All Episodes
Previous Next
May 16, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:05
May 16, 2011, Monday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hey, welcome back.
It's Rush Limbaugh, brand new week of broadcast excellence.
The big voice on the right.
It is said, driving the independence back to Obama.
And while I am the big voice on the right driving the independence back to Obama, Obama happens to be headed in our direction.
Drill, baby, drill.
Welcome back to the show program, folks.
We get to have you here, 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address, lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
Look, I got to do something.
Sean Hannity was impugned on this program in the last half hour.
A guy called up talking about Newt, some unflattering things about Newt, and accused Sean of basically being a blind supporter.
And that is not the case whatsoever.
You know, I don't like it when other people are impugned on this program unless I'm the one doing the impugning.
Well, yes, he did.
He didn't say Hannity's name, but he said the person follows me.
And Hannity and Newt go way, way back.
Oh, I mean, to Georgia and so forth.
They're close personal friends.
But that's as far as it goes.
Hannity's not going to compromise what he believes for the sake of friendship when it comes to his career, the country, and that sort of thing.
It makes me nervous when people, because I like Sean.
He's a good friend of mine.
He's a former guest host of this program.
And there's not a rotten bone in his body.
He's not the problem.
And as I say, if anybody's going to be doing the impugning on this program, it's going to be me.
Now, Gallup is out.
And they're out twice.
No, no, no, no, no.
Earlier today, Obama slipped.
He was at 48%.
When the program started, Obama's at 48% approval.
Another Gallup number has just come out.
He's at 46%.
So Obama has slipped, and he's slipped again down to 46% this hour in the daily poll, the daily tracking poll.
So the Osama bump, that's probably in the same place in the sea where Osama is.
No bump.
All those, well, look, bumps are exactly that.
Bumps are artificial anyway.
I wouldn't want to bump at a poll.
Oh, he did something right?
Okay, I'll approve him for two days and then ask me next week and I'll be, this is BS.
This whole notion of getting a bump in the polls, and of course, it's the media that wants the bump so they can report it.
But you live by the bump, you die by the bump because the bump's eventually going to go away.
And the bump has gone away.
And there's the Bamster now down to 46% and is in deep doo-doo.
I'm telling you, is in deep doo-doo.
Not only that poll, here is, this is also, this is Gallup.
47 to 19%.
Americans say they would want their member of Congress to vote against raising the debt ceiling.
We had this last Friday.
57% of the country is paying attention to it.
20 years ago, 2% of a talk radio audience paid attention to or cared about budgets and deficits.
Today, 57% of the whole country is paying attention.
And by 47 to 19, they are opposed to raising the debt ceiling.
Amid growing public unhappiness over gasoline prices, President Obama directing his regime to ramp up U.S. all production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off of Alaska's coast and holding more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska.
The moves will not calm spiraling prices at the pump anytime soon.
This is his own AP upset that he's writing or that he's going to flip-flop a here on drilling.
His own AP in a news story inserts that last sentence.
But the moves will not calm spiraling prices at the pump anytime soon.
Let me tell you something, AP.
He's not doing it to change the price of gasoline or oil.
He's doing it for votes.
Everybody understands it's a losing proposition to run around and give the Brazilians $10 billion and help others drill for oil and shut down our own industry as the price of oil is going up.
And it makes no sense to the average American to hear that more oil is not the answer.
It clearly is.
So Obama was digging himself his own political grave.
Here's rising gas prices because of rising oil prices.
And the regime goes out and says, well, more oil is not the answer.
Give me a break.
Of course it is.
People are not foolish.
So the regime does a 180 here.
AP not happy.
Now, here's the dirty little secret.
Obama can go say whatever he wants to say.
The EPA can still refuse to grant the leases.
And that's the way this is going to happen.
So you have Obama saying he wants to ramp up U.S. all production by extending existing leases and holding more frequent lease sales.
But then the EPA has to approve them.
EPA can dilly-dally.
EPA can disapprove them.
EPA can not take action.
But Obama's gotten himself on the right side of the issue with words.
So this does not mean we're going to get more oil.
It just means Obama is out saying things that he knows people want to hear because I'm telling you, it has to be that the internal White House polling on Obama's re-elect is bad.
Don't doubt me.
I will believe more oil drilling when he removes the moratorium.
I will believe more oil drilling when I see Riggs come back to the Gulf of Mexico.
They have left.
Riggs have abandoned the Gulf and they've gone to Brazil.
They've gone to other parts of the world.
When they start coming back, I'll believe that we're drilling more oil.
When Sarah Palin tells me that she's seen Riggs from her house in Alaska, I will believe that we're going for more oil, but not just because Obama says it.
Well, I'm not kidding.
The EPA can quash this whole stuff, Snurdy.
You can sit there and laugh all you want, but it doesn't mean anything just to him say it.
Oh, it's all a crock.
Obama's announcement followed passage in the Republican-controlled House on three bills, including two that would expand and speed offshore oil and gas drilling.
Republicans say the bills are aimed at easing gasoline costs, but they too acknowledge that benefits won't come fast.
This is such a bunch of BS.
Of course, they won't come fast, but if we would have done this 10 to 15 years ago, we would now be seeing the benefits of having done it 10 years ago.
If we would have done it five years ago, if we would expand drilling and so forth 10 years ago, when they, back then they were saying, well, it's not a, you know, it's not an overnight solution.
Everybody knows that.
But if we'd have gotten started on this at a reasonable point in time, it would be coming to fruition about now.
Now, if this is, here's, again, to put this in perspective, that Obama is just in full-fledged campaign mode.
And that means that he went to the closet.
He dragged out his conservative mask.
And he's got drill, baby, drill.
And we're supposed to confuse him with Sarah Palin, right?
Now, if he wants to make this charade believable, then he can fire Eric Holder, who has his fraud squad on a search and destroy mission for oil producers.
And he can fire Stephen Chu.
Stephen Chu is the guy, the wrong guy, running the energy department.
Chu.
Stephen Chu is a green energy zombie.
Stephen Chu, after he was hired to run the energy, said somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.
This is what he said after he was named to the post.
So obviously he's not the right guy to lead a serious effort to expand domestic oil supplies.
This is my point.
If this were serious, you don't keep some clown in there who is an advocate of high prices.
But we all know that Chu isn't going anywhere.
Obama himself said it.
I don't mind $4 a gallon gasoline.
It got there a little too rapidly for my tastes.
A little too quickly.
We're going to take you back to this program.
Just to remind you, I've said it a bunch of times today.
We're going to go back to April 27th.
This is me on this program.
And a lot of people say, Rush, why do you play soundbites of you?
Well, we do for two reasons.
One, I mean, I could always say I said this when maybe I didn't.
So we prove that I said it.
I also, frankly, I never get to hear me like you do.
So here's a little, what, 10 seconds of me able to hear myself.
That's one of those pleasures of life you have every day.
I never get it.
Let me tell you what I'm sick of.
I am sick of the conventional wisdom that Obama can't be beat.
And I am sick of people on our side apparently holding and then promulgating that view that Obama can't be beat.
That is absurd, folks.
Rarely has a sitting president been as vulnerable as Obama.
Britt Hume was on Fox News Sunday.
After it ended, Chris Wallace continued the panel discussion.
And they had Britt Hume there.
And Hume, this is a theme of his, too.
That's what he said yesterday.
I think President Obama probably recognizes that if he goes into the 2012 election and nothing serious has been done about debt, that that will deepen his political predicament, which I think, by the way, looking out from here is very serious.
He's in real trouble.
And people say, well, I look at the Republican field.
Damn, right.
I think this will be a referendum election, not so much a choice election.
And if it is, and the conditions like this persist, he's toast.
Exactly.
The election is going to be about Obama, just like the midterms were.
There was no big name Republican on the ballot in November.
There couldn't have been.
It was congressional races.
And look what happened.
No, that does not mean I don't care who's nominated.
It's too big an opportunity to not care about who's not nominated.
But this is.
He's right.
It's going to be a referendum race.
Here's Nora O'Donnell.
This is on the syndicated Sunday morning Chris Matthews show.
She said, here's the problem.
If you have a campaign that has been silhouetted so far by Donald Trump's absurdity for months, and then you have Newt Gingrich, doesn't that sort of mess it up for the other guys eventually?
President Obama is very vulnerable.
Our pollsters have told us that history, big things like the catching of OBL, that Obama should have gotten about a 10-point jump in the polls.
Instead, he only got three to five points.
The way the American people feel about this economy is really hurting President Obama.
He is vulnerable.
So where's the great Republican?
It doesn't take one.
The sad thing is it doesn't require a great Republican.
It'd be wonderful if we had one, because that would seal the deal.
But you can sit there, where's the great Republican all day long, Nora doesn't change the fact it looks bad for Obama.
Our upholsters have told us that history, big things like catching bin Laden, should have gotten a 10 to 15 point jump in the polls.
He got three to five points.
Whatever he got, it's gone.
The way the American people feel about the economy really hurting Obama.
You ever, I think it's the first time I have ever seen a state-run media programmer journalist even get close to saying that.
I wonder if she'll be back on this show.
Here's Howard Feynman, also on the same show, the Chris Matthews show.
He's now the senior political editor at the Huffing and Puffington Post.
And Matthews said, Howard, tell me something I don't know.
Democrats are increasingly worried about the Senate races in 2012.
The Republicans, it looks like, are going to clean up.
If they hold the House and they get a Senate that's veto-proof, which is possible, whoever gets elected president, even if it's President Obama, is going to be dealing with a truly co-equal branch.
They can get 67 seats in the Senate.
Well, they can overcome the filibuster proof.
Filmuster proof.
Yes, filibuster proof.
Wow.
Whoa.
See, they're not even thinking this way.
I guarantee you, state control guys, drive-bys, they are lost in a fog.
Obama lose?
Democrats lose?
How can it be?
They're lost totally in a fog.
That's another reason why they are so profoundly vulnerable.
I take a brief time out here, my friends.
We'll be back before you know it.
Don't go away.
Paul Ryan, today on WLS in Chicago with Don and Roma, they asked him a question here, and the question probably took 90 seconds.
His answer took two seconds.
It's a great answer.
Don Wade, who is the dawn of Don and Roma on WLS in Chicago, said, when I asked you about Newt Gingrich's comment on Meet the Press yesterday, Gregory asked him if he favored turning Medicare into a voucher program where you give seniors some premium support so they can buy private insurance.
Newt responded, played the clip.
I don't think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering.
I don't think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.
I think we need a national conversation to get a better Medicare system with more choices for seniors.
And Don Raid, Don Wade, said this.
What do you say to Gingrich?
So what do you say to Newt Gingrich?
With allies like that, who needs liberals?
And that's his answer.
With allies like that, who needs liberals?
That's Paul Ryan with Don and Don Wade Roma on WLS in Chicago.
Here's Peter in Rochester, New York.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hey, Rush.
Listen, I think Snerdley and you both know what's going on with Newt.
And to quote my brother-in-law, Les, who is an expert on women, his wife got to him.
Now, who says this?
Whose theory is this?
My brother-in-law, Les.
Your brother-in-law, Les, who is an expert on women, said that Newt's wife got to him.
Well, I'm saying it, but my brother-in-law is an expert.
And I think that a lot of people, a lot of people I know anyway, are talking about that, that his wife got to him.
This is the feminized Newt.
You know, he got really contrite.
He got really apologetic.
You know, he had to search his soul.
He became a Catholic recently.
And I'm not impugning the Catholic Church.
But, I mean, he just seemed when people are throwing all of these questions at him about what about your past?
What about your past?
And there he is, searching his heart and looking deep inside and blah, blah, blah, all like that.
I think that in that process of contrition, he got feminized and went off to deep end a little bit here.
I tell you, I marvel here at all of the theories that are.
You're making this hard for me because I know Callista.
I know Newton.
In fact, I played golf with him.
Oh, you missed that, Snerdley.
I've played.
That's it, folks.
That's inside baseball, the new way to irritate the stick-to-the-issues crowd in my audience for me to say I played golf with somebody long, long, long time ago.
I don't even know what to say to it.
Grab soundbite, grab soundbite 23.
There's one more newt soundbite from Meet the Depressed yesterday.
David Gregory, first of all, you gave a speech in Georgia with language that a lot of people think could be coded, racially tinged language.
Now, this is a favorite tactic of the media.
You know, you gave a speech.
A lot of people say that it is racially coded and tainted, calling the president the first black president of food stamp president.
What do you say to that?
What did you mean?
That was the point.
That's bizarre.
This kind of automatic reference to racism, this is the president of the United States.
The president of the United States has to be held accountable.
Now, the idea that, and what I said is factually true, 47 million Americans are on food stamps.
One out of every six Americans is on food stamps.
And to hide behind the charge of racism, I have never said anything about President Obama, which is racist.
He's right about that.
It is a way to not hold Obama accountable, and it is a way to diffuse a substantive criticism.
And by the way, would somebody help me understand what is racist about calling him food stamp president?
Why is that automatically racist?
Fine.
Is every food stamp person a black?
Well, of course not.
We got 47 million Americans on food stamps.
There aren't that many black people in the country.
I mean, they're what, 13%?
The voting population?
That means they would, well, I know the racism isn't, that's right, it's in Gregory's mind.
The racism here is in the minds of these people on the left.
Anyway, no hint here as to whether or not his wife gave him that answer.
Newt, I'm talking about.
We'll be back after this.
Hey, you people at CNN.
I got an idea for you.
The judge has just denied bail to the IMF guy, the Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the sexual assault case.
CNN, you've just found your guest host for Elliot Spitzer, and they're doing it, keeping you, keeping him in the country for you, to boot.
Man, what a great day for CNN.
Audio soundbite time.
We got Obama doing the Obama flip-flop.
We go back to March 30th.
Georgetown University.
Barack Hussein Obama.
Speaking about America's energy security.
We have been down this road before.
Remember, it was just three years ago that gas prices topped $4 a gallon.
I remember because I was in the middle of a presidential campaign.
Working folks certainly remember because it hit a lot of people pretty hard.
And because we were at the height of political season, you had all kinds of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians waiving their three-point plans for $2 a gallon gas.
You remember that?
Drill, baby, drill.
None of it was really going to do anything to solve the problem.
That was March the 30th this year, a month and a half ago.
Here's Obama Saturday.
His White House YouTube channel address.
I'm directing the Department of Interior to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve while respecting sensitive areas and to speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid and South Atlantic.
We plan to lease new areas in the Gulf of Mexico as well and work to create new incentives for industry to develop their unused leases both on and offshore.
Well, drill, baby, drill.
There you have it.
In less than a month and a half, Obama changes his tune on this.
And people want to know why.
And I'm telling you, it's the internal polling that they have on the Obama re-elect.
Guarantee you.
Guarantee it.
I don't know, but I do know.
Just one of these things that I know.
I instinctively know.
But I haven't seen it officially.
But I'm fairly confident telling you don't doubt me.
It's actually a flip-flop and a flip-flop.
What would that be?
Flip-flip-flop.
Flip-flip-flop, because during the 2008 campaign, Obama vowed to continue all the bans on offshore drilling that were in place at that time.
So a flip-flip-flop.
Or a flip-flop, flip-flop, flipper, flip-flop, flopper.
Double-flopper.
That's what it is.
Double-flopper.
There you have it.
It's exactly what it is.
There's a fascinating piece in the Wall Street Journal.
It's an editorial.
No, it's an op-ed piece.
And its title is Why the Job Market Feels So Dismal.
It asks the question, why don't American workers feel the labor market is on the mend?
Why would people think that the labor market's on the well, the unemployment rate is going down, Roy?
No, it's not.
It's staying where it is, but they're hiring more workers.
They told us 244,000 new jobs, but the unemployment rate went up.
Let me give you a couple of pull quotes from the piece.
The combination of low hiring and a large stock of unemployed workers, 13.7 million.
13.7 million people who want a job.
But low hiring rates means that the competition for jobs is fierce.
Because there are now many more unemployed workers and because hiring is only about 70% of 2006 levels, a worker is about one-third as likely to find a job today as he or she was in 2006.
It's no wonder that workers don't feel the labor market has recovered.
That's pretty stunning.
The chances of getting a job are 70% what they were four years ago, five years ago.
The prescription, the second pull quote, the prescription for the American labor market is simple.
Low taxes on capital investment, avoidance of excessively burdensome regulation, and open markets here and abroad.
We must create a climate in which investment is profitable, productivity is rising, and employers find it profitable to increase their hiring rate.
These are the mantras that economists have chanted in the past, but they are our best bet for ensuring a dynamic and growing labor market.
Fine and dandy.
Would somebody please explain to me how circumstances are in the process of being formed or created where this will be the case?
A climate in which investment is profitable?
Not yet.
Productivity is rising?
No.
Employers find it profitable to increase their hiring rate.
See, that's the bottom line.
If hiring additional workers, folks, is always one of the leading indicators of profit.
No business is in money to lose business unless there are some that try to fringe businesses, you know, shylocks playing game with tax laws.
But for the most part, people who hire other people hire them to increase the profit line, to increase productivity, increase sales performance or what have you.
And that's why they do it.
They don't do it because Obama gets out there and says, hey, you banks, start hiring, okay?
Hey, you bakeries, it's about time you start hiring.
Okay.
It's not how it happens.
You just think, you know, wave a magic wand and command businesses to start hiring people.
And they will do it.
Who's next?
Joe and St. Louis.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
You're up next on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
You know, Rush, number one, I love you.
I think you know that.
Number two, I walked away from Newt Gingrich when he made that commercial with Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.
That was it for me with Newt.
was done with him.
And the last thing I want to tell you is...
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, just a second.
I remember the Pelosi commercial are sitting on a couch out there in the Capitol talking about global warming.
I thought they were on a park bench or something like that.
No, they moved an actual sofa out beneath the steps of the Capitol building, and Pelosi and Newt are sitting there.
They're talking about how they can work together on stuff, global warming.
He's going to work with her on global warming.
What was the Hillary ad?
I can't remember the Hillary commercial, though.
What was that?
He did a commercial with Hillary about healthcare about how we need to help the 40 million people who are on insurance.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, he's answered that.
We got a mandate.
You know, back during, was it June or July or whatever, however long ago it was, during the leukemia telethon, I sat on the phone for almost three hours trying to get a hold of Surly because I missed the beginning of the show.
Because all I want to ask him was, how much did Rush give this year?
Rush Limbaugh, $500,000.
Cheryl Bachman, not only is she a legal tax attorney and all this kind of stuff like that, 23 foster children.
Isn't that amazing?
It's amazing.
Now, you tell me, what does Barney Frank or Anthony Weiner or John Kerry?
The point is, people like Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Bachman, they live the life.
They do what they say and they don't make a big deal about it.
Barney Frank and all these guys, the only time they do anything for anybody else is when they're doing it with my money or your money.
When did they ever sacrifice of themselves for anybody?
Never.
And I would have Michelle Bachman's baby if I could.
You would have Michelle Bachman's baby.
Well, you know why, Rush?
She's the only one in the Republican Party with any cojones anyway.
Well, yeah, there's a couple others, but I get your drift.
I know what you mean.
I remember what it was.
Now it was Newt appeared with Hillary at a press conference to support healthcare legislation.
They did not do an ad together.
It was a joint press conference.
I do remember that now.
Okay, look, Joe, I appreciate the call.
Thanks, El Mucho.
We almost missed this last Friday, but we never really miss anything that matters.
The Obama regime approved 204 new waivers to the Democrats' healthcare reform law.
Oh, it's the Democrats' healthcare reform law now.
This is in theHill.com.
It's Obama's healthcare.
They call it the Democrats' Healthcare Reform Law.
Let's see, 24 new waivers, the number now, 1,372 waivers.
1,372 waivers.
They are temporary waivers.
They're only good for one year.
Very clever on the part of the regime.
These are election year waivers.
A waiver granted.
And by the way, 80, I think 80% of the recipients are unionized one way or another.
There are unions involved in 80% of these waivers that have been granted.
And they are granted because the businesses, in many cases, have said they would have to shut their doors.
Now, I want you to listen.
Look at me.
The whole point of Obamacare down the road is indeed to shutter private sector healthcare industries, including insurance.
The proof positive is all these waivers.
There are a number of companies who have said we would have to shut down if we were forced to honor this or make drastic changes in the way we are structured as a business.
Well, you can't have that leading up to your reelection campaign.
You can't have that and all these businesses shutting down.
But why Rush?
That's what they want.
Yeah, they want that when Obama can't be held accountable for it.
After if he's re-elected in 2012, that's it.
Can't run again.
Could appoint himself.
Yeah, we can go there if you want.
I mean, there won't be another election that he runs.
The whole point here is to wipe out private sector health care and end up with the government running it all single payer.
That's what these waivers prove.
Somebody screwed up.
This stuff wasn't supposed to be implemented this fast, this soon.
80% of the waivers go to 12% of the population.
Unions.
Ray in Atlanta.
Hello, and welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Rush, thanks for taking my call.
You bet, sir.
Listen, I have a comment about the Newt Gingrich dust dub.
Does anybody on our side think that a Newt Gingrich presidency wouldn't be light years?
I mean, light years ahead of anything the Obama administration can offer.
No, nobody thinks that.
It's just like I know what you're going to say.
I'd vote for Elmer Fudd over Obama.
This is why I've had my problems with people trying to destroy Sarah Palin.
I don't think Obama can compare to her in any way, shape, matter, or form, other than his voice is better.
That's it.
But I'd much prefer Newt over Obama.
There's no question about that.
So what are you actually saying here?
What I'm saying is that this is, you know, this is, you're an NFL fan.
This is like training camp.
I don't have any problem with people fighting and getting, you know, getting down in the trenches.
And certainly Newt's going to have to spleen himself, as they say.
But the bottom line is that we have got to keep our eyes, as conservatives, as Republicans, on the fact that we've got to get rid of this person in the White House.
And I'm not saying we don't fight and fuss as families, but once a team is chosen, like an NFL team, it's our turn.
Let me tell you something, though.
Talking about beating Obama, I don't know that the way to beat Obama is to agree with him on health care mandates when the entire Republican Party, forget conservative, when the entire Republican Party is basing its opposition and its existence to the fact that they don't support the notion of the federal government forcing anybody to buy anything.
So people are...
I'm out of time here.
I've got to take a break.
But you get my drift here.
There's no question about it.
One out of five Americans believe that Osama bin Laden is still alive.
20% still believe bin Laden is alive.
Well, now, wait a minute, Sturdley.
How many versions of the story of his death are there?
Okay, 70 versions.
I mean, it stands to reason.
▲
Export Selection