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Oct. 13, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:43
October 13, 2011, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 Podcast.
Hiya, folks, how are you?
Great to be with you.
Great to be back already Thursday.
Here on the fastest week in media.
Authored by me, L Rushbow, your guiding light.
Your answer to everything.
Here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800 28282.
The email address L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Here's the here's the top headline in the Washington Post this morning.
Demolitions follow wave of foreclosures.
It's written by the noted journalist Brady Dennis.
No, this is not Flint, Michigan.
It's spreading.
Four years into the housing crisis.
Ohio has found a novel way to deal with vacant buildings by convincing banks to give away abandoned properties and foot the bill for demolitions.
And now other places are taking notice.
So you see, ladies and gentlemen, this is good news.
After we bulldoze houses in Detroit, the new norm, after we bulldoze vacant houses in Flint, now we bulldoze vacant houses in Ohio.
A brilliant solution to the housing crisis.
Just bulldoze houses where American families used to live.
This the new normal in the Obama economy.
The jobs news is out today.
Another 400,000 plus applied for unemployment benefits.
I don't understand why this clown isn't 10% in the polls.
I mean, intellectually I do the 30, 40% built-in stupid nimrods that can vote Democrat no matter what, but I'll tell you, 30 years ago, if a president had personally taken an axe to the U.S. economy, he wouldn't have lasted the first term.
There would have been impeachment proceedings, there would have been riots in the streets, there would have been protests over the destruction of the economy.
Instead, we got protests in the streets demanding more of this.
From a bunch of people are now making it well known they're anti-Semitic.
They're shouting anti-Jewish sentiment down there at this Occupy Wall Street business.
It's such a dirty bunch of fleabags.
They're having to close the park they've occupied.
Mayor Doomberg in his brilliance.
Hey, you gotta get out of the park, but just so we clean it.
And then you can come back in and start polluting it again.
So Mayor Doomerg, rather than treat these people as adults, is coddling to them.
The Democrats, one after another, are signing on in solidarity with these people.
Celebrities, multimillionaire celebrities are joining the group trying to get in on the fame.
Even the civil rights coalition, the Reverend Sharpton or Reverend Jackson, they're making pilgrimages down.
Everybody trying to feed off of this thing.
Back to this situation in Ohio.
This is this is reported as good news, folks.
I mean, we're houses are being bulldozed in Ohio like they are in Detroit.
And this is being presented as a is a brilliant solution.
Washington Post also has a front page piece, why some Democrats oppose the jobs bill.
They don't actually come right out and say it, of course, but the answer is quite simple.
Turns out that some Democrats love their jobs in Congress even more than they love Obama.
And then, ladies and gentlemen, there is a there's a piece, big piece.
New York Times magazine coming this weekend.
It is entitled Does Anyone Have a Grip on the GOP?
The subhead, the Republican Elite Tries to Take Its Party Back.
This article prints like 24 pages.
It is a major, major New York Times magazine piece.
It confirms everything that I have thought, everything I have speculated, everything I have said about the battle between the Republican elite and the Tea Party.
You read this, I I look it, I can't read the whole thing on the program at all intend to.
I've got some highlights or quotes that are illustrative here.
But this is an open declaration of war from the GOP elites to the Tea Party, and it's right there in the New York Times.
And these Republican establishment types are more than willing to be quoted by name.
And what I think it all means is they think that they've beaten the Tea Party hordes back.
You realize that Chuck Schumer and a bunch of Democrats are running around campaigning now against the Tea, but the Tea Party poses the greatest threat to this country.
The Tea Party is a bunch of racist sexist bigots.
This is the message, and the Republican elite, while not joining word for word that message, still joining with the Democrats the notion that the Tea Party is a problem and needs to be beaten back.
Now this piece in the New York Times illustrates the obstacles Tea Party lawmakers are up against, all these Republican freshmen in the House, for example.
This article makes it plain how difficult their job is.
There's even a section in this story on compromise.
The bad kind of compromise.
The kind of compromise that Republicans have been known for.
Get along with the Democrats.
Please the media.
Show that we're not the unreasonable Tea Party types.
That's what's shaking down here.
The Tea Party is under assault from the Democrats and the Republican elite, and now the battle has been brought full for in the pages of the New York Times magazine.
Here's some quotes from various people in this story.
Bill Kristol on the Tea Party, quote, It's an infantile form of conservatism.
Scott Reid, veteran strategist and lobbyist.
I think it's waning now.
Talking to the reporter of the story about the Tea Party's influence.
Party leaders have managed to bleed some of the anti-establishment intensity out of the movement, Scott Reid says, by slyly embracing Tea Party sympathizers in Congress rather than treating them as those people.
Now, did he mean to say that the party was slowly co-opting the Tea Partiers?
Well, we're trying to, Reid said, and that's the secret to politics.
Trying to control a segment of people without those people recognizing you're trying to control them.
This is a Republican consultant talking about how to neutralize the Tea Party.
John Fury, a lobbyist who was once a senior House aide, I think, to Denny Hastert, is also quoted, The thing I get a kick out of is these Tea Party people calling me a rhino.
No, guys, I've been a Republican all along.
You go off on your own little world and then come back and say, It's your party.
Well, this ain't your party.
Vin Weber, R. E. the Tea Party lawmakers.
Vin Weber, former member of Congress Minnesota, now big time lobbyist, and Republican consultant.
Vin Weber.
One thing I do notice about him is that when I ask him, so how are you enjoying it?
Talking about the Tea Party members of Congress.
How are you enjoying it?
Almost none of them say, oh geez, I'm really loving this.
They all say some version of this is not what I'd want to be doing, but I've got to do it for the country.
Weber seemed genuinely surprised that this aversion to Washington didn't Melt away once they arrived in town.
Gosh, what have we always speculated here?
What have we always known?
One of the biggest problems.
Conservatives run around the country campaign, get elected on conservatism, go to Washington, get corrupted and co-opted by the culture there.
Here's Vin Weber admitting it.
Ben Weber admitting it and shocked and stunned that the Tea Party guys haven't fallen for it yet.
Says he's surprised.
Yeah, they're not really loving this.
That they're they're here not doing what they want to do.
They're trying to save the country.
Weber seemed genuinely surprised that this aversion to Washington didn't melt away once they got to town.
He says, I can just tell you.
When I came to Congress, we were rabble rousers, but boy, if you'd asked any of us six months into it how we were enjoying it, we would have said this is the greatest opportunity of a lifetime.
It just struck me, and it's part and parcel is anti-government mindset.
Meaning, we in the Republican Party, we're not anti-government.
These Tea Party anti-government people, they're so damn serious they can't enjoy this.
They don't understand the kind of power they've got.
They don't realize the fun they could be having.
We got here, well, we had a ball.
We just fell right into it and we wanted to become big parts of it.
I'm I'm adding my own words here, but it's how I'm interpreting what Weber means.
Yeah, it just struck me.
Weber said it's part and parcel of this anti-government mindset.
This is a reporter writing.
I wondered if maybe the Tea Party or contempt for Washington was just a kind of outsider's shtick.
Weber replied glumly, I'd feel better about it if I thought it was.
But Weber's, I think these people are genuinely anti-Washington.
Makes him nervous.
Can't, if they're anti-Washington, we don't want them here.
Charlie Black, longtime Republican strategist and lobbyist, confidently predicted when he talked to the New York Times reporter about the more radical members of the freshman class, they'll become the establishment.
You wait.
I thought George Will said there was no Republican establishment anymore.
I thought the Republican establishment itself was trying to say there was no establishment in recent weeks.
I thought they were all saying that's just a fiction of everybody's imagination.
Here's Charlie Black.
Yeah, they'll become the establishment.
They'll become talking about the Tea Party freshmen.
They'll become the establishment in time.
Not worried about it.
Bill Crystal again.
I've been slightly not worried, but I've just regarded it as one of the things I can do as a genuine Tea Party sympathizer to counsel the Tea Party types to be sensible, not go overboard and not go in the wrong direction.
From my point of view, I wouldn't want them to win all of their fights.
Wants them to lose some.
Bill Kristol wants Tea Party to lose some.
The New York Times is worried that the wrong people might get control of the Republicans.
That's what this story is about.
The reason why this story is running is because of abject fear of the Tea Party.
The Washington elite love a Republican elite that agrees to be second fiddle.
The media and the Washington elite love a Republican elite who agree to be the minority.
The Washington elite, the New York Times, the media love a Republican elite.
That understands its place is number two.
In the pecking order.
So the New York Times is now worried the wrong people might get control of the GOP.
And you know how concerned the New York Times is about the well-being of the Republican Party.
They need the party to maintain its mindset of second fiddle, second place, always on defense.
Always not really in the click, striving to get in it.
That's what they want the Republican Party to be in the Tea Party threatens that.
Scott Reed.
Yep, trying to.
That's the secret of politics.
Trying to control a segment of people without those people recognizing you're trying to control them.
Luckily, none of these hicks in the Tea Party would ever read the New York Times, they won't figure out what's being done to them.
Stop and think of this.
Here are these Republican elites announcing all of this, being quoted by name in the New York Times Sunday magazine, as though the Tea Party members of Congress are never going to find out about this.
It's a I don't know, open declaration of war.
What we've always known is going on, what they've always denied is going on.
Here it's happening.
And now the New York Times proudly writes a cover story in this weekend's magazine.
7,028 words, 73 paragraphs.
From the New York Times article, George Will recently said there is no such thing as the Republican establishment, which is a little like Michael Douglas saying there's no such thing as Hollywood.
That's from the article.
That's not me.
Mitt Romney, an advisor, was on MSNBC, Jonathan Gruber, MIT professors.
Look, you guys don't have it right.
Romney care was the basis for Obamacare.
All that coming up, plus other things too.
Sit tight, we'll be right back.
Don't go away.
You know, it's funny.
On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the New York Times claims that I run the Republican Party.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, uh, I don't exist.
I've just an entertainer, I guess.
And this is Thursday, and that's when the article, well, the article actually hit yesterday, but it didn't become known until today when uh when I made it known.
Uh, have you heard about the memo from Chuck Yo Schumer that's been floating around?
Apparently, it reveals how the current Democrat campaign strategy is to tie the Republican Party to the radical Tea Party.
This is designed to scare the American public.
All those crazy mom and pop radicals in the Tea Party movement.
Meanwhile, Obama and the rest of the top Democrat leadership doing everything they can to show their solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protesters.
The Democrats claim that the Wall Street protesters represent hardworking middle class Americans being screwed somehow by Tea Party, the Republicans.
That's how out of touch the Democrats are with the population of this country.
There's a Rasmussen poll out today.
Nearly eight in ten Americans now see the country on the wrong track.
Sixteen percent of likely American voters still believe the country's doing well.
I mean, this this is uh eight and ten Americans now see the country on the wrong track.
I said I I have a problem with all this polling.
If that's true, if 80% of the American people think that the country's on the wrong track, why is Obama at 40% in the polls or 42% in the polls?
Some of this stuff just doesn't make any sense to me.
But if that's 80%, country's in the wrong track, we ought to not be even Obama not shouldn't even be a viable candidate.
And yet the Democrats are happy.
The Democrats are at the top of the mountain.
The Democrats think they have they have repelled the Tea Party.
They are convinced the Tea Party's lost energy, lost members, lost membership.
Tea Party is shrinking in size, it's shrinking in energy.
There is no leader.
They think they have successfully characterized the Tea Party as a bunch of racist bigots.
And they openly throw in with a created phony Group of people whose agenda is nothing more than Obama's and the Democrat Party.
Here's a list of proposed demands for Congress from the Occupy Wall Street.org forum.
And remember, this is the group formed by ad busters, an anti-Semitic bunch of uh people, anti-consumerists.
And on their website, this is the Obama agenda.
Congress must pass H.R. 1489, Return to Prudent Banking Act, reinstating many provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act.
You think these clowns running around lower Manhattan have the slightest idea that that's what they're marching for.
Number two, use congressional authority and oversight to ensure appropriate federal agencies fully investigate and prosecute Wall Street criminals.
Anyway, I gotta take a break here, folks, as the obscene profit timeouts don't float at this time of the hour.
So we'll take a quick time out.
We'll come back and continue and eventually weave your phone calls into all of this.
Okay, so a question.
Ladies and gentlemen.
New York Times magazine article this weekend featuring Republican establishment types quoted by name as attacking the Tea Party, suggesting the Tea Party is fading away.
Tea Party members of Congress really not getting in on things.
They're not they're not getting down with the program.
Uh really a weird bunch of uh people.
The Democrats led by Chuck Schumer.
Tea Party's a thing of the past, a bunch of racist thugs, uh they've lost their energy, they've lost their mojo, they have lost members.
You don't even see them anymore.
We can't even f where is the Tea Party today?
We're just kicking ass.
We've got the Wall Street crowd on our side, Wall Street crowd, that's who that's his uh captured everybody's attention.
The magic is no longer with a Tea Party.
It's with the Wall Street crowd.
By the way, let me continue with a list of proposed demands for Congress from Occupy Wall Street.org.
Number three, Congress enact legislation to protect our democracy by reversing the effects of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision.
Man, that really has gotten under their skin.
Citizens United.
Anyway, you can take a stroll down lower Manhattan in the Wall Street area and pick a random protester and run any of these things by them, and other than putting a Wall Street guy in jail, they wouldn't know what you're talking about.
Number four, Congress passed the Buffett rule on fair taxation so the rich and corporations pay their fair share and close corporate tax loopholes and enact a prohibition on hiding funds offshore.
Now, where is that story?
What did I do with that story?
This old guy Kaiser, did I put that at the bottom of the stack by accident?
See, I hope yes, here it is.
Cylindra funder Kaiser paid zero taxes for years.
This is Mark Tap Scott, the Washington Examiner.
Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser has been in the headlines in recent months thanks to his role as a major investor in Cylindra, the now bankrupt California solar panel maker hailed by Obama as a model for America's clean energy future.
Kaiser was a campaign bundler, an individual who collects contributions to a candidate from others and are then simultaneously given to the candidate.
Because Kaiser raised about $250,000 for Obama during the 08 campaign, congressional Republicans and media analysts have speculated that Cylinder loan guarantee was nothing more than using tax dollars to reward a political supporter.
No kidding.
It's money laundering.
And how much of the 250,000 dollars gets up back in Obama's back pocket.
But the Cylindra scandal is far from George Kaiser's first brush with political controversy.
As the Sunlight Foundation's Bill Allison reports today, Kaiser has been extraordinarily wealthy, become extraordinarily wealthy by taking advantage of the federal tax code in ways that some tax experts, including the IRS believe to be illegal.
So here you have a major Obama bundler, fundraiser, donor, recipient of crony capitalism largesse, big time investor in Sylindra, paying no taxes.
And no doubt supporting the Wall Street protesters.
As Bill Allison reports in his Sunlight Post today, in one six-year period during which he increased his net worth enough to land him on the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans, Kaiser reported taxable income to the IRS just once, totaling 11,699 dollars, equivalent to a full-time hourly wage of $5.62.
And you won't see a word about this anywhere.
You won't see anybody upset about it, won't be in the media anywhere.
Big time Obama bundler, multi billionaire, paying no taxes.
Zilt zero nada.
And yet the Occupy Wall Street people demand that the Buffett rule on fair taxation be passed so the rich and corporations pay their fair share.
Close corporate tax loopholes.
Enact a prohibition on hiding funds offshore.
Number five, Congress completely revamp the Securities and Exchange Commission and staff it at all levels with proven professionals who get the job done protecting the integrity of the marketplace so citizens and investors are both protected.
You know, these protesters, I'm sure don't realize how much time it takes to surf for pornography.
You'll recall many securities and exchange commission workers were busted for spending much of their day watching porn on their computers back in April of 2010.
Remember that?
None of them were fired, though.
They're unionized.
I'm sure if the Wall Street protesters found out about this, they'd want in on the action.
Okay, free porn.
We want that too.
Number six, Congress passed specific and effective laws limiting the influence of lobbyists and eliminating the practice of lobbyists writing legislation that ends up on the floor of Congress.
This is this is the official list of demands at Occupy Wall Street.org.
It's the Obama agenda.
Number seven, Congress must pass the resolving door legislation, legislation eliminating the ability of former government regulators going to work for corporations they once regulated.
There are laws on the books already addressing this, except for the news media, where the news media can go through the revolving door anytime they want.
And number eight, eliminate personhood legal status for corporations.
Whatever that is.
Well, no, Citizens United is mentioned earlier as that's its own separate demand.
Congress must enact legislation to protect our democracy by reversing the effects of citizens united.
That's number five.
Well, how do they get what?
Oh, well, this is that's two different things.
You're confusing, snurtly.
He's asking me, how do you go from forgive all debt to this?
The forgive all debt came from a genuine Looney Tune individual walking the street.
This is the official organization website.
That loony tune doesn't have any idea what he's actually marching for.
None of these Looney Tunes have any clue what this is.
The only thing on here that they would even recognize is putting a Wall Street guy in jail.
That's it.
Pure and simple.
So my question to you after all of this is somebody tell me.
What has changed from November of 2010?
Regarding the Tea Party.
What's changed?
Chuck Schumer running around, we beat him back.
They're they're hell.
We can't even find them.
They don't even show up anywhere anymore.
Tea Party, they're not professionals.
They're just average citizens.
They don't even really like government.
They don't like politics.
They were fed up for a while, but as far as the Democrats are convinced you Tea Party people are out of energy.
You've just had your say.
You're watching the Republican nomination, you're not being listened to, your candidates aren't going anywhere.
You say, ah, screw it, and you fold it.
The New York Times has a big story about the Republican establishment trying to marginalize the Tea Party.
So the Washington establishment is convinced the Tea Party's gone.
My question is what has changed since November of 2010 with the Tea Party.
Now, I understand the power of the media that's paint a picture to create an image.
And they're doing it, and this is what this is all about.
In fact, the Tea Party never really was real.
That's where this is headed.
The Tea Party was an aberration.
It was one of those odd things that happens in politics now and then.
But they really, you listen to Tea Party people, they're not even as energetic as they were.
There's a school board election, I can tell you, there's a school board election in Wake County in North Carolina, where every Tea Party candidate got shellacked.
And the Democrat strategy in the campaign was to paint them all as racists.
And so the theory is that the way you beat Tea Party candidates is to call them racists.
This from public policy polling.
They analyzed this.
These are, I mean, the essence of local election school board, but nevertheless, the theory is that you can beat a Tea Party candidate by calling them racists.
That it's been done in North Carolina, and so that's the end of it.
So that that would be one thing that you might say has changed.
But aside from that.
Somebody tell me what really has changed from November 2010.
If the 2010 November elections were today, would the results be any different than they were then?
That's what they're trying to tell us.
Chuck Schumer and the Republican establishment are trying to tell us that if the November 2010 elections were held today, that there wouldn't have been that landslide Republican win.
It wouldn't have happened.
So the Tea Party is waning when Michelle Bachman has won the only actual vote taken so far, the Iowa Straw poll.
Well, Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll.
And the Herman Cain is leading in most opinion polls.
In Herman Cain's Tea Party, 70% of Republican voters say they don't like Romney, one more One aspect or another of Romney.
There's the establishment.
The Tea Party's faded away, but somehow their candidates are in serious contention in the polls.
These racist Tea Partiers who have put Herman Cain at the top in the most recent poll.
Herman Cain, you may not know this is African American.
And he's at the top of the polling date.
And the Tea Party put him there.
But the Tea Party didn't exist.
They're racists and they're fading away.
When we come back, Mitt Romney advisor Jonathan Gruber explaining how Romney care was in fact the basis for Obamacare.
And a few thoughts on why Romney didn't get hit with this in the Boomberg debate on Tuesday night.
Hammerback, El Rushboat serving humanity, executing a signed host duties flawlessly.
Talent on loan from a god.
So Republican establishment types who feed off of government are telling the New York Times, which is a liberal partisan outlet that the Tea Party is crazy and impotent, which is then echoed by Chuck Yu Schumer, who is a partisan liberal Democrat, who knows that the Senate is about to be lost to his party.
Do I get this right?
And by the way, Chuck Hugh Schumer is out there, oh no, no, no, we're going to win this Senate, and we're going to win it easily.
I have it somewhere in one of my numerous stacks.
In the old days, I used to have stacks, positive and negative, and there was always, you know, one negative stack, the other a positive.
Now I can barely struggle to find three positive things.
Chuck Schumer, impossible for Democrats to lose the Senate in 2012.
And right there it is in the LA Times.
Impossible.
When you look at it from 30,000 feet, yeah, it looks bad, said Chuck Yu at a breakfast meeting at Third Way, the moderate Democrat think there's no such thing as a moderate Democrat, by the way.
You look at it race by race, and it looks good.
Totally delusional.
But they're being positive.
You put the nose, put the news out that the Tea Party's fading away.
It never really was anything.
Lose the Senate.
Give me a break.
We're gonna win the Senate.
So the Republican establishments types feeding off government.
Join with the Democrats in proclaiming the Tea Party dead and impotent.
Now, all of these people that are quoted.
You know, and I hate this.
I really, I really hate getting into all this.
This is we all used to be on the same team.
Do you realize that?
I've been doing this for 23 years, and I remember the first ten.
We were all on the same team.
There wasn't a dime's worth of difference.
I don't know, I don't have to think about this.
I'm gonna have to think about when the Republican establishment finally gave up and decided they wanted to be Democrat light.
I don't know, or better stated, when did they decide they had to start taking out conservatives?
Now I know they didn't like Reagan.
I know you can trace it all back.
The Republican establishment has always been who they are.
I'm not I'm not taking that off the table.
I'm just telling you that from the standpoint of media.
When I started this in 1988, the next 10 years, I mean, yeah, there were jealousies, and when Mr. Buckley died, everybody was angling to be the next William F. Buckley to be the leader of the conservative movement, and there were those typical uh fraternity type battles, but we were all on the same team.
I know the Republican established in 1995 hated the government shutdown, but we're we're not on the same team now, it seems.
You know, this is this is what's tough about this.
So here's Bill Kristol, who once thanked me for defending him against some attack that had been launched against him at a party at Bill Bennett's house.
That that would never happen today.
There wouldn't be a party at Bill Bennett's house, and Crystal wouldn't thank me for anything.
Anyway, I'm forced to ask here.
How many constituents does Bill Crystal have at the weekly standard?
How many readers are what how many?
What's the reach there?
How many constituents do this guy, Scott Reed and Vin Weber have the constituents that we know Tea Party has.
How many conservatives support Chuck Schumer or read the New York Times?
How many conservatives crave being covered by the New York Times?
How many conservatives salivate and consider it a career advancement to be quoted in the New York Times?
Not many.
So a sense, I guess the ruling class does not like the people.
And they tell us in this New York Times piece that the people are infantile, puerile, impotent, and can't win.
Well, we shall see.
They're doing everything they can to force a nominee on the Tea Parties that they don't want.
They're trying to limit the presidential choice on the Republican side.
We'll see.
But I just I do, you know, nostalgia.
I remember folks when we were all on the same team.
And now we're not.
Yet the Republican establishment is doing everything it can to force a nominee on them.
They don't want me, the Tea Party, trying to limit the presidential choice between a hard leftist socialist Democrat hellbent on taking down the country and a fairly liberal Republican who doesn't want to rock the boat.
That's what the Republican establishment wants.
Anyway, sit tight.
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