Telephone numbers 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.
Although, every time I give the number, the lines are all filled.
They always are.
They're filled before we start the program.
It's just sort of a syllabic habit now.
I don't even know the number.
I know the syllables.
It's been 22 years of giving out the same phone number.
And nobody says I'm such an ego freak.
Do I have a phone number that says 1-800 call rush?
No.
My number is 800-28-2882.
Pure and simple.
Doesn't have my name in it anywhere.
I don't need my name there.
Happy to have you back, folks.
Telephone number is, see, that's the habit.
The syllabic recitation.
Can you imagine what that probably sounds like, that word syllabic that people reel into?
What do they think that I'm referring to?
Anyway, I want to just this infighting that goes on between the Democrats, because we were going to do a morning update on it today.
They're really ticked off at Obama at salon.com and a lot of other places.
You can find it here in Stacks of Stuff.
And a lot of people are using this.
Hey, Russia, not that bad out there.
The Democrats are not all that happy with Obama.
Blah, blah, blah.
And I want to put this in perspective.
When the Democrats fight among themselves, don't think that the factions are liberal versus moderate.
Whatever the factions, they all have the same objective, and that's totalitarianism, authoritarianism, big government controlling everything, whatever you want to call it.
The anger stems from other things, like how fast or slow Obama's getting there, how deferential he is to Republicans.
Don't forget that side over there, they want Obama to basically chew Boehner's head off in the negotiations while skunking him at the same time.
And they want to hear about it.
They have a visceral hate for us.
This notion of showing respect, that's not them at all.
Now, here's the thing.
Obama is not a capitalist.
The Democrat Party is not a party or the party of capitalism.
The end that all of these different factions on the left have is the same end.
They're not the party of constitutionalism.
They are not the party of individualism.
They are not the party of prosperity.
They are not the party of freedom.
They are not the party of liberty.
They are not the party of equality.
None of that.
What are they?
Radicals.
At least within our system and based on our history, they are utter radicals.
So that's the left.
Now, on our side, we are still fighting the battle of the establishment Republicans, the ruling class, the rhinos, versus us, the conservatives and the constitutionalists.
Now, the moderates on our side had as their goal avoiding a government shutdown.
We know it because they said it.
Boehner said it over and over again.
And the editors at National Review have a lead editorial today praising the end result of this budget deal precisely because it avoided a government shutdown.
Now, the conservatives and the constitutionalists are you, the people, the people who make the country work, the people who voted in November, the people who handed the House of Representatives to the Republicans.
And who are you?
You demanded some real substantive action.
The Tea Party movement is also you and us.
It sprang up, it came to life from the ashes, the primordial soup of the Republican defeat two years ago in 2008 and to a certain extent even 2006.
Now, the moderate Republicans, the establishment Republicans, the rhinos, the ruling class and the wannabe ruling class Republicans have, as one of the main aims of their existence, controlling you, the Tea Party.
Controlling the freshmen in the House of Representatives, controlling the message and controlling the public relations.
And that's what's going on today.
We can talk about the internecine battles on their side, but we've got them too.
But the people, you, you're well aware of what's occurring.
The very existence of the Tea Party is proof, it's an illustration that you, us, are much further along in our understanding of where the country is than the people representing us in many cases.
You're well aware of what's happening.
Contrary to what's said about you, you're not perfectionist, you're not purist, you're not ideologues, you don't have this rigid my way or the highway approach.
The fact that you want the government to stop destroying your children's future is not an extreme demand.
It's not, it doesn't make you a kook.
But you're thought of that way.
I want you to know that in ruling class Washington, I don't care what side of the aisle you're talking about, if you're the Tea Party, you're a kook.
They don't think this country's in peril.
They don't think we're talking about the future of the country for your kids and grandkids.
I think it's always going to be there.
It's, we've always had debt.
We've always had cycles of inflation.
We've always had cycles of unemployment.
It's always going to happen.
It's always.
Country's not threatened like you think it is.
You're kooks.
You're nuts.
And even some of you, you're just out for yourselves.
You're just really selfish here.
But I'm here to tell you that your desire to have your kids and grandkids inherit a country, grow up in a country the same as you did, is not radical.
And it's not even ideological.
I wouldn't even say it's conservative.
It's just common sense.
It's rational.
It's just logical.
It's essentially human.
Human beings, parents, even though I'm not one, I know enough of them.
I've had a couple always want a better life for their kids than they had themselves.
It's one of the reasons that they engage in child raising and insisting on college and certain things.
It's just they want a better life for their kids.
That hasn't changed.
It never will change.
In this country, it's always been possible.
Now there's a genuine fear maybe next generation is not going to be possible for our kids to live better than we did.
It's a genuine, genuine and sensible concern.
It's rational and logical not to want your nation destroyed right before your eyes.
It's rational and logical not to want to lose your freedom.
It's rational and logical.
Look what happened in Chicago, in Chicago.
These examples are endless now.
In Chicago, your kids can't take school, can't take lunch from home.
You have to eat whatever the cafeteria offers.
You cannot take lunch to school.
Can't give it to your kids.
You want to maintain your freedom, your autonomy, your distance from government.
That is not irrational or kooky.
It is rational and completely logical.
You don't want the nation destroyed.
You don't want your liberty lost.
You don't want the destruction of your economic system.
You want the best for your kids.
That's not about perfection or ideology.
That's just the truth.
Good old-fashioned, plain, everyday common sense, the essence of humanity.
So this battle within the GOP continues.
The battle between the people and the establishment ruling class continues for them not shutting down the government, which isn't even shut down.
That was the primary objective.
Not shutting down the government.
Protecting the mechanism to redistribute wealth.
That was the primary objective, because that's most of what the government does.
Government redistributes wealth.
It certainly doesn't create it.
It destroys it and redistributes it.
And there must not ever be an interruption in that.
Now, tomorrow, Pharaoh Obama will come out and lie to you.
He has lied to you repeatedly before.
He has lied to you about his so-called stimulus bill.
He has lied to us about Obamacare.
He's lied to us about taxes.
He's lied to us about deficits and fixing them.
He's lied to us about spending.
And he's going to lie to you tomorrow about his budget.
The biggest big spender in world history is going to tell you that now he has a plan to reduce deficits, that now he has a plan to reduce the debt, and he has a plan to control spending.
The man who is largely responsible for destroying our economy and the budget and the currency is now going to lie to you.
He's going to tell you that he is going to save us.
Why is he going to do this?
To the extent that we care about motivations, I'll tell you.
A, he thinks you are stupid.
All of the ruling class thinks you are stupid nuts and kooks.
That your memories are so short that you will be convinced by clever phrases and endless promises, words on the teleprompter that he knows how to fix things.
And in the middle of all of these lies, he will lie again by blaming everyone else.
He will blame his predecessors.
He will blame private industry, except for GE and GM.
And he will claim to have the answers.
So this is where we are.
Where the perpetrator is now the justice minister, the perpetrator is now the radical leftist who is the moderate.
He's moving to the center, don't you know?
This radical leftist all of a sudden has moved to the center.
By avoiding at all costs a showdown slash shutdown, we are now weaker as we proceed with other opportunities.
Now, this, I say I'm eternally optimistic.
This is not to say some of these Republicans won't step up now.
It still amazes me that the light of day still has to happen every day for some people to see it, but it does.
It's just the way of the world.
Some of these Republicans will step up.
I want to strongly encourage them to.
Now is your time.
I hear so many politicians say, yeah, I want to make a difference.
This is your time.
I would strongly encourage the Tea Party freshmen to step up.
I would strongly encourage the Republican caucus to step up.
Rather than applaud and marvel at or analyze or whatever the kind of behavior we are going to get tomorrow from President Obama, we need to expose it and then encourage bolder behavior on our part.
We are weaker now because the GOP has shown that they are deathly afraid of using their only hammer.
Government shutdown.
We've shown it, oh, God, all you got to do is start talking about that and intimate that the media will blame us for it.
And it's like showing the cross to Dracula.
Just remember, when a Democrat says he's going to reduce deficits, he's going to raise taxes.
When a conservative says he's going to reduce deficits, he means cut spending.
By the way, the budget bill is finally up 451 pages.
It's a PDF, the continuing resolution, whatever you want to call it.
It's just been posted online, and it's complicated.
451 pages for 38.
How does that happen?
451 pages for $38.5 billion in cuts.
Anyway, that's what it is.
I must take a brief time out.
Sit tight.
We'll get to your phones when we come back.
And a really intriguing audio soundbite roster as well.
Starting a million conversations and usually ending them too.
Rush Lindbaugh and to the phones.
We're going to start in Chicago.
By the way, this is John.
Thank you for waiting, sir, and welcome to the EIB network.
Rush, it's truly a pleasure to be speaking with you.
My question is, you know, I'm a conservative.
I'm happy that we got a small win here, but I'm wondering, you know, when you take a look at these cuts that were made, you know, considering they're not really cutting the deficit, they're really just slowing the growth, slowing the growth of the deficit, would we have been better off letting Obama and the Democrats have their way in this debate and being able to say, hey, this is his mess.
He's responsible for what's going on.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
We've got two years of that.
We had an election in November that was a Democrat show acting.
People don't need to learn that lesson.
They've already learned it.
They've seen what Obamaism does to the country.
That's why there's a Tea Party.
That's why the Republicans won huge in November.
It was an anti-Obama, anti-Democrat election.
No reason to let this guy win anything.
This guy's got to be stopped politically.
This guy has got to be politically defeated at each and every turn.
Now, look, these were actual cuts in this $38 billion, $2 billion, $28 billion, whatever.
This was actual cuts.
These were not reductions in the rate of growth.
I just want to again emphasize here it's being spun today after three days of spin as a big win for Boehner and Republicans.
Now that the details are out, it's being spun as a big win for Obama.
The independents love Obama.
Don't like Boehner.
Independents love the Democrats.
Don't like Republicans here.
That's the latest CNN poll.
Now, this is going to happen no matter what the outcome here.
But this notion of losing the election so that Democrats can see how bad the left is.
Nope, nope, nope.
Besides, it's already happened.
The Tea Party is the result of the people of this country seeing what unchecked liberalism will do when guided by, led by the most radical leftist progressive ever to seek office in this country.
That includes Woodrow Wilson and FDR.
Joe in Monroe, New York.
Hello, sir.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello, Rush.
It's a real honor to talk to you.
I appreciate that.
Thank you very, very much.
I just want to tell you what I think.
I don't think that Boehner is scared of the shutdown.
Boehner is in to cut the deficit, what we put him in.
So a shutdown isn't the solution.
A shutdown was not going to solve the problem.
So at least he pushed Obama to the corner to get more and more cuts.
So when it comes to the point of a shutdown, why should we let a showdown when this is not the solution?
You won't cut the deficit with a shutdown.
Because this is the first step.
And in the first step, we demonstrated our limit.
We demonstrated how we can be horn-swoggled at each point in negotiation.
Or at least led the showdown by the trillion-dollar deficit fight, not by the billion-dollar deficit fight.
What makes you think we'll shut down over a trillion dollars if he wouldn't shut down over $38 billion?
No, because of 50, he will forgive them, but on billions, he will forgive them.
But on trillions, he won't forgive them.
Who will forgive them?
He's rather shut down the government and then not cut on the trillions.
Who's going to forgive who?
I've lost track here now.
I think Boehner.
Boehner will be forgiven by who?
No, Boehner will negotiate with the Democrats on billions, but not on trillions.
And when he wants to cut trillions, they want, he will make a shutdown.
We'll find out.
We got the debt limit coming up here sometime in the middle end of May.
Anyway, but Rush, my point is just that I don't think that Boehner is scared of a shutdown.
Boehner wants to see cuts.
And if he can get, he pushed, I think he pushed Obama very well in the corner.
He gets over a half of what he wants.
What did he mean when he said that there wouldn't be a shutdown, that there's no political win in it?
What did he mean when he said that?
That's the point.
Okay.
100%.
I agree with Mike.
I agree with Mike Samson.
Lucky for me, the segment is over.
It usually happens that way.
Thank you.
We'll be back.
All right.
Let me.
Excuse me, my friends.
A little phlegm there in the throat.
I should have to cough button, but I didn't want to take the time.
Let me explain the shutdown.
I do sometimes make the mistake of believing that people understand things as I do.
particularly those of you in this audience.
And I'm well advised to learn that sometimes these things need to be explained in a strategic sense.
Now, Boehner has not said that he will shut down the government for anything.
And if he says that he is prepared to do so, that's because he's being pressed hard on this.
But a shutdown's not the end goal here.
The previous caller is arguing that you wanted to know why I'm so in favor of a shutdown.
Shutdown is not the end goal.
That was not the objective.
The shutdown is the only tool we had.
I'd say have.
A shutdown is the only tool that we have to force better outcomes.
What else is there?
What matters most to these guys?
What matters most to the Democrats?
Government.
Now, here's what the GOP should have said.
It should have said, look, we don't want a shutdown, but if Obama continues to spend recklessly and wildly pushing this nation toward poverty for everybody and bankruptcy and destroying the future for our kids, we can't accept that and we won't.
It's what I always say.
Turn the tables.
Go on offense.
Don't accept their premise.
Their premise is we want a shutdown.
Their premise is we hate government.
Their premise is we want people in pain and suffering.
It's utter BS.
They are the ones that have caused pain and suffering at every level of our society.
And they've been doing it for years, decades, by virtue of their policies.
It is not our goal to shut down the government.
Now, we have a real plan.
Ryan's put forth a real plan.
We have presented it to the president, but he's vacation and traveling, and we can't seem to get his attention because his priorities are not the same as ours.
Look, stakes are very high here.
This is not the farm bill we're debating every two years.
Not when you're talking about the future of the country.
Nothing against farm bills here.
Now, a government shutdown means that essential parts of the government do not, in fact, shut down.
Social Security checks go out.
Medicare happens.
Post office stays open.
Law enforcement, military, it all continues.
With Obama, they just don't get paid.
With Obama, the military.
Oh, speaking of Obama lying to you, now Obama and Muchela are out there claiming to be the best friends of the military today.
Part of the setup for the big lie happening tomorrow night.
Now, whether you want to admit it, some people don't like the fight.
Some people wish we could all just get along.
There's several columnists.
Can we just, why do we have to always be in confrontation?
Can't we just get along?
Well, no, because there are more battles ahead, big ones, which are going to determine the future of the country.
Whether we're going to be poor throughout every layer of society or whether we're going to be a vibrant, healthy, prosperous society.
That's the debate.
That's what we face.
It involves the debt and the 2012 budget.
I would hope that we want to make clear to the Democrats and the president we consider all these issues as one, that we're not going to back off.
The Republican Party should be identified as that party that is understood.
If it's not understood, it should say it.
We stand with you.
We stand with your children.
We stand with your parents and grandparents.
The Democrats and the president stand with big government, bureaucracies, deficits.
They believe you work for the government.
We believe the government should work for you.
We've tried it their way for 50 plus years.
Unemployment is up.
Deficits are up.
Gasoline prices are up, approaching $5 a gallon.
We want to reverse course.
Shutting down the government is a tool toward achieving our end game.
It is not the end game.
By the way, CNN, CNN, just had a crawl up, a graphic, get this, claiming that for every 10 cent price increase in gasoline, highway deaths are reduced by 2.3%.
Now, how can Obama lose with a media like that?
So now all of a sudden, gas prices going up saves lives.
Gas prices going up, great news.
Okay, then, why stop at $5 a gallon?
Let's go to $10 a gallon and reduce highway deaths by 10%.
This is how this works.
Look at, this is why, I'm sorry for the long monologues today, but this is why you can't, you can't, we can't succeed if we're going to be overwhelmingly concerned what people think of us.
CNN, we're never going to get a fair shake out of them.
We shouldn't even make it one of our objectives.
I guess some of us want to be guest commentators on CNN.
Who the hell knows?
Chris in Metamorral, Ohio.
You go back to the phones.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Great to have you with us.
Thanks, Rush.
It's a great honor to speak with you.
I'll just get to my point.
My question for you is, basically, is the public going to look at this the same way that they did when Bush Sr. put out the no new taxes and what happened with that?
Right.
He raised taxes.
Right.
Okay, so what's the analogy to that here?
Well, that the Republicans were, you know, so gung-ho and pushing so strongly to reduce the deficit, and they would basically take, you know, whatever steps necessary to do it, and they backed down.
Oh, oh, oh, $100 million became $38.
Okay, okay.
Yeah.
Well, they did raise people's expectations.
It's, I guess it remains a possibility.
The Tea Party is growing larger.
Oh, he's asking me if it'll be perceived as just as bad.
Let me think about that.
With that no-new tax pledge, that was a biggie.
Remember, George W. Bush came out of the Gulf Wall with a 90% approval number.
And the Democrats threw their third string at him in terms of presidential nominees.
Because the big guns said, there's no way we can win here.
We'll just have to sacrifice this year.
But Bill Clinton didn't get the memo.
He said, hey, you know what?
There's this gal I got to meet out there named Lewinsky.
The only way it's going to happen is if I'm in the White House, so I'm in.
So he was in, and he kept running and chugging and chugging and chugging and dunking and dunking and dunking and got in there.
And that 90% plummeted in part because, read my lips, no new taxes became, oops, sorry, got to raise your taxes.
Now, this, they promised $100 billion in cuts.
This is not as drastic.
I think for the analogy to be full-fledged, Obama would have had to gotten spending increases here.
We got cuts.
There are, even if it's $2 billion, there are cuts.
I don't care if they're dwarfed by interest on the debt every three days.
We still got cuts.
So how many campaign promises has Obama broken?
Has anybody bothered to read his lips?
Well, I know.
Where else do the left have to go?
I mean, they're clearly not going to vote for anybody that we could throw up there.
That's absolutely true.
Let's see here.
I just mentioned that Obama Mucho, grab audio soundbite number 24, Obama Muchel.
After, this is just three days ago.
Well, four days ago, Barack Hussein Obama refused in these budget negotiations a writer that would pay military personnel at wall for the rest of the year.
He refused it.
It was a distraction.
He wouldn't go along for it.
Four days later, at the White House, at an event to launch First Lady Muchel Obama and Dr. Jill Biden's Joining Forces Initiative to support and honor America's military families.
Four days, four days after Obama himself refused to go along with a rider that would pay them while they were in combat.
Here's what Obama said today.
As part of a landmark presidential study directive, for the first time ever, the well-being of our military families is now a national priority.
Not just a Defense Department priority, not just a VA priority.
It is a federal government priority.
Today, my administration is working to implement nearly 50 specific commitments to improve the lives of military families.
Everything from protecting families from financial scams to improving education for military kids and spouses to stepping up our fight to end homelessness among veterans.
But he didn't say he was going to start paying them again.
Now, for those of you who think that I am the object of universal love and adoration, you haven't the slightest clue here, even from a subscriber at Rush24-7.
Mr. Limbaugh, I have been listening to you on and off for the last 20-plus years.
Normally, you are a strong, positive voice.
I remember in the days at Clinton, you used to say that the way to win is one step at a time.
Where's that advice today?
I think you're way off track.
In my opinion, you've wasted two shows whining about the budget deal.
Keep it up.
Keep kicking the Republicans around so that they really start to feel sorry for themselves so much so that they'll forget to focus on making the benefits of Ryan's budget and reigning in the debt ceiling their top priorities.
I'm not sure what the objective is here.
As long as you and the other pundits keep harping on what failures they are, they'll keep defending the past when they should be laying the groundwork and foundation for the future.
You should think about it.
If the Republicans had shut the government down, the shutdown debate would carry forward and drown out and deflect any discussion away from a debt ceiling in Ryan's budget.
The 2010-2011 budget failure occurred because the Democrats didn't pass a budget, not because Republicans weren't able to make enough cuts in spending.
I know, said that last week.
You should be leading the charge, firing people up to attack the debt ceiling and support Ryan's budget with vigor, thought I had.
The Republicans showed that they could and would compromise.
One of our opponents' favorite arguments has now been removed.
Well, this is from Thomas.
I'm not, Mr. Ninja's last name, because he did not say read this on the air.
Thomas, I can tell that you're irritated and agitated and angry with me and threatening to tell me to cancel your subscription.
Doesn't say that here, but I can say it on the verge, to which I would respond as Mr. Buckley always did.
Cancel it yourself.
No.
This is my fundamental primary point yesterday.
If the number one lesson that we learned from this is compromise, we're finished.
Compromise is not what is at stake here.
Compromise is not what's called for.
Folks, we have never ever had this bold a line of demarcation.
We have genuine stated enemies of this country as founded attempting to transform it.
You don't compromise with that.
You defeat it.
And of course, I say this is within the realm of the political arena.
You defeat this.
Don't compromise with Obama.
They win when we compromise.
That's not.
Anyway, as you can see, my friends, I'm the target of much vitriol out there from people in this audience.
And I just wanted to read this to you because, you know, oftentimes we're accused of never putting calls up from people who disagree.
We put them up when we get them.
So sturdy wants to know what I think the overall feeling is among you in the audience of whether or not we got rolled in the budget deal or not.
Um, I, no way of knowing.
My instinct is to say that there's more unhappiness than happiness with it.
I don't take enough phone calls here to have a scientific examination of that.
That's all anecdotal.
So I'd have to say that things I've read, Tea Party's not happy with it.
And as the details come out about it, it's not engendering, oh, yeah, we got that.
Oh, cool.
I didn't know that yet.
No, it's.
Yeah, in a sense, Mr. Thomas here wants me to, he says, we need some positive energy.
I'd like to think you can help supply it.
Please move on.
We got a country to take back.
We need positive energy.
So I guess he wants me to defend and carry the water for the Republicans.
Here's Jan in Martinez, California.
Hi, great to have you on the EIB network.
Oh, Rush, it's always great to talk to you.
And maybe I can help with some of that positive stuff, but it's kind of hard out there right now.
Seems like every day you wake up and there's something new the liberals are trying to come after you for, and they're coming after us where we live now, Rush.
I just want the freedom to be left alone, and it's not happening.
And I think we need to be ever vigilant in fighting for our rights.
And I listened to you on KSFO out here in San Francisco, and probably my own only two conservator friends are Officer Vic and Brian Sussman, who are on that show.
And last year, I called about a question you posed from Larry Arne and a blogger about if there was any hope left for our country or if we needed to give up.
And I think a year later, we're still here.
And I loved your monologue at the beginning of this hour.
And I felt terribly guilty this whole year because I didn't give credit to the man that inspired me for that call.
His name is Michael Ferris, and he's arguably one of the best constitutional lawyers in the country.
And this ties into what you mentioned here about the Chicago School.
It's Chicago Little Village Academy public school that now has tough love during their lunch period because they know better than parents about what their kids are going to eat at school, and they've banned homemade lunches.
And I want to cite this case and another one where we're seeing the erosion of parental rights in this country.
And you know me.
I've called before.
I'm a homeschooling mom of four girls.
My parental rights have now been, they're not fundamental rights in the Constitution rush.
And I don't know if people realize that.
For the better part of the last century, the Supreme Court held that they were, but they're not listed in the Bill of Rights.
And there was a case in 2000, Troxville versus Granville, where those rights were eroded.
And now we're seeing case after case where courts are ruling in favor of the state.
Right.
This isn't how the left populates the judiciary.
You go talk to fathers about the way the feminist movement portrayed them, what they did to their relationships with their daughters.
Yep, state knows better in every circumstance like this.
We got to go.
Byron York in the D.C. Examiner, a piece today on the liberals' plan, gut defense and tax and tax and tax.
This is about a proposal made by the House Progressive Caucus, which is most of them.