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Aug. 17, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:47
August 17, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Yeah, I got to make a clarification here.
I don't like having to do these, but I still got to do it.
The people that bought Henrietta Hughes, the house in Fort Myers are Republicans.
They were not Democrats.
Sheen Thompson, C-H-E-N-E, Thompson, wife of State Representative Nick Thompson, gave her a house in LaBelle, Florida, which was the first home that Mrs. Thompson bought after law school.
So it was Republicans that came to the rescue.
Welcome back, folks.
It's Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, the most listened to radio talk show in America.
It's a genuine honor and a thrill to have you here with us on the EIB network.
And we'll get to your phone calls El Quicko in this hour.
800-282-2882 is the number if you want to be on the program.
Let me, I mentioned Norman Pedoritz's piece, The Wall Street Journal last hour, and I want to quote him specifically here.
He said, I disagree with those of my fellow conservatives who maintain that Mr. Obama is indifferent to the best interests of the United States, Thomas Soule, and is purposely out to harm America, Rush Limbaugh.
In my opinion, he imagines he is helping America to repent of its many sins and to become a different and better country.
So Pedoritz's piece is entitled, What Happened to Obama?
Absolutely nothing.
He is who he is.
So Norman Pedoritz here was a brilliant man and a it's an insult to call him a writer.
He crafts his pieces.
Says that Obama imagines he's helping America to repent of its many sins and become different and better country.
That's, in my mind, difference without much of a distinction.
Thinks the country is filled with sins, needs to become different and thus better.
What are the sins?
Capitalism?
Wealth?
Who knows?
But then Mr. Pedoritz says, but I emphatically agree with Messieurs Limbaugh and Soul about this president's attitude toward America as it exists and as the founding fathers intended it.
That's why my own answer to the question, what happened to Obama, is that nothing happened to him.
He's still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this, rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure, both at home and abroad, of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind, Norman Pedoritz.
What happened to Obama?
Absolutely nothing.
Earlier in the Wall Street Journal.
Rick Perry from the National Journal.
I do believe the issue of global warming has been politicized.
I think there are a substantial number of scientists who manipulated data so that they'll have dollars rolling into their projects.
I think we're seeing it almost weekly or even daily.
Scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what's causing the climate to change.
Yeah, our climate's change has been changing ever since the earth was formed.
Now, this is a contrast with Romney.
You might have said, well, good, okay, good.
It is, well, it's almost stark in comparison with Romney.
Romney, remember when I said he believes in man-made global warming?
He thinks man has engaged in activity that has affected the climate.
So Perry is staking out Claims that differ tremendously from the front runner in the Republican primaries.
Remember that poll that showed Barack Obama way, way down in New York?
Well, I mean, that doesn't mean anything.
It's a year and a half before the election or 15 months.
I mean, it's a typical economic circumstance.
Quinnipiak has found that Obama is losing big ground in New Jersey.
President Obama headed in the wrong direction, and the New Jersey voters disapprove 52 to 44% of the job he's doing.
That's down from a 50 to 46 percent positive result, June 21st, and the president's lowest score ever in New Jersey.
The gender gap, New Jersey is huge.
Men disapprove 60 to 37 percent.
Women approve Obama, 51 to 44 percent.
Turning thumbs down on Obama are Republicans 93 to 6.
Independents in New Jersey disapprove Obama, 57 to 39.
Democrats approve in New Jersey, of course, 77 to 17.
New Jersey voters say 49, 45% that Obama does not deserve to be reelected.
So 49% of New Jersey don't re-elect Obama.
So that's now New York and New Jersey, folks.
Now, I mentioned this because we've got people on our side who think this guy is still invincible.
And they think largely he's invincible because he's Obama.
They're still in awe of what Obama was, that imagery, but also the power of the presidency and this reported $1 billion that he's going to have to wage his campaign.
But it's petty obvious to you and me.
You get somebody with a proud and cheerful and confidently articulated conservative message and agenda, and this guy is land slidable.
He's land-slidable today.
For the election we're held today, he'd lose in a landslide.
And what's going to change?
I know it's politics and things that no one can predict can happen in a long period of time.
Now, Rick Perry, do you realize, folks, I don't think Chris Christie would ever say about global warming what Rick Perry said.
And I think one of the reasons is geographic, actually.
Northeastern, there's a political caste that exists for people of both parties in the Northeast.
But Perry's out there saying that he has doubts about the concept of man-made global warming, and now he's being attacked for it.
On the other hand, Chris Christie, when he says whatever, he says, he's courageous, when he goes after the unions and so forth.
So I just, watching the media on this, they will always tell us, they will always, the Republican media is no different than the Democrat media.
The Republican media will always tell us who they fear, and they will always tell us who they want about our side.
The liberals, liberal media, will always tell us who of our people they fear.
And why?
You know, I have speculated with great accuracy, I'm confident, that they're scared to death of Sarah Palin.
They're scared.
I mean, it's all this time spent trying to destroy her.
Common sense, folks, if she's adult, if she's an idiot, if she doesn't have a prayer of being elected, as they say, why give her a thought?
Why spend a second?
Why one drop of ink?
Why one megabyte of information?
No, no, no.
They're very worried, and they're worried for a number of reasons.
And one of the reasons is they really fear she could win.
And they know she means what she says.
And they know that she's got guts.
And they know that she's not afraid of them.
They know that everything they've thrown at her has not sent her whimpering away, cowering in fear into the corners, begging to be left alone.
It is Sarah Palin who's turned the tables on them and makes them look like groupies, practically.
Chasing her down, following her everywhere, and then blaming her for potentially causing traffic accidents by not telling them in advance where she's going.
So they have to engage in high-speed chases to catch up.
And then she's at the Iowa State Fair and Jake Tapper, ABC, walks up, wants to talk to her.
She says, hang on, I got to meet a heifer first.
Jake Tapper, you got to meet a heifer first.
Yeah, I got to talk to this cow.
Jake Tapper's left.
What politician tells me they're going to talk to a cow before they talk to me?
Can anybody tell me a single state where Obama's actually gaining ground?
California, maybe?
Where's Obama gaining ground?
When you're at 39%, where are you gaining ground?
Just a question from my fertile, busy broadcast mind.
Here's Jay Carney, by the way, the White House spokesman, former columnist and journalist for Time magazine.
This is on the daily rundown today with F. Chuck Todd.
F. Chuck says, let's start with the news that you guys put out this morning.
The president is going to unveil his new jobs and deficit reduction plan in September.
He will, in early September, begin to talk, put forward a proposal of job-creating ideas and economic growth ideas that will contain some of the things he's talked about, like extending the payroll tax cut, which puts money in every American family.
Infrastructure bank.
What other new ideas?
Well, you know, I'm going to let the president unveil those.
But they will all be things that, in a normal universe, should have broad bipartisan support.
Infrastructure Bank!
Anyway, September 5th.
It's a race to see which comes out first, Obama's.
What is this going to be?
The 17th jobs plan or the iPhone 5?
Which comes first?
I've had this story in a stack here a couple days.
Every hour spent watching TV, DVDs, and videos as an adult reduces life expectancy by almost 22 minutes, according to a new study.
And viewing television for an average of six hours a day can cut short your life by five years.
The research claims that a sedentary lifestyle is as bad for health as smoking and obesity.
I saw a story the other day saying obesity is actually good for some people.
Anyway, is all this because of the dangers posed by inactivity and the greater opportunities it offers for unhealthy eating?
Speaking of which, before unhealthy eating, can I have a question?
It says here, every hour of watching TV, DVDs, and videos as an adult reduces life expectancy by almost 22 minutes.
What about if you're sitting and reading, say, Obama's autobiography?
What if you're sitting here reading the New York Times?
What if you're sitting reading some liberal pap?
What's going to happen to your life expectancy then?
Look, TV is a big enough target.
I understand people taking shots at it, but this is not a story about TV.
This is a story about sitting.
I don't know how many people read books on the jogging trail.
I know some people listen to them on the jogging trail, but actually sit and read them.
No.
Now, Kraft Foods is going to launch a new Oreo.
Whoa, you ought to see that got Snerdley's attention.
It's a triple-double Oreo.
Do you like Oreos?
Well, what it's going to be here, it's actually a biracial cookie.
You've got three of the chocolate wafers, and then you've got the white vanilla cream, and then there's a chocolate cream.
So you've got three, the stuff, the thing that says Oreo on it, the wafer, and then you've got the white cream, then you got another chocolate wafer, then you got the chocolate cream, and then you got the bottom wafer.
The triple double Oreo.
You wait, it ain't going to be long before it's going to be called the Orbameo or something like this.
Well, it's a biracial cookie here.
And this story is from the Chicago Tribune, and it's all about Kraft juicing up its investment in the Oreo in recent years.
Legitimate business.
Do I know you get Oreos and ice cream?
Yeah, I know that.
I don't, I'm not a big ice cream fan, but I know that you can do that.
I know that you can get, you know what?
Remember the other day, McDonald's?
You know these, what are they called, Rolos?
These caramel things that come in a roll that you get.
McDonald's is putting those in their soft ice cream or shakes or whatever.
I saw that the other day.
Yeah.
In the midst of all this talk of obesity and I mean, every time Michelle Obama goes out there and starts talking about healthful eating, the food industry responds with, oh, yeah, take this.
And Kraft comes up with the Orbameo, the triple-double dipper.
Okay, to the phones, Paula in Roanoke, Virginia.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, thanks from Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia.
You bet.
I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for something you've helped me do for the last 50 of my 63 years.
My parents have always been strong Minnesota Democrats.
Right.
They're 85 and 90 years old.
They are now telling me they will never vote Democratic again.
They asked me what I thought about Obama.
I said, I think he's a con artist.
And I said, remember, the Democrats are at the Pax and Span Party.
I said, why don't you give Rush a listen?
And I took her a copy of your brother's book, and they are now no longer Democrats.
No kidding.
No, that is heartwarming news.
I love stories like this.
And stories like this really frighten DNC officials because they've tried to tell everybody that programs like this just preach to the choir.
But there are a lot of converts.
And so you get along with your parents better now as a result of this?
Oh, not necessarily.
I mean, there was no talking politics ever, ever, ever, ever.
If I brought something up, there was no discussing it.
They didn't want to talk about it.
Now we talk about it all the time.
Interesting.
Well, I'm happy for the report, Paula.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
You had a great one.
Here's Eric in Harvard, Illinois.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Greetings from the Midwest.
How are you?
Very well, sir.
Very well indeed.
Better than a human being should be.
Great.
Well, I was ecstatic to hear the ninth grade student yesterday calling.
I'm in 10th grade, and unfortunately, I think I have an advantage over him.
I'm homeschooled, and I was listening to that little bit, like when you're on the line making fun of homeschooling.
I thought that was pretty funny.
We do not make fun of.
We've got a satire that we play some of these bits on hold when during a hear these things.
We don't make fun of homeschooling here.
Don't give people a wrong idea.
Oh, I know that.
I know that.
And it's by far a better way of learning.
And we win all the spelling B's and the science fairs and everything.
So go figure.
I know, and they also think you may as well be space aliens.
Yeah, really.
You can actually read.
You have a love for the country.
How does this happen?
Well, I actually went to public school for K through six, and then we had some problems with learning.
And I was paired up with a couple illegal immigrants, Hispanic children in an ESL class, and that was the camel, the straw that broke the camel's back.
Okay, wait, wait.
Dare I ask, what is an ESL class?
It's an English as second language class for science.
You had to take English as a second language class?
Yes, yes.
You couldn't decide anything.
You just were put into...
You speak English!
Yeah, I know.
You had to take English as a second language course?
Right, right.
And a science class, too.
So it wasn't like learning Spanish.
It was put, you were integrated with Hispanic students, and the goal of the class was to have the students exposed to English while learning science at the same time.
And that was just it.
And so now I'm homeschooled, and I use a wonderful curriculum.
Let me ask you a question.
Your parents go to church.
Yes.
Oh, gee, I knew it.
Do you?
Yes.
I knew it.
I knew it.
And that means you believe in God, right?
Yes, sir.
You really?
Do you realize what an oddball you are?
Oh, yeah.
And on being on Facebook, I remember right around the election time last time, they said, oh, I could care less about politics or whatever.
And that really influenced me.
They had an essay contest for the VFW, Voice of Democracy, and it was how does my generation have a role in America's future?
And I participated in that.
Unfortunately, I didn't win, but I started off with the point of America doesn't care anymore.
Our American youth doesn't care anymore about the things in life that matter.
And I thought that was a very interesting participation.
Let me ask you, do you own a gun?
No, sir, but we want to.
We're actually moving to Kentucky.
And we live in Illinois right now.
This is the greatest American family we've had on this show, and I can't tell y'all.
Where are we going next on the phones?
Who's up next?
Downs, Illinois.
Dusty, great to have you on the program.
Welcome.
Thank you, Rush.
It's a privilege to have you take my call.
Just wanted to heard your little blurb about the Transportation Department trying to handcuff our farmers with their ridiculous interpretation.
Well, I have got, I have, that's our morning update today.
And I have got, I'm going to print that out.
And after your, after your call, I've got to share it out here with the general audience.
It's our commentary that runs on our affiliate stations that ran this morning.
It's amazing.
It is a flat-out.
Absolutely idiotic, you know.
And thank goodness, there was enough pressure, I think, from Rayla Hood and the farm organizations to finally bring them to their senses that this was an absolutely ridiculous interpretation for our farmers to have to be subjected to.
And another indication of how our government wants to have a finger on every little operation down the line.
Yeah, I've got to tell you something, Dusty.
I need to get the text of the commentary printed out and share it with people so they know what you're talking about.
Because it was a very important thing.
According to the Farm Bureau paper that came out a couple of days ago, they have indicated that they are not going to enforce this.
They're going to continue the interpretation as it has been in the past to where farmers will be able to drive their trucks to and from the elevators, even if they rent land.
They're not considered commercial haulers per se.
And, you know, I guess it's an indication that maybe some of the agencies need to wake up and respond to the common sense approach to some of these rules and regulations.
Well, you're talking about a state agency saying we're not going to abide by what the DOT is saying.
Am I right?
You're saying that...
My understanding is that the national DOT has rescinded their directive to enforce the guidelines that they came out with a couple of three weeks ago.
I'm not sure when they came out with their original interpretation, maybe about a month ago.
Well, Obama was asked about this in a town hall meeting, and you know what he did?
He told a farmer who asked him about this to contact the USDA to find out what the real regulations are.
Now, folks, here it is.
This is, Dusty, you hang in there for a second.
Okay.
Now, folks, you might say, well, how come you don't talk about us on the radio?
You realize we got a newsletter.
We have a website.
We have a morning update.
And we've got 15 hours of radio to do every week.
And there has to be some stuff that's unique to where it is.
So we always try to pick a commentary subject for the Rush morning update that hasn't been discussed on the radio before.
I always want to make sure that what's on the commentary is first mentioned there and then as we're doing now talking about it on the radio program.
The text, a brilliant, brilliant morning update, if I say so myself.
The Obama regime wants to change the way farmers farm.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, part of the Department of Transportation, has proposed reclassifying all farm vehicles as commercial motor vehicles.
Farmers would be required to obtain commercial driver's licenses for their tractors and their combines out in the fields, not on public property.
If the rule goes into effect, anybody who operates any motorized farm equipment will have to pass the same tests that semi-drivers do.
They'll have to fill out the same highly detailed forms and daily logs.
American farmers would have to keep track of how many hours they work and sleep, how many miles their vehicles travel.
They'd have to display Department of Transportation numbers.
And of course, they would have to pay the government fees for all of these new burdens in one fell swoop.
The regime would have more regulatory control over farmers and the 800,000 farm vehicles there are out there.
And nobody knows what they would do with that power.
But since the EPA already has its regulatory nose in the American farmer's barn, you can only imagine what these new green regulations the Department of Transportation will impose.
Now, farmers are livid that the regime is considering making it even more difficult to keep the country fed.
Bad enough that farmers already have to battle insects and vermin, droughts, fires, floods, and everything else Mother Nature can dish out.
Now, Obama's regulatory jackals want to put these farmers in the government's crosshairs.
Regulate farm vehicles simply to get federal control over them for any number of uses.
Now, Jacob Tapper is out there.
President is advising a farmer to contact the USDA to find out what regulations are real.
The farmer said to the president, I'm concerned about these regs that I hear are coming down, noise pollution, dust pollution.
And the president said, don't believe everything you hear.
So in a nutshell, Obama told the farmer on regulations, if you hear something that's happening, but it hasn't happened, don't always believe what you hear.
And he doesn't even know.
He told the farmer to get hold of the Department of Agriculture to find out what regulations are real.
I don't think much of this has gone into effect yet.
It's, oh, is that right?
The DOT said, forget all about this.
Oh, really?
Fascinating.
So, the same day our morning update runs, the Department of Transportation says, oops, forget about it.
The AP has a retraction on the story today.
They're not going to, Dusty, you get action.
The DOT is not going to implement this stuff now.
So there you have it, folks.
They're not going to implement it.
They would have, if this could have been done on the sly, they would have.
And they will keep trying things like this.
Under cover of darkness or what have you.
Josh, 20 years old, Joplin, Missouri.
Welcome to the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, mega Rush Baby Dittos back here in Joplin.
Thank you very much.
I remember earlier you were talking about You were talking about Joplin and you weren't really sure what it was.
Well, we're a really, really, really big conservative area, and we have pretty much had conservatives control our home and everywhere around here for about the past 30 years.
Yeah.
I was just telling you because I think you said that you weren't really sure because you were comparing Michigan to here.
Well, I wanted to draw a distinction the way you and Joplin, and I've been there.
You had a tornado go through and devastate the place.
And there hasn't been any whining and moaning.
There hasn't been any requests for FEMA.
The news media hasn't been in there trying to drum up support, sympathy, or what have you.
Meanwhile, we've got a city, not to pick on Detroit, but any number of them that's been run by Democrats for years, and they're bulldozing houses and they're closing schools.
And it's just a mess.
And I wanted to draw a distinction.
And I said that I don't know, even having met the mayor, what political party he's a member of.
I have since learned that the town council, the city council elects the mayor in Joplin.
And we have a really big Tea Party area in Joplin.
So everybody here has just, you know, everybody has just looked out for each other.
Churches have came churches have came together, and we've all taken care of each other.
Yeah.
Well, the Kansas City Chiefs, even during the lockout, did some players roll into Joplin and try to help out.
Yeah, that was good.
Yeah, that was, it was, it was heartwarming to see.
I just, I think it's interesting to draw the comparison.
And I don't, folks, I do not think it's unfair to do so.
Reality's staring us in the face here.
You could have said the same thing about New Orleans and Katrina.
You know, Katrina goes through there, and New Orleans has been run.
It was the model for liberalism.
Unchecked, this is what you get.
And it was just, it was such that even after Katrina, the media was actually suggesting that the ninth ward be rebuilt as it was.
Nobody wanted to live in the ninth ward, wanted to get out of there, but it had such a cultural attraction.
It was unbelievable.
You can draw these distinctions.
Look at Texas.
Look at Rick Perry.
You've had in Texas, how many years has that state been run?
We had Bush, Republican governor, for what, eight?
Perry?
For how long?
And he's been, you've had at least 16 years of Republican leadership in Texas, low taxes, you know, the whole conservative agenda for the most part.
And look at Texas.
Now, Texas is despised by the elites in the Northeast simply because the way people there talk and their own attitude about where they live.
They love it and so forth.
They have their own parochialism in Texas, which is cool.
But you compare that to states that have been run for a similar number of years by full-fledged liberals like Jennifer Grantholm.
There is no comparison.
I mean, it's stark.
It stares at you right in front of your face.
You can't escape it.
The only way you can ignore it is if you choose to.
There are laboratories in this country, how to govern ourselves, how to create opportunity, economic, education, social, all those operators, how to do it.
There are laboratories to call the states, and you can see which ones lead to prosperity and which ones lead to welfare states.
It's plain and simple.
But it is considered cruel, insensitive, cold-hearted to point this out.
Because those people in these liberal states, they just got the best of intentions.
You know, they've got big hearts.
They're really compassionate people.
Yeah, fine.
Well, they don't want to be judged on the results either.
All they want to be judged on is their intentions.
And sadly, that doesn't do much for very many people.
Views expressed by the host on this program, documented to be almost always right, 99.6% of the time.
This afternoon in Atkinson, Illinois, Barack Obama still blaming the tsunami and the Arab Spring for the, by the way, there's not a single, well, I can't, I can't, because I don't have CNN on in here, but neither Fox nor PMS NBC are covering live Obama's bus tour.
And you know why?
There are any crowds.
There's no energy.
There's no messiah.
There's no aura.
There's no magic.
They're not covering it.
I know.
On CNN, they're talking about fashion right now.
So here's Obama talking about the economy, blaming the tsunami, the Arab Spring.
Even though the economy has been recovering, it has not recovered as fast as it could.
Right.
And some of those things are not in our control.
Oh, no.
And we couldn't control the tsunami in Japan that disrupted supply chains.
Oh, no.
We could not control what happened in the Middle East that drove up gas prices.
You were for it.
We don't have complete control over what happens in Europe with their problems.
You love it.
All those things have affected our economy.
Oh, my God.
This is what the American people want to hear, right?
The President of the United States, I can't do nothing.
Then why are you going to have a plan in September?
Why are you going to have, and by the way, nobody is waiting with bated breath for this plan.
But especially now, all day long, the big news has been Obama's going to say, babe, finally, we're going to get it.
We're going to get the plan, the jobs plan.
It's coming.
It's coming September 5th.
Then he goes out there and says, this is beyond our control here.
I don't know what I could do.
We couldn't control the tsunami.
If you'd lowered the sea levels like you promised, then there wouldn't have been a tsunami.
That's number one.
We couldn't control what happened in the Middle East.
That's the Arab Spring.
And you tried to take credit for it, Mr. President.
He did.
He tried to make it look like the Arab Spring was Egyptians emulating his 2008 campaign.
And we don't have complete control over what happens in Europe.
You have some control?
You love what's happening in Europe.
Europe is your gold standard.
Europe is his model.
That's where we're headed.
Well, did you see that the French and the Germans have come out and said that they, what I think is Angela Merkel and Sarkozy, I think, have both said that the EU, they better get serious about balanced budget amendments, Which that ain't going to sit well with the Messiah.
And Obama then continued here in Atkinson, Illinois on the bus tour that nobody's going to.
A couple days ago, Warren Buffett wrote an op-ed piece in which he said it's time to stop coddling billionaires.
And he pointed out that he pays a lower tax rate than anybody in his office, including his secretary.
That doesn't make any sense.
You know, if everybody took an attitude of shared sacrifice, we're not going to put the burden on any single person.
We can solve our deficit and debt problem next week.
No, we can't.
I don't want a tax break as lucky as I've been.
If that tax break means that a senior citizen is going to have to pay an extra $6,000 for their Medicare.
That's not fair.
That's not possible.
That is almost criminal.
That kind of comparison.
Typical liberal Democrat scare tactic to compare a tax break to a senior citizen having to pay $6,000 for their Medicare.
A senior citizen has to pay $6,000 for their Medicare because of your party.
You know, this Peter Thiel guy, we've spoken about him before, the PayPal founder.
You know, he's a billionaire.
He's a little eccentric.
I've met Peter, and I like this guy.
He's smart as a whip.
He's got an idea.
Wants to start all over islands of libertarianism.
I will spleen in due course.
All right, we've got another soundbite.
Get it to you real quickly next hour.
Proving my prediction of how Obama is going to run his campaign.
Hey, my agenda, boy, was great.
My record would have been great if it weren't for the Republicans and their obstruction.
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