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Nov. 18, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:59
November 18, 2011, Friday, Hour #2
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And by the way, folks, that May 15th appearance this year of Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press, where he said that we all have a responsibility to pay to help pay for health care.
Quote, I have said consistently we ought to have some requirement.
You either have health insurance, he posted bonds, he came out in support of the mandate.
That was also the appearance in which he called Paul Ryan's budget plan for Medicare right-wing social engineering.
And he got into big trouble.
He was in that, those were two controversial things to say as recently as May.
And the campaign imploded.
It was, if you recall, going into the summertime, Newt Gingrich's campaign, his staff abandoned him.
Everybody thought it was over, but he said we're in it forever.
The controversy over buying the wife the stuff from Tiffany, and now here he is tied in New Hampshire with Mitt Romney and leading in Iowa.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open line Friday.
Hosted by me, your guiding light, your bulwark, Rush Limbaugh with talent on loan from God.
Happily here, ladies and gentlemen.
A thrill and a delight as we chug steadily toward one of my all-time favorite times of the year, the holiday season.
Christmas time, yes, kicks off with Thanksgiving next week.
Open line Friday means when we get to your calls, you can talk about whatever you want, basically.
800-282-2882.
Email address, lrushbaw at eibnet.com.
Newt Gingrich, top of the heap now.
Republican Party still vetting their candidates.
And despite what anybody tells you, we do not know who the nominee will be.
But we do know what he or she should be saying.
We do know, I know, and he was so do you, what that nominee should be saying in order to secure the nomination.
And that is, Barack Obama is the problem, not fellow Republicans.
The problem is Barack Obama.
The problem is the Democrat Party.
The problem is the American left.
America's greatness is not behind us.
America's greatness is there.
It's on the horizon.
Our nominee must say we will be great again.
And the first step in the process is getting rid of Barack Obama and the Democrat Party and moving them out of the way.
Whichever of these people seeking the nomination makes that case the most consistently and the most believably and the most sincerely, not as a phony sales type presentation, but genuinely means it.
That's who's going to get this nomination in the end.
And it is still up for grabs.
The media is also a problem, not fellow Republicans.
In the big scheme of things, the problems this country faces are not Rick Perry, Michelle Bachman, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, John Huntsman, any of these people.
The problem, the obstacles that we all face in returning this to a great nation, Barack Obama, his acolytes, his regime, the Democrat Party, and, truth be told, the media.
They are an obstacle as well because they are part of the opposition.
They are part of what must be defeated.
First principles are the answer.
First principles, first conservative constitutional principles are the answer.
Articulating that as fact with depth and conviction is what the people of this country want.
We and the rest of the people of this country are sick and tired of careful politicians, business as usual politicians.
We are fed up and exhausted with people who measure their comments.
The blueprint for rebuilding America has been written.
Rinaldus Magnus wrote it.
Barry Goldwater wrote it.
William F. Buckley Jr. wrote it.
Burke wrote it.
Any number.
Friedrich von Hayek wrote it.
Milton Friedman wrote it.
Market capitalism is the answer.
Robust liberty and freedom for the American people is the answer.
And then a government willing after unleashing that to get out of its way is the answer.
It all starts with the individual.
Private property rights is the foundation because without private property rights, there are no rights for people anywhere else.
The Republican nominating process is a competition of ideas and the ability to communicate how can we get back to our pursuit of happiness?
How can we get back to our pursuit of excellence?
How can we get back to the trusted institutions that have defined this nation and its greatness for hundreds of years?
How can the individual be empowered?
How can liberalism be stopped, repealed, and rolled back?
What Newt's doing is no secret.
Newt is tapping into the American mindset.
He has the ability to do it.
He also has the ability to blow it, which is what gives people pause.
But at this point, they're looking past that.
They're looking past the baggage.
And this is my point.
The press, the media, the Democrats are trying to focus on the baggage.
Try to focus on Kane's baggage or whatever they can manufacture or Michelle Bachmann's baggage and even Romney's baggage with his Romney cure.
We don't hear any reports of the baggage that Barack Obama brings to the table.
But it takes a C-5A cargo jet to hold it all.
Newt Gingrich is making it clear that he is proud of this country and its history, of our culture, the idea of American exceptionalism.
My point is here, nobody ought to be shocked To learn that a Republican who is articulating conservatism proudly, competently, confidently, articulately, nobody should be surprised that that person is nearing the top of the heap.
It has been our point all along, ladies and gentlemen, has it not?
Was that not why there was so much hope invested in Sarah Palin?
That's why there was so much hope people had in Chris Christie.
They believed that that's what Chris Christie represented.
It is why Donald Trump led in the polls at the time he was involved, because Donald Trump was fearless and was taking it to Obama and was taking it to the Democrats and was letting it be known that it's not a question.
It's not a mystery.
It's not something misunderstood about why the country's in the problem that's the problems it's in, why it faces the challenges we face.
It's Barack Obama and his administration, his policies.
Now, whichever of these Republicans has the ability to consistently say so, take it to Obama, stand up for America, stand up for the American people, articulate a great belief and faith in the decency and the potential greatness of the American people when there are no obstacles in their way is who is going to get this nomination.
And that is who is going to lead in the polls, with some exceptions, of course, in the latter part of that.
But for the most part, it's going to be true.
Nobody should be shocked, I don't believe, to learn that a Republican articulating conservatism fearlessly, who is also pointing out the media's partisanship, who schools the media in their own malpractice.
And the media attempts to shut that down.
The establishment attempts to shut that down by saying, hey, it's very, very, very beneath us to attack the media.
Why?
Why?
The media is who they are.
It's going to be seen as whining and complaining.
You can't go after the meeting.
The American people, the vast majority of them, want the media defeated every bit as much as they want Barack Obama defeated because the American people understand that they are one and the same.
The American people understand that American decline is being happily presided over by Barack Obama and the acolytes and stenographers and the fellow travelers in the media who build Obama up, facilitate America's decline.
Doesn't matter where that would be found.
The American people are going to oppose it.
If the media happen to stand for and represent support of someone happily presiding over the decline of the country, the American media are going to be considered an obstacle which must be defeated as well.
Newt Gingrich points it out, despite what the warnings are from the establishment types.
No, this is not an endorsement.
This is analysis.
Pure and simple analysis, nothing more.
The media applauds Obama for running against Congress.
Congress has a lower approval rating or a higher approval rating than the media does.
Why shouldn't a Republican run against the media?
It's well known the media is not our friend, and it's about time.
I'll tell you something else.
And this is very subtle.
But Newt or whoever in the Republican primary field, this field of nominees, when they go after the media, they are signaling to the American people that they understand and are fearless and are willing to buck the establishment.
The American, especially Republican voters, are fed up with establishment Washington Republicans kowtowing to the media, trying to use the media to get their message out, worrying about what the media says or thinks about them.
The American people don't want somebody who's afraid of the media.
The American people, the voters on our side particularly, want somebody who'll take them on.
Just like we want somebody who'll take Obama on fearlessly and not be worried about what's going to be said about it.
We don't want somebody who's going to be reluctant because of the color of Obama's skin.
That doesn't matter.
The country's in decline.
He's presiding over it.
He's president of the United States.
He's accountable.
Somebody who's not going to hold him accountable is not going to get our nomination.
A brief timeout, ladies and gentlemen.
We have soundbites.
We have your phone calls to support all this, by the way.
Soundbite's coming up.
Sit tight.
Let me read to you one thing about Newt here.
We don't have this bite, and you guys don't go find it.
I don't want to play the bite after I've said this.
This is keep in mind, there's rioting all over the country now, not nearly as large as the media is making it out to be.
This Occupy stuff is podunk.
It's tiny.
They're building it up to make it look like it's something and it isn't.
But this small group of people, they are attacking law enforcement officers.
Private property is being destroyed.
Rapes, murders, multiple infectious diseases have thousands of new hosts.
These parasites are now homes to other parasites known as protesters.
And Newt Gingrich stands up and says, I would like everyone in the news media to look at the difference between the destructive, hostile, anti-civilization behaviors of the so-called Occupy Wall Street crowd and the serious studying of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and all the things the Tea Party movement is doing, which are constructive, designed to get America back on track.
I think there could not be a better distinction.
They want to tear down our country.
We love our country.
We want to rebuild our country.
That's the difference.
Every city government has an absolute obligation to enforce the rule of law, to protect private property.
And frankly, they ought to be filming these people.
And every person who engages in violence ought to be given a very long vacation from the streets in order to contemplate why in the future they're not going to engage in violence against fellow Americans.
But none of them should be tolerated if they engage in violence against either persons or property.
People ask me, how quickly could you begin to turn the economy around?
Here's my prediction, Newt says.
The economy will begin to improve late on election night when people realize Obama's gone.
People talk like that are going to reside near the top of the Republican heap, despite their baggage, because these are serious times.
The future is precarious.
Don't have a lot of time to fix it.
You've heard people call this program fed up, ticked off.
Can't tell you how much at this Occupy bunch.
Again, the media doesn't have, there's no romance associated as far as the American people are concerned with their Occupy bunch.
There is nothing but contempt.
We don't need people out there saying, I understand them.
Well, we ought to relate to it.
Yes, I can see there, but we don't need that.
Any Republican who talks that way is not going to get this nomination.
We'll be back to Corwood.
A man, a legend, a way of life.
This New Hampshire Journal story, polling data, Newt and Romney tied in New Hampshire.
When asked why people felt Gingrich was moving up in the polls, 44% of respondents said his depth of knowledge on the issues.
10% said his strong debate performances.
6% said that they liked he was challenging the media.
All the ingredients are there to explain why.
And you don't read anything about the baggage here.
Now, I'll tell you something else, folks.
Newt, all these guys, I'm at Newt, Romney, Kane, all make people feel good about this country.
Every one of our nominees, potential nominees, has the ability and they pull it off to make people feel good about this country, which is I'll never forget one of the things that people answered about Reagan back in his eight years.
What is it about Reagan?
It makes me feel proud.
We're coming off similar circumstances after four years of Jimmy Carter.
Here's Sharon in Dallas, and I'm on her excrement list, it looks like.
Hi, Sharon.
You're up first on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Look, I'm bugged.
I'm really bugged that y'all, I feel like the reason that people are backing Newt, and I'm so scared of Newt, is because y'all aren't talking about his baggage.
I'd forgotten.
Everyone's forgotten his baggage.
Like, I went and looked at his wiki entry, and he's a scumbag.
He, like, cheated on two wives.
Wait a second.
Wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute.
People have not forgotten his baggage, and it's not going to take much for people to remember it if he slips.
There are things that are going to cause people to overcome it and not care about it.
There are things that are deemed more important right now.
That's all I'm saying.
I am not yet backing any of these people over anybody else.
I know you're a big Romney chick.
You're going to bash Romney constantly and like bring up Kane and Newt.
I do not bash Romney constantly.
Only sometimes.
Look, Newt has all the negatives of Romney.
The only thing he has is he's good at debating.
And debates don't win elections.
Everyone, all these Republicans who watch debates, me included, like it.
And I was like getting on board the new train.
But the reality is that doesn't win elections.
And I'm telling you, women are not.
Normally, I would agree with you out there, Sharon, except because of a previously unnamed president.
It really matters that we have somebody who does debate well, who sounds smart.
Ticks me off, frustrates me to have to say that.
But it does.
Yes, it's going to, that does, that does.
That's why people are meant 10%.
That's what they well.
Looky there, folks.
An assistant basketball coach at Syracuse University put on leave amid allegations of child sex abuse.
There is a giant elephant in the room here.
Another one of those things.
Another giant elephant in the room.
Oh, by the way, that Benetton ad campaign, I think they're yanking the whole thing, not just the Pope picture.
The Vatican's threatening to sue it.
I think they're pulling back the whole thing.
I'm going to have to double check that.
It was a journalist report that I read.
Therefore, it was confusing.
I'll have to get to the have to get to the bottom of it.
Obviously, at Syracuse, they're going to take a cue from this principle up in Ontario, Canada.
The balls are the problem.
You got this sex abuse allegation now at Syracuse with the assistant coach.
Got that principle up there, you've got to get these hard balls away from the kids.
It's obviously true at Syracuse.
Audio soundbites.
And again, ladies and gentlemen, just so you understand here, this is not an endorsement.
I'm not endorsing Newt or anybody.
I'm just analyzing, and I'm just telling you what I think and who I think, not by name, is going to end up with this nomination.
And it's not over.
It's not a fait accompli, and it isn't done.
Now, a lot of people want you to think it is.
The establishment of both parties want you to think it is, but it's not.
New Hampshire's first, and we're going to have the Hawkeye caucke, and it's not going to be over after those two.
And if you want to know an interesting little factoid, the Republican nominee for the last, gosh, I don't know how many election cycles has won the South Carolina primary.
Yeah, and it's a long enough series of election cycles to be significant, as to be an indicator, much more so than Iowa or New Hampshire.
It used to be New Hampshire.
Florida is going to matter too, because it's early on.
Florida is going to be huge, but South Carolina, just statistically, I don't know what the number of election cycles it is, but it's a significant number.
Whoever has won the Republican primary in South Carolina has gone on to become the nominee.
Here's Newt.
This is yesterday, Jacksonville, Florida.
It was a campaign town hall event.
And he got a question from a woman who said, how do you intend to counteract the bias of the media, the dirty remarks that we're getting?
I've noticed every time a Republican runs, they get slammed in the press.
They always take the high road.
They never knock back.
They never say, hey, it's okay for Michelle Obama to spend $10 million taxpayer money on vacations.
How come you can't spend whatever you spend on your wife?
And she can get away with spending all that kind of.
Why don't we fight back?
Here's the question.
This is my exact point, a voter.
Why don't we ever fight back?
You've heard people calling me on this program.
Why don't the Republicans do X?
Well, I'm here to tell you that of these Republicans that remain in our primary field, whichever one of them fire back at the media, at Obama, at the Democrats, at the ruling class, whoever fights back is going to end up getting this nomination.
And if they continue on after getting a nomination, if they maintain that theme, they're going to be elected.
And if they continue to govern after winning the election that way, then they're going to be reelected.
And in the process, the country's going to rebound.
The woman goes on to say, if you were to make any type of remark like that against a Democrat candidate, it'd be racism.
It'd be biased.
So how are you going to fight the press, Newt?
Here's the key thing.
Remember, we all complained correctly when the news media failed to investigate Barack Obama.
We complain when they refused to look at William Ayers.
We complain when they didn't actually explain what Saul Olinski was all about and what community organizer meant.
Okay.
We were right to complain though.
So now they're actually doing for us what they wouldn't do for Obama.
Okay, now they're doing it partly out of bias.
I understand that.
And I understand that there are places like MSNBC that are essentially the Obama re-election team.
So that kind of remark resonates with people.
And he's saying, go ahead, go ahead and vet me.
We think that's what your job ought to be.
Newt's essentially saying, I knew what was coming.
I knew Herman Cain.
He knew what was.
They all know what's coming.
Every Republican knows they're going to get the media anal exam.
They're not going to complain about it, but they are going to fight back again.
Whoever fights back against it.
Whoever puts it in context, whoever points out that there's no fairness here, whoever points out that it's one-sided is going to triumph.
Last night on Greta Van Susteren's show on the record, she had Newt.
So was the contract during the time of 2007, we went into a tailspin in the housing market, his contact with Freddie Mac.
Tell me about that, Newt.
To the best of my knowledge, it ended about the time that we were going into a tailspin, but I'd have to go back.
I can't give you an exact date.
It was clear by that stage that what you had was a giant bubble because you had loan requirements that had collapsed to a point of absurdity where people could get mortgages who had no credit history, no down payment, etc.
So my interest in housing and my interest in helping relatively poor Americans have a chance to buy a house is very real and goes back a long way.
I was approached to offer strategic advice.
I do no lobbying of any kind.
I never have.
I think a very important point I want to make.
I have never done lobbying of any kind.
And then she said, well, you've also been very critical of Obama receiving substantial amounts of money from Fannie and Freddie contributions from the executives in 2008.
What's the difference between the criticism you've made of Obama getting substantial campaign contributions to help Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and what you did?
The difference is that under the leadership of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd in the Congress and of the president, those institutions have gotten $156 billion of taxpayers' money.
I was a private citizen.
I was not involved in doing any of these things.
So there's a huge difference between what you do when you're in public office and you're dealing with the public trust and what you do as a private business person who has no direct power and no direct responsibility, and you're sitting there offering advice.
What I didn't do and would not do is I didn't go and lobby the Congress.
I didn't go and lobby the executive branch.
I didn't try to represent any position I didn't believe in beforehand.
Fair.
Now, this could come back and haunt him because this is inside Washington stuff, lobbying, not lobbying, but being consultant for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.
I mean, nobody, nobody has a brief for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and there's nobody who wants to defend them.
And they are at the root of the problem.
And here's Newt, who accepted a consultancy deal for him.
This could come back and bite him at some point.
All this baggage could rear its head if he falters elsewhere.
Nothing's a lock here.
But so far, what I'm just pointing to point, he's found a way to overcome it.
Could be temporary.
We'll find out.
Could be permanent.
Depends.
Here is one more.
Van Sustran said, well, where does this go?
What do you expect is going to happen the next day or two?
The police will eventually have to arrest him.
They will provoke and provoke until there's no choice, and the police will arrest him.
You know, the Tea Party's met in huge numbers, and we did this today down here with the First Coast Tea Party.
Hundreds and hundreds of people.
They picked up the trash.
They were orderly.
They were positive.
They were there as citizens, not as mobs.
The gap between the way Occupy Wall Street has degenerated into an anti-civilization, anti-law kind of group, and the way in which the Tea Partiers were trying to understand and study American history, it's a startling contrast between the two groups.
Exactly right.
By the way, from Business and Media Institute, Obama's chief of staff pick, his pick for chief of staff, Rah Emmanuel, is a Freddie Mac alum.
Do you know that?
Did the media ever tell you that?
Rahm Emmanuel held a paid position on Freddie Mac's board from 2000 to 2002 when they were accused of accounting and campaign finance irregularities.
Yeah, you might have known it and forgot it, but Rahm Emmanuel's part, this Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are infested with Democrat parasites.
It's where Democrats went to get filthy rich for doing nothing.
Franklin Rains, $90 million.
Roger Mudd's kid, who ran the place for a while, tens of millions of dollars.
Jamie Gorellik, $26 million.
Jim Johnson, who nobody ever heard of other than inside Washington Beltway types, 20-some-odd million.
Just literally taking it out like Corzine was taking money out of his company.
Really, no difference in what was happening.
And it was Bill Clinton's going away gift to Rah Emanuel was a seat on the Freddie Mac board.
It was where these people went to get rich legally.
As the rules are written in Washington.
Grab Soundbite 5 real quick.
This is back in September.
Pocatello, Idaho, Idaho State University, alleged White House shooter Oscar Ramiro Ortega Hernandez made a tape and he said this.
You see, Oprah, there is still so much more that God needs me to express to the world.
It's not just a coincidence that I look like Jesus.
I am the modern day Jesus Christ that you all have been waiting for.
You see, Oprah.
You see Oprah.
You imagine this guy had said, you see, Rush.
But since he says, you see, Oprah, still, the guy can't be all bad, even though he is Looney Tunes.
He can't be all bad.
He loves Oprah.
Back to the phones, Jim in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Hello, sir.
I'm glad you waited your next at Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Rush, it's an absolute privilege and honor to speak to you.
Thank you.
Well over 20 years, been listening to you and learning, and it's been great ride.
Appreciate that, sir.
What I want to call in about is back in the beginning of the year when Time magazine had the person of the year, they were going to come out with that issue.
Yeah, about it, it's always in December sometime, late December.
Yeah, it was something, you know, I forget the timeline, but there was Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and several other people, and they gave it, of course, to Mark Zuckerberg.
And I was like, good God.
You know, I said to myself then, I went because of the way Steve Jobs was even looking.
I says, he may not even make it in another year.
And of course, he passed on.
And it was just, I was like, you know, Steve Jobs had touched so many people, somebody all over the world.
I mean, I got my iPod, I mean, iTunes, all these other things.
And here's Mark Zuckerberg with, you know, the Facebook.
Okay, yeah, Facebook is popular, but it's like, I imagine if it wasn't for Steve Jobs, there wouldn't have been a Mark Zuckerberg either.
I don't know if that's true or not, but.
I understand, and they're doing these various panels, Time magazine, trying to make it look like people actually have a role in selecting the person of the year, and they do it themselves.
But there's been some talk percolating here that they might name Jobs the person of the year, and it would be the first posthumous ever.
I believe it.
That they never have named somebody who has passed away as person of the year.
Jobs might be the first.
Zuckerberg, I think that choice just illustrates what the media has become.
Exactly.
I mean, pop culture of the moment.
The way that decision is, okay, person of the year, okay, we got to throw a party for person of the year.
Who can we get to show up?
What's the best guest list we can get?
Oh, let's go, Zuckerberg.
A lot of people, Facebook, fascinated, want to meet Zuckerberg.
So that might be, who knows how these people go about making their choice.
That's very true.
I was up for it one year back in the mid-90s, and I think I lost out to the computer.
But I do know I was up for it one year.
That never going to happen.
But so much of media now is just pure pop culture, fad popularity of the moment in terms of person of the year.
You know, if you look at any of these top 100 lists of any of these publications, most influential, most powerful, you can pretty much tell that it's basically a guest list, a hoped-for guest list at the next party.
Well, I have been invited to the Time Magazine 100 party.
I've never gone to it.
Why not?
The same reason I don't go to the White House correspondence dinner.
Why do I want to hang around with people who don't like me?
Why do I want to hang around?
Why do I want to subject myself to especially when you have to wear a tuxedo to boot?
You have to wear a tuxedo and hang around people who don't like you and don't think you should be there.
Oh, the balance of them don't.
Don't lay that off.
I do not have a responsibility on behalf of people and go to that stuff.
No, no, no, no.
Lisa in Pittsburgh, I'm glad you called.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Oh, thank you, Mr. Limbaugh.
This is amazing to me.
Absolutely amazing.
I wanted to tell you that last week when you were having the bad day, I tried to call 3,000 times, and I wanted to let you know that you are the second man in my life that is responsible for molding me into the conservative that I am today.
I was 40 years old, so 22 years ago, you have made me into the person I am today.
Wow.
You're amazing.
I wanted to also bring up a point that my son told me recently that the food pyramid is now changing in the schools.
And I said, what do you mean?
And he said, well, Michelle Obama is changing the food pyramid and asked me, why is she changing it?
It's not broken.
Why should she tell me what I should eat?
And I wanted to know what your opinion was on that, because the school system is.
I have the same question.
I don't, for the life of me, know.
Empowers Michelle Obama to tell everybody what's right to eat and what's not right to eat.
The food pyramid, that is being monkeyed with.
I'll tell you a funny little story.
A fake group, this is probably 10 years ago now, maybe 12.
But a fake group, a group that did not really exist, created a logo.
They called themselves doctors and scientists.
And they sent out a facts to all of the mainstream media announcing that they, as doctors and scientists, had discovered flaws in the food pyramid, and they totally changed it.
And they put things like cake and candy, chocolate at the top, the most important nutrition.
And the media ran with it.
They ran with it as new scientific evidence.
It's one of the greatest scams ever.
So people have been monkeying around with a food pyramid.
Just eat what you want and don't worry about it.
That's my philosophy.
If you're worried about the food pyramid and Muchel Obama, just wait until both of them have total power over our health care, which is what they are angling.
The food pyramid will seem like chump change if that ever happens.
All right, folks.
Got to take a brief time out here, but it'll go by faster than any other break does because the fastest three hours in media.
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