to stop this.
You've got to look at this in both ways.
It is what it is.
We want to stop it.
We want to roll it back.
Having people who are informed and understand what's happened and why is part of rolling it back.
And you know the kind of people we're dealing with.
I mean, there are a lot of people who tell you folks, it's always about the money.
And I don't care how virtuous you might think somebody or some group is, it's always about the money.
And when we talk about public sector unions and a number of things, they exist for a host of reasons.
The Democrats want the money that their dues give them.
The union workers themselves need to eat.
They have to have houses.
It's all about money.
It's all about how much they can score and so forth.
It's just that they're scoring at the expense of everybody else.
They're not producing anything.
There isn't any net growth.
There's just a wealth transfer going on here.
And it's out of kilter, and it's way out of balance.
And it's not sustainable as it is for very much longer.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Rush Limbaugh, redefining hip.
Here's Richard, Michigan City, Indiana.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Yes, Rush, it's a pleasure to talk to you.
It's an honor to talk to you.
Thank you very much, sir.
I don't want to hold you too long.
I just wanted to tell you, I grew up as a young man from McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
I heard you mention that one time on the radio, but you never elaborated it.
But I moved a family out here to Indiana a long time ago, 30-some, 40-some years ago, worked for the second-largest steel mill in the Kenna Nation.
Right.
Bethlehem Steel.
And with their legacy costs, what it was, I don't know if Joanne or what their name was up in Wisconsin realizes it, but Bethlehem Steel was pushed against the wall with their legacy costs.
And it came to a point where they had to turn out the lights, close the door, and let 95,000 employees go.
Same thing with General Motors.
Yes.
They had to offload their pension to the federal government.
Now, look who owns them.
Well, I don't know what's wrong with these people.
I'm ashamed of the Democratic Party.
And as a Hungarian, I cringe when I hear the name George Soros.
He's a disgrace nationality.
Let me try to explain it to you from their standpoint.
This might be a useful exercise.
And by the way, I mentioned McKeesport because that's where the first radio station that I worked at when I left home was.
It's the Pittsburgh market, but it was suburban station in McKeesport.
It was WIXZ, Wixie, salted rotten mold.
I played oldies.
Well, it was solid rock and gold.
WIX Wixie, solid rock and gold, the jingle.
And I called it salted rotten mold because after two years, I'd heard every song on a playlist 20,000 times.
At any rate, let's look at this from their perspective.
You mentioned Mary Jo, who called.
Now, I know a lot of these public sector union people have become activists.
A lot of them are political ideological activists in addition to whatever else they are.
Okay, you end up going to work for a union, a school teacher, or whatever your job is that requires you to be a member of a public sector union.
Let's just say Wisconsin.
And your union goes out, and through the vehicle of collective bargaining, they arrange a compensation package for you.
And it's going to pay you X, and you're going to get your health care paid for.
Mostly, large percentage of it, you're going to have a pension.
And they tell you this.
And then every three or four years, you're going to expect a bump in all of it.
And along the way, you think that you are a crucial cog in the wheel.
You are educating the future of America.
You are making a difference.
You are teaching the children.
You're doing all of these wonderful things.
And besides that, you didn't have to choke anybody or bend their arm to get this deal.
Your union might have, but you didn't.
Whether it's General Motors or whether it's the state, somebody agreed to this.
And it goes on like this.
And occasionally, you might have to threaten to go on strike if your demands aren't met.
But eventually it all works out.
And you keep going on like this until one day the bottom falls out and you hear that there just isn't the money to pay you anymore.
But yet the people saying this made a deal with you.
This is what you're going to get.
And then out of the blue, they come along and say, sorry, we don't have the money for it anymore.
What are you going to do?
I understand where these people are.
I understand their mentality.
Taking away their political activism for a moment.
And it's hard to do because it's very much a part of who they are.
But still, as far as they're concerned, they made the deal.
The General Motors made the deal.
Yeah, a lot of people don't have it, but they're going to give me my health care and a pension until I die, even after I retire.
And you know what?
I'm only going to have to work 15 to 18 years to be totally vested.
That was the deal.
And then somewhere, somebody comes alongs, take it all away from you.
What are you going to do?
You're not just going to sit there and say, well, okay, I mean, especially when you don't know how to earn money any other way.
And all along, there's probably a little voice in the back of your head that tells you you're really not earning anything anyway, that, you know, this is the government.
The government owes you, and the government owes everybody.
And in reality, you ought to be getting even more than what you're getting, what you're satisfied with.
But the bottom drops out when somebody comes along.
And so that's why when Mary Joe called here, I really wanted to, I knew it was going to be impossible, but I really wanted to get her answer on why do you think your neighbors are obligated to pay you for nine months a year twice what they make?
And why do you think your neighbors are required to pay your health care until you die and pay your pension?
I want to know, I would love to know when you first realized that's what was happening and think that it's justified.
I'd like to know the mindset because, see, I don't have that mindset.
I've never had it.
And I really would like to know how those people think.
I just, rather than sit here and assign an ideology to them, well, they're liberals and they think they're entitled and so forth, which is probably true, but just in the human being sense, in the humanity sense, where does that attitude come from?
Who teaches that?
Well, we know guys like Alinsky, angry multiculturalists and leftists, people who hate the country, end up telling other people that it owes you a living because it's mistreated you, it's screwing you even left and right, all these rich people and it's your money.
You understand how these people get to the point that they are.
They've had nothing but hatred and anger being preached to them for who knows how long, depending on whether or not they grow up in a union household.
This is what's always bothered me about how much hatred for this country there is that is institutionalized in our education system.
It's taught.
It's now, it's codified.
It's part of the multicultural curriculum.
The multicultural curriculum is based on the premise that America is flawed.
That America is a fraud.
That America is a lie.
I mean, that's the thrust.
That's the whole reason for multiculturalism in the form of a curriculum.
So take these people and they've had all this stuff.
They've soaked it up like sponges.
And then the fateful day comes when everybody who thinks about it knows has to come.
The money runs out.
What is kind of Expecting a bit much for them to say on a snap of a fingers around a dime, you know what?
You're right.
I have been earning too much.
I shouldn't be taking this much from my neighbors.
I ought to be paying for my own health care and retirement.
It's that's not something people are going to willingly agree to.
That's something that's going to have to be enforced as a matter of law.
And as it's happening now, which is going to lead us to there's going to be civil disobedience, there's going to be riots, there'll be burnings and so forth.
We've seen it in Greece.
Wherever this happens, I mean, the Democrat Party, the American left, look at it this way: have had their boot on the neck of the golden goose for 50 years.
And that golden goose is down to its last breaths.
And when the golden goose is dead, when the private sector no longer generates the wealth necessary, and it hasn't for a long time, all of this is fake money.
All of this is unreal.
Everybody who has anything from a state or federal government has it because of debt, borrowing, or what have you.
It isn't real.
The golden goose got killed off long ago in terms of reality.
This country is not producing the wealth that will sustain all of the demands being made on the country.
This country is not producing the wealth to provide for all the services we want.
The military, border control, and all that.
We've long ago passed this.
This is why I keep talking about how nothing's real anymore.
All of this is borrowed time.
And yet, the people who are living on all of this illusionary money don't want to give it up.
Where else are they going to go to earn it?
How are they going to replace it?
What do they know other than having some thug negotiate a contract for them?
What do they know?
So when it all doesn't work, Mary Joe, if you're in Madison or any of the rest of you, if you are a public sector employee and you're mad as hell at me right now, because I don't get it, because you think I have no compassion for you, because I don't want you to have a decent life and decent living and so forth.
When this does eventually implode, there's one or two places you can go to complain: one would be Beijing.
Go talk to the Chikoms.
Another would be Havana.
Go talk to Fidel Castro.
Find some old Soviet communist still alive.
Go talk to him because they're the people responsible for it.
The people who have made you believe that you can score all these riches, the people that have made you believe that all you need for everybody to be wealthy and fair and equal is a fair and just government redistributing wealth.
When it all implodes and it's not working and it's not working now, don't complain to me because I've been telling you for years it won't work.
You need to go to the people who've been lying to you from the get-go telling you that it does work because they're the ones that screwed you.
Governor Walker's not screwing you.
Fidel Castro screwed you.
Hugo Chavez screwed you.
Shea Guevara.
I don't care whatever communist leader you idolize.
They're the ones that have screwed you.
They're the ones who lied to you.
Saul Olinski, Karl Marx, whoever, Hegel, whoever you believed, Barack Obama, whoever has told you that the redistribution of wealth, that liberalism, socialism makes things equal and fair and can create a utopia.
That's where you go to complain because those are the people who've lied to you.
We continue on the phones.
It's Open Line Wednesday on Friday.
And to Tampa, Antonio, great to have you, sir.
Appreciate your waiting.
Hello.
Thanks a lot, Rush.
I'm calling you from Tampa where unemployment is 11.5%.
Outside of Tampa, Hernando County, 14% unemployment.
And that's after a trillion dollars went down the proverbial rat hole.
What I wanted to say was, my problem, and our nation's problem, is not Muammar Gaddafi.
Qaddafi's not trying to destroy the economy.
Gaddafi is not every day of his life driving a stake to the heart and soul of this nation.
It's Barack Obama.
There's the problem.
Obama.
Not Gaddafi.
Qaddafi doesn't want to usurp my freedom of speech.
Gaddafi doesn't want to compromise our national security.
It's Obama.
Let me tell you something, man.
Every day of my life, excuse me, when Reagan was president, the great Ronald Reagan was president, every day I was employed.
I was a truck driver.
Every day that George Bush was president, number one, I was employed.
Every day that George Bush number two was president, I was employed.
Not until this hen-pecked, miserable little character came along has unemployment infested itself in my life.
Henpecked.
You're not talking about Gaddafi anymore.
No, no, no.
Gaddafi isn't henpecked.
Obama's hen-pecked.
Yeah.
The only thing he does behind his wife's back is zip her up.
That's right.
That's exactly right.
One more thing, Rush.
You were right about this Libyan thing being about 212.
For two years, this miserable little turd has been urinating on the working men and women of this country.
We're cowards.
Every radical that despises this nation has been in and out of that White House.
The welcome Matt has been open.
The welcome sign is on for every radical that despises this nation.
It's an interesting scenario that you construct here.
Who poses the greater threat to the United States economy?
Mumar Gaddafi or Obama, the Democrat Party?
I don't think there's any question about it.
We have the audio soundbite coming up.
I've had the engineer standing by on this for the last 45 minutes, but we are in a state of flux fluidity here.
Howard Dean, speaking to the National Journal Insiders Conference panel on Tuesday morning, said that the Democrats ought to be quietly rooting for a government shutdown, and that he's encouraging them to do so.
We'll play that soundbite, discuss it, and more of your phone calls.
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