Views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost always right 99.6% of the time.
It's Friday.
This is the Rush Limbaugh program and let's go live from the left coast at our satellite studios in Los Angeles.
It's open line Friday.
Thank you, Johnny Donovan.
In Los Angeles we are just for the day.
We'll be back at the EIB Southern Command tomorrow, Monday, Monday.
Open Line Friday.
Whatever you wish to discuss, feel free.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
The email address, lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
Okay.
Just a little more here on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned the constitutionality, or they have ruled on the constitutionality of the individual mandate.
They've said that it is not constitutional.
This is the case that was brought by the 26 states and the NFIB, the National Federation of Independent Businesses.
And they joined forces, and a lot of people have been working on this.
They left the rest of the law intact, but the mandate is said to be unconstitutional.
Again, this is the case brought by the 26 states, the attorney generals in those 26 states.
Now, as I search the deep, dark corridors of my fertile memory, some things occur to me.
The whole purpose of the individual mandate is to pay for this thing.
Now, this is key.
Let's say, going forward, because this is going to go to the U.S. Supreme Court, let's just, for the sake here of fun and hypotheticals, let's say that the U.S. Supreme Court sees Obamacare the same way the 11th Circuit sees it.
Now you've got, this would be easy for the Supreme Court.
Oh, yeah, what they did is fine.
Fine.
Okay, next case.
Never know.
But let's just, for the sake of discussion, let's say that the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the insurance mandate.
The mandate that everybody buy insurance.
Now, what will that mean?
Will that mean the thing has to go back to Congress?
Remember, this was allowed, it only was allowed to pass under a budget reconciliation measure or procedure.
Remember all that argument about budget reconciliation rather than actual legislative debate on the bill?
And the reason that it was allowed to pass under budget reconciliation was because it did not add significant cost to the budget.
But without the mandate, the mandate is the tax that is supposed to pay for this.
If everybody's supposed to have insurance, then everybody has to buy it.
If you don't have to buy it, where are you going to get it?
So it's a tax increase.
So this was the mandate was essentially a tax that was going to pay for this.
And without the mandate and without the requirement that everybody buy a policy, this is going to add huge cost to the budget.
And there are other aspects of Obamacare going to do that on their own anyway, regardless of the mandate.
We all know that Obamacare is not going to reduce premiums.
It's not going to do anything of the sort that's been promised.
But this was a significant fundraiser.
And the insurance companies at the outset loved this one because whatever number of uninsured you use in the country, 32 million, 40 million, those people are going to have to go out and get a policy.
And remember, if they don't, it's a penalty.
And remember also at the outset, the penalty is much less than the policy.
So a lot of people will pay the penalty.
After a while, after a certain number of years, that catches up, and pretty soon a penalty costs more than a policy.
What they're trying to do is scam everybody into accepting the legislation and then having it become the law of the land and then using it because it represents total control of every citizen by the federal government.
States attorney generals in 26 states say this is unconstitutional.
They cannot make us go out and buy.
If they can do this, they can tell us we can't buy something.
They can require us to eat broccoli.
They can require us to eat spinach or what have you.
The federal government can't do it.
The 11th circuits upheld that.
So now one of the primary fundraising mechanisms of this law has just been scratched.
Now, I'm recalling much of this off the top of my fertile head.
And I spend more time over the weekend researching this and digging it up.
I think my memory is pretty accurate on this.
But still, if the mandate's ruled illegal and therefore there's no funding mechanism, then what happens to this?
Does it not have to be sent back to Congress and pass like normal legislation?
In other words, where are they going to get the money for it?
If they can't make us buy a policy, what if 100 million Americans say, sorry, we're not buying a policy?
We just don't want, you know what, we'll pay that chintzy little fine there.
We're not going to buy a policy.
And Pelosi comes along, well, you may end up going to jail.
That's also a provision.
So we'll have this is going to be fascinating.
This is why the regime does not like this.
The previous rulings that have come down have been from district federal courts.
This is an appellate court.
This one step away from SCOTUS.
SCOTUS is like any other court.
I mean, precedent counts for a lot when they get a case.
It's easier just to rubber stamp it and uphold it.
There's no guarantee that's going to happen.
Remember the Bush tax cuts, the same principle.
They were not permanent because they were not budget neutral.
The only way that you can have something pass into law as part of budget reconciliation where they just get together, okay, we'll do that.
And we'll just deem that to be done.
And we'll reconcile that.
And that if there is no meaningful, demonstrable impact on the budget.
Well, the Bush tax cuts were not permanent.
They had to sunset at some point by law because they were not budget neutral.
And they sunset last year.
That's why it took the lame duck session to extend the Bush tax cuts for two more years, because by law, they were gone because they passed during budget reconciliation.
Now, without the mandate, I don't know what else happens, but without the mandate, Obamacare sure as hell is not revenue neutral.
That's one thing I know.
And revenue neutral was one of their big selling points.
So, again, there are others that I can consult on this, and I shall do so when I have more of my wits about me at the same time.
But it's still fascinating to me.
This one, this is going to shake them up at the regime.
I'm convinced they thought with their arguments, the 11th Circuit, that they could beat back these 26 attorney generals.
And I'm sure they prepared to lose and go to the Supreme Court anyway, but still this, because everybody knows it's where this case is going.
Whoever loses is going to take it there.
But the regime, this is a stumbling block for them.
Good, which is good.
We'll be back.
We'll continue right after this.
By the way, folks, this is the first time that a Democrat judge has decided against Obamacare.
This is from the Politico.
A two-to-one ruling marks the first time a judge appointed by a Democrats voted to strike down the mandate.
Judge Frank Hull, H-U-L-L, who was nominated by former President Clinton, joined Chief Judge Joel Dubina, or Dubina, not sure how he pronounces it, who was appointed by George H.W. Bush to strike down the mandate.
Judge Stanley Marcus, also appointed by Clinton, was the lone dissenting opinion.
So the first time, the first time a liberal Democrat judge has told Obama to pick it in.
Oh, I don't know what it means, but it is noteworthy that it's the first.
Okay, John, and rest in Virginia as we return to the phones on Open Line Friday.
Hello, sir.
Hey, Russ.
I know it's been a big day for the debate, but I know what all those people are going to say by listening to you just about every day.
So with that said, I was listening to you yesterday when you were talking about Chris Matthews and you rolling back the Democratic agenda over the last 65 years.
I think when you said one of your typically hyperbolic statements, you said, it's not about this or that or that.
It's about getting the government off our backs and getting them away from being the central focus of our life.
And I got to tell you, if any of your listeners out there that aren't in the military make the government the central focus of their life, they're a little bit sick.
They're kind of like stalkers.
Because you know what?
The central focus of my life is my wife.
Don't you know my job?
Well, there's a whole bunch of people whose central focus of their life is the government.
It's the problem.
Everything they've got comes from the government.
They get up and they look to Washington.
They get up and they listen to what happens in politics in terms of what it's going to mean for them, what they're going to get.
Way too many people.
You know what is meant by that statement.
You call it hyperbole, but it's not hyperbole.
It represents something fundamentally wrong with the country today.
I don't think any of your listeners, if they truly looked at their lives, can say that the government is impacting it in any seriously negative way.
Really?
Really?
Unless you're a coal miner and you hate the idea that you have to keep your miners safe, or unless you're a forced or Jack or something on old growth policy.
You have just told me you're not serious.
You have just told me that you are a card-carrying leftist with the coal miner comment that the only thing, the only people who can think there's too much government are the coal miner ministers who are told they have to keep their workers safe.
I don't need to hear any more from you.
See, sir, I've come to a conclusion that I don't want to try to compromise with you.
It's not possible.
I'm going to beat you and not talk to you about it.
You're going to wake up one day and you're not going to realize it's happened until it's too late.
I'm afraid of talking to people like you.
It doesn't work.
It doesn't matter.
You can't even be honest.
What?
What?
Do I need?
No, I'm not going to debate the guy anymore.
What's the point?
This is my whole point.
This is a great illustration of exactly what I'm talking about.
This guy and I have no, there's no, there's no area of commonality there to find any compromise.
None whatsoever.
Zil zero none.
It doesn't make any, it's a waste of time to.
Of course they're unreachable, but I don't care whether they're reachable or not.
They can be beaten whether you reach them or not.
We do our best to reach them here, Snergly.
Nobody reaches out better than we reach out.
And if our reach out doesn't work, fine, then they are targeted for defeat.
It's pure and simple.
I don't know what's so hard to understand about this.
If you live in New York City, the government takes more than 65% of your income.
You don't think that impacts your life?
I left a place because of its impact in my life.
I chose to live someplace because of the lesser impact in my life by virtue of living there.
And a lot of people are making similar decisions for crying out loud.
The EPA alone is changing the way everybody lives.
The FDA is changing the way everybody lives.
Who's next?
That'd be people waiting a long time.
Let's see.
Ron in Santa Barbara, right up the road here.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Rush, Reagan Ranch, Reagan Library, Dittos.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Your previous caller was a seminar caller.
I can tell you, Rush.
You can't even smoke in the parks for crying out.
You can't smoke on your front step in New York.
See, you said a government doesn't impact your life?
For criminantly's sake, I'm going to get ticked off here, start uttering obscenities if I keep thinking about this, because the thing I can't suffer is stupidity, willful, and it's what liberals are.
They are willfully stupid.
And I just, I don't have patience, especially today, suffering the ravages of some virus.
I'm sorry.
What were you saying?
Well, Rush, listen, I understand I'm a recovering communist myself, and you've been like my sponsor for the last 20 years, helping me one day at a time.
I appreciate that.
Listen, Rush.
You can't get salt in a restaurant in New York City because the government won't let you eat it.
We got Michelle Obama trying to tell you and your kids what you can't eat.
The government doesn't affect your life for crying out.
I'm sorry, sir.
What is it you were saying?
I'm your sponsor.
I heard you.
I'm your sponsor of 20 years of Reaganism.
Way to go.
And you're helping remove some of the burdensome government from our lives.
Listen, Rush, your Inside Baseball Comments Monday before last, after the deficit compromise discussion that weekend, you had been talking with a couple of your friends who are also radio hosts and talking about the challenge of being informative and entertaining every day.
And you do that in spades every day.
You said it was harder today than ever because Reality Heights tells you there's so much bad news.
Housing, unemployment, just the fact that people receive unemployment now for 99 weeks.
And we understand it's harder, Rush, but it's more important than ever.
And Ronaldus Magnus loved to quote Tom Paine, tyranny like hell is not easily conquered.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.
And without you, Rush, we would not have had the Gingrich Revolution.
We would not have had welfare reform.
We wouldn't have had the balanced budgets of the late 90s.
And Reality Heights tells me that you're the one who often, too often, is the forge that puts some steel in the spine of Republicans.
And now it may be harder, but it's more important than it's ever been.
Without you, we wouldn't have Allen West.
We wouldn't have Marco Rubio, Jim DeMint, Paul Ryan.
We wouldn't even have Scott Brown.
And they're the hope for our nation's future.
You're the real voice of hope and change.
Well, I really can't disagree with you.
I know you can't because you live in reality heights.
No, thank you very much.
That is way, way over the top kind.
I really do appreciate that.
It is the only sense.
By the way, I was not complaining when I said it's harder.
It's more challenging now because this is an entertainment media.
People still tune in here, be entertained.
They don't want to dry ball C-SPAN stuff here.
And yet things are far more serious and complicated now than they were all over the country.
And people are demanding fealty to that too.
So I appreciate your kind words.
I really do.
More than you know.
You've made my day.
And I couldn't agree with you more.
We got a great farm team, Cantor, West, Rubio, Ryan.
Our farm system is stocked, and we need more in it.
We really, as this is, this is one of the reasons that bench is one of the reasons that I'm so optimistic.
You know, I mean, look, everybody has a right to be stupid.
Previous quality abused a privilege, the guy from Reston, Virginia, and we didn't, we ran out of patience.
But see, look at the balance here.
More than made up by the call from Ron here in Santa Barbara.
So I appreciate it, sir.
Thank you very much.
Rich?
No, I'm sorry.
Where are we going next?
Waiting here for to be told.
It should have got about a minute.
Palm Harbor, Florida.
Colleen, thank you for waiting.
You're next in the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hello.
Hello.
I was calling to complain about the government being in my business.
I'm a licensed realtor.
I've been in the business for 39 years, and they are destroying the values of our housing market.
They're regulating us.
Obamacare has regulations in there to make every house green that's going to cost people thousands of dollars and they need to get out of our way.
How about this?
How about Obama announcing yesterday that he's going to become the landlord of all these four closed houses?
Well, tell me how can he be the landlord when the bank is the one who mortgaged the property and they're the owner?
Because he's just going to take it over.
But more importantly, how can anybody compete when the federal government's a landlord?
Well, listen to this.
I had an $800,000 cash buyer on a property in Apollo Beach, Florida.
And because of the new laws that they regulated in Florida where HLAs can foreclose on a home, three criminals that have felonies, one of which was in jail for four and a half years from beating Medicare out of $14 million in extortion, got the House for a $10,000 judgment.
And it was legal.
It was legal.
Of course, because that person has been put upon by the Tea Party.
The Tea Party has made that person's life miserable.
Reagan made that person's life miserable.
That person is entitled because that person is either a minority or has been mistreated or what have you.
That's exactly right.
You have just illustrated another way that the government has impact on our lives.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, and Open Line Friday.
And we are in Los Angeles, and we are here just for the remainder of the day.
We'll be back at the EIB Southern Command on Monday.
Here's Rich in Alcoa, Tennessee.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
I have two questions for you, Rush.
Yeah.
First is, do you think Newt has any chance whatsoever?
Do I think Newt has any chance whatsoever?
Veep?
Possibly.
I mean, he seemed to give a good performance last night, did he not think?
Again, see, depends on who you ask.
Some people loved his response to Chris Wallace on the gotcha stuff.
Other people I've talked to, oh my gosh, that doesn't look presidential.
You can't go acting offended and defensive with stuff like that.
It runs a gamut.
I think Newt is one of the smartest guys out there.
I think Newt, he said some stuff last night.
I'm sitting there applauding him.
Next time he might say something, I'm going to scratch my head.
I said, I don't understand.
Or he may show up on a porch with Pelosi to do a commercial on global warming.
And I'll be left scratching my head and not understand it.
Or he may say the era of Reagan is over.
And then he never say that.
He did say it.
Well, my second question is: in hindsight, do you have any regrets about the success of Operation Chaos?
Oh, meaning, no.
I think Hillary would be a much tougher re-elect than Obama's going to be.
Yeah, but do you think she would have done as much damage?
Well, surprisingly be close.
They're not ideologically, there's no difference in the two.
Now, attitudinally, psychologically, there is.
You know, how much that she would have gone for.
Look at she is the mother, the father, the adopted child.
She's every family member of National Healthcare.
Yeah, but she may not have had the success of getting it through the way Barack Obama did.
With the numbers that she had, if she would have had his numbers in Congress, and if everything had been the same, a Republican Party scared to death of the first female president instead of the first African-American president, six and one-half dozen of the other.
Besides, you know, I can't change it.
I don't regret anything that I've done.
It's all led me to where I am.
That's the real honest answer to your question.
I really don't.
I mean, if you start tabulating regrets, it's a waste of time because you can't change it.
All right, Rush, thanks.
You bet.
I don't think Hillary would have done as much damage foreign policy-wise.
I think Hillary would have run around apologizing for America, so forth.
So, yeah, but she, even with, even with Operation Chaos, she did not win.
Aaron in Chico, California, at one time, the party capital of America.
That's right.
I was in Sacramento when it was voted party capitalist, university party capital of the world.
I remember everybody was shocked.
Many people had never heard of it.
Yeah, it was in Playboy actually that made it famous.
It's quite different now, I'll say that.
Yeah, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Every place is.
Yes, it is.
Well, right to my question, it's time to make you look good.
You made a prediction during 2008 about what your prediction time capsule about what would happen with Barack Obama.
And I'm willing to bet you were like your rating 99.6% of the time that you're dead on spot accurate because everything you said about this guy has been spot on.
And then some.
I know, you know, it's a little, it's a dual-edged sword because on the one hand, yeah, I'm pretty, I'm glad I was able to foretell it, but I'm also a little disappointed more people didn't listen to me.
What can you do?
I certainly had access to a lot of people.
A lot of people did not want to hear those kinds of things about such an historic presidency.
They just didn't want to hear it.
To this day, you got a lot of people who don't want to believe the reality of who Obama is and what his agenda is.
They can't believe that any president would want to do what Obama is set out to do.
Yeah, and it's funny, even though I've listened to you for a long time, even when he was elected, I still gave Obama the benefit of the doubt.
I really didn't, like you said, believe it.
And it just kept unfolding from day one.
He has been aware of that.
What was your reason for giving him the benefit of the doubt?
Do you recall why you did it?
Well, it was a matter of faith and hope and the goodness of people and really just, you know, hoping he was going to be a different person and maybe not, you know, things weren't what they were.
Okay, but wait, now this is crucial.
This is crucial.
Faith and hope that he was going to be a different person from who?
Bush?
Well, no, I meant maybe he really wasn't going to be this traditional politician, but he it was a matter of believing the goodness in a person who wasn't going to sit here and destroy the country on purpose.
Right.
I know.
That's where the hope is.
I know.
It's a tough thing to believe.
Tough thing to believe if you don't see any.
You see, this is why I've always said that the simplest thing people can do to prevent this kind of thing from happening again is to just learn who liberals.
That's all I've done.
I know who liberals are.
I know what they stand for.
I know what they're going to do before they do it.
I know what they believe before they believe it.
I know them like every square inch of my glorious naked body.
And I don't care what else Obama was.
He was a liberal, and therefore this was totally predictable.
And the same thing within 80% if Hillary would have won.
They are all liberals.
Every one of them.
Don't care where you go.
I don't care where they live.
A liberal is a liberal, and this is what they do if they are not stopped.
And if you can learn that, you'll never ever vote for one again.
Yeah, and your caller earlier that just displayed ignorance beyond belief displays that in every single one of them because no matter what you tell these people, no matter what you show them, no matter what faith.
I guarantee you, I will guarantee you that guy is an academic or a lawyer or somebody benefiting from Obama's government takeovers.
I just guarantee you that that guy you're talking about for Wrestling Virginia, I will guarantee you that guy has some sort of professional.
He's either a high-ranking executive with a company that has relationship with Obama or something.
But he's got some kind of connection.
He's benefiting from it.
One way to be or else he's just the full-fledged 100% leftist and is loyal to them and is going to sing their praises no matter what and come to their defense no matter what.
It doesn't matter.
All I knew was that that guy and I had about as much chances agreeing on something as if I was talking to a cadaver.
Obama's going on vacation.
Why?
We're the ones that need a vacation from Obama.
You know, Jay Carney.
Jay Carney used to be a reporter, writer, columnist, whatever he was for Time magazine.
And in August of 2001, August, nine months into the George W. Bush administration, Jay Carney.
And I've got a story right here.
My formerly nicotine-stained fingers is somewhere here in the stack.
Jay Carney.
Here it is.
Jay Carney bashed George W. Bush for taking a vacation in August of 2001.
And he also got on Bush for the photo op that he used while on vacation to make it look like he was working when he wasn't.
But now, Jay Carney is the mouthpiece for Pharaoh Obama.
And so, guess what?
Presidents never go on vacation.
Obama is always working.
Why, I think it's fine Jay Carney says that Obama goes on vacation.
I don't like it when Bush goes on vacation, but I'm so I'll be as hypocritical and contradictory as I have to be in order to be a good liberal, said Jay Carney.
Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Amy, thank you for calling.
Thanks for waiting.
You're next to the EIB network.
Hello, Open Line Friday.
Hi, Rush.
How are you today?
I'm okay.
I'm muddling through here.
I was listening to your show earlier this week, and you came out with some statements about the Obamacare, which is going to start allowing for women to have free access to birth control, and you came out against it.
Now, my question for kind of just the Republican Party in general, as I'm trying to reconcile this, is how can they be against birth control and abortion, yet at the same time, be against raising children on welfare and having to pay for that debt to society our entire lives and then ruin our prison systems.
And how do you reconcile this?
I don't think the two have anything to do with one another.
You asked, first of all, against raising children on welfare.
This is a cultural thing.
It has to do with the best way to raise kids.
Single parent families, single mother children just don't have a chance in this country.
It's statistically documented.
What happened?
Why do these people's fathers or mothers run off?
You know, our problem is not that the government doesn't help out.
The government has become the missing parent.
The government has and does not inculcate any values.
The kids in this country have no chance.
Are the kids being cared for by government because their families have grown apart?
And our cultural question is why?
We're not raising them on welfare, but then how can you be opposed to women getting free birth control, which will prevent these women from being born?
But you're asking me, do you really want me to sit here and tell you I'm in favor of abortion so we don't have welfare?
In favor of birth control, no, no, but that's no, no, no, no.
If you're trying to maneuver me in some abortion question, of course, the government has no business providing birth control.
The government has no business encouraging the activity that leads to the cultural rot that is really responsible for all of these destroyed lives.
The government is the reason that all of this is wrong.
The government needs to get out of it.
Churches used to do this.
There was never welfare in this country before the mid-1930s.
How do people get along?
How did women get along without health care and birth control?
They did it with family and churches, but all that's broken down.
All that's laughed at and impugned and made fun of now.
And now the government has to do it or else not legitimate.
The government, as an entity, because it doesn't care about anything but how those people vote, is destroying the opportunity that people in those financial circumstances have under the guise of compassion and saving them.
And a lot of us are just fed up with it.
Not because of the money it's costing primarily, but because the human cost.
We love people.
We want the best for everybody.
This is the greatest country ever devised by mankind with the blessings of God.
And we are in the process and have been for 50 plus years of ripping it apart, ripping the foundational building blocks of this country apart.
And we wonder why certain people, kids end up as they do.
The guardrails are gone from our society.
There's nobody around to tell them they're wrong.
There's nobody around to love them.
There's nobody around to care about them.
There's nobody around to give them high expectations.
No, we're worried about whether or not the mother is going to get an RU486 pill the next day if she runs around and abandons her responsibility to herself and culture and society.
There's no contradictions here.
It all makes sense.
If you just broom the prejudice and the bias that you've been taught, A, about conservatives, and start thinking of people in purely human terms, there is no way you can look at what the welfare state has wrought and say that there's anything about it that is worth financing further.
Because all it's doing is producing people a vote Democrat with a false promise they're going to be cared for, the false promise that they're going to have prosperity, the false promise that whoever is discriminating against them is going to get theirs.
They're going to get taken care of.
Turns out that all these promises have been made for 50 years.
And these people have been hearing the same promises for 50 years, and they're still complaining about the same broken promises for 50, yet they keep voting.
Same way.
It's utter insanity.
But you're talking to somebody who wants the best for everybody.
You're talking to somebody who wants everybody to be able to assess, access the opportunities for economic opportunity, education, whatever.
This is the best place on this planet there has ever been for humanity to be born.
Greatest gift a human being in this world has is to be born an American, to be born in the United States.
Not going to be true very much longer if we keep treating people we claim to have compassion for the way we're treating them.
If we look at them first and foremost as political tools, oh, yeah, I'm going to make sure she gets an RU46 bill.
She'll vote.
Women's rights, abortion right.
Yeah, that's what we're know.
What about the concern for life, quality of life, sanctity of life?
There are people that have that.
And they used to be those that people turned to when times got tough.
They're called church, they're called family.
But the left's busted up families, and the left is busting up churches or trying to.
So I get sick more often.
I'll tell you where that last call came from.
Here's a story on CNN which broke the news.
According to the Health and Human Services Secretary's Kathleen Sebelius, the decision to provide free contraceptives is part of the Affordable Care Act's move to stop problems before they start, which is exactly my point.
Babies are problems, and Obamacare is going to stop them.
How's Obamacare going to stop problems?
We're going to give out free abortion and morning after pills.
And by the way, we're going to demand that the insurance companies provide birth control for free.
Now, my attitude is real simple.
Is there a problem in this country getting birth control?
Is there a problem getting birth control pills or devices?
There's not, is there?
Now it's a right for which we all have to pay.
My attitude is: if you want to abort your baby, you go get your own pill.
And if you want your own birth control, you go get your own condom or whatever device you want to use and you pay for it.