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Dec. 21, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:21
December 21, 2011, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Hi, welcome back, folks.
Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh, talking fast.
You got to listen fast.
We're down to our last hour here of my last live program before Christmas and before the end of the year.
Always a thrill and delight to have you here.
Our telephone number, if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, the email address, illrushbo at EIBNet.com.
I just received an email from Mr. Newt.
Mr. Newt just sent me an email.
It says, urgent from Newt, I am with Boehner on the payroll tax fight.
I am against Obama, signed Newt.
And it is from his email address.
Now, the Politico and the Wall Street Journal both are reporting that Newt is suggesting that Boehner and the House Republicans give it up.
That because Obama is the president, he can't be beat on this.
Now, when I read both of those stories, I said, especially the Politico piece, I said, I'm not sure that this says what the Politico headline says it says.
I don't know why they would lie.
But it's not unprecedented.
But I mean, this, you've got both the Politico and the Wall Street Journal both are as unequivocal as you can get.
And yet, Newt says, I'm with Boehner on the payroll tax fight.
I'm against Obama.
Those two outlets are saying Obama, I'm sorry, rather, Newt is suggesting that they let Obama have this.
So that's the latest on that.
Now, Obama took the dog shopping.
Then Obama stopped to get a pizza, which is what Obama always does when the wife is away.
He always goes out and eats real food when the cat's away.
Now, I have a question.
TheHill.com had a story today, folks, on the toughest decision of Obama's presidency.
And I am not making that up.
I've got that story here in the stack someplace.
They are really saying that one of the toughest decisions poor Barack will have to make is whether or not to stay in town or to go on his vacation.
I'm looking for it here.
It's in the stack here.
I am not.
It's in here somewhere.
Now, my question about this, I'll make the point while I'm looking for it.
Why would Obama's decision whether to go to Hawaii or not be difficult?
Harry Reed has shut down the Senate, folks, and he's not going to reopen it.
Nancy Pelosi has said that she wouldn't send any Democrats to a conference committee to work out a compromise on this.
The Democrats have iced any activity in the House.
There's nothing more that'll be done on it unless the Republicans cave.
So if this is such a slam-dunk winner for Obama, and if you've got the Wall Street Journal and the establishment of Republicans wetting their pants over this, why even think about not going to Hawaii as some news reports have it?
He can leave early, may even fly out early with Michelle.
Well, the Michelle kid's already there.
But if this is such a slam dunk win, why doesn't he get on that plane and go?
Here's the story from a tear.
I mean, when I read this, my computer monitor started tearing up.
That's what a tear jerker this story is.
And it's by a chick, Amy Parnes.
President Obama faces a most difficult decision with the payroll tax extension up in the air, and it isn't whether to compromise with the Republicans.
The toughest call for the president this holiday season could be whether to join his family for Christmas in Hawaii or stay in lonely Washington.
The White House won't say whether the president's heading west for the holidays or even if he's making an abbreviated appearance.
This is what it actually says.
Even if there's no ideal time for a presidential vacation coma, this one comes at a particularly inopportune moment.
For weeks, Obama's insisted lawmakers stay in town.
I tell you, I burst out crying when I read this.
I kid you not.
That's exactly what it says.
Toughest decision of the year.
But I don't, again, Harry Reid shut down the Senate, says he's not going to reopen it.
Pelosi has said she's not going to send any Democrats to a conference committee to work out a compromise.
So the Democrats have iced any activity in the House.
So there's nothing more to be done on this, unless the Republicans cave.
So why not fly off?
It's over.
Except, again, if this is such a slam dunk winner, what's so hard about the decision?
It's over with.
The Democrats have iced all activity.
Go.
Go to Hawaii.
Claim victory.
Claim victory.
Our side says it is one.
What's Obama doing taking the dog shopping?
He could be on the plane to Hawaii right now.
From MSNBC, why we hate taxes.
Oh, really?
Well, let me read this.
Americans are growing increasingly frustrated with our country's federal tax system, but not because we feel overtaxed.
No.
Most Americans believe the biggest problem with taxes is that wealthy people don't pay their fair share.
Right out of the Obama playbook.
This, according to poll results published by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
The feeling of outrage over the privileged classes is growing, according to the poll, which only confirms the widespread anger that has helped fuel this fall's Occupy.
This is bogus as anything I have ever seen.
The timing is too perfect.
I have spent 20 plus years telling people how to detect liberal bias in news stories.
I have explained how polls are used to make news.
Polls and studies done by totally biased news media.
Studies are paid for by the government to give liberals on college campus something to do.
And here's another example of a poll that is used to trash the rich, a poll that is converted to a news story at the very beginning of Obama's reelection campaign.
Why we hate taxes?
Because the rich aren't paying their fair share.
Washazam!
What a miracle.
Look at this, Ethel.
Obama's been knocked there for six months, and he's been telling people to rich aren't paying their fair share.
And then MSNBC, his network, has got a poll, and it says the same thing, Ethel.
Isn't that, why?
That's amazing.
It certainly is.
It certainly is.
How timely and how bogus.
How transparently bogus.
And now moving on to Time magazine.
And before I get to this, let me remind you of some things.
I want to give you some headlines from other articles about the rich from Time magazine over the last few months.
Ready?
Study, the rich really are more selfish.
Another, six figure parking spots.
The rich pay $125,000 to park their cars.
You want another one?
Most millionaires support higher taxes on the rich.
Why the rich shoplift more than the poor?
Guess who's most likely to That's in the money section of Time magazine.
Why the rich shoplift more than the poor?
Time magazine's universe.
The next one, guess who's most likely to strategically default on mortgages?
The rich.
There are six or just five recent stories over the last few months from Time Magazine about the rich.
I guess, snerdly, your favorite is why the rich shoplift more than the poor.
The rich really are more selfish.
Now, here's the story.
This is from healthland.time.com.
Got money, then you might lack compassion, is this story.
Pity the poor plutocrat.
Politicians want to tax them.
Occupy Wall Street mocks them.
99% of their fellow citizens are mad at them, even if they secretly want to be one of them.
Now comes word from the University of California, Berkeley, that it is not likely, that's not likely to send their approval ratings any higher.
A new study has confirmed that the richer you are, the less compassionate you are.
And don't gloat, you upper middle classers.
That includes you too.
In a study just published in the straightforwardly named journal Emotion, psychologist Jennifer Steller sought to determine the empathic capacities of a sample group of 300 college students who had been hand-selected for maximum economic diversity.
As a rule, of course, college students of just one income level, poor, which is why they spend so much time writing home for money.
Stellar thus chose her subjects based on the income of the people who respond to the requests and write the checks, the parents.
That whole paragraph to set up the fact that the survey sample here is parents of kids in college.
In the first three spearmints, she had 148 of her subjects fill out a detailed questionnaire reporting how often and how intensely they experience emotions such as joy, love, compassion, and awe.
She also had them agree or disagree with statements like, I often notice people who need help.
Such self-reported data ought to be notoriously unreliable since many of us are likely to respond honestly if our answers make us look like a louse.
But personality inventories are a long-standing staple of psychological testing, especially since the scoring is designed to correct for self-flattering grade inflation.
So she goes on to describe the methodology and all of this.
And she basically found that during compassion, the heart rate lowers as if the body is calming itself to take care of another person and the rich experience less lowering of their heart rate.
The heart rate of the rich, pretty constant.
In the final part of the study, 106 of the participants were paired off and told to interview each other as if they were applying for a make-believe position as lab manager.
And basically, she concluded that the rich are different.
More money, less empathy.
More money, less compassion.
That's the rich.
Time magazine.
Now, isn't this timely?
So here you have the MSNBC poll from the Pew Research Center that there's widespread disgust with the tax system because the rich aren't paying their fair share.
Who's been saying that the last six months?
And now the rich, the evil 1%, actually have smaller hearts.
They have no compassion.
The richer they are, the less sorrow they feel.
Really, who wants to be rich with all this?
Okay, so to review, Time magazine in recent months, study the rich really are more selfish.
Six-figure parking spots.
The rich pay $125,000 to park their cars.
Most millionaires support higher taxes on the rich.
Why the rich shoplift more than the poor?
Guess who's most likely to strategically default on mortgages?
The rich.
And the richer you are, the smaller your heart.
You got money?
You have no compassion.
I told you yesterday, did I not get ready for this onslaught?
I told you it's going to be relentless and unstopping.
It's going to be ceaseless.
And it'll be ratcheted up week after week after week.
And the whole point of every one of these polls, the whole point of all these studies, is to make you think that public opinion largely is identical to what Barack Obama is saying.
That's the express purpose.
That's the whole point of all of this.
Virginia in Plantation, Florida.
Merry Christmas and welcome to the show.
Oh, Rush, is that you?
Yes, I am.
I waited and I'm a little nervous.
Nerdly put me at ease.
But then when I got on the phone here, I'm a little nervous, so be patient.
You know, I've been where you are.
I've been on hold as a call.
I know it's nerve-wracking.
You're sitting out there on hold, and all of a, and a lot of time goes by, and all of a sudden this booming voice says, Virginia, in plantation, it's a privilege to talk to you, though.
I listen to you almost every day.
I appreciate that.
While I waited, it wasn't downtime.
I was able to empty my dishwasher, put on some soup, and, you know, so it wasn't, you know.
I've always said that this program promotes productivity.
It does.
It does.
And I've learned a lot.
I've learned a lot listening to you.
But my question, well, before I ask my question, may I wish you and your staff and all your listeners a blessed Christmas and a good new year.
Yeah, thank you.
Of course you can.
Thank you.
That number one.
That's, you know, anyway.
Anyway, my question is, of all the candidates that I have seen and heard and I've listened and all that, I wonder why Santorum has not done better.
I like him.
And I wanted your opinion why he's not done better.
Well, that's a tough one to answer.
I love Rick Santorum.
I do too.
People tend to remember public figures by virtue of the last prominent thing that they did.
And before he ran for office, the last thing that happened to Rick Santorum was he was defeated for the Senate.
And prior to his defeat in the Senate, he had endorsed Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey.
And this did not sit well with Republican conservative primary voters who did not like Specter at all.
But that was what Santorum had to do.
You're a sitting member of the party.
An incumbent is running for re-election.
It's part of the protocol of the business.
But people said, well, we don't want standard operating procedure.
We want mavericks and this kind of thing.
So I didn't hold it against him.
I understood that's what he's doing.
But a lot of people, that's the last memory.
So he's got that to overcome.
Then he's got the presumed nominee status of Romney to overcome.
He's got the name recognition status of Romney and Gingrich to overcome.
There are a lot of real-life factors that weigh into this that have nothing to do with him.
It has to do with, you know, Romney, this is second go-round running for president.
He's a sitting governor from former governor of Massachusetts, newt speaker of the House.
These people all have prominent name recognition.
So Santorum and Bachman both had to do something to overcome that in all of these debates and stand out, get noticed somehow.
And that's always a crapshoot.
You need so many things to fall right.
If he runs for president again, he's going to be that much ahead of the game the next time around if he does it.
This is his first time.
But I know on the substance and the issues and the policy, there's one thing I know about Santorum that I look at the endgame of this.
The campaign is one thing and the troubles that people have.
But I know that if Rick Santorum were elected president, I wouldn't have one doubt any day what he would be fighting for.
Not one.
And it would be great if he could get there.
I totally agree with you about that.
As usual, talent on loan from God and having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
There's one thing about Rick Santorum.
Almost a dirty little secret about Rick Santorum, and that is that gay people really hate Rick Santorum.
Now, you might be so, why does that matter?
Well, that matters because that filters down through newsrooms.
It filters down through much of the news and media conglomerate, the community, if you will.
And it is going to influence and taint the kind of coverage he gets.
He's no holds barred on American cultural issues and what he considers to be things that are causing the culture to end up being coarsened and depraved and so forth.
And his comments are not reserved just to gay people, homosexuality, but another things.
Abortion, he's fearless on this stuff.
And he is not afraid to take on some taboo subjects and then to speak from the heart about them.
And, of course, this makes him anathema to the New York Times, for example.
He's never going to get a mention, much less a fair one, out of the New York Times.
They also hate Bachman, not so much over her reaction or attitude about when I say gay people, what I mean is that the political gay, you know, there's a left-wing, gay political structure, very active Democrat Party.
That's who Santorum goes after, and as well as Bachman, too.
So she's hated.
When you have that kind of alignment against you in so many areas of the media, it's just another larger hump if you were to overcome.
And that's, I mean, if you want to know why Santorum is not catching, it's not that he's not catching on with voters.
The political gay lobby is a very powerful lobby.
There's the Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
There's the, oh, what's the other one?
I can't, Human Rights Organization.
They're very, very politically active.
They're one of the largest donor groups for the Democrat Party.
And they hate Santorum.
And, yeah, gay marriage.
He's in the same position on gay marriage as the president does, but that position on gay marriage, as far as Obama is concerned, is wink-wink.
There's no wink-wink with Santorum on any of that.
I have a couple, three soundbites are actually, ladies and gentlemen, that I want to play for you.
Eric Cantor responding to the Wall Street Journal editorial that I mentioned today that I took issue with.
The Wall Street Journal editorial, which basically accuses the House Republicans of really mismanaging this payroll tax cut issue politically.
And they say, if they're not careful, they're going to turn Obama into the king tax cutter.
They want him to just cave and go along with Obama, be done with it.
So Cantor was on with Chris Saliza today on MSNBC.
And he was asked about the Wall Street Journal editor.
He read a portion of it.
At this stage, Republicans would do best to cut their losses, find a way to extend the payroll holiday quickly.
The alternative is more chaotic retreat and a return of all Democrat rule.
What do you say to that, Congressman Cantor?
What say I to that, Chris, is we're here in Washington.
Speaker Boehner is here.
We have members here in Washington ready to go to work.
And the dispute boils down to this.
Do we want to extend tax breaks and relief for the working people in this country for a year?
Or do you want to do it for 60 days and be embroiled in this kind of dispute ongoing?
And I think certainly the logical position is to take the former.
And President Obama is still in town.
I hope he's not going to go on vacation leaving the American people in the lurch and that he can join with us in trying to tell Harry Reid to come back to town so we can assure the American people that their taxes are not going to go up for a year.
So Salizza then said, well, I know in a perfect world you'd like a year-long extension.
Obviously, Congress doesn't exist in a perfect world.
The options are if we get to December 28th, 29th, the options are a two-month extension or a failure to extend it all, which as you and I both know would raise taxes $1,000 or more.
Are you and the Republican Conference prepared to go that way?
We can solve all of this and make sure the American people get what they deserve, which is some certainty and a year-long resolution to say their taxes aren't going to go up.
You know, you think about why people are frustrated in Washington.
It's because we're here.
The president's down the street at the White House.
He's seemingly unwilling to come and join us to say, let's get this thing done.
And I've heard him say, well, the only thing that's doable is a 60-day extension.
How is that?
We've got time before the end of the year.
Let's do our work like the American people are having to do.
And last night on the Brett Baer show, the special report on Fox, Brett Baer, the all-star panel, A.B. Stoddard from The Hill, she associate editor there.
And Baer said, look, it's a negotiation.
So far, we haven't seen both sides come together.
We haven't seen senators saying that they will do it.
The House Republicans are digging in actually over principle, much as they have been accused of digging in over politics.
There's some politics involved, but they're very angry with the Senate.
The Senate has not passed a budget in a very long time.
The Senate has been fond of temporary patches.
It makes the Congress look more dysfunctional.
And the House Republicans are rebelling against a temporary two-month patch to the payroll tax cut extension.
That being said, this is not going to be understood by most Americans.
This is a very high-risk gamble for the House Republicans.
It's bad politics, and people are tuned out for Christmas.
They want their $1,000.
They hate the Congress.
Right.
So that's, they're acting on principle, and that's a loser.
They're acting on principle, but that's a loser because the American people hate Congress and they want their $1,000.
And they're too stupid to understand it, too.
They're too stupid to understand that it's $20 a week.
Too stupid to understand.
They hate Congress.
They want their thousand bucks.
It hasn't led to job creation.
It hasn't led to anything.
A two-month deal is not going to get anybody $1,000.
If I may, I'm sorry to yell folks.
I know you don't like it.
I just get sometimes reacted so incredulously.
$1,000?
The American people want their $1,000?
The American people want their house on the beach.
At point does somebody stand up and say, we don't have the money here.
And that's not what this is anyway.
And there is no $1,000 on the table in a two-month extension.
We're not talking $1,000 here.
Tyler in Indianapolis, great to have you on the program, sir.
Welcome to EIB Network.
Happy holidays, Rush.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you for taking my call.
I just have a quick question.
Why can't we attack Obama personally?
Why can't we be critical of him?
Because, well, we can, but the Republicans think that the Independents don't like that and will feel sorry for him and get mad at whoever criticizes him and will vote Democrat.
Okay, so if you're holding back and doing that, what are the benefits of that for us?
Well, the benefit is that the thinking is that the people, the independents, are going to see that we're nice people and will stay with us.
They're nice people.
We're nice people and they will then vote for us.
That we're not the meanies that the Democrats and the media say we are.
So what we really will do, we will please the media and we please the media.
Ha ha ha ha.
We please the media.
Then the independents will vote for us because we are nice people.
You asked.
I meant not to be satisfying, but you asked.
I'm telling you the truth.
All right.
Well, so with people, you know, holding back and saying, you know, they're going to vote for us and things like that, how will it change, you know, to defeat Obama?
I mean, to repeal Obamacare and things like that.
It won't.
People.
See, it won't.
You don't.
Do you ever hear the Democrats pulling back their attacks on us?
You ever wonder why the Independents never get mad at Democrats for saying personal untrue things about us?
You ever ask, why do the Independents not get mad when the Democrats get mean?
And we're not even talking about getting mean here.
We're just being honest.
How come the Independents never threaten to leave the Democrats when they say we want to starve old people?
We ever see the media hold back in their attacks on us?
I'm telling you, it is a prison that they have put us in, and we have willingly locked the cell.
We have locked ourselves in.
It's absurd that you asked, and that's the answer.
And I know you're out there.
You don't understand it.
Understand it.
I've told you the exact truth.
It's that silly.
The independents will like us and they'll vote for us.
The independents will see that we are not the mean people that the Democrats say that we are.
But the minute we attack Obama, then they're going to say, see, those are racists and they're sexist and they're bigots.
And so, but the Democrats, they can never be racist.
They can never be sexist.
They can never be bigot.
They can never be mean.
They can do whatever they want.
The independents will eat it up, lap it up, love it.
Yep, that's what we're told out there, Tyler.
Back to the phones we go.
It's C. Josh in Heston, Kansas.
Nice to have you.
Welcome, sir.
Hey, Rush, Mega Dittos, and Merry Christmas.
Thank you, sir.
I just wanted to say I love it when you don't stick to the issues.
You have such a good time talking about things that you enjoy, and I think it's just infectious.
You know, a couple of examples.
I'm a Windows guy, don't really like the way Apple does things, but I like hearing you talk about the latest Apple gadget.
You know, I'm not a dog person, but I like hearing you talk about your dogs.
And tell your buddy, the great one that goes double for him, by the way.
The big one, though, my absolute favorite of the non-issue issues, I love when you start talking about your early days in radio.
You just have such a passion for the medium, and it just really kind of, I think, rubs off.
There was probably six, eight months ago, you had an Open Line Friday caller that had asked for your thoughts about top 40 radio.
And I think that was probably the call that really made me realize how much I enjoy hearing how much you enjoy radio.
Well, you have made my day.
I don't know.
I've let the stick to the issues crowd perhaps over influence me because of the seriousness of the times.
And I know that people are very serious and intense, and any loss of focus they look at is maybe setting us back a little bit.
So I appreciate it.
It's fun for me, too.
And I'm going to tell you, a little New Year's resolution that we'll stick it to the Stick to the Issues crowd even more in 2011.
We'll be right back, folks.
It's a 20-plus-year tradition on this program to wrap up our final program before Christmas with Mannheim Steamroller and Silent Night.
I love the song.
And if you've not heard it, you probably have by now.
If you've not heard it, off a CD, turned up loud as you can make it on a very good stereo system.
You should.
It is a beautiful, beautiful rendition of a great song.
And it's the time of year, Thanksgiving is one thing.
I happen to feel more sentimental and thankful for all of my blessings at Christmas time for some reason.
And it's when I try to take a moment to express it all to you.
Something that I've realized over the years is that when I'm away over Christmas, I'm actually away from my family in a sense, because that's what you all are.
Probably the largest extended family known to exist in the free world.
And I'm never with you on holidays, except, of course, in my heart.
You're always with me, and I don't know what I would do if you weren't there.
I have people tell me still how much the program means to them and so forth, but whatever that is, it is small in comparison to what you all have meant to me and my family.
It's indescribable what you have all meant.
And I can't thank you enough, no matter what.
It's a piece of gratitude I'll never fully be able to express or even fully repay.
We sometimes say that great radio makes for great listeners, but that also goes vice versa.
Having such a great audience makes for great radio and a great host.
You are an indescribable, can't do without it link to everything that's here.
Try to put this fight over the payroll tax cut out of your mind and have a great Christmas holiday and a great New Year's.
And remember, don't forget to tell everybody in your family, according to the BBC, that they are fat.
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