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Oct. 28, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:43
October 28, 2011, Friday, Hour #3
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Honestly, folks, I kid you not when I tell you that Occupy Wall Street protesters are saying to themselves and to us that they are gearing up for their Valley Forge moment.
It's Friday.
Let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday!
Open Line Friday, where I, El Rushbo, take one of the greatest career risks known to exist in major big media.
And that's turning over the content of the most listened-to radio talk show in the world to people who have no idea what they're doing with it.
Rank amateurs, lovable rank amateurs, nevertheless.
The reason, actually, some would say it's not a career risk because amateurs are now running big media organizations, news and what have you.
At any rate, we love you all.
And Open Line Friday is when you have the chance to talk about whatever you wish to talk about.
Whether I care about it or not, doesn't matter.
Monday through Thursday, it does matter.
You have to talk about what I'm interested in or you don't make it.
But on Friday, golden opportunity for you to ask a question, make a comment about anything that you want, including if you think something that should be discussed that hasn't been.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882 and the email address LRushbo at EIBnet.com from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Actually, it's an AP story.
Anti-Wall Street protesters around the country who are vowing to stand their ground against the police and the politicians are also digging in against a different kind of adversary, cold weather.
With the temperatures dropping, they're stockpiling donated coats, blankets, and scarves, trying to secure cots and military-grade tents, and getting survival tips from the homeless who have joined their encampments.
Now, stop and think of that.
Occupy Wall Streeters soliciting survival tips from the homeless.
And don't forget this.
They have done thermal imaging of the tent city at Occupy London at night, and they have found that 90% of the tents are empty.
Those spoiled brats go back to mom and dad's house, toque up, spend the night, come back the next day, and make it look like they never left.
Michael McCarthy, a former Navy medic in Providence, says everybody has been calling it our Valley Forge moment.
Everybody thought George Washington couldn't possibly survive in the Northeast.
So these people are comparing what they're doing to George Washington at Valley Forge.
It's not even November.
Now, there is going to be a little snowstorm in the Northeast.
Connecticut, New York may see some flakes.
Boston.
No, it's not a blizzard, but it's given how early it is in the season, it's a significant snow, but to compare themselves to George Washington, it's our Valley Forge moment.
More than a month and a half into the movement, Occupy Wall Street activists from New York to Colorado have pledged to tough it out.
The snow, the sleet, and the cold as they protest economic inequality and what they call corporate greed.
But the dangers of staying outdoors in some of the country's harsher climates are already becoming apparent.
In Denver, two protesters were hospitalized with hypothermia this week during a storm that brought several inches of snow.
The activists also know full well that the number of demonstrators is likely to drop as the weather gets colder.
Some movements are scouting locations indoors, including vacant buildings or other unused properties, maybe even foreclosed homes, though some question the wisdom of holding a protest outside the public eye.
In other words, if we go inside, nobody's going to see us.
Then there's this: Democrat Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren said yesterday the Wall Street protests were independent and organic.
She's conceding that she misspoke during an earlier interview in which she seemed to be taking credit for the movement.
What I meant to say, yes, I've been protesting Wall Street for a long time now.
That's what I meant to say.
What she said was she created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do.
Now she's trying to walk that back by saying that the Occupy Wall Street movement's organic, it's independent, and that's how it should be.
I really didn't have much to do with that.
Why would she walk this back?
Are the Occupy Wall Street people getting mad over who's getting credit for this?
Why would she walk this back?
The only reason she'd walk it back is if it's going to hurt her campaign.
This woman, by the way, is the one who oversaw TARP.
She's the one.
She was in the regime.
She oversaw the TARP, the bailouts.
She's a Harvard professorette.
Governor Jerry Brown is risking a backlash on his pension plan.
Governor Jerry Brown, California, proposed a sweeping overhaul of California pension.
Wait, I don't care about this.
I don't care about it.
I don't care about it today.
Let's see.
I can't read this one.
It's too small.
Ah, here's one.
The expiration of federal stimulus funding for Medicaid has dealt a blow to states still struggling to recover from the economic downturn, according to figures released yesterday.
To compensate for the loss of extra federal Medicaid dollars this June, states have increased their spending on the program by an average of 29%.
Does that make sense?
To compensate for the loss of revenue, they're spending more.
It's a Washington Post story, and it's a sob story.
And some people might find it odd, or it might be news to you, that Medicaid spending was stimulus, but it was the expiration of federal stimulus funding for Medicaid.
Did you know that the original Porculus bill had money in it for Medicaid?
And that's how we were going to rebuild roads and bridges and schools and have shovel-ready jobs by having more money for Medicaid in the states.
And now, like all other areas of the porculus, the money's running out.
And the states don't know what to do.
So they're spending more.
Tracy Gordon, a researcher at the Brookings Institution who specializes in state budgets.
Boy, what a career that is.
You imagine getting up every day and saying, this is what you get to do?
Yeah, I'm going to go and study state budgets.
Said that there were signs of progress.
Nevertheless, the growth in Medicaid enrollment is slowing, and states have had six straight quarters of revenue growth.
Still, she said, state revenues remain at least 6% lower than pre-recession levels, and the states are projecting a total of $46 billion in budget shortfalls for the fiscal year that will start next July because the stimulus is ending.
She said that one option nobody is pushing is another round of federal stimulus spending to help us out.
I really think it just boils down to the federal government's budget challenges, she said.
And in this environment, I think additional aid to the states just isn't going to be forthcoming, but that's the solution.
We just need more stimulus.
We need more money for Medicaid from the state.
Wait till you see Obamacare, Ms. Gordon, when that gets implemented.
Well, you see what kind of problems the states will be in then.
Let's see.
A guy at PJPA, I guess Pajamas Media, terrorism researcher by the name of Patrick Poole is reporting that Mohamed Eli Biari, an appointee on Obama's Homeland Security Advisory Council, is in hot water with the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The issue is whether this guy used his privileged access to a state law enforcement database to acquire intelligence reports and then tried to shop them to the media, urging that they showed rampant Islamophobia at the Texas Department of Public Safety under Governor Rick Perry.
So a regime employee, a regime employee at Homeland Security got hold of some data at a state law enforcement database and was shopping it to the media, hoping to get them to use it against Governor Rick Perry of Texas on the basis he's an Islamophobe.
Mr. Poole said that no story was published because according to one press source, there was nothing remotely resembling Islamophobia in the leaked reports, but that didn't stop the guy.
The Obama regime guy still tried to shop reports.
He said, hey, look at this.
Perry's an Islamophobe.
And he shopped it.
And the media took the stuff, obviously.
But they didn't run it because they said there's no Islamophobia here.
We don't see any Islamophobia.
Now, this guy, Eli Bieri, you'll be stunned to learn, was on the Obama Department of Homeland Security Working Group on Countering Violent Extremism.
That's the group, the Brain Trust, that helped devise the new Obama counterterrorism strategery that envisions having law enforcement pair back their intelligence gathering activities and take their marching orders from community partners.
Let me run that by you again.
That might sound a little bit convoluted.
This guy, Mohamed Eli Bieri, who went to the database in Texas, tried to find some info on Perry, got some info on Perry, then shopped it to the media, trying to get them to run stories on Perry being an Islamophobe.
The media didn't because the database didn't have any such information.
This is the same guy who was in the Department of Homeland Security working group on countering violent extremism.
He devised a new Obama counterterrorism strategy that envisions having law enforcement pull back their intelligence gathering activities and take their marching orders from community partners.
So what that means is that this guy for Obama told the cops and local law enforcement, don't do any investigations.
We'll tell you who the bad actors are in the neighborhood.
We'll tell you who the security threats are.
We will tell you who the terrorist threats are.
You stop looking for them.
And of course, the purpose of that is so the regime can make sure that the real terrorism culprits are not identified.
Make no bones about this.
That's exactly what this is.
And this is the guy trying to shop non-news, fake news about Perry being an Islamophobe to the media.
It's Open Line Friday, and that means we focus a little more on the phones, and that can be good or bad.
We never know.
Davis, Michigan is our next attempt.
This is Mike.
You're up, sir.
Great to have you on the program.
Davison, Michigan, a suburb of Flint.
I'm a Rush geezer.
You a few months ago asked what was the difference between a communist and a current-day Democrat.
I did.
Yes, that was about two months ago.
I asked that.
I don't ask questions.
I answer them.
Well, you had a thought anyway.
You had mentioned it, and I thought of two things that are different between a communist and today's Democrat.
You just said that because you want to call and tell us the answer, but I didn't ask that question.
Well, I'll tell you what I think the answer is.
Okay, I knew that's what was going on here.
I use that technique a lot.
A communist will secure his borders and support his military.
And an American liberal won't.
A communist will protect his borders and support his military.
The only two differences I can see between a Democrat and a communist.
Hmm, interesting.
I wonder if there would be any other differences.
Those are two key differences.
A Democrat will not protect the border and will denigrate their military.
The communists, you're right.
The communists do protect, and not only do they protect their borders, they enforce them and they support the military.
In fact, they turn their countries into third world countries in order to have first world militaries.
That is pretty good.
I'll take it.
That's a pretty good distinction.
And it ought to embarrass the Democrats.
Well, I know it won't, but it ought to.
I mean, they're out there trying to be good communists.
And look at there are two examples of how they're failing.
David in Nashville, your turn.
Open Line Friday.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
First, thanks for letting this lovable amateur chime in.
This is the second time I've gotten through in my life, and it is a thrill of a lifetime.
I'm glad you made it.
You have made some great points about how the media sort of helps create some of the issues and create some of the stories.
And it reminded me back when I was in high school, I had a social studies teacher who was a, he had been a student at Kent State and was there when the protests went on and when they burned down the ROTC building and things like that.
And he shared with us that when the ROTC building was burned down, he said it was like watching a movie or a TV commercial being filmed where the students tried to burn it down one time and it didn't start.
And so then they went to the news media and said, okay, we're going to try it again.
And so, you know, it was like, okay, roll the cameras.
They tried it a second time.
It didn't light.
On the third time, the news media actually stepped in and gave them advice as to how to get the building to burn.
Didn't work the third time.
And then the fourth time, again, after getting input from the news media telling them how to start the fire, finally, on the fourth time it started.
And he said, back in those days, NBC knew how to blow up trucks on their dateline show.
ABC knew how to infiltrate grocery stores and make things look like they weren't what they weren't.
So the fact that the media would help the Kent State people start a fire all for the purposes of having a story, not surprised at all.
Right.
What it did for me, though, it gave a valuable learning lesson.
Anytime I see something on the news, I question it and I think, okay, who's really behind it, and what's the story that's really behind it?
And you do a great point.
I try to spend the first 30 minutes of my lunch every day listening to you, so that way I really know what's going on.
Well, that's wise.
News media is very seductive because it's so consistent from network to network, from newspaper to newspaper.
The news in ABC, CBS, NBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, it's identical.
And therefore, it's consistent.
And when people see a news story treated identically in so many places, they just have to assume that's actually what happened.
That's actually the truth, when oftentimes it isn't.
And I think you're very wise.
I think everybody ought to be suspicious and questioning, curious and doubtful of everything they see in the media for that very reason.
So I'm glad that you have your sensitivities tuned that way.
Thanks very much.
Where are we headed next?
Ron in Prosper, Texas.
You're next on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
I love your show, Rush.
Thanks for taking my call.
Yes, sir.
You know, Rush, so much of the media and talk shows try to frame the problems with our country, whether they're good or bad, based on, you know, Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative.
And the problem that I have with it, I think our country has got a real moral or we don't call it ethical problem.
Every time I turn around, you know, today in the news was the railroad workers, you know, frauding $1 billion.
Out here in Texas, it was a big real estate thing and a bunch of 20 to 40 people from lawyers all the way down.
You know, it was $200 million to a bank.
You know, George Bush didn't tell these people to defraud the country.
And so much of it, like I said, labels don't mean a lot to me.
I think that, you know, whether you're a made-off and you have access to a billion dollars and you steal it, or you're a janitor and you steal a dollar, you know, it's still the same.
You do it no matter what.
And so I think our country is in trouble simply because we don't have our values have really degraded.
And, you know, I could go on and on.
And I'd like to get your opinion on that.
Well, it's been the case for a number of years.
In fact, multiple generations.
There's no question that there's been a moral and cultural decline purposely waged.
The left wants no judgmentalism.
The left does not think anybody is qualified to sit in judgment of them.
They are qualified to sit in judgment.
But I don't think there's any question about that.
Standards have been obliterated and have been blurred.
This has led to a lot of confusion and a sense that there's really nothing that's really wrong anyway.
There's explanations for everything.
Back to the phones, Open Line Friday, Eaton Town, New Jersey.
Hi, Ed.
Great to have you.
I'm glad you called, sir.
Welcome.
Thank you, Rush.
Dr. Rush, that is.
I appreciate you.
I'm here to talk about politics.
And specifically, when we passed the deficit ceiling a few months ago, we put triggers into it in case they couldn't come to an agreement.
Politico is reporting today that the weeper of the House, Bonner, and the Democrats are trying to come to an agreement to take out all these triggers.
Why this is so upsetting to me is I know the answer to the Medicaid problem that you talked about before.
And it's all wound up with the amount of our deficit.
Specifically, when states pay Medicaid, they charge three or four times that it actually costs them out of pocket.
And they get 50% back from the federal government.
So if they're increasing their budgets for Medicaid, they're actually getting more money from the federal government to fund things.
You go for a band-aid in an emergency room.
They bill you $1,000.
It costs $100. to actually provide the service.
This is why the deficit plan was so significant.
And now we're seeing the Republicans caving in on it, apparently.
I'm glad you brought this up.
I had it in the stack and I forgot that it was there.
But you're right.
For the most part, the Republicans and the Democrats are trying to get rid of some of the obstacles that they were forced to put in their own way during the last debt ceiling debate while nobody is looking.
And what they don't understand is that everybody's looking and everybody's noticing.
And the Tea Party is not shrinking in size, nor is it shrinking in its passion.
And this is not going to go down well.
I'm well aware of that.
The other thing is, if you ever get to the OWS on Wall Street, you better hold your nose because there's violations of air quality.
You can't believe the smell.
It's like being in the middle of a garbage dump.
You are.
You are.
These guys run around.
They look like urine.
They smell like urine.
It is a pig's die.
I know.
It's a total 100% pig's die.
And of course, that doesn't matter.
You know, the mayor says you can't smoke except they can.
The mayor says you can't sleep overnight in a park except they can.
The mayor says you can't pollute the city except they can.
I want to make one more comment.
What is that one more comment?
98% of all the people that work in financial services in this country are good people.
The small number of people that created the problem in mortgages are the incredible minority.
And allowing the president to just defecate on all these good Americans work very, very hard.
It's upsetting to me.
But what's the difference?
Look, amen.
Amen.
But that's true of every business the Democrats have on their enemies list.
Everybody in big oil is a creep.
Everybody in big pharmaceuticals is a creep.
Everybody in big retail is a creep.
Hell, everybody in a corporation is creep.
You know how to really tick off a liberal?
You want to really tick them off?
Just say to them, oh, wait a minute.
What is a corporation?
It's just people.
They just go ballistic.
Because in their minds, a corporation is not people.
A corporation is the embodiment of spiritual evil.
Maybe not spiritual, but it is because they don't believe in spiritual.
But a corporation to them is not people.
You tell them that all it is is people.
It's your neighbors.
There are people that work for the corporation.
And a lot of people who work for the quote-unquote corporation don't like it either.
They think they're underpaid.
The same things happen in corporations that happen in any other organization of human beings.
Everything that happens in every club, in every group of people, happens in a corporation.
But they have this mental characteristic in their head of a corporation that's superhuman, that it's all-powerful, that it is robotic, and that it's evil.
It's devoid of any reality.
Now, the first, I want to go back to the first story that you talked about with the triggers and how the Republicans and Democrats are trying to erase the triggers, the obstacles that are in their way to further spending.
And you've got to keep in mind now, this story is in the politico.
And I know some of the guys politico, and I don't mean to be impugning the politico, but it's clear that the politico has got sympathies toward Obama and the Democrat Party and so forth.
But this story in the political makes it sound like the Republican leadership, John Boehner, who you call the weaker of the House.
I caught that.
Story in the political makes it sound like the Republican leadership is afraid that another standoff over debt will hurt the Republican reelection effort.
It is the same thing.
And the reason that the Republicans, if the politico is right, and I'll add that as a caveat, if the politico is right, the Republican leadership doesn't want another debt ceiling fight because they're afraid of the impact it'll have on their reelection effort, it's simply because they continue to believe that the only media that matters is the quote legacy or mainstream or drive-by media.
And if the drive-by media is critical of them, then that's all that matters.
Doesn't matter who else would be praiseworthy.
It doesn't matter who else might be critical.
If the drive-bys are critical, if the Washington Post, New York Times, you take it, name it CBSNBC, if they're critical, oh, can't have that.
They think that they have to use those people to get their message out.
They think those people have to approve of what they're doing if they're going to survive.
It's frustrating as it can be.
And it all centers around the independents.
The media inside Washington, the establishment media, along with the establishment, everybody, tells the Republicans, the independents really don't like you opposing Obama.
They don't like you opposing spending.
The independents want this country to recover.
They want the economic recovery to happen and they want federal spending.
It's just, they get away with putting fear in these people's hearts each and every time they try.
Now, that's the politico story.
That's what, as you read it, it sounds like that the Republican leadership is afraid that if they have another debt fight, they'll lose it.
The media will be critical of them, and they'll be accused of wanting to be hard-hearted and cold-hearted to the poor and the hungry and the thirsty and the suffering.
And they don't want that said about them.
And it will hurt their reelection efforts.
So they choose the path of least resistance, which in this case is whatever the Democrats and the media want.
If it's more spending, fine.
And we'll do what we can to make it look like we are not opposed to it.
This is how ridiculous it's getting.
Last night on the MSNBC, Barney Franks showed up.
He was on with Al Sharpton.
And Sharpton said to him, House Republicans keep saying that they have ideas for jobs.
Are they credible?
No, they are literally doing the opposite of what virtually every economist except for a handful on the right think, which is at this point, you should not be further retrenching government spending.
And every month for the last year, the private sector has gained jobs, and the public sector has lost jobs.
Firefighters, public works employees, teachers, cops have been laid off.
So, again, there is an overwhelming consensus that the short-term, this comes from Bush appointees like Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve, you need to do some things that stimulate.
Never stops, does it?
Never stop.
Why, every day, cops are being laid off.
Every day, firefighters are being laid off.
Every day, teachers are being laid off.
And guess where all the jobs are going?
Private sector.
Yeah.
You've seen all those private sector jobs created, haven't you?
You may have gotten one.
Yeah, yeah.
It's the private sector getting all the goodies.
The public sector getting screwed.
And so we need more stimulus.
We need more federal money to go hire these precious people.
By the way, speaking of this, you know, we talked about Ohio and their election on November 8th.
And there are two really important issues on that ballot.
One is issue two, the other is issue three.
Issue two would replicate what happened to Wisconsin vis-a-vis state employees, unionized state employees, take away some collective bargaining rights that would require them to make modest contributions to their own pension plans, like you and I do.
We have to contribute to our own 401ks.
Now, the news out of Ohio is that the unions are going to win this one slam dunk big time, but apparently that is not true.
An internal memo from a key labor-backed group in Ohio is flatly warning that the polls that are being reported now are flawed and that a big win for labor is not even remotely possible.
It adds, this memo, this internal memo, adds that the conservative messaging has worked and that there's good reason to suspect that a massive amount of voter confusion remains suggesting that this thing is still wide open.
It can go either way.
They're trying to say that the union is going to win this thing in a slam dunk, and it's not.
A big win for labor is not even remotely possible.
It's close.
It's crucial.
Issue three on the Ohio ballot on November 8th is also crucial.
Very important.
That issue, that ballot initiative, basically states that Ohioans will opt out of any federal mandate to buy health insurance.
And that is key.
That has to pass.
That will send a message to the United States Supreme Court.
It'll send a message to a lot of people.
If that goes down to, let's put it this way, if the state of Ohio does not opt out of the federal mandate, I can guarantee you what the news is going to be.
The news is going to be, here's a swing state, very important to the presidential race, could go either way, and those people want Obamacare.
That's what's at stake with issue three.
If the people of Ohio do not pass issue three and reject and exempt themselves from the Obamacare mandate, then Katie bar the door, it isn't going to be pretty.
And it could very well have influence on the Supreme Court ruling.
The regime is asking for a very fast ruling on Obamacare.
And Supreme Court justices, they pay attention to public opinion polls.
Don't doubt me on this.
They pay attention to election results.
And if there's a swing vote in the Supreme Court and that justice happens to see that people in Ohio had a chance to reject the mandate, had a chance to exempt themselves from Obamacare and they didn't, could be the end of the line.
Something to keep in mind.
We'll keep you posted.
It's still a couple of weeks away.
Well, less than two weeks away.
It's a week from Tuesday.
But issue two, issue three in Ohio, very important.
Got to take a break.
We'll do it.
Be back and continue before you know it.
Open line Friday rolls on Rushland Boy, as usual.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Harry in Portland, Oregon.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Thank you.
Been trying to get to you for years.
Here you are, your big showbiz break.
Yes.
I wanted to challenge your thinking about alternative energy a little bit.
I'll be 68 pretty soon.
I started thinking about alternative energy in 65.
Nowadays, people call it green energy, and I don't like it, that idea.
But alternative energy means that you can buy a piece of property that's out in the country, away from power lines, and you can have a home, you can have power, and you don't have to worry about paying thousands of dollars to get a power line brought to your house.
You can be totally self-sufficient.
I've lived off the grid a couple times in my life.
The first two times, there were no PV panels, so you did it with, you know, you used kerosene lanterns and wood stoves and wood heat, and it's comfortable.
You have batteries for radios.
But with, I've boondocked for about five years, which means living in a camper, traveling around, and you don't stay in RV parks.
You just stay in the desert or wherever you want.
And I had a PV panel on the top of the camper and kept our batteries pretty well charged up.
You can have a small, probably for you, it'd be very small, like a cabin in the woods or someplace, and you can provide about 90 to 95% of your needs with, say, 1,000 watts of PV panel and a small wind charger.
You have to have a battery bank, and you use a generator that runs on propene, the same as your refrigerator and your stove and your heat.
And you run your generator maybe once a week to pump some water and to top off your batteries and to do your laundry, and then you shut it off again.
So, you know, there's a need for it.
Yeah, but being off the grid is not what the American left means by green energy.
What the left means, if you want to live that way, that's absolutely fine.
Just don't make me.
And don't pass laws that make me have to live that way.
And don't tell me I can't have my 14-foot TV screen if I'm willing to pay for every aspect of it.
But if you want to live that way, that's fine.
The American left doesn't want me to have my 14-inch or 14-foot screen, nor anything else that I've got.
The American left wants to force a backwards 20th century, 19th century lifestyle on everybody under bogus hoax concerns.
Review?
Yeah, I understand that, and I don't agree with that either.
I call myself a Christian libertarian.
I've been friends with you.
Actually, the American left would not like you.
Being off the grid, they can't control you.
That's why I like to be off the grid.
I don't even have a computer.
I worked for many years on a computer as a draftsman, electrical draftsman, and I finally had to quit doing that because I have chronic migraines, and staring at a computer really aggravates migraines.
But anyway, I just wanted you to think about the fact that there is a place for what I call alternative energy.
Well, it's just not a mainstream.
We're just talking different definitions of terms.
Your alternative energy is not at all what Obama's talking about.
Obama wants to put the coal industry out of business, for example.
Obama wants everybody driving lawnmowers with a couple seats on top of them.
Or the equivalent.
Obama and the Democrats want everybody losing their freedom and liberty to make the choice of how they want to live their life.
And green energy is just another diving board to get into that cesspool.
That's all it is.
Folks, I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Intend to here at the EIV Southern Command, and we'll be back Monday, revved and ready and stoked to kick off another brand new week of broadcast excellence dealing with whatever nonsense happens between now and noon Eastern Time Monday when we get back.
Thanks for being with us today, and see you Monday.
Cheerio!
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