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April 27, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:54
April 27, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Greetings, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence and Broadcasting Network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Serving humanity simply by showing up.
Great to have you here.
Telephone number 800 282882, the email address Lrushbaugh EIBNet.com.
People um people heard me say that John Boehner is not wedded to the Paul Ryan budget and Medicare plan.
Where do you see that?
said the emailers.
Where do you see that?
I haven't seen that.
Wall Street Journal, Washington Wire.
Representative Paul Ryan acknowledged he was handing Democrats a political weapon when he unveiled his budget proposal, including the controversial overhaul of Medicare.
Congressional leaders in both parties now seem to agree with him.
House Speaker John Boehner said he is not wedded to Mr. Ryan's plan to redo Medicare.
Paul Ryan has an idea certainly worth consideration, Boehner said in an interview with ABC News.
I'm for it, it's our idea's Paul Ryan's idea.
Now other people have other ideas.
I'm not wedded to one single idea.
That's where I thought I just wanted to have the proof of it, that's where it was.
No, I don't know that it's under the bus moment.
I don't I don't think Boehner's throwing anybody under the bus.
By the way, since we're I think there's something else going on.
It's not it's not that.
It's just it's called trying to be all things to all people.
Last night on PMS NBC The Last Word, Huffing and Puffington Post, senior political editor Howard Feynman.
And they were having a discussion.
This is number 21, Ed, a discussion of the debt limit vote negotiations.
And here is Howard Feynman.
I can tell you the Tea Party types, having seen John Boehner in his reasonable mode out there in that interview with ABC are going to be increasingly suspicious about him, which may in fact make Boehner more difficult to deal with on the debt ceiling vote than might have been the case a week or two ago when, as I understand it, Speaker Boehner pretty much assured White House top White House officials that he wasn't gonna, you know, go to the brink on the debt ceiling.
I think that promise that Boehner supposedly made to the White House might not be in good standing now.
So if I understand this, a couple weeks ago, Boehner supposedly told the White House, hey, why don't worry, I'm not gonna go to the brink on the debt ceiling, which we knew.
We knew they're gonna kick the can down the road on that, just like the continuing resolution.
But Howard Feynman is saying Tea Party types having seen Boehner in his reasonable mode out there are going to be increasingly suspicious about him, which may make Boehner more meaning, I guess what Feynman's theory is a Tea Party's gonna lean on Boehner and Boehner is going to cave to the Tea Party.
Uh which means that the Tea Party once again is the reason.
Those radicals in the Tea Party, damn them.
They are the reason that Boehner is not going to be able to act reasonable like we all want him to act.
And Boehner is gonna not go along with the debt ceiling raise.
It's just Blaming the Tea Party is the purpose of this quote.
See, Boehner's so much more enjoyable when he's reasonable.
So at Boehner says he's not wedded to Paul Ryan's Medicare part in the budget, he's reasonable.
New York Times blog, the caucus, why Republicans may be skipping the 2012 presidential run.
The question is why.
Haley Barber's decision to forego a run for the presidency puts him in the company of a half dozen top Republicans who have considered and rejected a challenge to Obama.
Why?
Barber indicated he doesn't have absolute fire in the belly to mount a campaign that would consume the next ten years of his life if he wins.
Others have shared different reasons.
John Tune said he considered himself best positioned to fight for America's future in the Senate.
Mike Pence of Indiana hinted he might run for governor instead.
He and his family choose Indiana.
Among those who've turned down the chance to run in 2012, Chris Christie.
Jeb Bush, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, Christie said that he could win, but quote, I have to believe I'm ready to be president and I don't.
Close quote.
But the publicly stated reasons often mask other considerations.
As politicians consider whether to run for president, here are five reasons why some of the Republican Party's brightest stars might be opting for the sidelines.
Are you ready?
Now remember, this is the New York Times theorizing this.
One is Biden.
If Obama wins, there's almost zero chance that Biden would run for the presidency in 2016, which opens it up.
Much easier to win in 2016 when there's not an incumbent vice president running.
I know it's not true.
This is the New York Times.
Here's the second reason they speculate why no serious Republican is taking up the challenge.
The economy.
I swear, folks, I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.
The economy.
Yeah, Obama's so formidable on the economy, there's no way to beat him on it.
Mr. Obama's approval ratings have dipped below 50%, but he remains personally popular, and by many calculations, the economy appears to be approving even slowly.
Even Mitt Romney said last September Obama would be difficult to beat if the economy continued improving, which he predicted that it would.
So New York Times thinks that a bunch of Republicans have looked down the road and seen an improving economy, meaning it's impossible to beat Obama.
I swear, folks.
If this is if again, it's the New York Times.
And it's their educated guess.
Number three, money.
Obama's expected to raise a billion dollars.
There's just simply no way to compete with that.
Number four, the Tea Party.
Get this one.
The emergence of the Tea Party movement as a force inside the Republican Party requires potential presidential candidates to pick sides in an intraparty philosophical struggle.
The risks are clear.
For some Republicans who may have to alter or modify earlier positions to get through a contentious primary.
In other words, the Tea Party will make these responsible, reasonable Republicans have to go too radical, and they just don't want to do it.
They just don't want to have to deal with the Tea Party.
They don't want to have to respond to them.
They don't want to have to campaign for them.
They don't want to be liked by them because these Republicans don't want to have to go that radical.
Number five, the media glare.
Candidates for president have always had to contend with scrutiny from the media, the anal exam.
But they just don't want to put up with it in this climate.
Just have no desire for it.
So those are the five reasons the New York Times blogger suggests that Republicans are opting out.
I swear I it it it's it's alternative universe time.
What what?
He didn't get any scrutiny, but that's the point.
The Republicans are going to get all kinds of scrutiny, and Obama won't, and they don't want to undo it, undergo it.
They just have no desire to undergo the media anal exam.
This is from the Boston Globe.
House lawmakers voted overwhelmingly last night to strip police officers, teachers, and other municipal employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care, saying the change would save millions of dollars for financially strapped cities and towns.
The 111 to 42 vote followed tougher measures to broadly eliminate collective bargaining rights for public employees in Ohio, Wisconsin, and other states, unlike those efforts.
The push in this is a Massachusetts House, by the way, the push in Massachusetts was led by Democrats who have traditionally stood with labor to oppose any reduction in workers' rights.
Robert Haynes, the president of the Massachusetts AFL CIO, so this is pretty stunning.
These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected.
Democrats are leading this move in Wisconsin to strip police officers, teachers, and other Muni employees of most of their rights to bargain over health care.
Now why?
They don't have the money.
I mean, it really is no more complicated than that.
Well, if they've raised taxes in Massachusetts, I don't know if they've got the room to really do it.
I mean, I'm sure they have the desire to, but New Hampshire's right next door.
And the door is wide open.
Come in here.
We won't trample on you.
Treasury quietly plans for failure to raise debt ceiling.
This is the Washington Post.
The White House's warning that catastrophe will strike if Congress fails to raise a debt limit.
With too little cash to pay creditors, the U.S. government would default.
Interest rates would skyrocket, the economic recovery would collapse.
That is a paragraph with one lie after another.
But behind the scenes.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has already begun juggling the books to conserve cash.
You don't have to do that.
Draining a special account at the Federal Reserve, and with the debt forecast to hit the legal limit of 14.3 trillion in just a few weeks.
He has a range of tools at his disposal, including borrowing money from a pension fund for federal workers.
Did you hear that?
The feds could borrow money from your pension fund.
Geitner also has authority to pay investors first for interest they're owed on the debt, according to a decade's old legal opinion.
So they're juggling things to pay interest to investors, which is something conservatives have argued.
I mean, we we have said don't raise the debt limit.
You have incoming revenue from taxes to pay the debt, the interest on the debt.
You've got unspent TARP money.
You have a bunch of duplicated federal programs that are not fully funded.
Instead of advertising for more food stamp applicants, there's no reason to raise the debt ceiling.
At some point we've got to get serious about it.
If we've got to stop this Leviathan's growth, if we've got to reduce it at some point, you have to get serious about it.
Treasury quietly plans for failure to raise debt ceiling.
A town hall meeting with freshman representative Dan Webster, Republican Florida, spiraled into chaos yesterday, when the crowd of roughly 300 started screaming at each other over his vote for the Paul Ryan budget.
According to an account on the Orlando Urinal from the Uradal.
Webster tried to go over a series of charts showing growing levels of federal spending in debt, and the reason he supports the federal budget plan put forward by Ryan, but he was interrupted at every turn by shouts from his critics, including members of progressive groups like MoveOn.org and OrganizeNow.
Liberal groups are trying to play up the town hall rage.
Here's the difference.
By the way, there's also a story out there, some out-of-work liberal talk show host.
What the heck was her name?
I can't.
I had never heard of her.
And I read this, and I think we've got the audio sound, but there's no way I'm going to find it because I've got my things so out of order.
But this babe showed up an Alan West Town Hall and just totally disrupted.
It had to be arrested, I think.
Yeah, it's what happened was I think I mentioned this a couple days ago.
The memo went out to the moveon.orgs and other uh Democrat activist groups to show up and disrupt the town halls like the Tea Party people did in 2010.
Copycats.
The difference is there were no memos urging the Tea Party to get out there.
That just happened.
That was a grassroots effervescence.
The Democrats are having to manufacture this.
They're sending out memos to tell people where to go and what to do and to specifically disrupt.
And it's not going to work.
Because it isn't real.
And it's obvious it's not real for anybody who attends one of these things.
Okay.
sit tight, my friends.
We'll be back.
Lots still to do.
And we'll get to it shortly.
Nicole Sandler is her name.
I still never heard of her.
Nicole Sandler, the former Air America host at she was arrested at the Alan West event.
Typical.
Let's see.
Where do we go?
Phones.
Tom in Georgetown, Delaware.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB network.
Great to have you with us.
All right.
Hey, Rush.
Glad to talk to you.
Greetings from the conservative capital of Delaware.
Thank you, sir.
And then we appreciate everything you do.
This has to do with the administration releasing that birth certificate, and I contend that they uh hope to stop uh Mr. Trump from continuing to ask about the grades.
Well, uh it didn't work.
Right, but I think that they'll what they'll do is they'll delay this.
They'll say, Well, we release the birth certificate and we'll think about the grades, and because I think they're really concerned about uh the persona that he is this super smart intelligent.
They're not gonna release any grades.
This is the end of this.
This is the total end of it.
They're not gonna release any grades.
They never were gonna release any grades.
And and and this and and you know, Trump can demand them all day long now, but they're not gonna release Trump got this is the one shot he was gonna get.
They're not gonna respond to Trump again.
Look at they have to know.
I uh Trump is not going to be the nominee.
I don't I don't think he's going to run.
And I I this this is this is something they know in the White House.
This is this is just gonna run.
I mean he's not I don't think he's gonna run.
I don't ask.
It's a hunch.
I don't I just why I look at this the uh the way I do.
You know, Perot was always gonna run.
Perot always was gonna run.
Even even though there was a there was a period of time early on when I thought that uh that that Trump No, no, no.
Trump was always gonna run, but he didn't want to win.
That was always what it was with Trump.
Uh Perot.
He's not gonna run.
Uh but so this is this is the one thing that the White House, okay.
Fine birth certificate, here you go.
The polling data clearly, the only reason they did this is they were losing ground on it in the polls.
They were they clearly were.
There's no other reason to do this to come out here today.
But they're not the grades are not gonna be forthcoming.
Do you think you think these gonna force them to release the grades from from Columbia?
That's not gonna happen.
Um, Edmonds, Washington.
Hi, Tony, you're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Um, say I'm kind of reluctant to bring up this point because it might tip the administration off, but these Yahoos are so um ideologically driven that they wouldn't do anything about it.
Um prices uh peaked uh right at the point that Bush announced that he would um repeal or remove the executive order restricting the ability to drill offshore.
And I mean that was what, September uh eight.
And it was like a week before, you know, everything collapsed financially, and and nobody seemed to talk about the oil issue after that because oil started dropping.
But it it peaked like right at that day or the day before he announced it.
Okay, so your theory is that Obama might repeal his moratorium.
Yes.
In time to cause the oil price to drop, the gasoline price to drop to show, hey, see what I did?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, um you said you didn't think they could do it because they're too ideologically uh corrupt.
Let me tell you about that.
I can see that, and I can understand how people think that, but I also know this.
I also know that Obama doesn't want the price of gasoline to come down to Obama hates oil.
Look, folks, let me find it here in the uh in the story.
Get this.
if this doesn't say it, I don't know what does.
Reuters story, President Obama yesterday urged world oil producers to lift crude output as he sought to deflect public anger over high gasoline prices that has hurt his popularity.
Now the original headline for this story was Obama presses oil producing nations to boost output.
But the editors realized that presses was a little too bellicose for our courageous president, so urges became the word.
But here he is.
Reuters i i if you read the whole story, Reuters is trying to make it out like the Republicans are using high gasoline prices to hurt Obama.
Never mind, they hurt everybody.
But what about the hypocrisy here?
How come if all these foreign countries increase their output of oil?
In other words, if if if foreign countries do their own drill baby drill, how come that will lower the price of gasoline?
But it won't lower the price of gasoline if we produce more domestically.
Obama urges oil producers to increase output to lower the price.
Would you ever Obama urges domestic producers to increase?
No.
He is hamstringing domestic production.
And he also knows that these foreign producers are not going to do it just because he says so.
Look at his entire economic plan, green energy and all that depends on rising energy prices.
No need to think about it.
Chow we do that for you here at the EIB network.
So we can't drill our way out of the problem, but they can.
They can drill our way out of the problem.
All these foreign producers, yeah, if they just drill more, if they just up their output, yeah, baby, yeah, that helps us.
Obama says there's not a silver bullet to lower gas prices, but there is.
It's called boosting production.
It's worked every time it's tried.
And the caller was right.
In 2008, when Bush announced the end of the Gulf drilling moratorium, this is after Katrina.
Folks, the pr the barrel price of oil literally fell off of a cliff.
I have the chart.
I can show you on the ditto cam.
The price just fell.
So the caller could be right.
This could be a giant scam Obama's setting up.
To end his drilling moratorium in the Gulf a year from now, causing all price to plummet and gas prices to do likewise.
Wouldn't be the first time something like that happened in uh politics.
Trump's totally capable of it.
I'm just tweaking.
Libby in Miami, great to have you.
I'm glad you waited.
Hey, Russ, a pleasure speaking to you.
Thank you for taking my call.
Yes, sir.
Uh Russ, I just have uh quick comment uh getting back to Trump.
And I remember when when Obama uh during during the uh uh you know before he was elected and when he was anointed the uh as the uh the up-and-coming star of the Democrats.
I remember I was overjoyed.
Uh I was so happy.
I kept thinking, wow, if this is if the if he's the best that they have to offer a guy that has more qualifications, a guy that had no experience, a guy that even back then uh there were all sorts of rumors swirling around about him.
I mean, this guy I thought it was completely, completely unelectable.
Yep.
And yet, look what happens.
Uh and some I got a little upset when I hear the Republicans, uh, especially a talking ads uh calling uh Trump a uh Joe candidate and all that stuff.
Uh I would like to remind him that the Joe candidate has already been elected.
Okay, someone that should never have even been.
Let me tell you something.
You and I are on the same page, pal, and I don't know why more people don't look at Obama's.
Here's a blank slate that people were able to paint on it whatever they wanted, make him out to be whatever he wanted when he was nothing.
That's right.
That's right.
I and I'm not telling you that I mean I don't know if we if Trump's gonna run or not.
But I one thing I do know for sure is that he's uh infinitely more qualified than Obama ever will be.
At least we know that he has some brains.
He's creative businesses, he's successful, so at least we know that there are some brains back there, unlike Obama.
And and another thing, in in certain respects, he may be Obama's worst nightmare.
Because this guy is he's a Lucanon.
He's not politically correct, and he and really he's got no ties to anything.
He's not part of the establishment, and uh and and he doesn't respect Obama.
Yeah, but let me ask you a question.
Is Trump conservative?
Do you think he's a conservative?
I think I I think he is.
I I I really do, and I think one point in that, I think he's a patriot.
I think he does care for this country, and I think he does worry uh about the path that we're taking.
He does see this nation uh slipping away and and going into the into second rate uh uh you know being qualified to second rate nation.
He sees that, so I do think that he is a patriot.
He's conservative, and I think he's infinitely more qualified than Obama.
So I would much rather have Trump.
I mean, hands down.
I mean, I think this guy is highly intelligent, too.
And uh, and and you know, uh and it's like it does pee me a little bit when I hear this guy's calling him a joke when in reality if someone like Obama can get elected, uh why not Trump?
And you know what?
And even if he doesn't run uh Rush, I think I hope Republicans learn from him.
I really do, because this guy has taken out Obama directly.
This guy has taken off his gloves, he says whatever he has to say to Obama.
Obama's not used to that.
The Democrats are not used to that kind of stuff.
I think Trump is the worst nightmare.
The Democrats are used to the beeers and the other establishment people that that before they say anything that for instance it with Obama before they say anything negative to Obama, deal with preface it with some sort of a compliment.
How intelligent he is and how uh how you know whatever he's ever like.
It's like it's like he's a nightmare.
It's like McCain during the uh during the campaign.
I will not tolerate anybody saying his middle name.
You say who sing and your kid.
Taylor.
I know.
I know.
I um look, in the classic sense, Trump's not a conservative.
Uh folks.
You don't promise to raise tariffs on the ChyCons 25%.
That's not conservative.
You don't rule no, you don't.
It's just like you don't people understand this derby.
You remember when George W. Bush threatened to raise tariffs on imported steel.
There was an outcry.
No, you don't raise taxes, period, and we're raise taxes on imports, it's just gonna raise tax.
That's not the way to deal with it.
That's protectionism.
Protectionism is is is uh smoot hawley.
It's a it's a it's a it's a it's a death wish.
You don't uh I know this is this is why.
This is why I'm always worried about populism.
Populism is not concerned, okay.
Maybe people do hate the Chicoms right now.
They fall into this notion that the ChaiComs are making everything that we used to make.
That's not even true.
The ChICOMs are assembling things, but not everything that comes from there is made there.
I'll give you an example.
We've got we've got problems here, but it's not solely due to the ChaiCons.
If you want to make things in America, then go pay people 98 cents an hour.
That's what the ChICOMs do.
Now the iPhone, I wish I could remember the exact numbers.
The iPhone loaded iPhone is uh ballparking this 300 bucks.
It would be twelve hundred dollars if it were made with every component made and it all assembled in the United States.
Well, they I mean all it takes is for one other company to have their phone made in China, and there's no iPhone.
You know, markets are markets.
So the answer to this is not raising taxes on the iPhone 25%.
That's not gonna help Americans.
It's just gonna raise the price of the iPhone, it's gonna hurt Apple.
That's not how you deal with it.
You deal with it on the end.
Well, we're we're causing this problem by devaluing our dollar.
All of this is Obama's problem.
It's not the ChICOM's problem.
We're devaluing the dollar.
Uh so you know, Trump has got a lot of populist tendencies.
I'm bothered by them.
Okay, so people have a a visceral anger at the ChaiCons.
Okay, I'm gonna feed that, and I'm gonna I'm gonna that's that's not it's populism, and it might get you some votes that is not conservative.
It's also not conservative to not take the time to understand what Paul Ryan's Medicare proposal is.
Paul Ryan uh Trump's out there ripping it to shreds, and I'm convinced he doesn't know what it is.
Paul Ryan's Medicare proposals and his budget plan don't touch current retirees.
They're totally left alone.
Ryan understands full well you don't change the rules in the middle of the game on current recipients.
But at some point, people who are a long way off from getting those benefits are going to be told it's going to be different when you get to the age.
Sorry, things have changed.
This is the way it is.
So there are a number of uh things, things like this that you can say, okay, they're they're they're popular.
There's no reason as a conservative to run down Ryan's budget.
But other Republicans are.
Uh I just shared with you the Washington Whispers piece, Wall Street Journal.
Baehner is said he's not wedded to it, that he said that in the ABC interview, but that's more, I think, along the lines of trying to please everybody than just be a uh being a populist.
Uh nevertheless, it doesn't take away from the fact that there's an easy explanation for why Trump is attracting a lot of attention.
And the real visceral attitude in this country among anybody but Democrats is we don't want any more of Obama.
And the fastest way to get rid of Donald Trump is for some Republican to stand up with some gonads and act like a conservative and not be afraid, like I said yesterday at the end of the program.
What's my ideal candidate?
Fearless.
Core beliefs are such that you don't need to read a memo before you go out and make a speech, that you don't need a teleprompter.
You believe it.
You believe it to the point that every media opportunity is an education opportunity.
You welcome people who disagree with you because it's a chance to teach them.
We must do that if we're going to expand and grow.
As a movement.
Right now, such a person on the conservative side has not surfaced.
So here's Trump, and he's taking it to Obama.
And admit it.
That's what you've wanted for two and a half years.
Admit another thing.
To us, there's nothing superhuman about Barack Obama.
All he is to us is a threat to our nation as we've always known it.
All he is to us is somebody who is so wrong as to portend a genuine danger for the future of our kids and grandkids, whom we love.
Just as we love our country, and we want this disaster stopped in 2012 as the first chance we're gonna have.
But frankly, I don't know.
I don't know a single Republican in the field who's able to stand up and say what I just said.
Have you heard it?
Have you heard anybody who would say it?
Is there anybody in our field who would refer to Obama as a disaster?
No.
What they're petrified.
What they will do is say, I think the president's policies are taking the country in the wrong direction.
Yeah, that and a wet noodle will get you some fried rice.
It's far more desperate than the president's policies are taking us in the wrong direction.
His policies are illegitimate when contrasted with the United States of America as founded.
One thing, this re-election of Obama, you know, it's it's one thing to govern against the will of the people.
Now he's got a campaign against the will of the people, folks.
Do not underestimate what he's up against.
He's got a campaign against the will of the people.
Bryn Bernanke, first ever press conference, said he thought that QE2 was Effective, which makes you wonder what it was supposed to accomplish.
Stock market's still up, but nothing else is.
Least of all the housing market.
Supposedly QET's QE2 is over, and we'll see what effect that has on the stock market.
Ladies and gentlemen, because of the stress and the strain of the past three days.
I have talked it over with officials here at the EIB network, and I have decided to take a couple of days away to figure out exactly where we are and where I am amidst all of it.
So Mark Stein has agreed to come in tomorrow and Friday.
And I will return on Monday.
Eagerly awaiting your arrival at the same time.
Have a wonderful next couple of days with Mr. Stein.
They always are great days.
And we'll see you back on Monday.
Well, the uh chairman of the Fed, Ben Bernanke says that the dollar is firm.
Yeah, it keeps dropping.
He says inflation is no problem.
Gold keeps rising.
And this is the kind of stuff I need to go examine deeply.
People are lying to us, folks.
And I gotta get to the bottom of it.
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