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May 12, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:47
May 12, 2011, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 podcast.
Hey, have you seen the uh jobless numbers, folks?
I mean, it's good news.
From the labor department.
New claims for unemployment benefits are way down.
That's the good news.
All this good news.
I don't know, I don't have a room for it.
I'm I'm running out of room for more rays of sunshine to be packed up my butt as this regime continues to tell us how great things are doing out there.
I got no more room for the good news.
How are you doing, my friends?
El Rushball.
I woke up to thinking it was Friday all day today.
This somehow uh feels like even though it's not.
Don't worry, Sturdley.
Don't have to do open line Friday screening today, not until tomorrow.
Great to be with you, my friends.
There's our telephone number if you want to be on the program as we do show prep for the rest of the media, which follows.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
And the email address L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
I'm right most of the time.
When I'm right, I'm really right.
And boy was I right yesterday.
I mean, nailed it.
Normally with a prediction or a uh uh a warning of what was to come as I did yesterday, sometimes takes weeks or months for me to be born out.
Took a day.
Yesterday in describing for all of you what the Obama campaign for 2012 would be.
Do you remember, Snerdly?
Here's the essence of the campaign.
This economy was worse than we knew when we were immaculated.
They had not leveled with us about just how deep this recession was.
We've put policies into place to reverse all of the bad economic news.
And frankly, it took longer than we thought for our policies to start to have any impact because it was so much worse than we even knew.
And now it's just starting to pay off.
It's gonna be much longer than we even thought.
Even though our policies are now starting to have a net positive impact.
It's gonna be years, folks.
I mean, I hate to be honest with you, but it's just it's gonna be years and years and years, and the worst thing we could do would be to change horses in the middle of the stream now.
Just we can finally see those rays of sunshine shining their countenance upon the U.S. economy.
The worst thing we could do would be to turn all of this over to the people who drove us in the ditch in the first place, the Republicans.
The worst thing we could do.
Because they will tear down everything that we have put in place that now after three long years are starting to finally show or come to fruition.
I take you to this morning.
We start with the audio sound by number five.
This is the CBS Early Show.
They held a town hall on the economy today with Obama.
The co-host Eric Hill said, for the past four years, Mr. President.
It seems that we have been hearing, whether it's on TV, at the office, around the kitchen table, that things are tough.
And there is some improvement.
There's positive economic data coming.
Folks, when I nail it, do I nail it.
Yet sometimes, Mr. President, it can feel like for every two steps forward, we take one step back.
There's definitely a psychological component to this recovery.
How do we change the mindset from things are tough to things are turning around?
My friends, you know me, I've told you.
I'm used to being right so often, it normally isn't that big a deal.
But this, even I got tingles of my left leg.
Even I got a tickling in my spine.
And it's actually good.
Being right as I am so often comes habitual.
Take it for granted.
So I'm actually thrilled that I am be so excited about having been so right.
I mean, 24 hours, less than 24 hours, and they bear me out.
So here is Obama's answer to that question.
In the few months after I took office, we lost another four million jobs, so this was the worst recession since the Great Depression.
And I think understandably people still feel pretty bruised and battered from that recession.
You're seeing improvement all across the country, but you're absolutely right that people still aren't feeling it.
Now, part of that is the fact that the unemployment rate is still high.
And we've got a lot more work to do.
Yeah, it's right.
We got a lot more work to do.
It's just now starting.
Folks Well, the the the seeing it but not feeling it is an attempt to tell them that the gas price really isn't what they're paying for it.
This is a lame attempt to tell them that food doesn't really cost what it's costing them.
It's not going to cost that much if you just stick with us.
But you see, it's it's all starting here.
We have here the nuts and bolts of the campaign after I. Oh
jeez.
Oh, I'm at this grand slam.
This is this is uh this is the Joe DiMaggio hitting streak here.
In a town hall style meeting conducted by CBS News on Wednesday, Obama said the weak housing market and high gasoline prices were the biggest headwinds dragging on the economy.
We got a lot more work to do to get businesses to invest and to hire.
It's going to take us several years for us to get back where we need to be.
And of course, the next the next logical step is for the president to say it would be a terrible mistake to change horses in the middle of the stream now.
Look at what the Republicans want to do to every program we put in place that's starting the show and come to fruition.
That's what they're gonna say.
They have laid the groundwork for it.
And I just in anticipating some questions from some of you doubters.
I had no advanced knowledge that this was going to happen.
Now let's go back to the top and tackle what Reuters claims the main part of the story.
Obama tells companies to step up and hire workers, urged businesses to step up and hire workers pressing banks and other corporations to do more.
To help it well, yeah, that's so simple.
Why didn't I think of that?
Hey, hey, Deutsche Bank.
Hire people.
Hey, hey, Goldman Sachs, hire people.
Why didn't I think of that?
See how easy it is.
See how these you just tell people to hire other people.
That's how that's how easy it is.
Obama doesn't care.
He doesn't know that this just doesn't happen this way.
It's not the value of this is not what happens after this.
It's simply Obama at a town meeting, pointing fingers at blame.
It's going to start hiring people.
And the Doomcoffs they arrange to show up to be in the town hall audience, go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Start hiring.
Yeah, President's right.
Start hiring.
Yeah, that's a problem.
They're not hiring anybody.
Without understanding the machinations or machinations of uh economics at all.
Here, give you an example.
On the CBS Erling Show, the town hall Meeting today on the CBS.
There's a QA between the president and audience member, Karen Gallo.
This is how it went.
I took a job with the federal government, thinking it was a secure job.
Recently I've been told I'm being laid off as of June 4th.
And it is not an opportune time for me.
I am seven months pregnant, in high risk pregnancy, my first pregnancy.
My husband and I are in the middle of building house.
We're not sure if we're going to be completely approved.
I'm not exactly in a position to waltz right in and do great on interviews based on my timing with the birth.
And uh so I'm stressed, I'm worried, I'm scared about what I what my future holds.
I definitely need a job.
And uh, I just wonder what would you do if you were me.
Oh, oh, it doesn't that tug at your heartstrings.
I mean what a sob story.
I've never, yeah, I've never heard anything like it.
I didn't know things could be that bad in this country.
Well, I think she does need a new kitchen.
Uh, and probably with the onset of the what I want to know is they're in the middle of building a house, but she's not sure she's going to be completely approved.
What does that mean?
This uh how can you be building a house if you haven't approved as soon as she's talking about the loan, right?
The mortgage.
Anyway, here's Obama's answer.
This is Obama's answer.
Where were you working?
The National Zoo.
And I would be non-essential employee number seven.
It frustrates me sometimes when people talk about government jobs as if somehow those are worth less than private sector jobs.
I I think there's nothing more important than working on behalf of the American people.
Some folks on the other side of the aisle has been that we want to just cut and cut and cut.
My main message to you is that the work you've done at the National Zoo's important.
Every child that you see who comes by and is amazed by those animals, you know, they're benefiting from your work.
I don't want to sort of find out more details in front of everybody about what your status is, but uh we can have a conversation maybe maybe afterwards.
All right.
So government worker about to lose her job, about to lose her house, might not see the baby be born because he's in a tough pregnancy.
And Obama tells her how important she is to the American people.
She and the animals, how important they are to the American people.
So you see, this is how they're gonna do this.
This is how they're gonna this is nothing more than a replay of a town hall meeting they had shortly after Obama was inaugurated over in Tampa, where the audience showed up, where's my kitchen?
I need a new car.
Uh and all this.
And the undercurrent here, by the way, is that look who's losing their jobs.
Federal workers, government workers.
Look who's losing those jobs.
And it turns out the president is uh well, he's wrong.
He is making a big pitch in terms of explaining high unemployment, claiming that the majority of it is government workers.
Mark Noller of CBS, covering this town hall with the president this morning, reported this.
President Obama blames the high unemployment rate on huge layoffs of government workers at federal, state, and local levels.
It Jim Garrity has a very comprehensive post at uh his his blog at National Review Online called a campaign spot.
Uh it is completely wrong.
It is epically wrong, as Garrety says.
But note who do they drag out for question?
To back up what the president's saying about the reason for high unemployment is primarily people in government jobs losing theirs.
So Garrity has gone to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and published a lot of numbers here on private sector employment over periods of time and public sector employment, and the dirty little secret I give start giving you a lot of numbers here, and they'll all run together when you can't see them.
Numbers on radios very tough thing to do.
I can do it given the appropriate amount of time.
But the bottom line is that government employment is actually increasing.
There are not droves and droves of layoffs.
The numbers indicate that local government employment employment is increasing, not decreasing.
I mean, Obama's not even a little bit right about this.
So this whole thing, this whole town hall today is almost a purely scripted event to advance an agenda that is forming the foundation of the reelection campaign, which I, Il Rushbo told you about yesterday.
I gotta take a break here.
We'll get to your phone calls as always today.
Every day I love coming in.
It's just that the news just I know, on the one hand, it's frustrating, but on the other hand, it's just made the order for what we do here.
For example, there's all of these stories about what was discovered in the treasure trove of intel at bin Laden's house.
And it's a joke.
It is an absolute hilarious joke.
Now the truth of the matter is the British stopped tracking bin Laden.
They stopped caring about bin Laden and anything to do with him years ago, because their intel said, you know, even if he's alive, he's not a factor.
But since Obama killed Osama, the word's gone out to our media to talk about how relevant Osama was and how intimately involved in planning he was and all the stuff that he had on the drawing board.
A shameless effort by our state-controlled media to make it look like this was an even bigger and more important kill than anybody thought it was.
Because this guy was still the mastermind.
He was still numero uno.
He was still a big kahuna, the grand Puba.
Did you know that there is an action figure already out on the market?
Obama as a SEAL says Team Six member.
There is, there's already an action figure of Barack Obama as a member of SEAL Team Six.
Now they used Michelle's body, not his, but it's still, it's on the market.
C-SPAN, ladies and gentlemen, C SPAN carrying the hearings of the big oil executives today.
And of course, the Democrats are not in unison on this.
Mary Landrew is ripping into this Democrat effort to end subsidies for big oil.
And of course, there aren't subsidies for big oil.
Big oil is not subsidized the way standard subsidies work.
All that happens is they have a lower tax rate for certain kinds of aspects of their business, but there's no real subsidy that takes place.
And Mary Landrew understands exactly what's going on.
Mary Landrew says to the fellow Democrats into Obama look, if you do this, you're not going to be hurting big oil, you're going to be hurting employment in my state.
And then she lashes out at people who live in non-energy producing states.
Mary Landrew said.
Yeah, go ahead.
You complain all you want about the gasoline price.
What are you doing to contribute to our energy in this country?
Your state doesn't do anything for energy.
We here in Louisiana, we contribute, we have all kinds of things.
We have a lot of jobs, we have a lot of companies, a lot of businesses here that are devoted to producing and providing energy for this uh for this whole country.
And I resent this notion of being singled out.
She's really stepping up because she understands what this is all about.
She's in a precarious position here, having to go against her party.
This is an attack on oil company employment, just as Obama's moratoriums on drilling in the in the Gulf.
But at the at the hearing, one Democrat senator asked these execs, for example, I think the uh the CEO of ExxonMobil is Rex Tillerson.
There ever been a better name for an oil company CEO than Rex Tillerson.
I don't know that it was Rex Tillerson who got the question.
Democrat senator asked them whether they believed in shared Sacrifice.
And one big oil executive said we don't believe in shared sacrifice.
We believe in shared prosperity.
Right on.
Looks like if that is a standard representative of the attitude these guys are carrying into their hearing today, they're not going to roll over.
Looks like the oil execs are not rolling over quite as nicely as the Democrats had hoped.
No, we don't believe in shared sacrifice.
We believe in shared opportunity.
What a perfect answer.
Now Obama's out there.
He's gonna he's gonna continue.
We got more sound bites in the town hall today.
How rotten it is, how worse it was, much worse it was than they even knew when they assumed office.
Here's the question.
If it really was worse than Obama thought, who was Speaker of the House at the time it was getting worse, and who was the majority leader?
It'd be Pelosi and Reed, folks.
The Democrats ran Washington 2007 on.
Hi, welcome back.
Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network.
Of course there's a sometimes I get frustrated.
Of course there's an answer and a response to the Obama campaign.
I'm just checking the emails.
So you're saying it's over, Rush?
There's no way we can combat what he's gonna do.
Of course there's an answer to it.
Look at identifying what it's gonna be this early on and being dead right on about it, is is the perfect opportunity here to come up with a way to nuke it.
And let me tell you what the perfect way to nuke it is.
Okay, the Obama campaign is my God, my God, it's worse than we knew.
We had no idea.
Bush didn't tell us.
We inherited a mess that was even bigger than we knew.
It's gonna take our policies longer than we thought, but they're starting to come to fruition.
They're starting to show some signs of progress, being a horrible mistake to change horses in the middle of the stream.
And you can hear it, they've already they've already trotted this out as as uh step one at this town hall meeting today.
So let me see if I understand here.
Obama was in the Senate voting for all of those things that led to the economy being worse than he knew that it was.
He was voting for more spending, he was voting for higher taxes, Pelosi was Speaker, Dingy Harry was the majority leader.
And what?
Poor old Obama, all 159 days he spent in the Senate, was uh clueless.
He had no idea how horrible things really were.
He just one day stepped into the oval orifice, saw everything was worse than he thought after two years of controlling all of Washington of the House and the Senate.
And now nothing that he's done has worked because none of it was supposed to work, and now he says I had no idea it was this bad before I got here.
He sat in church for 20 years, a Reverend Wright's church didn't hear what he said, so he's in the United States Senate, and he's ragging on Bush, and he's ragging on the economy, and he's ragging on how bad it is.
And now he's trying to tell us we had no idea it was this bad.
But the answer to it in the campaign was he never had any i it his idea was not to fix this.
Nothing he's done has worked because none of it was supposed to work.
That's and I know look at their people on our side still don't want to get their arms around that.
They still don't want to accept that a president has been elected with that mindset.
So policies that were not intended to fix the problems are not fixing the problem.
He had no idea it was that bad.
No, I don't think this is a formidable campaign.
It's weak.
Is that the best he can do?
Is it the best lie they can come up with that he was a clueless senator and now he's a clueless president?
Is that the argument for reelecting him?
It is.
I guarantee you it is.
The change, the don't change horses in the middle of the stream is what they're planning on.
Because only now they're gonna say there are signs of progress.
But Barack Obama wanted to exploit our problems, not fix them.
No desire whatsoever to fix them.
He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004.
Where's he been for the last seven years?
How can anything surprise him?
How can anything be worse than what he thought it was?
It can't be.
Just like he never knew what Reverend Wright was saying, but that that that poet, that rapper common common, yeah, he knew everything.
He was he was singularly inspired by Reverend Wright.
This this line of argument, no, far from being formidable, don't misunderstand.
I'm not suggesting that there's no way to beat this folks.
It's simple.
This line of argument is proof that we should not elect neophytes of the Oval Office.
Let me go back to a soundbite here from the from the town hall this morning on CBS.
This is the QA with audience member Karen Gallo.
She is the about to be laid off, not to be able to finish her construction of her home.
Pregnancy may not happen, uh participant, who had a chance to ask Obama a question.
I took a job with the federal government, thinking it was a secure job.
Recently I've been told I'm being laid off as of June 4th.
And it is not an opportune time for me.
I am seven months pregnant in high risk pregnancy, my first pregnancy.
My husband and I are in the middle of building a house.
We're not sure if we're going to be completely approved.
I'm not exactly in a position to waltz right in and do great on interviews based on my timing with the birth.
What?
And uh so I'm stressed, I'm worried, I'm scared about what I what my future holds.
I definitely need a job.
And uh I just wonder what would you do if you were me.
I'm not gonna play his answer.
All right, yeah, this is some applause.
I mean, what a sob story.
But I gotta be very careful here, folks, because I'll be accused of having no heart.
But what a sob story.
But of course, it was set up and made to order for Obama, because his answer, which I'm not gonna reburden you with, was basically to blame the Republicans for cuts.
Their promised cuts and their real cuts, that's what's leading to her problem.
That's that's what he told her.
So here, in synthetic form.
The president of the United States blamed the potential layoff of a single zoo worker on reckless spending cuts by those on the other side of the aisle.
So the fact, according to the according to Obama, this woman might lose her job because of Republicans.
She might not be able to move into her house, therefore, because of Republicans.
Her pregnancy may not go well because of Republicans.
She is stressed, therefore, because of Republicans.
She is worried because of Republicans, and she is worried about her future because of Republicans.
And she needs a job, and she might not be able to get one because of Republicans.
And that is the campaign.
And that was the message at the town hall meeting today.
It was classless arrogance, exactly what I said yesterday.
Ignorant default demonization of his enemies, not his opponents.
This woman.
Somehow the victim of evil Republicans.
But again, I remind you, I believe that the Democrats have controlled spending in Washington for quite some time.
Liberals ran or run Washington, D.C. Liberals run the zoo.
It is a zoo.
Is the zoo essential?
Of course it is, Sturdley, for the for the for the formation of young minds.
Why those animals are what we used to be?
Those animals, hell yes, the zoo's important.
That's how you teach evolution.
That's how you showed it.
We once were those, and we're no better than those.
In fact, those will those those animals may be more important than we are.
Remember our update of earlier this week.
We're working on software technology to be able to speak to dolphins.
It's our fault we can't understand them.
Oh, you didn't hear that, folks.
Oh, major, major software uh investment being made so we can understand the chirping of dolphins.
And frankly, I can't wait till we get this done because I want to ask them, how have you held down your health care costs below the surface of the sea?
I want to know what have you done with your tax rates, because I don't see dolphins going on strike ever.
I I the things that we could learn from them, if only we were smart enough to understand their chirping.
So since our brains are not smart enough to talk to them, we're coming up with software.
I kid you not, we did a morning update on this.
What was it uh right now we we how does it go?
That they can understand 100 words of hours or dolphins can now understand 100 words of hours.
Okay, so yeah, the software has to develop a co-language with the um with the Dolphins.
Now I know the lady sounds absurd, but what are we gonna do?
You sit here.
What is to be gained by even commenting on those?
She does sound absurd.
You know, if if I were in her shoes, honest to God now, this is I wouldn't be taking time off to go to a stupid presidential town hall meeting.
And I wouldn't be asking the president what he can do for me.
Let me can I ask you people a question?
I mean dead serious now.
The normal ebb and flow of life, and I'm I'm serious.
Whenever any problem comes up in your life, how many of you actually think of going to the president to deal with it?
It just people will never have the opportunity to even meet a president.
And if they do, it's certainly not going to be a meeting of any substance, but that's not you just it's sort of like praying to God for parking spaces.
If I come up with a little flawed analogy, you just do waste anybody.
So we what who thinks this way?
Democrats, exactly right, Democrats think this way.
And of course, the town hall meeting was set up.
This the optics of this are to create the image.
Of course, who else would you ask but Obama?
Why he just got through killing bin Laden.
Can do anything.
Grab a quick phone call.
This is uh this is Mark in Chicago.
Hey, great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, it's an honor to talk to you, buddy.
Thank you, bud.
Hey, that uh that sound bite kind of uh frustrated me a little bit, Rush.
And let me tell you this.
About five, six years ago, you had an elderly gentleman on the uh calling program talk about the problem today is we're not being taught guts 101.
I remember the conversation vividly.
You know, my late father uh taught me guts 101.
His dad, who are Italian immigrants, taught him guts 101.
No health care, none none of the stuff that's being given out today.
I'm teaching my kids, my two boys guts 101.
And you know, Rush, it's frustrating to hear that that uh, you know, give people jobs, do this, do that.
You know, my dad taught me, Mark, what you don't have in what you don't have in intelligence, you always make up with ambition.
And somehow we are losing that ambition with this young generation.
Well, we certainly are with a number of people, but I I I must correct you.
We do teach guts 101, it comes right out of the White House.
Have you noticed lately?
What a gutsy decision Obama made.
What a gutsy call Obama.
I mean, the essence of Gutsy is Barack Obama.
It's being taught now.
You don't need a classroom for it.
You don't need a family to teach guts.
All we have to do is follow the example of Barack Obama.
That's gutsy.
I did a little research national zoo where this woman works is run by the Smithsonian.
So we checked the Smithsonian right now lists many job listings, dozens of job openings at the Smithsonian.
Why didn't she go to her shop steward?
Why is she gonna be laid off?
Is there something about pregnancy here that's uh that's a related factor that she's not saying?
But it's not as though there are mass layoffs happening in government.
You know it isn't the case.
Jim Garrity has documented it today again at his blog spot.
Uh Obama said today that the reason for unemployment is all the layoffs in government employees is not happening.
Uh federal.
I've got the numbers.
Let me get quickly run through just the federal numbers.
Total government employment of, or let's see, uh well, let's the in June of 2007 it's 22.1 million.
January 2009, 22.4.
January 2010, 22.3, and April of 2011, 22.5.
But it's up.
There aren't any layoffs taking place here at the federal government.
And the same thing at the state level.
There's an out and out lie.
But as to this uh this woman, the workers at the zoo are unionized.
They're members of uh XME.
The AFC, AFS, CME union.
So the question I would have for um, what's her name?
Karen Gallow, why not call a family?
They're big wine family anyway, Karen Gallo's her name.
Call a family for some help.
But my question is, does she have to go to work when it snows?
Because that's the definition of an essential worker in Washington.
And if she doesn't have to go to work when it snows, then she should have seen the handwriting on the wall long ago.
I just read the transcript of Karen Gallo's question to President Obama.
I don't think that the pres as I know him, things I know about the president, I don't think he was honest with her in his answer.
Let's review.
I took a job of the federal government thinking it was secure.
I being told I'm being laid off as of June 4th.
It's not an opportune time for me.
I'm seven months pregnant.
In a high risk pregnancy, my first pregnancy.
My husband and I are in the middle of building a house.
We're not sure if we're going to be completely approved.
I'm not exactly in a position to waltz right in and do great on interviews based on my timing with the birth.
And so I'm stressed, I'm worried, scared about what my future holds.
Right in the middle of it.
An undeniable.
Central element of her situation is her pregnancy.
Now we could play games with numbers, dates.
June 4th, she's seven months.
She'd be laid off by then anyway, or on maternity leave anyway.
The baby would have been born this.
Ladies and gentlemen, is where I think the president was disingenuous with her.
Knowing him as I do, she clearly has an option, one favored by the president.
He's in fact authored legislation promoting this.
And that's abortion.
He could have told her, you know, a lot of your problems would be solved if you would abort that pregnancy.
Then you wouldn't have to worry about the problems you face in a job interview.
And you'd have one less mouth to feed might help you be better able to get that loan approved.
Which, by the way, how did you start building the house without the loan approval?
But that's for another day.
That to me was the most honest answer a president could have given, but he can't blame the Republicans for that one.
So he didn't go there.
But according to the Democrat Party and Planned Parenthood and much of the left, her problems would be 80% dealt with if she would just end the pregnancy.
Isn't it interesting how they never publicly urge this?
Only after the woman walks into an office where they happen are these things actually But they don't dare publicly advocate what they privately seek multiple times a day.
Now, as to this nice woman, what does she want us to do as a society?
Should we all be on the hook for her income?
Should we all be on the hook for her house?
For her way of life.
What is it that this lady really wants all of us to do?
Does she want us to continue to deficit spend and destroy her baby's future in the process?
I know of a few people, few families who have not or do not, and will not face adversity.
Two types of people in our society, folks.
One type expects anything to be provided to them in some form or another.
And another type wants nothing to do with the government.
They'd rather fend for themselves.
And the fact is that the left is trying to create a society of only the first kind of people.
Totally dependent on government.
But the federal budget's ballooned.
Employment, federal employment is ballooned.
And I got a story about a lady who's building a home, husband presumably works, she's being laid off, the rest of us are supposed to somehow assume responsibility for her.
Okay, brief timeout here at the top of the hour as uh we uh collect ourselves and uh organize the next hour of broadcast excellence on this extremely very busy broadcast day at the EIB Network.
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