Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
It's not just the milling around stage of the Occupy Wall Street Day of Action.
It's the milling around stage while the media tries to find a way to pin the Tea Party on this shooter at the White House.
They're trying to find out who this guy is.
Said he never had any known radical ties.
Really?
What's he doing in Occupy DC?
They're just doing everything they can.
It was once reported a guy hated Obama, but now he just hates government.
And they're doing everything they can to try to find a way to pin this guy on the Tea Party.
Hiya, folks.
How are you?
Great to have you here, Rush Limboy, and another exciting three hours of Broadcast Excellence.
Telephone number, you want to be on the program 800-282-2882.
The email address illrushball at EIBnet.com.
Have you heard of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac?
You know, I didn't know much about him until this news of Newt Gingrich.
Newt Gingrich had a consultancy deal there, was paid anywhere but, what, a million, 1.2, 1.3 million to consult.
Why, you would have thought that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, why nobody ever heard of them until Newt became associated with them.
But how about the fact that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac paid Franklin Reigns $90 million?
How about this guy, Jim Johnson, that ran that place for a while and walked out of there with over $20 million?
Jamie Gorellic got something like $26 million working for Fannie and Freddie.
And of course, there's Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.
Never mattered.
Media never reported any of that, wasn't interested at all.
But now you've got Newt and a consultancy deal.
And all of a sudden, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are bad things.
But up until Newt got involved, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went gloriously helping people into homes and buying up mortgages and so forth.
Just amazing how the media is suddenly interested in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Have you seen, Snerdley, have you seen these Benetton ads?
The Benetton, the unhate ads?
Oh, oh, folks, I got to tell you.
They've got pictures like of Obama playing tonsil hockey with Hu Zhintao.
They had pictures of Pope Benedict playing tonsil hockey with Mamu Abbas, somebody from the religion of peace.
That they've taken down, by the way.
The Benetton people have taken down a picture of the Pope making out with an imam.
Probably because the Religion of Peace objected.
If the Pulpit objected, they wouldn't have taken it down.
They've got Obama playing tonsil hockey with Hugo Chavez.
They have the premiere of South Korea playing tonsil hockey with Kim Jong-il.
There's a series of these pictures that show world leaders like Benjamin Nethanyau making out with, maybe that's with Mamua Baz.
There's a series of them, fake ads.
At least we think they're fake.
The Obama pictures, we're not sure, but we know that the Pope wasn't making out with a Muslim guy.
But I don't know.
The pictures of Obama and Hugo Chavez, who's to say?
But anyway, these ads are typical of Benetton.
They are shock.
They get everybody talking about them as people are doing now.
As I say, the Pope kissing some Muslim cleric, Abbas kissing Netanyahu.
And it's an ad campaign supposed to promote unhate.
Unhate.
Now, these ads are being done by Benetton.
What does Benetton make?
I don't even know what Benetton makes.
I know I don't have anything by Benetton.
I know their ad campaigns don't say anything about what they make.
Do you know what they make, Don?
They make apparel.
You mean like the stuff that the Occupy Wall Street people would be wearing?
I know.
Well, what do you mean in trouble?
I know they've been in trouble.
I mean, I don't think they don't really.
Yeah, I know that they've had numerous ad campaigns.
They're quite controversial.
But I think the Obama photos, like kissing Hu Xientao, I have to think it's fake because Obama bows to these people, but we've never actually seen Obama kissing world leaders.
And by the way, these are not smooches.
The pictures have been photoshopped.
It's literal spit-swapping.
And it's these are makeout kind of pictures.
But here's the thing about there.
The Washington Post does a story on this today.
Obama kisses Chavez in new Benetton ad.
Benetton returns to its controversial marketing roots with new campaign that features Obama and other world leaders engaging in kisses.
In two separate ads, Obama's seen kissing Hugo Chavez and Chinese President Huxentao.
The Unhate Foundation, founded by the Italian clothing company, is an advocacy group for tolerance.
The controversial ad campaign is an attempt for Benetton to regain its status from the United Colors ads that regularly shocked viewers with subjects that had nothing to do with clothing.
A priest kissing a nun, a man dying of AIDS, a just-born baby with umbilical cord still attached, a trio of real human hearts.
Now, here's what is not understood by the Washington Post, and this is not ancient history.
They say the people behind this campaign say that they were inspired by a 1979 photo of Leonid Brezhnev kissing East German communist leader Irish Honecker.
And I've got a picture of that.
That picture sent chills down the spines of people who lived in Soviet satellite countries.
Brezhnev kissing Honecker was all about sending the message of total unity and oppression.
It was about East Germany and the Soviet Union being entirely aligned.
It was intended to show communist solidarity among the Soviet bloc countries.
At the time, in 1979, this is not ancient history, and nobody remembers this, apparently, especially not the people at Benetton who claim that they were inspired by this picture.
East Germany was the greatest defender of the Soviet Union's system of satellite vassal nations.
And in exchange, the Soviet Union promised to ruthlessly put down any popular democratic uprisings in East Germany, just like what Czechoslovakia had faced with the 1968 Prague Spring.
Now, I have to wonder, how can anybody be so ignorant?
Picture of Brezhnev and Hanukkah kissing was meant to scare the devil out of people.
It was the epitome of hate.
There was nothing unifying or uplifting or inspiring about this at all.
Imagine if you were a citizen of either of these two countries, the Soviet Union or East Germany, and they are totally locked down communist countries with walls built to keep people in no freedom whatsoever.
And you see the two leaders in a picture kissing each other, which did happen.
That was meant to keep you in line.
And so here come these people at Benetton claiming they are inspired by this to run their unhate campaign.
This is what Benetton says inspired their campaign.
This is not ancient history here.
This really is an example of laughable liberal ignorance and smugness at its finest.
And I actually don't know if it's ignorance.
It's just two communists kissing each other, like Obama and Chavez.
What's not to like about that?
You know, if you're some deranged leftist, maybe the inspiration they're claiming is, in fact, genuine.
Two communist leaders kissing each other to show unity and solidarity.
Big government reigns supreme and so forth and so on.
So anyway, I just wanted you to know, in case you hear this discussed, some liberals bring this up because this is being discussed in the pictures.
They've been all over Drudge.
They're all over the place.
People are going to be talking about it if they're not yet in your presence.
And if they tell you, if you hear, oh no, this is a wonderful campaign.
It's designed to promote getting along and togetherness and love and so forth.
No, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
It's just the opposite.
Brezhnev and Irish Hanukkah making out is designed to send a chill up and down the spine of every citizen of East Germany and the Soviet Union.
Pure and servant of unity, unhate.
Two communist leaders.
Now, I've got the picture here that was drawn on the Berlin Wall.
It was so offensive to people.
This picture was so symbolic of oppression, Brezhnev and Hanukkah, that it was drawn on the Berlin Wall.
Here, I'll tell you what I'll do.
It's very small.
And maybe I can get a larger version of it at some point.
But I'm going to zoom in on this, baby.
I'm doing it right now.
I've turned the DittoCam off so you won't actually watch the Zoom process here.
And it may be too small to use anyway, but we'll see.
Let's see.
Hang on just a second.
I think it's going to be too small.
Maybe not.
Maybe not.
Let's see.
What else?
Okay, for you watching on the Ditto Cam, just a quick sneak peek of it.
There it is.
That's the picture of the Brezhnev and Hanukkah smug kiss that's drawn on the Berlin wall with graffiti on it and everything.
It was not inspiring of unhate.
It was not promoting love.
It was not promoting anything the Benetton people and the people, the Washington Post who are historically ignorant about this, would like you to believe.
I got to take a brief time out.
We'll do it.
We'll come back in just a moment.
Don't go away.
Okay, I just sent two photos up to Coco Jr.
Coco Sr. is on a cleverly timed six working day vacation that'll get him two and a half weeks off.
But I'm well aware of how the staff manipulate me in this way.
I'm totally well aware of it.
Oh yes, six working days equals because it's over the Thanksgiving holiday includes taking a following Monday off.
It's about a two and a half week real week vacation.
But since there's two days next week that don't count as work days, you throw them in too.
So it's a six working day vacation that takes up two and a half weeks.
HR has tried this.
HR has done this routinely over the Christmas holidays.
Oh yes, I am well aware of the tricks.
I am well aware.
Wait a second.
Where is my holiday spirit?
Did I turn down the request?
No, I didn't turn down the request.
I know how they're, they think I don't figure it out before I say yes.
I know what's happening here before I say I say yes because I'm a good boss.
I'm a good guy.
I understand it.
I never manipulated vacation time this way myself.
Never had the opportunity to do it.
Don't do it now.
But I've just, I'm just, but I was just never that creative with vacation time.
It never really mattered that much to me.
What do you mean I can take off anytime I want?
I cannot do anything I want.
I've got 600 radio affiliates out there.
I can't just say punt this in November, for example, or May during February.
I just can't do that.
Why do you think, why do you think I take the week off between Christmas and Thanksgiving?
Why do you think I do that?
Because it's a week that there are no ratings.
And that's totally considerate for our 600 wonderful and great affiliates.
Well, 598, a couple of them are pains in the rear.
But no, I'm not going to say which one doesn't matter.
I'm just saying, I don't mean to get distracted here.
The actual picture of Irish Honecker and Leonid Brezhnev in the Spit Swap.
It's a black and white picture.
It's been sent up to Coco Jr. and an enlarged picture of that picture actually drawn on the Berlin Wall.
And it's that picture.
It's totally disgusting.
And that picture of Irish Honeker and Brezhnev kissing is what the Benetton people say inspired them in their UnHate campaign.
Now, I love this next doorstep.
USA Today.
There is a baseball team in London, Ontario.
You know what their nickname is?
The Rippers.
They are the London Rippers.
It's a minor league baseball team.
And of course, USA Today does not approve.
And very few others find this humorous.
I, of course, do.
When you tell people they can't use Indian names, what do you expect them to do?
So when you name your baseball team the Rippers and you're from London, you might expect some blowback, even if it's London, Ontario, and you claim there's no connection to Jack the Ripper.
Joe Belanger of the London Free Press reports the team in the Frontier Baseball League unveiled a name on Purple Day, which is a day designated by London Abused Women's Center to raise awareness for violence against women.
So they announced the name of the team as the Rippers on Purple Day, a day designated by London Abused Women's Center to raise awareness of violence against women.
However, the Rippers president, David Jack Martin, said his name, not Jack, I just do it anyway.
David Martin said the mascot is Diamond Jack, a hockey player who finds that he can rip the cover off baseballs.
And they've got a picture here of Diamond Jack.
And he's got a baseball in one hand, a bat in the other, and wearing a top hat.
Looks like a Jack the Ripper character from the ancient history.
London Mayor Joe Fontana has asked the team to change the name.
The London Ripper.
Why am I laughing?
I just look at it.
I admire creativity, and I admire crossing the line.
And I just love offending people when it's genuinely funny.
I just, I just do.
I love fucking people so wound up, so tightly wound, just waiting to be offended.
I love to give them what they want.
They want to be offended fine and dandy with me.
Franco Harris, former running back for Joe Paterno at Penn State, then the Pittsburgh Steelers, and finally the Seattle Seahawks.
Yeah, Penn State, 1969-71, and the Steelers drafted him.
He has been fired by the Meadows Racetrack and Casino because of nice things he said.
Grand Buddy O'Sonbite 17, Radio Ed.
He had some nice things to say about Joe Paterno after this whole Sandusky thing popped up.
So they canned him at the Meadows Racetrack and Casino.
He was hired last month along with Rocky Blyer to assist the entertainment facility with various outreach activities, charitable events, and public appearances.
They announced Tuesday he'd been fired for his public comments.
They issued a release.
In light of the recent developments with Franco Harris regarding Joe Paterno's dismissal, Franco and the Meadows have mutually decided to put their business relationship on hold at this time while these matters are looked into further.
Last week, Franco Harris questioned the school's decision to fire Paterno amid the Sandusky scandal.
He said he thought the board made a bad decision of letting Joe Paterno go.
I'm very disappointed in their decision.
I thought they showed no courage not to back someone who really needed it at the time.
They were saying the football program under Joe was at fault.
So he's been canned.
Last night he was on Aaron Burnett Out Front on CNN.
She said, you've been adamant, Franco, that it was not right that Joe Paterno lost his job as head football coach.
Given that he did report what he was told it was higher-ups, you still feel that way.
You know what, Aaron?
He wasn't charged.
And if you look at it, there has been no trial yet.
And you're absolutely right.
I think there is a rush to judgment, and I think he should not have been fired.
And I believe that they should rehire Joe as soon as possible.
Then Franco Harris out of work as a greeter, an outreach expert, and entertainment professional at the Meadows Racetrack and Casino.
I guess that's in Pittsburgh.
I don't know where it is.
But anyway, Franco's out because he supports Joe Paterno.
I should have shown you the picture too late now.
The logo for the London Rippers.
The guy, I got to thinking about this.
The guy with the baseball bat and a baseball, one each hand, does look, is wearing a top hat, does look like Jack the Ripper.
Then I got to thinking, how do we know what Jack the Ripper looks like?
It was never ID'd, right?
The best rumor is that Jack the Ripper was a deranged member of the royal family that went loose, started the reign of terror at night.
But nobody actually ever found out who he was, right?
We never know.
We don't know who he is.
Grab soundbite number two.
I mentioned earlier, ladies and gentlemen, desperately trying to figure out who the White House shooter is.
Who is this guy?
They know his name.
They know he's from Idaho.
They know a lot of previously stated he hated Obama.
Now that's been revised to he hates government.
So this morning on CNN, American Morning co-host and El Rushbo media stalker Carol Costello spoke with their correspondent, Athena Jones, about alleged White House shooter, Oscar Ramiro Ortega, Hernandez.
And Costello said, authorities say that he had a direct interest in the president.
This morning, they suspected White House shooters in custody.
Oscar Ramiro Ortega Hernandez was arrested yesterday.
Gun linked to him was found near the White House along with two bullets in the South lawn.
Any word on his motivation?
Well, it's interesting.
We hope that more of that will come out as well.
Maybe not today, but in the coming days.
As you mentioned, authorities have interviewed family and friends, and they've determined that Ortega Hernandez had what they're calling a direction of interest toward the president and the White House.
It sounds a little awkward, but others simplify it as saying he was obsessed with the president.
Hopefully we'll find out more.
Yeah, and what they're hoping to find out is that he's actually a tea partier.
That's what they're hoping.
That's why they're waiting.
That's why they're saying, we can't find any evidence this guy's ever been involved in radical assault.
They only found him as part of Occupy DC running around with a weapon.
It was an AK-47.
But they can't find out where this guy's come from and what he's all about and what his motivation is.
They're just hoping.
Oh, they're praying.
Oh, any link whatsoever to the Tea Party they can drum up and they will stop the presses.
In fact, if they could say some, remember what they tried to do with the guy that shot Gabby Giffords, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbo, tried all that.
They'll try the same thing here with this guy.
That's what they're waiting on.
Let's move on to the Congressional Super Committee.
I want you to have Audio Soundbite 20 standing by.
I have to admit this is a little troubling.
And I'm going to reserve some of this because it's reported in the drive-by state-controlled media.
First up, the Washington Post.
Republican Super Committee members' tax plan gives party an identity crisis.
Growing Republican support for raising taxes to help reduce the deficit has prompted a GOP identity crisis, sparking a clash within the party over whether to abandon its bedrock anti-tax doctrine.
Tensions have mounted in recent days as two of the Republicans' most fervent anti-tax stalwarts on Capitol Hill, Pat Toomey and Jeb Henserling, have lobbied party colleagues behind the scenes to forego their old allegiances and even break campaign promises by embracing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax increases.
The two conservative lawmakers have pushed the increase as part of their work on the super committee tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction by a Thanksgiving deadline.
Their plan, which also addresses entitlement spending, would generate at least $300 billion in new revenue, tax revenue.
It's what we talked about yesterday, but now the Washington Post is portraying this as these Republicans wanting to just flat out raise taxes, and they are trying to get other Republicans in Congress to go along with it, to raise taxes.
No, they want to lower rates.
This is where they're not talking about raising tax rates.
They're talking about raising revenue, and the media is misrepresenting what they're doing.
Here's the plan, folks.
And I'm just going to hit you between the eyes with this.
The Republicans are offering a plan which would take away itemized deductions for anybody making over $174,400 a year in exchange for that.
It would lower the top tax rate from the current $35 down to 28%.
We've done this before.
We did this in 1986.
This was part of Reagan tax reform, except the top marginal rate then was 50.
Wait a minute.
No, all itemized deductions for people who make this.
Stick with me on this.
All itemized deductions for everybody who makes $174,400 or more.
All itemized home mortgage interest, charities, all of that gone in exchange for a lowered rate from 35, 28%.
Now, we've done this before.
Back in 1986, top rate was 50%, took it down to 28.
There was a bubble of 31% for few people.
And we got rid of some deductions.
And what everybody said back then happened.
Rate would go back up, but the deductions would not be reinstituted.
And that has been the case.
The remaining deductions that were not taken away in the 86 tax reform include charitable contributions and mortgage interest.
But for people who make, I fear, mortgage interest doesn't apply for people who make over a million now.
The charitable donation doesn't either.
There are a lot of people at certain income levels who don't get any itemized deductions.
But even such a charitable contribution now, the max that you can deduct is 35% of it, whatever your tax rate is, not 100%.
This would wipe all these things off the board.
So we're not talking about, like the Washington Post says, tax increases.
We're talking about revenue increases by cutting taxes, which will broaden the base.
It will spur employment.
This will create economic growth.
This will inspire investment in the private sector.
And it will create jobs, which creates more taxpayers, which is called broadening the base.
And that's why lowering rates is a good thing.
It generates more revenue.
They are not proposing a $300 billion tax increase if the media is portraying it that way.
However, wait a second.
Let me give you the El Kabang on this.
$174,400 or above, you lose your deductions.
The salary for rank and file members of Congress is $174,000 a year.
From the AP, GOP tax plan targets itemized deductions.
Now, again, the first story was the Washington Post.
This is AP.
A GOP plan to raise taxes by $290 billion over the next decade would limit deductions for mortgage interest, charitable donations, and state and local taxes as part of a deficit reduction deal.
Some workers could see their employer-provided health benefits taxed for the first time, though aides cautioned that the plan is still fluid.
The plan by Senator Pat Toomey, Republican Pennsylvania, serves on the 12-member debt supercommittee, would raise revenue by limiting the tax breaks enjoyed by people who itemize their deductions in exchange for lower overall tax rates for families at every income level.
This is a form of tax reform that has been discussed.
This is not theoretically new.
This is something that's been out there as a possibility.
We will lower the marginal rate, get it at 28%, and in exchange for that, buy-by deductions.
And you shouldn't be surprised with this whole mortgage interest thing because I myself, El Rushbo, have warned you that it's in the crosshairs.
Over the past two or three years, ever since Obama was immaculated, it's in the crosshairs.
And Obama himself has said he wants to get rid of charitable donation deductions because he wants the government providing all charity in America.
When Obama first proposed getting rid of the itemized deduction for charitable contributions, there was a howl out there.
Well, what's going to happen to charitable donations?
The percentage of people that make contributions are going to drop significantly if there's no tax shelter accompanying the donation, which was to say that Americans' charitable donations really have nothing to do with big-heartedness and goodwill.
It's all about tax deductions.
Some people it's probably true to say that about.
Others will give to charity for PR reasons, and they'll, you know, you get their name on the side of a building at a hospital.
They'll continue to do it.
Or have a condom named after whatever.
I mean, a lot of people will do charitable things for the PR value with themselves issuing the press release.
Others do charitable donations for the tax deduction aspect.
But the fact that tax deductions would limit charitable contributions was fine with Obama because the government could pick that up.
Taxpayers just in another form, the government doing it, and that would make every charitable organization dependent more than ever on government, which means they would have to toe the political line, whoever runs the government, if they're to get their annual donations.
So neither of these two things should surprise you.
What is surprising, if these two stories are accurate, claiming Pat Toomey has come up with this.
Pat Toomey, Republican Pennsylvania.
Both these stories are crediting Toomey with the idea of limiting tax deductibility for mortgage interest and charitable donations.
For anybody who makes $174,400 or more, the average congressional rank and file Senate salary is $174,000.
That means they're exempting themselves.
That's not even, they're not even hiding it.
That's why I'm holding this back in reserve.
But establishment-type Republicans, we can as a part of us I'm sure you have no problem.
Yeah, I'm sure they do it.
Rush, this shouldn't surprise you.
The rhinos, the GOP guys, I'm sure it shouldn't surprise you.
So again, the current salary, 2011, for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 a year.
Now, there are, like the leadership, they get more.
Dingy Harry gets more, Speaker gets more.
But I'm just talking about the rank and file.
Now, doing away with the mortgage deduction will do wonders for the housing industry now.
Of course, most people getting loans to buy houses can't pay it off anyway.
Therefore, there is no concept of mortgage interest deduction.
Now, the plan supposedly was dreamed up by something called the National Bureau of Economic Research, which is a bunch of Harvard eggheads who changed the definition of a recession so that it could be blamed on Bush.
So there's still some confusion about this, but that's where we are in the supercommittee.
And I still think that nothing's changed.
I don't think the Democrats go for it, no matter what the Republicans propose, because they need Obama's campaigns a billion dollars invested in the theme he's running against the do-nothing Congress.
If they end up doing something here, then they've got to totally change their plans at the Obama reelection campaign.
So probably what's going to happen is some form of sequestration when this doesn't.
Well, sequestration is just automatic spending cuts.
There probably will be some defense cuts and some Medicare cuts that will just last a year, and then next Congress puts them back.
Whatever the supercommittee comes up with, by the way, is not the law of the land.
The House and Senate then both have to vote on this.
So we're a long way from anything really happening.
This is typical.
They're trying to keep everybody on the edge of their seats with all these details, just like all these deficit or debt-level talks that were supposedly happening in secret with Boehner up at the White House and back and forth and so forth.
It's the same thing that we're being strung along here.
Nothing's going to really happen.
We'll be back.
Back we are, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
So yeah, the rich keep being defined down, not $174,400 from $250,000, and it was $200,000, now $174,400 a year.
If you make more than that, then all your deductions are gone.
I really don't think anything is going to come of this.
And here's Paul Ryan commenting on this.
This is last night.
He's on with Larry Kudlow.
Kudlow said, I see that super tax hikes are coming out of this super committee.
It's really going to damage the economy if we raise taxes.
Congressman, what is your take?
No, we won't do that.
We won't do super tax hikes out of this committee.
If they're going to be tax policy, we're looking for tax reform, lower rates, broader base economic growth, the kind that you and I have been talking about for years.
But the key deal here is we've got to get some spending cuts.
The deal is at least $1.2 trillion in spending cuts to prevent the sequester.
That's the goal.
We've got seven days to go.
We're hopeful.
I mean, we're going to push this thing through to the last minute if we have to.
The sequester is the automatic cuts that get triggered if they don't come to a deal, which is $500 billion Medicare, $500 billion defense.
Those two cuts are supposed to send the fear of God into the negotiators and the supercommittee.
The Democrats don't want any cuts in Medicare, ostensibly.
The Republicans theoretically don't want any cuts in defense, and they don't want to be tied or linked to those cuts.
And so that's supposed to inspire them to make a deal.
So the only way that I don't know what spending cuts are on the table.
I mean, he's talking about here, the deal is at least $1.2 trillion in spending cuts to prevent the sequest.
I don't know what spending cuts are being discussed.
The point that he's making here is we're not going to have tax increases is the point that I'm making.
They are not raising taxes.
This is media manipulation of words.
What they are hoping to accomplish here is an increase in revenue.
And see, the media is having to twist this around on purpose.
Increasing taxes does not increase revenue.
Not every time.
Sometimes it reduces revenue because it reduces economic activity.
A Republican tax plan, lower rates, let people keep more of what they earn, encourages people to earn more, encourages job creation, creates more taxpayers, ergo more revenue to the Treasury, which is what everybody says they want, but the Democrats don't want that.
What the Democrats want is a different definition.
They want the private sector shrinking.
They want it smaller and government getting bigger, not just in terms of money, but power.
Still lots ahead, ladies and gentlemen, here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.