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June 2, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:42
June 2, 2011, Thursday, Hour #2
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Time Text
The views expressed by the host on this program.
Dazzling.
Mind stopping.
Heart stopping because of their penetrating salience, relevance, and accuracy.
Great to have you here, Fox, as always.
Telephone numbers 800 282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address L Rushbow.
EIBNet.com.
Boy, Drudge got this story, top of the page.
Outbreak of some rare, lethal microbe that...
Shuts down kidneys, destroys the liver, and there's no antibiotic that touches it.
It's an E. coli strain.
A strain of a lethal bacteria has killed 18 people in Europe.
Very rare.
Never been seen in an outbreak form before, according to the World Health Organization, which we have to throw this in.
Is the United Nations.
This uh this strain, isolated from cases in the if infection outbreak in Germany, has never been seen in an outbreak before, said Gregory Hartel, the World Health Organization's spokesman.
It's been seen in sporadic cases, very rare, but never in an outbreak.
European Union's watchdog for disease prevention said today that lab tests had identified the strain of a lethal E. coli germ that it caused an amplifying food scare.
The causative agent was a member of a group of bacteria strains called Shiga toxin producing estacheria coli, or S T E C. Eighteen people have been killed in Europe, seventeen of them in Germany, one in Sweden.
More than two thousand have fallen sick from the bug since Germany first sounded the alarm on May 2nd.
Roughly two-thirds have confirmed cases have been found in women, and the bacteria has not yet been detected in anybody younger than twenty.
Health officials have so far failed to pinpoint the origin of the outbreak.
Initial speculation at cucumbers from Spain were the culprit has been discarded, and Spain on Thursday demanded a payback for its farmers.
Farmers across Europe have been dealt a death blow amid official warnings that tell people to avoid raw vegetables.
Shuts down kidneys, destroys the liver, no antibiotic.
Now I don't mean to be maudlin here, but how come only 17 people are dead if this is true?
No, no, no.
I'm not I'm not I'm a natural skeptic on this scare stuff.
Um but it is out there, and we will keep a sharp eye.
Speaking of the economy, I I really can't let go of this.
It's uh true crucial, too crucial.
Obama met with some top Republicans yesterday to lecture them on the economy for about 75 minutes about the debt ceiling and Medicare and all these other things.
At the end of the meeting, Paul Ryan actually had the nerve to suggest that Obama wasn't helping things by demagoguing the Republican budget plan.
And Obama replied by saying, I did my homework.
Well, I I don't know who his teachers are if he's doing his homework.
But Ryan got a standing ovation from the rest of the Republican participants in the meeting.
Let's go to the audio sound bites.
This is uh yesterday washing outside the White House after meeting with Obama.
Ryan and other congressional Republicans held a press conference, a reporter said, Chairman Ryan, did you say to the president leaders have to lead and you haven't shown leadership?
That sounds confrontational.
Did you say that?
I just said we got to take on this debt.
And if we demagogue each other at the leadership level, then we're never going to take on our debt.
We have a debt crisis coming.
We want to deal with this.
If we want to grow jobs in the economy, we gotta get our spending under control.
We gotta get our debt under control.
And if we try to demagogue each other's attempts to do that, then we're not applying the kind of political leadership we need to get this economy growing and get this debt under control.
That figures that this would be the focal point for a reporter.
Did you dare confront our boy president?
Did you dare confront?
Were you confrontational with our leader?
As though, of course, Obama, Mr. Congeniality sitting up there two and a half years, not demagoguing anything or anybody, not being confrontational about anything or anybody.
Another reporter said, Did you ask him to stop calling your plan a voucher plan?
I simply explain what our plan is, how it works.
It's been misdescribed by the president and many others.
And so we simply describe to him precisely what it is we've been proposing so that he hears from us how our proposal works so that in the future he won't mischaracterize it.
Well, one thing I know Obama doesn't like to be spoken to this way, and he certainly doesn't like Ryan going out there and telling people that he spoke to Obama this way.
This is not, you know, authoritarian figures do not cotton to this.
This is looked at uh as insolence, disrespect.
Uh this is frowned upon in the uh in the upper halls of dictatorships.
This is uh, well, I don't know what the favor will do because that bit, but but what Ryan basically said is stop lying about our plan here.
You know, demagoging is a is a nice word for lying.
Stop lying about it here.
Here's here's what you you here's what it is.
We're telling you face to face what it is, so you can stop lying about it.
Everybody knows that Obama knows what their plan is.
He's not sitting there being schooled by Reverend Wright and Saul Alinsky.
He knows what the he knows what the plan is, and he knows he's diametrically opposed to it.
And he's going to continue to demagogue it.
Certainly not going to adopt it.
Here's Boehner.
Reporter said, uh, what was the point of this meeting today?
Was it negotiations?
Was it optics?
Was it PR?
Why'd you guys come up here?
I've told the president one more time.
This is the moment.
This is the window of opportunity where we can deal with this uh on our terms.
We can work together and solve this problem.
We know what the problems are.
Let's not kick the can down the road one more time.
Now's the time to deal with it.
Well, to the extent Obama wants to deal with it.
It goes only so far as November of 2012.
And that would be for the purposes of his uh his re-election.
Certainly nothing more than that.
That to me is not even arguable.
Everything that's been done, policy-wise, has made the U.S. economy worse.
They know it.
I I I know I'm repeating myself.
I just I am stunned here.
I really I know even knowing the biases and knowing what state control media is.
I am still surprised they are so willing to make fools of themselves by trying to act and speak as though there has been an economic recovery in the last two and a half years.
The idea that they think they can pull that off, that they think that they can convince people that we have been under recovery, and all of a sudden, this wonderful recovery all know is all threatened again.
There's not a single person living in the real world who believes we have been in a recovery.
And the reason is we haven't been in one.
What about Wolf 3, Mr. Limbaugh?
Your voted Wall Street doesn't been doing for yeah, because the Federal Reserve has been printing money and giving it to them.
Called quantitative easing two.
And guess what?
They're now begging for quantitative easing three when they see what happens and the money is about to run out.
Next up is Eric Cantor.
This morning on the early show on CBS.
He was questioned by co-hostette, uh Erica Hill.
Here's what she said to Cantor.
His response follows.
May's expect to be fairly soft.
Part of the problem that we've been talking about a great deal on this program is that companies are great profits, they're sitting on a lot of cash.
They now know how to do more with less.
How can any government, doesn't matter which side of the aisle, how can anybody convince a company that they should spend money on new hires?
You know, we had we had a great piece that uh I read to you on Monday, one of these guys why he's not hiring.
Because he doesn't know what the rules are going to be.
The rules change from taxes to regulation.
They change to.
He doesn't know what cost of doing business is going to be from month to month.
Anyway, here's Cantor's reaction to Erica Hill.
Your question, of course, the question put the onus on business.
And it's sitting on all this cash.
Why do they hire people of meaning what would you do?
Well, I mean, that's the question.
You can't wave a magic wand in Washington and tell companies to hire.
What we're trying to do is create an environment where you do have uh more small businesses starting up, more entrepreneurs willing to invest money to create jobs.
And we know in America, that's where most jobs come from from small businesses.
That's why we Republicans unleashed a plan last week for America's job creators, the small businesses and entrepreneurs of this country to get them back into the game.
And what we're trying to do is make sure that Washington stops hurting small business and again begins to create an environment where you're going to see entrepreneurs and small business folks willing to invest their capital.
Um see, here we are.
We have arrived at the point in time where Republicans have to teach remedial economics to news anchors at the TV networks.
You talk about retraining centers and so forth.
And learn fundamentals.
Here's Eric Cantor.
That answer is embarrassing to me.
They have to explain that to a TV info, babe.
But that's where we are.
Remedial economics.
She didn't get it.
She thought he was just being disrespectful, not taking her question seriously.
What he said to her is gobbledygook.
What do you mean entrepreneur is and what do you mean startups?
What do you mean invest and so forth?
The language doesn't even connect with them.
Brief timeout, folks.
Much more straight ahead right after this.
Hi, where are you?
Welcome back.
Great to have you with us.
Crush Lindboy.
Yeah, the AP in this story.
On the unemployment, now they're actually starting to blame the people for being shirkers.
They're blaming people for giving up.
Blaming people for not trying to find here it is.
More job seekers give up.
Reducing unemployment.
They're blaming workers for being shirkers.
They're blaming employers for being tight wads.
Now, did the uh did the media blame workers and businesses or George Bush when the unemployment rate was way, way up there at five percent.
The labor force, those who have a job or are looking for one, is getting smaller, even though the economy is growing and adding jobs steadily.
You see what I mean?
That's Paul Wiseman and the AP.
Now, the headline here, more job seekers give up reducing unemployment.
Where do all the workers go?
The labor force getting smaller, even though the economy's growing and steadily adding jobs.
That trend defies the rules of a normal economic.
See, poor Obama's getting screwed no matter what he does.
Nobody is sure why it's happening, AP says.
Economists think that some of the missing workers have retired, have re-entered college, or are getting by on government disability checks.
Others have probably just given up looking for work.
You notice here how the AP makes it sound like the economy would be robust if it weren't for those darn missing workers.
Those shirkers, those quitters.
They've given up looking for work, making Obama look bad.
By the government's definition, AP says if you quit looking, you're no longer counted as unemployed, and you're no longer part of the labor force.
Still haven't been able to find, and we've looked, they still haven't been able to find the official definition of when somebody's considered to have quit looking.
Now, naturally, AP wouldn't think to report or even ask about official policy here because they're just interested in advancing an agenda.
Since November, the number of Americans counted as employed has grown by 765,000 to just shy of 139 million.
The nation's been creating jobs every month as the re uh economy recovers.
The economy added 244,000 jobs in April, but the number of Americans counted as unemployed has shrunk by much more, almost 1.3 million during this time, which means the labor force has dropped by 529.
AP, Mr. Mr. Wise, did you ever think that one explanation for this could be found at the regime?
The regime wants an unemployment number close to 8%.
One way is to do that, uh, Mr. Wiseman, is to simply have your Bureau of Labor Statistics reduce the job universe.
Just saying, you know what?
There are 400,000 fewer jobs in America now.
400 that means 400,000 fewer jobs to have.
I just they've just vanished.
So the total number of jobs the universe is down, therefore, relative employment is higher.
Did you ever stop to think maybe the regime is toying with the numbers here?
Rather than the American workers being a bunch of quitters sabotaging poor old Obama.
Ray in Livermore, California, as we go back to the phones.
Great to have you here, sir.
Hi.
Rush, can you hear me?
Yep, sir.
Um the first hour you were talking about uh Wienergate, and I I don't want to talk about it any more than you do, other than to launch into a question.
Um First of all, if this were a Republican, the fundamentalist leftists and the fundamentalist Democrats would not let go of this story.
But instead, because it's a Democrat, you don't even see it written in the headlines.
Oh no, that's not true.
Oh, no, no, no.
That's not true.
All over the New York tabloids where Wiener happens to hail from.
I mean, it's all over.
It's all over.
No, you can't.
I I I realize it's a little different here than if it were Mark Foley.
I mean, they're giving him all kinds of outs here.
I know the coverage is different, but it's it's being reported.
And it's being headlined.
Well, the left often likes to uh make the Rush Limbaugh listeners and the Mark LeVin listeners out as a bunch of mind-numbed robots, and the reason they do that is because that's how they see their own constituencies that uh it kind of ties into what you were just talking about, the economy.
If we just say it, then they'll repeat it and they'll believe it.
Yep.
And I wanted to build back to what you said that we've got to we can't win these battles with scandals.
We've got to win them with ideas, and we can because we have better ideas.
And here's my question.
How do we win the battle of ideas when our opponent is armed with baseball bats that have nails spiked through them?
Well, see, I think we are.
Yeah, this is the tough thing to uh convince people.
Who who won the elections in November?
Republicans did, and it was landslide.
It was just lacking.
And it was not just federal elections, but state elections and local elections.
If you look at polling data, there's not one issue.
Obama is winning a majority of everything he holds dear.
His side is polling in the minority right now.
The American people, by any measure you want to look at, have rejected Obamaism.
Regardless they got baseball bets loaded with nails, regardless of the fact they got the media on their side.
But you see, there's no record of it.
There's no record of this shellacking other than the results.
But nobody treats the Republicans as winners.
The media doesn't act like November really happened.
In fact, the media is telling us that the public's changed its mind since November.
That's why you need a, you really need an independent steel trap, my if you're going to watch the mainstream media.
You've got, you've got to do everything you can to not be affected by it.
You have to watch it studiously, but not as a genuine consumer.
You don't want to consume what they're reporting.
If you do, they win.
That's what you're talking about.
They get control of your mind and they're able to shape not only events, but your thoughts on events.
And this is never going to change.
The media is never going to reflect our strengths.
The never media is never going to even legitimize conservatism or conservatives.
Never going to happen.
But in the way these things are actually measured in elections, and I and I'm telling you here again, by the way, more and more people now are starting to write about how beatable Obama is.
There's a number of them out there, and all it took was one person saying so.
All it means and all it took was one person saying so, and now the echo chambers out there.
Obama can be beat easily.
In our retrospective and our look back, Wall Street Journal, September 24th, 2009.
Joe Biden on the stimulus.
We never thought it would work this well.
Vice President Joe Biden delivered a rousing review of the government's economic stimulus plan in a conversation with the nation's governors.
In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would work this well.
Thank you, thank you, he said, to applause from the Democrat governors.
And then June 17th of 2010, USA Today, Joe Biden touts summer of recovery.
Vice President Biden joined White House spokesman Robert Gibbs at the regular news briefing to talk about what he calls the summer of recovery, fueled by the highest levels of work yet.
On projects funded by the porculus bill.
Folks, it's working, Biden said.
More people are going to be put to work this summer than anybody will believe.
Summertime, June 2010, visiting Columbus on Friday.
Mr. Obama surrounded himself with workers in hard hats and safety vests, recited the litany of signs the White House has taken and mentioning lately as part of its effort to convince Americans the economic recovery aided by the stimulus is helping to boost job growth, as my friend Joe Biden, who's done great work on the Recovery Act, would say it's a big deal.
President joked.com.
Obama stands by recovery summer.
President Obama on Friday said he has no regrets about describing the last three months as the recovery summer.
No, I don't regret the notion that we're moving forward because of the steps that we've taken.
Obama said in response to a question after he offered comments on the latest unemployment figures.
The regime described the summer of 2010 as recovery summer because a large amount of the 2009 stimulus package was being spent over the summer.
It was being spent in a money laundering scheme.
The stimulus bill money was being spent on state union employees, keeping them employed in the midst of the recession, because they all pay dues, which end up as campaign donations to the Democrat Party.
So, as far as Obama was concerned, recovery summer was going on.
Biden said, oh yeah, we never dreamed it would be doing this well.
From Reuters, Sunday, February 7, 2010, Obama says U.S. economy turning corner to growth.
U.S. President Barack Obama.
Mm-mm.
Said on Sunday, February 7th, the U.S. economy has turned the corner and has resumed growth.
Yep, we're seeing the corner turn on the economy growing again in an interview with CBS News.
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010.
There's a video.
Obama's big stimulus lie.
The stimulus will create 90% private sector jobs, only 10% public sector jobs.
Everything they have said has been a lie.
And that lie has been carried by every element of the state-controlled media.
Everything they've said about it has been a lie.
There has not been a recovery.
There was no recovery summer.
There has been no turnaround.
There has been no return from the brink.
Another truth can't be avoided.
Now we're talking about double-dip recession.
Thank you.
There's genuine panic today and yesterday in financial markets.
And then of course, yesterday, ADP, payroll firm announces 38,000 new private sector jobs in the month of May, but remember Joe Biden promised the stimulus would eventually create 500,000 jobs a month.
Well, in May, not only do we not get 500,000, we didn't even get 50,000.
In the month of May, we got 38,000 new jobs.
That's 460,000 jobs, fewer than Biden said we would.
Why does Biden have any credibility with anybody at all on anything?
Why is Biden not laughed out of the room any time?
Same thing with Obama.
They're both walking jokes.
Except the punch lines aren't funny.
And they continue.
They continue to utter the same BS about all of this.
Who's next?
Tina in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
You're next on the EIB network high.
Hey, Rush, it's an honor always.
Um I can't, before I get to my point, I can't uh uh disagree with you anymore.
I mean, I mean that agreed more.
That my husband's in a small business in charge of several um LLC of you know Hilton's, and they would love to be hiring.
And when they're the tip ten extended the taxes, my husband said, yeah, great, except that.
We make five to ten year plans, not two-year plans.
They dropped to be hiring, but they're not.
But my point was that I called about um is that I'm really sick of these kind of crowd hammer, and Carl Rove, I have to put him in there too, because I as much as I admire him, I'm sorry, that's just this holier than now, Washington crowd, who, you know, they they just are so quick to diff people who aren't Washington or aren't them like Sarah Palin.
And I hate it.
Why do you think they do it?
Because he's not from their ilk.
I can't, I can't out of it.
I uh that's the only thing I can think of.
Because they they do have an air about them that they think, you know, we've been in politics our whole life, and she's only done this.
Or, you know, just because she's right on every damn issue, doesn't it doesn't give her enough credit for the city?
I I you know not to do, and I told you so here, I really don't like doing those, but I I think I've been pretty clear for the last two years of the uh internecine battles in the Republican Party, that there's a struggle there.
In the midst of Obama, the Democrats imploding.
There is not, there is not unity on the Republican side for the answer to it.
Uh conservatism uh in the Republican Party is still considered an outsider, no matter who you are.
If you're conservative, you are an outsider.
I mean, a genuine conservative.
Yeah, there's some class aspects here.
I think that what you're what you're talking about, you know, being of Washington, being of the political elites and so forth.
No question that uh that that's true.
That this has come as it comes as a surprise to people because a lot of people have thought for many years the Republican Party's conservative, and it's it's united behind uh uh conservative candidates.
I I think the way Palin has been treated has really been a shock and an eye-opener for a lot of Republicans.
Because it really has been vicious.
I mean, it is it is uh it is it is breathtakingly mean spirited from the Republican side what's been done to Palin, not just the Democrats where you would expect it to come from.
Well, you know what the rush?
A lot of people when she threw the crowd, she drew with McCain.
I think people who actually voted for McCain were voting more for Palin than they were for him.
Well, I was.
I think, yeah, no question.
She's she's in Massachusetts today, and there's a story I just read in the Boston Herald.
She is drawing mobs of people, and not one protester.
She is drawing mobs.
You know, it's hilarious, folks, to read some of the press about Palin.
They just are bugged to no end, accusing her of creating traffic dangers with her bus convoy.
There was uh, you know, she snuck out of the hotel in Gettysburg.
She snuck out the back door to head up to New York, I think, maybe to meet Trump or something.
She beat the media out.
They're livid that she gave them the slip.
They just can't believe that she got away with that.
They can't believe she gave them the slip.
They can't believe that she would even try to give them the slip.
They can't believe she succeeded in giving them the slip because she's not that smart.
And then she goes these places and she's loved and adored.
Throngs of people show up, and they all want autographs and pictures, and they all want to be close to her.
There aren't any protest signs.
There aren't any anti-palin people showing up.
They just are beside themselves.
She really has them running in circles.
She has got them so discombobulated, folks, it is hilarious to watch.
I'm looking for something here.
There's a piece by Martin Bashir, who uh I guess works at PMS NBC in the afternoon.
Yeah.
Get this.
Found this at real clear politics.
Martin Bashir, it's time to clear the air and ask a question.
What's a purpose behind Sarah Palin's current bus tour?
It's difficult to ask that question directly because Sarah Palin specializes in checkbook journalism.
That is, she only gives interviews to a network that pays her in excess of a million dollars a year.
So we're forced to make judgments from the outside, and it all looks like the precursor to a presidential campaign.
Then he goes on to say that her bus tour might be in breach of federal law.
The whole tour could be in breach of a federal law because the United States flag code establishes important rules for the use and display of a stars and stripes.
Flag of the United States.
Under standards of respect and etiquette, it's made clear the flag of the U.S. should never be used for any advertising purpose whatsoever.
Yet that's precisely what Sarah Palin is doing.
She's using the flag of the United States for her own financial purposes.
She drapes herself in the stars and stripes.
She makes millions of dollars in the process.
When was the last time any of us heard anybody in the drive-by's worried at all about the flag?
That's even a better question.
When was the first time the drive-by's were worried about the flag?
You know what else they're ticked off?
Palin.
Palin and Trump had had a meal to get pizza, and she ate hers with a knife and fork.
And they are saying it's unsophisticated, it's un American.
It proves that she's not in touch with anybody.
They're ragging on her for eating pizza with knife and fork.
That's and Trump too.
Trump is being ripped for eating pizza with a knife and fork.
And it's um that that story is either Yahoo or somewhere.
It's a top story of the day at some websites.
Aggregation.
Yeah.
Yeah, I was I was flying back from my super secret meeting yesterday.
And uh, you know, I hadn't eaten all day, and middle of the afternoon, late afternoon getting back, and there's a miniature little pizza there.
So I grabbed a knife and fork.
I ate with a knife and fork.
I never pick up a pizza and eat it with my hand.
I always use a knife and fork.
And there's they're ticked off at her about that.
This guy, Martin Bashir, is dead serious.
She's in violation of flag law.
This she is driving them insane.
In fact, this story in the Boston Herald makes mention the fact that Romney's not too happy about this because this is being coming out day's big announcement.
She's up there stealing his thunder in a different part of the state.
He's in New Hampshire announcing.
She's drawing all the crowds, says that she's not concerned about the party, she's not sure concerned about delegates and this, that, and the other thing.
Uh you know, I have never met Sarah Palin.
I've spoken to her twice, you know, in interviews.
I've I don't know her.
People ask me for insight, I couldn't tell you.
So I don't know.
People ask me, is she doing this stuff?
Is she is she got a score to settle with the Republicans too?
Does she think they were unkind to her during the campaign with some of the stuff they put out or let get out about the wardrobe?
And I don't know.
Don't know the answer to that.
I don't know if she's settling scores.
I don't know if what she's doing is quote unquote establishing the brand and making money.
I don't know if what she's doing is having fun tweaking the media.
I know she, yeah, I take it back.
I do know she's having fun doing that.
Uh, and I think that represents a stunning reversal.
That she's able to is a stunning reversal.
She has them on the run.
She has them on defensive, she has them making themselves look like utter high school gossip mongering fools.
It's uh it actually is is hilarious to look at the the dander these people have have uh been worked into.
Anyway, I'm a little long, I gotta take quick time out here, folks.
Be back before you know it.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Rush Lindbaugh of Blacksburg, Virginia.
This is Heather.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
This is such an honor.
Thank you for all you.
You are more than welcome.
Thank you.
I wanted to go back to your conversation regarding flawed man and why it's so hard to identify a good leader in today's world.
Mm-hmm.
I think a little different take uh from what you were saying regarding um media scrutiny, though I agree there's a lot more media scrutiny, and that certainly comes into play.
Okay, hang on here just a second.
Uh people may not be may not have heard what I said.
What specifically did I say that you want to take issue with?
Well, I think the reason we have a difficult time in seeing uh a good leader, and instead of just focusing on flaws in men, is in man, is that it's a cultural change of expectation versus you know, it's not just media scrutiny, which I think you were regard which which you were talking about.
And the example that I gave to your call screener were Bill Clinton and uh George Bush.
You have always had in history and always will have in history womanizers and alcoholics.
The difference is George Bush learned from his flaws and changed his behavior as a result.
We live in a world that wants to find somebody that's never had any flaws.
That's not how I identify a good leader.
Everybody is flawed.
That's gonna happen on this side of of heaven.
Um it is who learns from those flaws and as a result um betters themselves, changes their behavior.
But we live in a culture that says you can't even have flaws, period.
That's not even our cultural expectation.
Well, yeah, uh can you hold on and and by the way, and it's gonna be a while.
I gotta break here at the top of the hour.
Sure.
Okay, then don't lose that thought.
Um, because we most certainly do live in a culture where certain people are not only allowed to have flaws, we are encouraged to embrace their flaws.
They are excused for their flaws.
I'll split all this when we come back.
My guess is they're popping quarks at the White House, popping the champagne corks of the White House.
Moody's is out with a comment saying that there's uh no imminent progress on the debt ceiling fight.
The U.S. credit rating will be cut.
Moody's is warning of risk.
Rising risk.
U.S. credit rating.
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