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May 24, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:50
May 24, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost almost always right 99.6% of the time.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network, and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
This is the most listened-to radio program in the country.
Audience growing by leaps and bounds.
I wonder if Reverend Sharpton's group, a National Action Network, I wonder if they got some of the stimulus money.
You know, they owe back taxes.
Reverend Sharpton owes some back taxes.
I wonder if he got some of Obama's stash.
They owe millions in back taxes out there.
Still working, still waiting on or cutting the Benjamin Netanyahu speech joint meeting of Congress today.
And I got some emails during the break.
I looked at why are you spending so much time on Netanyahu and his speech, Israel and all that.
There are life lessons here, folks.
We got other things in the news.
Giuliani thinking about getting in the race now.
Rudy G, well, he's flirting with it.
Newt was on CNBC today and tore him a new one.
It was the old vintage Newt.
It was the Newt Gingrich that everybody remembers.
And many, many other things here to discuss.
But yeah, what's the question?
Snerdly, official program observer with a question.
What's the question?
Okay, the question is how do government contractors, nonprofits, owe back taxes and not go to jail?
And people like Wesley Snipes doesn't pay his taxes and goes to jail.
Well, in Wesley Snipes' case, he fought them and lost.
He went to court.
He disputed the fact that he owed the money.
He lost.
He refused to pay and thereby goes to jail.
But the correct answer to the question is there isn't any fairness or equity across the board on taxes.
I mean, not every tax cheat gets caught.
Not everybody is audited.
They can only audit so many people.
And so a lot of people got away with it.
The IRS would just as soon strike a deal with you if you owed taxes and get the money rather than put you in jail.
They would just assume, in that sense, they're just like the mob.
I mean, the last thing they do is kill you.
If the mob, loan shark, kills you, it means it's time for other clients of theirs to be sent a message.
But they'd rather keep you alive because only then can you have any chance of paying them what you owe them.
You can't if you be dead.
Now, when it comes to these nonprofits and so forth, look at all these companies that have sprung up now that will negotiate with the IRS on your behalf.
One of them, one of the best ones, is a sponsor on this program.
So there are a lot of people in this situation.
And there's nothing to say that these nonprofits and the defense contractors were getting away with it.
They just, they owed it.
We don't know from the story even who they were.
They weren't identified.
Therefore, we also don't know if they were in the process of negotiating with the IRS to pay somebody back.
We don't know any of that.
They could well have been.
Don't think it was forgiven.
If you're asking me, why is the IRS leaving them alone and not others?
They're not leaving them alone.
The very fact they owe back taxes is proof that the IRS is not leaving them alone.
Way that it is known that anybody owes back taxes is if the IRS has audited you and decided that you do owe back taxes, which means you are in the midst of an ongoing dispute or conversation with them.
That's what makes this doubly reprehensible.
These people, these defense contractors or government contractors and nonprofits were caught.
The IRS discovered that they owed taxes in the process here of trying to get the money from them.
And here comes the guardian angel, Barack Obama, taking money that he told us was earmarked for us to create jobs in our private sector.
Instead, that money is going to his donors.
What this is, it's a money laundering.
See, that stimulus money, I'm telling you, was a giant money laundering scheme.
And so stimulus money ended up going to people who owe back taxes, but they had no doubt been favorably disposed towards Obama.
I guarantee you they got rid of the IRS with the money.
If these 3,700 organizations and contractors owed a total between them of $954 million and they collectively got $24 billion, I guarantee you they all paid their taxes and they're free and clear.
That makes it even double offensive and reprehensible because their back taxes and probably penalties and interest were paid from stimulus money.
And now they got a clean slate.
It's no different than it's a good thing the governor of Missouri, Jay Nixon, is a Democrat.
Otherwise, Obama would not go there.
We had wildfire destruction in Texas.
The governor there, Rick Perry, asks for federal disaster help, and the regime says no.
Purely because Texas is a red state, didn't vote for Obama.
That's the answer.
People don't want to accept it, but it is the answer.
Jay Nixon of Missouri is a Democrat.
Missouri swingstake can go either way.
Claire McCaskill, she runs, is in a tight race.
Lamps Obama is going to go in there, albeit six days from now, but five days from now, but he is nevertheless going to go in there.
So it really was.
The stimulus bill was to protect and build and shore up the infrastructure of the Democrat Party almost exclusively.
The big difference, though, between the mafia, big difference between the mob and the government is that when the mob has collected what you owe them, they leave you alone.
The government doesn't.
They continue to hound you.
They come back at you year after year after year.
I've audited every year.
Now my U.S. federal gift tax returns are being audited for five years.
The constant thing.
And I've yet to be found in arrears, but they keep searching.
Just who they are.
Now, back to this Israel business.
The reason I'm spending time on it, folks, is words mean things.
One of my earliest philosophical pronouncements from the earliest days of this program, words mean things.
We live in a time when many politicians utter words that are meant to beguile and fool, not communicate properly.
I, in a small way, as a conservative, relate to Israel.
Surrounded, mischaracterized, blamed for things I'm not doing, blamed for things I don't think.
Racist, sexist, big, and homophobe.
Israel is blamed for starting wars in the Middle East, all this stuff.
Plus, I've had the good fortune of meeting Benjamin Netanyahu.
I've described in great detail a couple of times my five-day trip to Israel in 1993, where I met Netanyahu Rabin Shimon Perez's three-hour bus tour, private personalized bus tour of the new settlements in the West Bank from Ariel Sharon, who built them.
Also in the 90s, when he was prime minister during his first stint, I remember was a Sunday.
I was returning to New York from, I think I'd been out on a rush to excellence appearance somewhere.
Netanyahu was in New York, and they were staying at the Essex House, and I received an invitation to come by and have a cigar.
So I went by, and Netanyahu's office had taken up residence.
I didn't know where it was somewhere in the Essex House.
From the time you went through security and got through there, it was a labyrinth of a maze that you had to go through to get to where he was.
We sat in there for an hour and a half just discussing Israeli affairs, the United States, during the Clinton years, and smoking cigars.
So I have a personal affection for Netanyahu.
I think he's great.
And he gets better.
He's getting better.
He's maturing.
He's plainly spoken.
He's just good at what he does.
And I've often said one of the greatest perks, my success, one of the greatest benefits of my success is that I've been able to meet people who are the best at what they do, who have reached the pinnacle of their profession.
That's a rare opportunity, and it's inspiring in and of itself.
And he's got an impossible job.
He runs a country that not just the Middle East, but people all over the world wish didn't exist.
He runs a place that is under constant fire.
And in fact, the Jewish people for me, you look at their world history, wherever they've been, people have tried to wipe them out, exterminate them.
And yet as a culture, they have not crumbled.
Their values have remained strong and solid.
I dare say that there are other civilizations that can't say that.
They have crumbled and withered, and they've fallen by the wayside.
But I just, I also, folks, it's really, in another sense, it's nothing more than I just have a really great appreciation at the same time for people who are great at what they do.
And Netanyahu is.
He has reached that moment in life.
He is doing what he was born to do.
He is in power at a crucial moment for his country.
And he's doing the best job any prime minister in recent years has done.
And I just, I marvel watching it.
I have profound admiration.
And what happened last Friday at the White House, you know, a lot of people think it was disrespectful to sit here and, as he did, sit there and disrespect the president of the United States.
The stakes for Israel are much too high.
He's being told by the leader of the free world to basically preside over the destruction of the state of Israel.
He is being ordered to do that, and he's simply refusing to.
And I have great admiration for it.
I also happen to believe that this country would be well.
No, it would be much, much better off if Obama's only serving one term here.
And I think Netanyahu is giving a clinic in how to defeat not just Obama, but every enemy of freedom and liberty and everybody on the left.
Now, Netanyahu had his turn at APAC.
You know, we played you soundbites of Obama at APAC.
And I've got a couple of soundbites, but I want to go through a summary, a quick summary of Netanyahu at APAC.
And I want to thank the guys at Powerline for putting this together.
At the heart of his speech, you can find this at powerlineblog.com.
The heart of Netanyahu's speech is this set of propositions.
And remember, brevity is the soul of wit, Shakespeare.
The fewer words it takes you to make a point, the more powerful the point will be made.
It's time to stop blaming Israel for all of that region's problems.
Now, let me stress one thing.
Peace between Israelis and Palestinians is a vital need for us.
Peace would be the realization of a powerful and eternal dream, but it is not a panacea for the endemic problems of the Middle East.
This is akin to Palenti going to Iowa and telling ain't going to be any more ethanol subsidies.
This is akin to Romney renouncing Romney care.
For Netanyahu to say peace in the Middle East, because you understand diplomatically in Washington and around, they're like peace in the Middle East.
I mean, that's it's taken on aspects of a fantasy.
It's gotten to the point where if we achieve peace in the Middle East, then it really is utopia.
And of course, there's no such thing, and Netanyahu is reminding people of that.
It's not a panacea.
Peace will not give women in some Arab countries in the Middle East the right to drive a car.
Peace will not prevent churches from being bombed.
This is what he said at APAC.
Peace will not keep journalists out of jail.
He said, what will change all this?
What will give women the right to drive a car?
What will keep journalists out of jail?
What will prevent churches from being bombed?
One word, democracy.
Real, genuine democracy.
And by democracy, I don't just mean elections.
I mean freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, rule of law, rights for women, for gays, for minorities, for everyone.
What the people of the Middle East need is what you have in America and what we have in Israel.
Democracy.
It is time to recognize this basic truth.
Israel is not what's wrong about the Middle East.
Israel is what's right about the Middle East.
Just as it's truthful to say, the United States Is not the source of the world's problems, which Obama believes.
The United States is the solution to the world's problems.
Netanyahu made a very penetrating bold point today in his speech before Congress.
He talked about the Arab population of Israel.
It's small, but there are Arab citizens of Israel.
And he pointed out they are the only Arabs that enjoy freedom and peace throughout the Middle East.
Those Arabs who are citizens of Israel.
He followed with a statement of the essence of a dispute that escapes Obama.
This is also good.
I'll share that with you when we come back.
Netanyahu said Israel wants peace because we know the pain of terror, the agony of war.
We want peace because we know the blessings peace could bring to us and to our Palestinian neighbors.
But if we hope to advance peace with the Palestinians, it's time that we admitted another truth.
This conflict has raged for nearly 25 years, or 100 years, because the Palestinians refused to end it.
They refused to accept a Jewish state.
All true.
This is what the conflict has always been about.
The Palestinians don't want peace.
They don't want side by side with Israel.
They want no Israel.
That's why there's no solution to this.
Not with words, doctors, nurses, clean water, all that rot business.
Okay, we got the BB soundbites, but I'm getting backlogged here.
There's other stuff too, plus phone calls.
Back to it.
Gene and Tucson.
Thanks for calling, sir.
You are on the EIB network.
Hi.
Mega Dittos, Rush.
Thank you.
My thought, I had a comment on pure malcontent number one, and it just enhances what I already thought about liberals.
There's only two reasons for being a liberal that I have seen.
One is you're so selfish that you've already made yours and you don't want anybody to make theirs.
And two, they want something from somebody else, i.e., leech off the government.
So I think that call was a great, great example of the first one.
Wasn't just the fact that he was so selfish, he already had his, didn't want anybody else to make theirs.
He didn't care if anybody else made theirs.
Exactly.
He didn't care if there was suffering anywhere else.
So he didn't give a rat's rear end about anything.
And therefore, being immune to suffering or unhappiness, why blame anybody for it if you don't care about it?
All he knows is that while Obama's running a show, he's doing pretty well.
Now, you got to forgive me, but I wasn't interested enough to ask him how it is that none of this stuff affects him.
Some of you people might have wanted to know.
I wasn't interested because I don't believe what he's saying.
I don't believe that he was telling me.
I don't believe the price of gas doesn't matter to him.
I don't believe the price of housing doesn't matter.
I didn't believe any of that.
But even if he was being truthful about it, I didn't even want to go to how he made that happen because I wasn't prepared to believe that either.
You know something?
Folks, I've been guilty of this myself to an extent.
We all have.
Talking about the weakness of the Republican field.
But I got to tell you, it's starting to wear on me now, and I'm putting it in a different context.
Because I'm getting weary of the media and pundits telling us how weak the Republican field is.
Every single one of the current and potential Republican candidates is far more qualified and has far more work and real-life experience than Mr. Obama had before he decided to throw his stovepipe hat in the ring.
I mean, we should never forget who we're comparing ourselves to here.
Too often we're making the mistake of assuming we are comparing ourselves to somebody that's still messianic, somebody unbeatable.
Somebody better than anybody at everything he does, from speaking to campaigning.
All of that's a myth.
All of that's nothing but hype.
Now, granted, we got on our side too many moderates and rhinos in our list, but at the end of the day, any of them are imminently more qualified and preferable to Obama.
Elmer Fudd is preferable to Obama.
Vote for Elmer Fudd if it was on the ballot before Obama.
I know that line, I saw it showed up in an AP story.
When I say certainly, I'm show prep for the rest of the media.
But any one of these Republicans, there might be a couple of exceptions if I really sat down and examined it.
Any one of these presidents would be a better president than Obama.
Any one of them.
Not every one of them would make us ecstatically happy.
But the country would be in much better shape with any of these people on our side seeking the presidency if they win than with Obama.
From the D.C. Examiner, this is Byron York.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is leaning toward another race for the White House, according to a good friend of his, New York Republican Peter King.
Known Giuliani for more than 40 years.
King said that Giuliani very close to saying he's going to run.
In fact, King said if he were to make the decision today, he would run.
Illinois is on the verge of financial disaster, according to the state treasurer.
Payments on the state's debt have skyrocketed.
The treasurer's name Dan Rutherford, he made his announcement yesterday.
Illinois faces an estimated $45 billion in principal and interest payments on its outstanding debt over the next 25 years.
That's up nearly fourfold from the $12 billion owed in 2002.
Now, remember, Illinois proudly enacted a 66% tax increase to deal with this problem.
And they still are having the problem.
It's still.
In fact, it hasn't even affected.
Luckily for the citizens of Illinois, their legislature has heroically vowed not to ask the state's public sector unions to take any significant cuts in the meanwhile.
Unlike those irresponsible administrations in Wisconsin and Indiana.
Oh, no, can't go drastic like that.
We can't have the primary contributors to this mess participate in doing anything to help the problem.
No, no, no, no, no.
So despite their 66% tax increase, they still have major problems.
Let's go to the audio soundbites.
Here's Benjamin Netanyahu.
We have cut the applause in the interest of time, but the applause was loud and it was long.
The standing ovations that he received were numerous.
B.B. Netanyahu, joint meeting of Congress today.
Israel has no better friend than America, and America has no better friend than Israel.
We stand together to defend democracy.
We stand together to advance peace.
We stand together to fight terrorism.
Congratulations, America.
Congratulations, Mr. President.
You got bin Laden.
Good rents.
Boy, the Democrats are out of their seats on that one.
Here's more.
In an unstable Middle East, Israel is the one anchor of stability.
In a region of shifting alliances, Israel is America's unwavering ally.
Israel has always been pro-American.
Israel will always be pro-American.
My friends, you don't have to, you don't need to do nation building in Israel.
We're already built.
You don't need to export democracy to Israel.
We've already got it.
And you don't need to send American troops to Israel.
We defend ourselves.
As a protester that disrupted his speech, I thought he was being heckled by a Democrat.
I was listening with my head turned away.
I was watching the computer, so I was not watching the screen, but I was listening and I heard all hell break loose.
And I thought, well, some Democrat didn't like what was just said.
Turns out it was some protester up in the visitors gallery.
Here's how Netanyahu handled it.
You know, I take it as a badge of honor, and so should you, that in our free societies, you can have protests.
You can't have these protests in the farcical parliaments in Tehran or in Tripoli.
This is real democracy.
This path of liberty is not paved by elections alone.
It's paved when governments permit protests in town squares, when limits are placed on the powers of rulers, when judges are beholden to laws and not men, and when human rights cannot be crushed by tribal loyalties or mob rule.
Israel has always embraced this path in a Middle East that has long rejected it.
In a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel stands out.
It is different.
Here's his line about the Arabs in the Middle East who are free.
Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel's Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.
I want you to stop for a second and think about that.
Of those 300 million Arabs, less than one half of 1% are truly free, and they're all citizens of Israel.
This startling fact reveals a basic truth.
Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East.
Israel is what is right about the Middle East.
Israel fully supports the desire of Arab peoples in our region to live freely.
We long for the day when Israel will be one of many real democracies in the Middle East.
I'm wondering what Obama thinks when he sees this, when he hears this.
Wondering what he thinks as a competitor.
Hey, here's a guy giving a great speech.
Well, that's Obama's territory.
I have a gift, Harry.
Obama used to dazzling audiences.
Here's Netanyahu dazzling this audience.
Netanyahu not using a teleprompter.
He's got some 3x5 cards.
So 8x10 pieces of paper.
But he doesn't need much because he knows what he's going to say.
He's entirely confident and he owns the room.
All of these things are said to be characteristics of Obama.
But more than that, what does Obama think of the content when he hears this?
Because this is diametrically opposed to what Obama believes.
Israel is the problem in the Middle East.
Yes, it does tick him off.
We saw the pictures.
Friday afternoon, he oval orifice.
We saw Obama sit there with his chin in his hand, staring daggers at Netanyahu.
Here he asks us not to let the Iranians get nukes.
I ask you to continue to send an unequivocal message that America will never permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
Now, as for Israel, if history has taught the Jewish people anything, it is that we must take calls for our destruction seriously.
We are a nation that rose from the ashes of the Holocaust.
When we say never again, we mean never again.
Israel always reserves.
Israel always reserves the right to defend itself.
Right, and Obama is constantly saying, Obama is constantly saying, well, of course, you've got the right to defend yourself.
Just don't.
Is what Obama basically says.
Once again, Netanyahu making it clear ain't going to be any return to the 1967 lines.
In any peace agreement that ends the conflict, some settlements will end up beyond Israel's borders.
Now, the precise delineation of those borders must be negotiated.
We'll be generous about the size of the future Palestinian state.
But as President Obama said, the border will be different than the one that existed on June 4th, 1967.
Israel will not return to the indefensible boundaries of 1967.
Now, Obama never really said that.
This is a great technique here.
Obama went to APAC on Sunday and said, look, you idiots, here's what I really meant.
This is what smart bullies actually.
They're always misunderstood.
Oh, look, here's what I really meant.
And I'm really offended I have to say this again.
You stupid fools.
This is what I meant.
And then he simply reiterated what he said last Thursday and Friday about the 67 borders.
And he did not say that they would be different.
He said the 67 lines with some land swaps, mutually agreed land swaps, which, if you want to know what that means, it means that Obama is suggesting he would tolerate Israel keeping a couple of settlements in the West Bank.
But the lines would be the lines.
Israel would be a nine-mile-wide country with a couple of pockmark settlements in the West Bank.
That's what Obama means.
Netanyahu has now said that, as President Obama said, the border will be different.
I get when Obama sees that, I'm sure he already has.
Smoke.
Smoke coming from the Dumbo ears on both sides of Obama's head.
Here's Netanyahu pledging compromise on the part of Israel.
Those six words will change history.
They'll make it clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end, that they're not building a Palestinian state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it.
And those six words will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace.
With such a partner, the Palestinian, or rather the Israeli people, will be prepared to make a far-reaching compromise.
I will be prepared to make a far-reaching compromise.
All right, all right.
We got one more, and this is the promise that Israel will not live under constant threat.
If Israel simply walked out of the territories, the flow of weapons into a future Palestinian state would be unchecked, and missiles fired from it could reach virtually every home in Israel in less than a minute.
I want you to think about that too.
Imagine there's a siren going on now, and we have less than 60 seconds to find shelter from an incoming rocket.
Would you live that way?
You think anybody can live that way?
Well, we're not going to live that way either.
How can you have anything but total admiration here?
This is you want our gutsy.
He probably doesn't even think it's gutsy, but it is.
I got to take a brief time out here.
A little long in this segment, which means that the next one is going to be a little shorter than usual.
By the way, I was right.
The heckler of Netanyahu today was from Code Pink.
And I'll further speculate that she got in on a ticket from John Conyers.
That's how it's happened in the past, so I'm going with intelligence guided by experience.
Her name was Ray Abelea, lives in San Francisco, 28 years old.
Netanyahu's personal stalker disrupted his speech yesterday at AIPAC, speech to the UN General Assembly back in November 2010 and numerous other times before.
She doesn't have money on her own to be funding all this.
It's got to be Code Pink paying her to do this.
Back to the phones in Leroy, Michigan.
Hey, Rush.
Hi, Dan.
How are you?
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Well, thank you.
I wanted to just give you a short story and thank you.
My daughter, who's 15, showed very little interest in the government.
And I was picking her up from the doctor's office a couple weeks ago.
And she gets into the car, and we were listening to you.
And before we left the parking lot, she started asking me questions.
She's going, who is this guy?
I go, this is Rush.
She goes, I like him.
He's dissing the president.
And then she started, it was like a light bulb went on in her head.
She started asking me about the Tea Party.
She started asking me about conservatism, liberalism.
She started the liberals.
She started asking me all these questions just because she started listening to you.
Was this the first time that she'd asked you any of this?
Yes.
Yes.
I've been trying to get her interested since the election.
Well, you're the parent.
That's the main problem you've got.
So just one day in the car, you pick her up from Scruel and we have this program on on the radio.
And she, for the first time, starts peppering you with those questions.
Correct.
I mean, by the time we left the parking lot of the school, she just started asking me questions because she was listening to you.
And then yesterday she comes home and says, Dad, you'd be so proud of me.
I go, why?
She goes, we were talking about the government in world history, and she goes, I made a statement that Obama is going to be the worst, is going down the history of the worst president ever.
And the teacher asked her where she heard where she heard that.
She goes, I heard it from Rush Limbaugh.
And the teacher goes, well, he's full of propaganda.
You shouldn't be listening to him.
He just likes to spread rumors and spread controversy.
She goes, no, he doesn't.
He's right.
99.6% of the time.
So I'm here to share that with you.
What's your reaction, though, to the teacher?
She just said, Courtney, just be quiet.
And she just changed the subject, she said.
Well, I know, but you've got a teacher lying to your student here.
Your daughter, you've got a teacher.
No, I don't listen.
That's just propaganda.
I mean, you at least learned what you're up against with the teacher.
You know what kind of genuine now propaganda your daughter's up against each and every day in school.
Hope she hangs out.
That's great.
That's great.
Another young skull full of mush converted to genuine patriotic Americanism.
Courtesy of me, the EIB Network.
I appreciate the call, Dan.
That's right, my friends.
The EIB Network leading young women to water and making them think.
Have another exciting hour.
Broadcast Excellence is in the can, soon to be available at the Limbaugh Broadcast Museum, which, by the way, is up and running.
You can see it, the Limbaugh Broadcast Museum, at rushlimbaugh.com.
Just click on the appropriate links, go to the museum.
It's a constant build-out process, and it's cool.
It's amazing.
And we'll be back.
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