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April 21, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:56
April 21, 2011, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Nothing courageous about it?
Is that what he said?
Nothing courageous about Paul Ryan's budget.
Captain Courageous Barack Obama says there's nothing courageous.
Barack Obama wants to talk about courage.
Really?
Well, we will be happy.
We'll be happy to go down a list and we'll tally all the courageous things Barack Obama is doing.
Like, how courageous is it to start spending the tax revenue of people who are not even born yet?
Not even giving them a say-so in the matter.
Hi, folks, how are you?
We're doing great here on the EIB network.
Already Thursday is the fastest week in media.
And I, of course, the one and only El Rushbo, this the one and only EIB network.
And we're happy to hear you here.
Phone number is 800-282-2882, the email address, El Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
We'll get to all that.
I've got these Obama soundbites from that Facebook.
Again, appearing before a bunch of kids.
And I don't know this Zuckerberg guy, the Zuckerberg guy that founded and invented and created Facebook or whatever.
But he's out there and Obama's talking about how taxes need to go up on people and make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.
And Zuckerberg, what is he?
Multi-billionaire.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm cool with that.
I'm cool with that.
Not even knowing who it's really going to hurt and what kind of economic activity it's actually going to stifle.
But that's what Obama does.
Go out to young, impressionable people that don't have fully formed brains yet.
Still into cult following, well, you know, we have a name for people like this.
I can't use the actual name.
They're groupies.
They are celebrity blank, blank, blank.
They just melt in the presence of celebrities.
Before we get to all that, I want to clear up something that came up on the program yesterday.
It has a lot of people panicked.
And that is the location services bit about the iPhone.
Apparently, the research that produced yesterday's story is now not complete and is, in fact, erroneous.
And that, in fact, there's nothing new about the iPhone calculating where it is.
It used to be in the software.
The current iPhone software, iPads too, by the way, if they're 3G capable, do the same thing.
They keep a log of wherever they are.
Interesting to note, though, that it's done not by GPS, but by cell phone triangulation is one of the things I'm heard.
So it's not pinpoint.
But apparently this file used to be in the system software version 3, and it was hidden, and it was hard to find.
It became viewable and unencrypted in system 4, which was introduced last summer, because it is used for notification services, push, and all that via multitasking, keeping multiple applications open at one time.
And there's a long story today, a post by Alex Levinson, who is basically a forensics specialist when it comes to computer software.
He read the story about the big stink story yesterday that your iPhone keeps track of wherever it has been.
Of course, people wonder, well, is the phone alerting people, law enforcement, anybody else?
Is the phone reporting where it's been?
This is a big privacy snafu.
And the short answer is, yeah, the phone is reporting where it's been, but not for the reasons that you think, and that it's nothing new.
In iOS 4, it's always been there.
The three essential aspects here.
Mr. Levinson claims that Apple is not collecting the data.
And to suggest otherwise is completely misrepresenting Apple.
He's got a long explanation of why and how this is the case.
Number two, the hidden file is neither new nor secret.
It just moved.
Location services have been available to the Apple device for some time.
Understand what this file is.
It's a log generated by the various radios and sensors located within the device.
Again, the iPhone or the iPad with 3G.
This file is utilized by several operations on the device that actually is what makes the device pretty smart.
The file existed in a different form prior to iOS 4, but not in the form it's in today.
The name of the file as it exists today is consolidated.db.
And it lies within the user data partition of the device.
And it's, let's see, it's not collecting the data.
The hidden file is neither new nor secret.
And the third aspect is that this discovery was published months ago by Mr. Levinson.
And the story on his blog site basically establishes with proper documentation how Apple has even warned of this.
Apple has even in the new iOS release asked, you know, will you accept the fact that this is going to be going to be happening.
So for all of you worried about your iPhone being a secret weapon used by authorities to keep track of you, that's not what's going on.
Everything I said about it is true yesterday.
The data does go to your laptop or your desktop computer, whatever you use with iTunes to sync your iPad or your iPhone.
But the guy's name is Alex Levins.
He says it's not secret.
It's not malicious.
It's not hidden.
He's a senior engineer for Katana Forensics.
He publishes Lantern, which is an iOS software system forensic application.
And he says that this file is a database of radio logs.
It includes geolocational data.
It used to be known by another name.
It was hidden away from users and applications inside the inaccessible library folder.
But when Apple added multitasking to iOS 4 last year, the file was made accessible to third-party apps to operate in the background.
It moved out of the hard-to-access library folder and became part of the multitasking and background location services folder.
And he says that on the iPhone or 3G iPad, users still have full control of their location data.
You can turn it off.
But if you turn it off, the apps that use multitasking and where your location is will not be able to use that service.
A log will still be kept.
But he says there's nothing nefarious here.
There's nothing new in it.
The data is not being used for nefarious purposes.
So we will link to this.
It's a long read if you care, but I wanted to give you the overview here.
There's another story.
Some guy at PC World or PC Mag, I forget which it is, claims that Apple is collecting the data so as to create better networks, that they are using the collected data to find better Wi-Fi points and cell tower locations.
It's just a wild guess.
But he says Apple has signaled that that's one of their intentions.
Now, Mr. Levinson's post knocks that one out of the water.
And he really chides these guys at O'Reilly, which is where the two researchers were, for being premature here and for ignoring him and his research on this, about which he has written a book.
So I guess the bottom line here is that the initial story yesterday is not correct.
Brand new application, brand new secret location device that gives you up is not at all what this file is.
Well, I had a bunch of emails.
Of course, they were worried about it, Sterdley.
You know, the tinfoil hat crowd out there and the black helicopter bunch.
Yeah, there's a lot of people are worried about the incursion of authorities and third parties into their lives.
And it's understandable.
You know, with the kind of people running the country now, and we know that if you start connecting some dots, you take a little piece of information like this.
By the way, did you know that your iPhone keeps track of where you are?
Okay, that's all it takes.
Did you know your iPhone keeping track of everywhere you go?
And here's an application that'll produce on a map everywhere you've been.
Would you like your wife to get a hold of that?
Would you like your husband to get a hold of that?
Okay, you put all that together with the fact that Al Gore sits on the Apple board, the fact that Apple is a bunch of libs associated with the regime and so forth.
You start putting these things together, and it's not hard for people to think that there may be something nefarious going on.
So, yeah, there were a lot of people who were a little concerned about this.
I mean, I've given some people over the years iPhones and iPads asking me if they should stop using them.
And I said, well, what are you worried about?
I mean, so you can find out.
I mean, you know where you've been.
Is it so shocking to look at a map and see where you've been?
Well, no, but it's shocking the phone knows.
Well, how could the phone not know?
It uses GPS.
It uses cell phone towers to communicate.
How could the phone not know where it's been?
Well, yeah, but it's telling everybody.
No, it's not telling everybody.
Well, a cops can get in there and get it.
I guess the cops could.
Cops can do it with a warrant.
They can come in and they can get, and they don't need to get your phone for this, by the way.
They can just go to your laptop or whatever computer you're using iTunes on to sync your iPad or iPhone if they want to get that.
The law authorities, authorities know how to go in and get this stuff.
It is unnerving.
But if you put this together with who's running the show now, and look at all of the remember now, Snerdley, you can't divorce this incident from the past.
Remember all of the allegations.
George Bush monitoring your phone calls, trying to find out exactly who you're talking to.
Warrantless wires have all that stuff.
Government trying to find out everything.
Government trying to force you out of your car.
Government doing this.
Yeah, so people had some legitimate concerns.
This Levinson guy basically has written here that everything you heard about this yesterday in regards to it being some sort of secret, nefarious way to get you in trouble is not at all what's going on here.
That in fact it is a file necessary for the phone to be classified as a smartphone, to be able to multitask and be able to use certain applications that require GPS and location service.
But if you don't like this, turn it off.
But your phone's location is still going to be known.
Cell Tower can still find your phone, whether you're making a call or not.
So that's that.
Let me send the link of this up to up to Coco at the website.
It's somewhat technical.
I don't want to read every technical aspect of this to you, but you can read it yourself if you have any further interest.
We'll take a brief time out, and we will come back, continue with all the rest of today's program before you know it.
All right, just here's a couple sample emails.
Snerdly.
Here's just a couple sample emails of what's happening ever since my most recent explanation.
I'm not buying the iPhone stuff.
Information's power.
It's shocking Apple knows and is accumulating information.
I don't believe anything of this.
It's true.
They have to be collecting data.
I want to know why.
I mean, the list is going on and on and on here.
So let me just, let me read what Mr. Levinson writes here.
We have put the link at rushlimboard.com.
You want to read the whole thing for yourself.
By the way, folks, if you are an Apple aficionado, some of you may have the service they offer called Mobile Me.
Well, Mobile Me offers a feature called Find My iPhone.
Find my iPad.
How do you think that works?
That actually works on GPS, and that will pinpoint the location.
If somebody steals your phone, or if you've lost your phone, you can track it.
I read a story just this morning of somebody got their iPad back.
It was stolen.
I know it is snerdly.
One of the most fascinating things here is that I always, when the left was going bananas over the thought that Bush and Cheney were listening in on their phone calls, I would say, what makes you think you're so important that Bush would care what you're doing?
Well, by the same token, what makes you think you're so important that Steve Jobs is worried about where you're doing, what you're doing every day?
Or whoever else at Apple?
You know, from the one hand, we can go from, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, we're destroying the planet.
I do this.
Now we're no different than mice.
I am so important that Steve Jobs wants to find out what I'm doing every day.
Or I'm so important that Apple working with the government is going to collect data and report to somebody on where my phone is every day.
Anyway, the iPhone tracking issue isn't new.
It isn't really tracking users, according to Alex Levinson, who is an Apple software forensics researcher.
It's actually a data file that is used internally by the iPhone to do things like geotag your pictures.
It's been in the system software for a long time.
In the software prior to the release of iOS 4 in June, it was in a different form.
Now the files become more accessible than it used to be because it's used by third-party applications that require location data.
What's new is a nifty extraction tool called the iPhone tracker that pulls the data off your hard drive and makes a map out of where your phone's been.
This was the story from yesterday.
The forensics researcher says it's not secret, it's not malicious, and it isn't hidden.
And by the way, I forgot to mention this yesterday.
If you want to encrypt the backup file, you can.
I'm not going to say much more about this, but when you connect your iPhone or your 3G iPad to your computer and fire up iTunes to sync it, you have an option to encrypt the backup.
And if you do that, you can encrypt the backup and make it a lot harder for anybody who steals your computer or seizes it with a warrant to get this file.
But know that this file is being used by your phone multiple times throughout the, almost constantly, as long as you have location services turned on.
So the and as I pointed out, the database is not storing GPS data.
It's not pinpoint location of your phone or where you are.
It's triangulation via cell tower.
So it's not an exact location.
It's not pinpoint.
A third party could not get access to the file without physical access to your computer or your iPhone.
Now, if you've jailbroken the phone, that's a different matter.
Then you're wide open then if you've jailbroken your phone.
That's a whole different thing.
So the whole story and links to other versions of the story are now up at rushlimbaugh.com if you want to go further.
It's amazing how this thing, I mean, one little story sprung to life.
Everybody's got their theories about what's going on.
Still a lot of doubt and suspicion out there about this.
And, you know, some of it's understandable.
Now, I guess the thing to do here is somehow find a way to get Osama bin Laden an iPhone and then teach him how to use iTunes.
Then teach him how to sync his iPhone to iTunes.
Make sure he doesn't use the encrypt your backup button when he's backing up what's on his iPhone.
And voila, we can find him.
Send him an iPad.
Somebody knows where he is.
But I don't know if you have, if you're an Apple person, you've got Mobile Me.
Find your iPhone, find your iPad is a feature.
It's how it works.
So we're going to get to the soundbites of Obama out in San Francisco with Zuckerberg and the Facebook crowd.
We come back from the break here at the bottom of the hour.
But the thing that Obama said a lot of things in that Facebook appearance about how, I think Ryan's a patriot, but he's not, there's no courage here.
There's not courageous, Ryan's buddy.
It most definitely is, given the mindset of so many Americans.
There's a shocking story.
I guess we shouldn't be shocked.
And sometimes we have to ask ourselves, maybe, has the tipping point been reached more people receive benefits than are paying taxes.
Or another way to look at this, the amount of money involved, the amount of money being redistributed, the amount of money being spent on federal benefits to people is now larger than the annual take of tax revenue.
And some people are, well, okay, Rush, it's over.
I mean, there's no getting us back from this abyss.
That's what the left has always been pursuing, and they've got us here, and there's no returning.
Not ready to say that yet, but it still is a depressing bit of news.
More straight ahead.
Serving humanity simply by showing up Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone.
Jeff Zelany at the New York Times has a story on this appearance that Obama made at Facebook yesterday.
By the way, there were eight questions asked of Obama at the Facebook town hall.
All eight of the questions were screened in advance.
None of the questions came from Facebook users.
They were all from Facebook employees.
And as such, the whole Facebook Obama show is getting very negative reviews from those who are Facebook faithful.
A lot of bitterness out there that their questions were ignored and that most of the questions came from Facebook employees.
So Jeff Zelany's piece here, Ryan pushing budget resists talk of higher office.
Representative Paul Ryan deep into an explanation of his deficit reduction plan, which sits at the heart of a contentious debate between Republicans and Obama when he called on a constituent raising her hand in the front row of a town meeting.
She said, we need a viable Republican candidate for president.
Will you run against him?
Ryan grinned.
He blushed, tried to change the subject, told the audience, hey, she's not related to me.
She wouldn't say that if she was.
But he says, I'm not interested in running for office.
I just want to debate the president.
Ryan said he's got the bully pulpit.
But I think he's bigger than this.
I think Obama's bigger than this moment.
I think he's bigger than that speech he gave last week.
I think he'll come to realize that.
At least that's my hope.
Well, what was he talking about?
He was talking about that childish, petulant speech that a number of people have panned since Obama gave it.
You know, invite Ryan and some Republicans, have them sit in the front row, and then basically impugn them.
That it was not presidential.
Here's Ryan taking the high road.
Yeah, the president's bigger than that.
He'll realize that at some point.
He's bigger than this.
I'm not trying to get into some partisan bickering war with the president.
I don't see what purpose it serves to do that.
Now, who's classier here?
Who's classier?
I'm serious.
We're always told of the elegance of Obama, the high-class decorum exhibited by President Obama.
He's a street thug.
As a community organizer, that's what you are.
You're a street thug.
Elegance, eloquence, whatever you're going to call it.
Here's this little man-child running around saying that Ryan isn't courageous and his bill isn't courageous.
Here, last night was in Palo Alto, town hall event at Facebook headquarters.
An audience member said, my question is the 2012 budget plan proposed by Paul Ryan has been praised by a lot of people in the media as bold and brave.
I read these questions and I hear these questions.
Did somebody write this question for this Facebook person?
I'm not trying to say the Facebook people are not capable of writing questions or asking them.
I'm just, this just seemed to tee up an answer that Obama clearly wanted to make or give.
Now, Mr. President, we're hearing that Paul Ryan is being praised by a lot of people.
Do you see this as a time that calls for boldness?
And do you think the plan you outlined last week demonstrates sufficient boldness or is this just a media creation?
The Republican budget that was put forward, I would say, is fairly radical.
I wouldn't call it particularly courageous.
What he and the other Republicans in the House of Representatives also want to do is change our social compact in a pretty fundamental way.
All right.
I wouldn't call it particularly courageous.
What he and the other Republicans in the House also want to do is change our social compact.
Folks, what do you think our social compact is?
Certainly, when you hear the social compact, or any of you, what in the world is that?
What do you think it is?
Okay.
All right.
All right.
It's clear what Obama means by social compact.
You could put it that way.
You could say welfare.
He believes in the state being the central authority.
The state determines who wins and loses.
The state defines fairness.
The state has subjects.
We're all subjects.
He's a ruler.
But on this courage business, there's a politic story here.
At Facebook, Obama hits Republican budget.
Also hypes or hypes on the fact that Obama said there's no courage in it.
Obama also said, you know, nothing's easier than solving the problem on the backs of the poor.
That's not what Ryan has proposed.
Ryan has not proposed solving the problem on the backs of the poor.
This is another cliché from the liberal handbook.
What about this, folks?
What about promising programs that you can't afford using money from kids not yet born?
There's nothing easier than that, if you ask me.
There's nothing easier than promising programs to be paid for by people who aren't even born yet, who thus don't even have a chance to object to it.
What kind of courage are we talking about there?
That's gutless.
All of liberalism is gutless.
It's the most gutless choice you can make.
It requires no hard work.
It requires no intellectual application.
And it certainly requires no solutions.
All liberalism requires is a bunch of fake wording that adds up to how much you care about.
Then that's it.
You don't have to solve problem one.
In fact, you can make problems worse all the while talking about your good intentions, all the while talking about how much you care.
You can institute programs that exacerbate problems, and yet you're going to be heralded as one of great compassion and one who cares and has great courage when in fact you're making the problem worse.
Nothing is easier than solving a problem on the backs of people who are poor.
That sounds more and more like he's running to replace Castro as dictator of Cuba rather than be elected president of the United States.
All he's missing is some camouflage clothing and red beret that Hugo Chavez wears.
The unborn can't even vote.
The unborn can't oppose.
What kind of courage does it take to saddle them with debt?
We're supposed to think Obama is epitome of courage here.
We're supposed to think that he is taking on the hard things and doing it the hard way.
How heroic is it to punish one group of people?
And by the way, that group is now a minority.
45% of the people in this country are now working.
How heroic is it to punish them to benefit others in the name of compassion, no matter what economic damage it may cause, all in order to remain in power.
What kind of courage is that?
45% of the country work.
So you target them.
You punish them so that you can redistribute from them to people who are not working.
And then you call it compassion, regardless of the economic damage you cause, and the result supposedly is you re-election.
What kind of courage is that?
How heroic is it to spend money from generations of people not yet born in the name of job creation that only went to protect the government from the same economic hardship that's affecting taxpayers.
What kind of heroism is it that sets up money laundering operations so that citizens of a state end up paying state employees twice what the citizens make.
And then as an added bonus, some of what these state employees make end up in the campaign coffers of the Democrat Party.
What kind of courage does it take to set up that system?
And at its root level, folks, how heroic or courageous is it to extend and increase government programs that are fiscally unstable on the backs of whoever, but particularly on people not yet born.
But what kind of courage is it to keep funding programs that are running at a loss that are not accomplishing their stated goal and may in fact be worsening the circumstances for the nation at large and the supposed beneficiaries of the plan of the program.
What kind of courage is that?
There's no courage here.
There is utter selfishness.
Pure and simple.
How heroic is it?
What kind of courage does it require to say you can keep your doctor and your health care plan if you want when you know that that's not the case?
How much courage does it take to lie like that?
To say your health care reform will lower costs and reduce premiums and expand services?
What kind of courage is it when you know none of that's true?
What kind of courage does it require to lie to people, essentially?
Now, if you happen to agree with Paul Ryan or anybody else says, look, we're on a path that we can't sustain any further.
We can't remain the United States of America as founded if we continue with federal policies like this.
You realize if you believe that, Obama is calling you a coward.
If you see the financial calamity facing this country, and you happen to articulate that, you're a coward.
You are a coward for saying no to this continued madness that threatens the promise of this country.
And I'm telling you, Obamaism is madness.
The continuation of the Obama agenda is insane.
But you're a coward for standing up and saying you oppose it.
Now, that's right.
People who demagogue and lie to continue this madness, they are the heroes.
The guy who finally stands up and says, nope, nope, nope, no more.
That's your coward right there, according to Obama.
Count me in the groove of cowards.
Yeah, you know who you are.
You were the coward that had to lay off people because of the economy rather than keep them on the payroll.
You're the coward who has a business, maybe not your first business.
You might have tried once or twice before to start a business, but you are a coward.
You took the risk.
Things didn't work out.
You lost it all, but you kept going.
You might even weather this awful economy to stay afloat or try again.
You're a coward.
The coward that scrounged to find a way to continue to ensure that your employees have work, that wondered if you need to have a business tomorrow, you are a coward in Obama's world.
You're the coward.
He's courageous.
You're the coward who pays taxes.
Taxes end up as salaries and government benefits for the heroes in this country, like Obama and the public sector union employees.
And not to mention the rising food, education, and energy costs for your own family that you have to bear the brunt of while being told you're not doing your fair share, that your taxes need to go up because you're a millionaire or billionaire.
You say, I'm not a millionaire or billionaire and I can't afford anymore.
You're a coward.
Now, the real courage, the real heroism is in people like Obama, who lie to you about your health care plan, who lie to you about the efficacy of these great social programs, who lie to you about the stimulus bill creating millions of jobs, fixing roads and bridges, schools, and all that.
You put 20% down on a house, you lived within your means, you played by the rules, you paid off your mortgage, you continue to pay it, you worked the best you could, you taught your kids to do the same.
You're a coward.
You're a target.
You're the person this country needs to be gotten even with.
People like you have made it difficult for other people to have any success.
Barack Obama knows his courage is able to tell him just who the cowards are, and it's you, and you are his targets.
Get ready.
The margin of victory is 7,000.
What kind of recount can you have?
All right, well, we'll find out about it.
Anyway, lot popping here today: El Rushbow, the EIB network.
A couple more.
Do you want to hear any more Obama soundbites?
I'm going to pretty much covered this.
Okay, here's their basic view is.
Yeah, here's this: see, Obama continues.
He's explaining that he is a product here of the welfare state.
We're up to number nine.
Their basic view is that no matter how successful I am, no matter how much I've taken from this country, I wasn't born wealthy.
I was raised by a single mom and my grandparents.
I went to college on scholarships.
There was a time when my mom was trying to get her PhD where for a short time she had to take food stamps.
My grandparents relied on Medicare and Social Security.
Their notion is: despite the fact that I've benefited from all these investments, somehow I now have no obligation to people who are less fortunate than me.
Okay, so here's Obama.
If this is not convoluted, I don't know what is.
He says with this soundbite, he is a product of the welfare state.
Republicans think that he shouldn't have to give back when he's taken.
It's difficult to understand, but what you have to understand to know to understand this is the level of rage he feels.
The degree of anger the man has toward this country to even say something like this.
Yeah, we had to go on food stamps.
We had to do this.
I was trying to get her PhD.
She had to take food stamps.
They relied on Medicare and Social Security.
I've benefited from all these investments.
Now I'm somehow having an obligation to people who are less fortunate.
That's not the point.
You are trying to make it the only way people can get anywhere is by having them go through you.
That's the difference.
We are a compassionate society.
People who genuinely need help and who can't fend for themselves.
We are the first country to step in and assist.
What Obama wants is for everybody to have to go this way.
The assumption is that everybody is incompetent, that everybody is incapable, making these decisions or succeeding like this on their own.
The only people who do are cheaters and thieves and liars.
This is what liberals believe.
They want everybody to have to go this route.
That's the only way things will be equal.
That's the only way outcomes will be the same.
And it's the only way it'll ultimately be fair.
But hidden in this is a level of resentment that's got to be so intense.
Otherwise, I mean, this kind of thinking is as convoluted and radical for an American.
The bitterness in this is just dripping, even off the sound bite.
So now we know, folks, Obama's never had an entrepreneur in his family.
He has never had a producer.
He's never had an individualist.
Here he is using himself as an example.
He's a child of the welfare state.
That is his experience.
His adult career has been about expanding it.
That's all he knows.
And he has a deep-seated resentment about it at the same time.
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