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Aug. 2, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:44
August 2, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings to you, music lovers and thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
We're here and it's already Tuesday, if you believe that.
And we do.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882, the email address lrushbow at eibnet.com.
Well, the Senate is prepared to vote on the bill.
It's a fait accompli.
It is going to happen.
And depending on where you look, everybody's claiming to be winners.
And in other places you look, everybody's claiming to be losers.
That means, well, if everybody lost, it means it's probably a pretty good deal.
If everybody's unhappy, it's that line of thinking.
I look at this, ladies and gentlemen, and I see an absolute total waste of effort, a total waste of time.
It's really now going to, it's going to come down now to how dispirited people are and just how much they want to continue to fight for this.
Because this, what happened here is typical Washington.
It's the same old, same old.
There's nothing really new in this, in the way it all happened.
When you boil it all down, we're going to reach a new debt limit here today sometime.
And then we're going to reach another debt limit in three or four months.
And then we're going to reach another debt limit.
And we're going to keep spending.
And we're not going to change the baseline any at all.
And we're going to be told it's the best we can do with just one-third in the House.
Now, what's one-third of the government, meaning the House of Representatives?
I want to take you back, though.
There's something that has come up out there that's kind of funny, but it's interesting at the same time.
Let's go back January 12th of this year, Tucson, Arizona.
University of Arizona, this is Barack Obama at the Together We Thrive Tucson and America event.
It was a campaign rally for Obama, ostensibly a memorial for Gabrielle Giffords to pay tribute to her.
And this is among the things that Obama had to say.
At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do, it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.
CBS News anchors a bunch of BS.
Anyway, now CBS News anchor Scott Pelley interviewed Joe Biden yesterday and asked him if he called the Tea Party terrorists.
CBS then wrote a story that reports Biden denied calling conservatives terrorists.
But as of now, they have not aired the exchange, nor have they posted the video on their website.
They did air some other clips on the CBS Evening News last week in the early show today.
But Biden did.
Biden's not the only one.
We have shared with you examples of the Democrats calling the Tea Party people terrorists and holding the country hostage, any number of things like this, which is outrageous.
After making such a big deal about hate rhetoric and Gabby Giffords, the vice president of the United States, calls opponents terrorists.
The media helps bury the story.
Why did they ask him?
Why did Scott Pelle ask him if they weren't going to show the answer?
Maybe they didn't like his answer.
But when Biden was asked about what he spoke with Giffords about, he joked, he said, well, she's now a member of the Cracked Head Club like me.
That's what she, I think he said that to her.
She is not able to speak yet.
She's able to vote, but she's not able to speak.
And Biden either said to her, hey, hey, hey, how are you?
Hey, Chuck, stand up.
Love them see it.
Oh, my God, love you.
God love you.
Chuck's in a wheelchair.
Can't stand.
Well, let's all stand up for Chuck.
It was one of those moments where Biden goes up and says to Gabby Giffords, hey, you know what?
You're just like me.
You remember the Cracked Head Club.
Now, there's no tape on that either.
Apparently, cameras don't follow Biden around.
Yeah, of course they follow Biden.
Of course, there's tape on this.
They're sequestering it or suppressing it.
They've got tape of Biden saying all this stuff.
They're just hiding it.
They are not using it.
Now, how many times was Dick Cheney asked about calling Pat Leahy an orifice hole?
How many, and Cheney, by the way, admitted it.
And Cheney told him to do something more than just call him a name.
Cheney said, you go do something anatomically impossible to Pat Leahy.
And, of course, everybody was outraged.
This is simply unacceptable in Washington, D.C. How can we expect togetherness and comedy and civility when the Vice President of the United States is referring to a revered member of the Senate in such horrid ways?
And yet here's Biden out there just setting all kinds of records with the rhetoric.
This morning on CMBC Morning Joe, the guest of Politico editor Jim Vandeheim, and during a discussion about the federal debt deal, Willie Geist, the co-host, said specifically the role of Vice President Joe Biden.
How important was he in getting this done?
He sort of stole the day yesterday.
There was a coupla over him engaging in that conversation in that meeting with Democrats about calling Tea Party members terrorists.
Did they call him terrorists, Jim?
My understanding is, yes, there's three or four members who are in that room talking and using that precise language.
And I think what he did is then sort of read it back and engaging in that conversation.
So he denied it to CBS, but there are four Democrats.
Dude, it was not a clear denial to me.
It was not a clear denial to me.
My understanding is, undoubtedly, he used those words.
Well, Scott Pelley said he denied it.
Scott Pelley of CBS said it was a clear denial.
Jim Vaneheim said, oh, yeah, clearly used the words.
No question about it.
Clearly used the words, Sarah Palin last night.
She was on the record with Greta, who said, Today the vice president accused the Tea Party of acting like terrorists over the debt ceiling debate.
Tell me, is that just political snarkiness?
Or do you think that the people, the establishment, political parties, both sides of the aisle, are on the run and just don't like the Tea Party?
Tea Party patriots.
I'm getting kind of used to being called names, you know, racists and inciters of violence and being accused of things that we have nothing to do with.
But I suppose it's a bit more appalling to have been called acting like terrorists today from he who is second in command of the most powerful office in the world.
It's quite appalling and certainly proves how out of touch this White House is when it comes to realizing what the silent majority of Americans are seeing and feeling.
So to be called a terrorist because of our beliefs from the vice president, it's quite appalling.
It's quite vile.
Yeah.
In the meantime, in the meantime, while all this is going on, while efforts are being made to cover up what Joe Biden said, there's a story here in the New York Daily News.
I have that story right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
It's a story by Aliyah Shaheed, obviously working beyond Ramadan.
GOP Congressman Doug Lamborn of Colorado blasted for likening President Obama to a tar baby.
A Republican congressman's under fire for likening President Obama to a tar baby.
Representative Doug Lamborn of Colorado Springs used the racially charged term during an interview on a Denver radio station last Friday.
Even if some people say, well, Republicans should have done this or they should have done that, they'll hold the president responsible. Lamborn said Friday while discussing Obama's budget policies.
Now, I don't want to even have to be associated with him.
It's like touching a tar baby.
You get stuck and you get part of the problem now and you can't get away.
Now, while tar baby is defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary as something from which it is nearly impossible to extricate oneself, it has long been recognized as a derogatory term for African Americans, originating in the Uncle Remus stories supposedly told by an old black man.
Is that true?
All right.
So tar baby now has racial kind of.
So we got to stop everything.
This Colorado congressman calls Obama a tar baby.
I know he apologized.
Biden hasn't apologized.
They're out there denying that Biden ever said it.
Biden is calling us terrorists, hostage takers, wanting to gun us down.
You know, gun to their heads.
We had a gun to their all of this stuff.
So the sense of proportion is missing.
Obviously, speaking of hostage-taking, folks, I saw a cartoon somewhere that showed Obama holding a gun to a spermatozoa demanding its money.
I think it sums up who is taking whom hostage today.
We are being held hostage by the Democrat Party.
We are being held hostage by the Washington, D.C. ruling class.
And just think, the Senate is voting right now on measures to raise the U.S. debt ceiling.
In a few moments, in a very few moments, this crisis will be over and everybody can sigh and move on to other things.
But how long will it be before we have the next crisis?
Whatever happened to the no-drama Obama we were sold during the 2008 campaign, there's going to be the next Armageddon.
There will be a next crisis.
And it will happen within seven days.
But a brief time out here, folks, as we're just kicking it off on the EIB network.
Be right back.
Don't go away.
Ladies and gentlemen, how many of you believe that there are budget cuts in the new debt ceiling bill?
You've heard that there are cuts, have you not?
We're cutting here, we're cutting there.
Yeah, well, what I want to know is, why would anybody believe that this deal includes any significant cuts in spending?
If it really cuts spending, why would we have to raise the debt limit by $2.4 trillion?
Why?
And we're still going to get downgraded, and the markets are still not happy.
And all the reasons we were sold for doing this have turned out to be bogus.
Vladimir Putin, he's out hunting.
He says the United States is a parasite on the world economy.
A parasite.
Meaning, our growth is all phony.
It's all based on borrowing.
It isn't real.
And we are gobbling up all the resources around the world just to sustain our spending.
We're really not the rich country that we are, is what Putin means.
It's all borrowed.
It's all fake.
It's all phony.
We're a parasite.
All the numbers in this deal are just government math.
Government maths, even crazier than Farrakhan's million man math made easy.
Rand Paul has an open letter on his website.
To paraphrase Senator Jim DeMant, when you're speeding toward the edge of a cliff, you don't set the cruise control.
You stop the car.
The current deal to raise the debt ceiling doesn't stop us from going over the fiscal cliff.
At best, it slows us from going over it at 80 miles an hour to going over the cliff at 60 miles an hour.
This plan never balances.
The president called for a balanced approach, but the American people are calling for a balanced budget.
This deal does nothing to fix the overreaches of both parties over the past few years.
Obamacare, TARP, trillion-dollar wars, runaway entitlement spending, they are all cemented into place with this deal.
And their legacy will be trillions of dollars in new debt.
The deal that is pending before the United States Senate now adds, get this, at least $7 trillion to our debt over the next 10 years.
Not 2.4.
$7 trillion.
The deal purports to cut $2.1 trillion, but the cut is from a baseline that adds $10 trillion to the debt.
As you well know, because we've been explaining this in easily understandable detail all week.
I love the illustration.
We could propose a budget that is a freeze next year, doesn't spend a dime more than this year, and it would be scored as a $9.5 trillion cut because of the baseline, because of how the budget is expected to grow.
This deal, even if all targets are met and a super committee wields its mandate, results in a best case scenario of still adding more than $7 trillion more in debt over the next 10 years.
This is sickening.
Folks, I'm going to give you a little history.
I remember when this program started, well, even before this started here, when Sacramento, this show started in 1984, I can remember getting phone calls throughout the years from people concerned about the national debt.
And I poo-pooed it.
I told these people, you know, I've been hearing about the national debt my whole life.
My grandfather was telling me about the national debt.
My dad told me about the national debt.
Everybody talked about the national debt and how it's going to consume us one day.
It's out of control.
And I said, and I've been hearing it for years and years and years, and we're still here.
I've been hearing this national debt business for years and years and years, and we're richer as a nation, and we're more prosperous than ever.
So I said, this national debt business, big deal.
We owe it to ourselves, so it's really not any big deal.
Now, at the time that I was saying that, it was still manageable in size.
Now, here I am, an old fuddy duddy now.
And I don't have that attitude about the national debt anymore.
Now, this national debt is $14.3 trillion plus the $2.4 that's going to be added.
So we're just under $17 trillion, and another $10 trillion is going to be added in 10 years.
Maybe as much as a number 13.
We could be looking at a $27 trillion national debt.
And now I am no longer of the attitude that it doesn't matter because we owe it to ourselves.
I don't know when the change came.
Well, I do know when the change came.
It came during this particular regime and administration when I was able to detect that a number of these things are being done on purpose to purposely inflict harm on the private sector.
This amount of debt has to be serviced.
I mean, the idea of paying it off is impossible, but it has to be serviced.
That's going to require tax rates that nobody will be willing to work in order to pay.
By the way, folks, this doesn't end anything.
The next thing that's going to happen is that President Obama is going to ask for more stimulus spending as part of his reelection campaign.
You watch more stimulus spending, and the Federal Reserve will probably print more money.
There probably will be a QE3.
These next months leading into the presidential campaign, the president is going to do what all presidents do.
He's going to use every bit of presidential power at his disposal To orient the government toward buying votes, doing things for people, without regard to the budget, without regard to any fiscal sense or sanity whatsoever.
It doesn't matter.
Particularly, we know it doesn't matter to Barack Obama because he's gotten us here in the first place.
It's why holding the line on this bill was so important and why it could have really put the brakes on Barack Obama.
But now, now that he's got the authority to run that debt up real fast, how he chooses to do it, create a slush fund, send the money to unions, people that pay dues, so the money comes back to him in the form of campaign contributions.
You ain't seen nothing yet.
The things that are sickening to all of us about the way the ruling class and politicians use government for their own benefit is about to go on steroids.
If you're ticked off now, you don't know what ticked off is.
From Rand Paul's open letter on his website, after he mentions that it adds at least $7 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years, probably $10 trillion because of the baseline.
The best case scenario.
It never ever balances.
There's not, I mean, no pretense to balance, doesn't come close.
The Super Committee's mandate, the six Republicans and the six Democrats, the Super Committee's mandate is to add $7 trillion in new debt to up that baseline.
Let's be clear: $2.1 trillion in reductions off nearly $10 trillion 10-year debt is still more than $7 trillion in debt.
The $2.1 trillion that they're calling in reductions, they're not even calling it cuts because there aren't any.
This is just reductions in the rate of growth, which cuts in Washington always are.
The Super Committee limits the constitutional check of the filibuster by expediting passage of bills with a simple majority.
The super committee is not precluded from any issue.
Therefore, the filibuster could be rendered most.
In addition, the plan harms the possible passage of a balanced budget amendment since the goal is never to balance.
Having the BBA as a trigger ensures that the super committee will simply report its $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan and never move to a BBA vote.
There's more from Rand Paul.
Orrin Hatch is going to vote no.
He has also explained why on the floor of the Senate.
Here's some highlights.
In a speech on the Senate floor today, U.S. Senator Arrin Hatch commended Republican leadership and conservatives for changing the conversation in Washington on deficit reduction, but said the compromise negotiated between congressional leaders, the Obama regime, did not go far enough to sufficiently slash the nation's $14 trillion debt.
There are some achievements in this proposal the conservatives can hang their hat on, but I regret to say that I will not be able to support this proposal because it does not sufficiently provide us with the solution to the debt crisis that the markets are demanding.
Hatch noted that the real threat to the nation's AAA rating was not default, but a failure to get spending under control, which is true.
He continued, in my view, there is a solution to the spending crisis.
It's cut, cap, and balance.
In addition to providing short-term relief by cutting and capping spending, it provides for a long-term solution.
Through passage of a strong balanced budget amendment, this proposal falls well short of cut, cap, and balance, and I cannot support it.
And he goes on and on and on and explains why, and it's very good.
Here's Dingy Harry.
Grab audio soundbite.
Actually, grab soundbite 22 first, Mitch McConnell, and then Dingy Harry number 23.
This morning, right before the program started, it's a couple minutes before noon.
On the Senate floor, the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell.
I know that for some of our colleagues, reform isn't coming as fast as they would like.
And I certainly understand their frustration.
I too wish we could stand here today enacting something much more ambitious.
But I'm encouraged by the thought that these new senators will help lead this fight until we finish the job.
And I want to assure you today that although you may not see it this way, you've actually won this debate.
Senator Hatch to the Tea Parties, you may not see it this way, but you have actually won the debate.
Now, there was a story.
Stephen Hayes of the Crystal Standard tweeted out there that all of the senators who voted no will not be permitted to be on the Super Commission, will not be eligible.
And that, of course, would be the hardcore conservatives, the Tea Partyers, the Marco Rubios and so forth.
That was quickly followed by a tweet from Byron York saying, that's not true.
That's a bogus story.
Stephen Hayes is wrong about that.
The hardcore conservatives in the Senate are eligible for the Super Committee.
So that's still up in the air.
But the fact that there was a story in the first place saying that they would not be means it was active.
That means that somebody was saying that.
Somebody said that to Stephen Hayes.
Somebody intended that to be the case.
Somebody in the ruling class in Tel K, Rubio and the rest of you freshman senators here that vote against this, you know, the payback for you is you have no prayer being on the super committee.
Apparently, when that was learned, enough hell took place that they relented.
Here's Dingy Harry on the Senate floor shortly after McConnell.
I can't let go without responding to my friend who boasted about in his own way about the new senators and the new members of Congress who came here.
I welcome them all.
But a result of the Tea Party direction of this Congress the last few months has been very, very disconcerting and very unfair to the American people.
It stopped us from arriving at a conclusion much earlier, and we must go forward.
So the Tea Party, very, very disconcerting, very unfair to the American people, stopped us from arriving at a conclusion much earlier.
So McConnell's telling a Tea Party, you don't know it, but you won.
Dingy Harry's saying, I hate your guts.
You are terrorists.
You're disconcerting.
And you were very unfair to the American people by standing up for what you believe in.
Make no mistake, you're a Tea Party person.
They hate.
There's no such thing as a moral victory.
I don't know what he's talking about.
I don't know what Senator McConnell's talking about.
This moral victory stuff, I don't go in for it.
There's no such thing as a moral victory.
A moral victory is when somebody who was destined to lose gets closer to victory than they thought they ever would.
But you still lost.
A moral victory is a loss.
A moral victory in sports.
Give you an example.
For those of you that don't follow sports, let's say the Super Bowl is contested between two teams.
One of the teams gets in by a quirk.
It's really not the best team in its conference.
I'll give you an example.
1995, the Steelers in a championship game against the San Diego Chargers.
And the Steelers, and it was at Pittsburgh championship game.
And the Steelers by far had the better team that year.
But they just, they had a bad day.
And they lost at the last play of the game.
And so the Chargers end up going to the Super Bowl against the San Francisco 400s.
And they got blown out.
I mean, it wasn't even close.
Jerry Rice set records.
Montana set.
No, Steve Young set records.
I mean, it was just, but it was said that the Chargers made a game of it in the fourth because a moral victory.
It was not a moral victory.
It wasn't a victory, period.
There are no moral victories.
Don't tell us that we won and that we don't know it yet.
What if we win?
Change the debate?
Does it look like it to me?
Looks like the ruling class is the ruling class.
Anyway, got to take a timeout.
We'll do that.
And when we come back, we've got a full board of calls.
And I know a lot of you want to get in on this.
And frankly, I'm eager to hear what you have to say.
So we'll do that right after this.
We're going to start in Gilbert, Arizona.
This is David.
And great to have you, sir.
Welcome.
You bust me up with his commercial breaks.
The Howard Dean collection.
This is too funny.
I was calling because I ordered a case of your tea, and I served it for my daughter's first birthday party, and it was the rave.
Everybody loved it.
My parents loved it.
My wife loves it.
I love it.
It's just awesome.
Well, thank you.
Thank you.
In fact, I am drinking some.
It is.
It is, I say this, not because it's mine, but because it's true.
is the best iced tea on the market.
There is no, and I know tastes are subjective, but I've tasted them all.
I've tasted it.
It is just over-the-top delicious.
So I'm glad that you like it.
I love it.
And one thing I think your listeners should know, if they haven't tried it, is that one bottle is two servings.
That's important to know because I accidentally drank a whole bottle when I first got it.
I don't want to mislead people with that, though.
One bottle is two servings because you chug this stuff so fast, it's so good.
It's so good.
One bottle is one serving.
You just don't stop until it's gone.
If there was a tea I had to dump in Boston Harbor, it wouldn't be yours.
It'd be every other tea on the market out there.
Well, take that one to drink because all the others aren't worthy.
Okay, okay, good.
I appreciate that.
Now, what was it you called about?
That was it?
We called about the tea?
I've been watching the Senate, the Senate on C-Span, but I called about the tea.
I don't think off about what's going on and everything you're talking about.
I completely agree.
Well, a much-needed change of pace.
I'm glad that you're gathered.
A much-needed change of pace.
Thank you so much out there, David.
I appreciate it.
By the way, tomorrow is when we do the five winners.
That's when we call the five winners and tell them that they each have won a year's supply, excuse me, of two of my tea.
Plus some autograph posters from me, El Rochbo, and some other little gift trinkets thrown in.
Jerry in Sacramento, my adopted hometown.
Hello, sir.
How do you do?
Good morning.
Thank you, sir.
Say, I just wanted to put out there that, you know, the Tea Party people aren't a bunch of idiots, but we did not expect to change the world with one election.
What we did was we showed the world that your vote counts, and one more election like this last one, and we will really make waste of Washington.
You know, it's not time to be discouraged.
It's time to realize that there's more of us than there is of them.
And if we vote, they will lose.
Well, I'm glad to hear that you're not discouraged.
It's awfully tough for people not to be discouraged today.
There are a lot of people who are.
I'm glad that you're not.
It does mean that we just need to win more elections without question.
Absolutely.
I'm not discouraged.
Like I say, we didn't expect to change the world with one election.
And any sensible person wouldn't think that.
But we've made our presence felt.
And those congresspeople that aren't willing to cut spending had better be looking for reducing their paychecks because they're going to lose it next election.
I don't think a lot of them think that.
I think a lot of them think this is all going to be forgotten and moved on to other things.
I really think people in Washington think that this is no different.
The House Post Office, that'll be forgotten, even though that did result.
I mean, the House Post Office and the House Bank did lead to a change in control of the Senate for the first time in 40 years.
So, Jerry, thanks for the call.
I appreciate it.
Okay, the Senate has just passed a deal.
Stand back.
Stock markets are going to shoot through the roof, and it will be not very long.
In fact, there it is.
The presidential podium set up outside the oval orifice.
Going to have Obama rush to the nearest camera to claim victory.
And we can stop pretending it was a Tea Party victory right now.
When you hear what Obama has, you think Obama's going to come out soon?
I know the dial is down.
That's my point.
The dial is not surging.
S ⁇ P is down.
I know it's all down.
It's not surging.
Everything they told us was going to happen.
Markets would revive.
World markets would shoot up.
Oh, yeah.
Had to get this a full faith and credit, confidence in the United States.
Why, if we didn't do this, why all hell would break loose on the downside.
So Obama got his stash.
Obama got his stash of $2.4 trillion.
He's about to come out and gloat about it.
Folks, I just, it's officially election time.
Obama saved the country.
Obama saved the day.
It's going to make you sick if you watch it.
It's going to make you frustrated as you have ever been.
The media, it's going to be like 2008 all over again.
We're going to be back.
Yeah.
One hour in the can.
Quick break.
I went on and on and on, and I should have stopped.
That's why this break is so short.
But we'll be back.
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