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Jan. 3, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:58
January 3, 2012, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Yeah, and I can't believe that nobody's talking about that either.
The thing Obama signed on New Year's Eve, the new Defense Authorization Act.
I don't know if people don't know what's in this or if other things take precedence.
Well, it is being reported because I saw it.
I saw it reported.
Greetings and welcome back, folks.
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh and the EIB network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
So Obama signs this thing, the new Defense Authorization Act, on New Year's Eve.
Folks, you know what this thing does?
It allows the United States military to detain anybody for no reason.
They don't even have to charge you.
I mean, it is specified.
This is not the Patriot Act.
This is way beyond.
This is total authoritarianism.
This is the kind of stuff that exists in third world banana republics.
The government can detain anybody.
All they have to do, they actually don't have to do anything.
They just have to say they suspect you of terrorism.
They have to prove it.
They don't have to have any evidence.
They don't have to charge you.
They can put you away in a jail.
You are not allowed a lawyer.
You are not allowed habeas corpus.
It's the most amazing thing.
And Obama even issued a signing statement with it in which he said, don't worry, I'm not going to do this.
Don't worry, I'm not going to do it.
Well, he can, as can anybody in the military, as can any future president, just decide to detain you for no reason.
I mean, literally no reason.
Where is the left on this?
Where are the civil libertarians?
This is, you know, you can talk about Bush, the Patriot Act all you want, if you're a leftist and a Democrat.
Where are you people?
This is the biggest affront to the whole notion of civil rights that I can recall.
There is a column, Jonathan Turley, who is a legal beagle.
He's a guest on TV shows.
He's a law professor at George Washington.
Is it Georgetown or George Washington?
I forget which.
He posted a column on his blog, and the UK Guardian asked for permission to publish it.
And so it's on their website.
He basically says what I've just said to you in terms of describing what this is.
The reason that was signed into law was so that the military could be funded.
The old argument, well, if you don't sign this, the military will get funded.
Nobody stood up against this.
It was the end of the year.
Everybody wants out of town.
Get home for the holidays or what have you.
But there it is.
Now, George W. Bush never even contemplated anything like this.
And nobody's talking about it.
And you might, you can say, well, Rush, come on.
They're not going to just start detaining people left and right.
You know, they're only going to use this for people they suspect of being terrorists.
Well, how are they going to define terrorism?
If you are a liberal Democrat politician, might you think that what happens on Fox is terrorism?
Might you?
You know how wacky some of these people are.
So anyway, it's out there.
Signed on New Year's Eve with a signing statement that said from Obama, don't worry, I'm not going to do this.
That was his signing.
Essentially, I mean, I'm paraphrasing the signing statement is essentially what he said.
And this from Business Insider.
The United States authorities have offered to lift the threat of legal action against 11 Swiss banks in exchange for information.
Part of a very long story.
The Justice Department's been doing everything it can to get the names of Americans who have Swiss bank accounts.
The Department of Justice damn near busted the United Bank of Scotland over United Bank of Switzerland over this a few years back.
And now they're going after other Swiss banks.
The lawyers at the DOJ don't kid around.
They basically saying, give us the names of American account holders or we will sue the crap out of you.
So the IRS and the Department of Justice are now, again, this Business Insider story, grabbing new powers in the hunt for revenue.
And there's two stories here.
The first is the Switzerland bank story where the DOJ is telling Swiss banks, you tell us or we're going to sue you until the cows come home.
And these banks are giving up the information, which the coin of the realm in Swiss banking was privacy.
They're giving it up.
If you have a Swiss bank account, the Department of Justice, Eric Holder, is going to learn about it.
And they're going to find out if you are doing something they don't like, not necessarily illegal.
Don't forget now.
They could say that what you're doing is aiding and abetting terrorism and detain you based on what they find in your bank account.
A federal district court judge, California, has given the IRS permission to serve a John Doe summons on the California State Board of Equalization, that's the state IRS, demanding the names of residents who transferred property to their children or grandchildren for little or no money from 2005 to 2010.
The IRS has used John Doe's summons to seek lists of American taxpayers' unreported offshore accounts at Swiss Bank UBS and the HSBC Bank in India.
Now, these techniques have worked well in Switzerland.
The hardworking folks at DOJ IRS are now bringing them to California.
This means that the IRS can look at anybody's real estate transactions.
With John Doe warrants, they can go fishing and snooping or whatever they like.
Now, I'm reading this from Business Insider, which is a website.
Think of it what you will.
The country starved for revenue.
The outfit that's charged with collecting that revenue has an army of tough-minded lawyers behind it.
It'll have the power to turn over stones as it pleases.
In the end, this effort will raise some additional revenue.
It'll scare the heck out of a few people as well.
Some people will cheer it.
I see the John Doe warrants as a big and dangerous step on a very slippery slope, writes the writer here.
Sure won't do much for Uncle Sam's image, but a lot of people aren't going to care.
In fact, the entire Democrat Party voting base is going to be encouraging this.
The entire Occupy Wall Street, go get a John Doe summons and find every transaction if everybody's got any money and find out if they're giving money away to their kids or whatever, putting their real estate in their kids' names or what have you.
So this is their head.
As far as the Defense Authorization Act, according to Senator Carl Levin, it was Obama who required indefinite detainment that include U.S. citizens.
Remember, we have killed an American citizen with a drone, al-Olaki, who had done that.
He was an American citizen.
According to Senator Levin, it was Obama who required that be able to detain anybody for no reason, include U.S. citizens.
The original bill was focused on enemies of America, terrorists specifically.
Levin said there was language in the bill to exempt U.S. citizens, but Obama asked for that language to be removed.
Lindsey Graham has said the same thing, according to the congressional record.
Lindsey Graham Nassi said, why do we take out the language Senator Levin wanted me to put in about an American citizen could not be held indefinitely if caught in the homeland?
The administration asked us to do that.
So while Obama's out there trying to blame us on Congress and having a signing statement, say, well, you know, I'm never going to do this.
It was Obama who required the language be in the legislation.
This was on New Year's Eve, so it's like four days ago that this was signed.
And of course, it's a weekend.
And not a whole lot of this is being reported.
Certainly not being discussed.
Well, I don't care if the story you read had it completely backwards and the story you read was wrong.
Because I'm telling you what's in the bill.
And I'm telling you what's in his signing statement.
And of course, the message is going to be, well, wait a minute now.
Why are you concerned?
If you're not doing anything wrong, you'll not show up on anybody's radar.
Well, let's define doing something wrong.
You live in Venezuela and you say something about Hugo Chavez gaining weight while on chemo and you don't believe he's really got cancer, you could end up in jail.
That's what dictators do.
Speaking of Hugo Chavez, Hugo Chavez blaming us for creating cancer and spreading it to Latin American world leaders.
I kid you not.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez hinted at the U.S. may be behind a very strange bout of cancer affecting several leaders aligned with him in South America.
Chavez, speaking a day after the Argentine president Christina Fernandez de Kirchner was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, said that the CIA was behind chemical experiments in Guatemala in the 40s, and that it's possible that in years to come, a plot will be uncovered that shows the U.S. spread cancer as a political weapon against its critics.
Chavez said, very difficultly, we'll explain this, even with the law of probabilities, what has been happening to some of us in Latin America.
Would it be so strange that they've invented technology to spread cancer and we won't know about it for 50 years?
Now, stop and think of that.
How did we know 50 years ago who would be in power in Latin America?
How did we know 50 years ago who we wanted to give cancer to?
And if we had done this, why is Castro still alive?
But anyway, this is what Hugo Chavez is out there suggesting.
And if you're in Venezuela, you say, you know, our leader is stupid.
This guy claims he's got cancer, but have you seen him?
He's swollen up like a balloon.
Now, most people take chemo.
They lose weight.
This guy's, I don't believe he's got cancer.
You say that in Venezuela, and you're going to end up in a dungeon because he's got the authority and the power to do that.
I mentioned earlier, ladies and gentlemen, Rick Perry and the way he dealt with Mike Allen, who came up to him and said, hey, some staffers say that you're not really smart.
Some staffers saying that your campaign's stupid and late and so forth.
And Perry said, well, who?
I'm not going to tell you.
I'm not going to respond to this.
Do you tell me who's saying this?
By the way, Perry is on a full court press today, yesterday.
Perry's out doing interviews.
I saw him on Fox earlier today, and he came across great.
Perry has always made me laugh.
Rick Perry has always made me smile.
I look at Rick Perry speak and I smile.
And sometimes I laugh.
I've met Rick Perry a couple times and I've enjoyed it thoroughly both times.
I like Rick Perry.
I love Santorum.
I like Bachman.
I like all these people.
And I know that any one of them would be great for this country.
And I know a Hawkeye caucus tonight.
What we're famous for in the Hawkeye Caucasi surprises.
One of the biggest surprises in recent years is Howard Dean.
Howard Dean was thought going into the Hawkeye Caucy.
What year would this be?
2004 or was it 2000?
One of the two years.
The years run together, but it was thought that, oh, it was 04.
Howard Dean was going to clean up in Iowa, and he didn't.
He barely came in third place, and it was over.
And everybody was shocked.
I tell you, everybody could not believe it.
The polling data didn't indicate this.
Howard Dean was the guy.
And when that happened, the Democrats panicked and they went to Kerry, who served in Vietnam, John Forbes Kerry, the haughty John.
They said, well, we got to have somebody can win now.
And they did that to themselves.
Okay, we need somebody who can win.
So they chose somebody on the basis of the stupid notion of electability.
It's not a stupid notion, but when that's the only reason you pick somebody, it's stupid.
And that's what they did.
Anyway, I've got the soundbite now of Rick Perry.
This was Sunday in Des Moines.
And this is the political White House correspondent, Mike Allen, interviewing Rick Perry.
He says to him, You know, Governor, some of your staffers have told us that you ran this as a gubernatorial campaign for too long, that you didn't look big enough.
You didn't get big enough.
You take some responsibility for that.
I don't know who you're talking to, so I can't respond.
These are members of your name.
You got a name who say you got a name?
You won't listen to you got a name?
If you don't have a name to tell me this individual said this, then I don't take that as a corroborated source.
And that's Ricky.
You got a name?
You got a name?
This is not somebody stupid, folks, doing this.
You got a name.
It was, in fact, it was Mike Allen.
You, uh, you're, you're, you're, what, what, you, you, uh, you're not going to reply?
You're, you.
You're not going to react to that?
Got a name.
But, but, I got a staffer.
The staffer said it.
You basically stupid and suck.
You got a name.
What?
You.
Doesn't sound like somebody stupid to me, folks.
Okay, we're going to the phones.
They got somebody on the phone from Denver.
It is Tony.
Great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Mega Dittos.
Happy New Year.
Thank you very much.
And same to you, sir.
Rush, I hope you're coming to Denver for the Broncos Steelers game this weekend.
Please, Rush, will you handicap the game?
Tim Tebow, can he pull off the upset?
This is going to be a long shot.
This is not the defense that you want coming to town if you're the Broncos at this stage of Tebow's development.
You just, this is, this is not going to be pretty.
The Broncos, they're on a three-game tailspin here.
This is the number one defense, number two defense in the league.
There's plenty of tape now on containing Tebow on the college-style option offense.
Pittsburgh has great corners and safeties and some great defensive ends to containment.
Anything is possible.
And we get to the weekend.
I might actually pick a couple games, environmentalist wacko and straight with the points where it's.
I will, as of now, I don't have plans to be in Denver.
But this is, oh, it's it.
Really, well, I mean, I don't have any plans to go to Denver.
My whole life is spontaneous city, so who knows?
But right now, no plans to go to Denver.
Well, Rush, the media hates Tebow because of his faith.
The only way to make the media hate him even more is a picture of you standing next to him this weekend.
Yes.
Hey, Rush, thanks for taking my call.
Love your show today.
I appreciate it.
That's true.
You know, the media, to be fair about this, at the outset, it was caustic and vitriolic toward Tebow back in the summer during the lockout when people were looking at Tebow working out on his own and supposedly not succeeding, changing the throwing motion.
He doesn't have a quick enough release, all these things.
And of course, there was no question.
The reason Thow makes people uncomfortable is because he shows you your shortcomings.
It's no more complicated than that.
It's why the left doesn't want any morality.
They don't want any judgments because they will never measure up.
If you look at the left's heroes, sports are otherwise, they're the people that are constantly getting in trouble.
The bad boys, the guys crossing the line, the risk takers.
Tebow's dull.
Tebow's boring.
Plus, he's a Christian.
He actually believes that.
And they just don't want something like that doing well.
Then they were overwhelmed by public opinion and the Broncos fanbase, which clearly loved Tebow, wanted him to do well.
And Tebow and the defense, the Broncos got that team in the playoffs barely, but they're there.
Would not have happened probably had Tebow not taken over.
And the media did start soft-peddling their opposition.
I commented on it on this program that there had been a 180 in many places of the sports writer community now writing favorably about Tebow and so forth.
But I've known deep down they've been hoping for a major failure, an embarrassing blowout.
And that's what they're going to be hoping for this Sunday so that the Tebow experiment as a quarterback is finally over with.
I'm talking about national sports writer people, not people in Denver.
There may be some in Denver, too.
But this is it's going to be this the Steelers defense uh they're going to be minus some players, but most of the Steelers injuries are on offense, so it just has a chance of not to be pretty at CNBC.
No, MSNBC, they got a graphic up there.
It says 41% of cauckey gorest tonight are undecided.
41% of the, and you know, I, they, they, they, they do entrance polls, by the way, at the Hawkeye caucus, as opposed to exit.
I could do exit too.
They do entrance polls, but 41% undecided.
That's incredible.
I just don't know what to believe anymore from these people with their polling data and all of this.
I just, it's not something I trust.
That's just my instincts.
I got some sound bites here, folks.
I've been putting it off, not because I don't want to play them.
I've just been other things have been taking precedence.
And let's see.
I mentioned at the top of the program, even while I was gone, still given credit for Santorum's rise in Iowa.
I'm not kidding.
I'm not saying it.
The media did.
We've played those soundbites.
And here's Santorum himself.
This is last week.
Santorum released a radio ad entitled Unite for the Voters in Iowa.
We have a portion of the ad.
Sarah Palin praised Santorum for protecting the sanctity of life.
Mike Huckabee said he loved Santorum's conviction.
And Rush Limbaugh said it would be great if Rick Santorum became president.
And Rick is endorsed by Iowa conservatives like Bob Vanderplatz and Sam Clovis.
Now it's time for all conservatives to unite and support Rick Santorum for president.
Visit ricksentorum.com.
Paid for by Rick Santorum for president.
I'm Rick Santorum, and I approve this message.
How stupid is that they have to say that?
How about I'm Rick Santorum?
I have no idea what this message said, but election law says I got to say I approved it.
How stupid.
So anyway, there's Santorum ad mentioning me.
And then on CNN, this happened.
This was last Wednesday.
Santorum's new radio spot touts the endorsements he's gotten from some top social conservative leaders right here in Iowa.
He also says that Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor, has said some nice things about him, as has Rush Limbaugh.
Both of them, of course, pretty influential as well among conservatives.
Right.
So Limbaugh Palin mentioned Santorum.
Santorum catapults in the polls.
That was the media story last week.
Even when I'm not here, this program is listened to by members of the media so that they can figure out what you think.
This is Joe Klein from Time magazine.
He was on with John King at John Kings USA.
Well, but the fill-in host was Candy Crowley.
So we have Joe Klein on John King USA guests hosted by Candy Crowley on CNN in Des Moines.
And she said, the problem with Mitt Romney is he's played this campaign is sitting there and watching other people go up and down.
He's been completely cautious, very careful, and people just didn't see the fire.
I've been out here driving around the cornfields, listening to talk radio.
Rush Limbaugh has sit-in hosts this week.
But when you listen to the callers, they're all coming to terms with Romney now.
Okay, so Joe Klein.
Wait a second, Sterdley.
I know, I know.
But Joe Klein's, he's out driving in the cornfields.
I've been out here.
I told you at the top of the program, these people think they are in a foreign country when they have to go to Iowa, anywhere in the Midwest.
He's out there driving around the cornfields.
Does anybody live there?
I mean, in great numbers.
Anyway, he's out there driving around the cornfields, listening to talk radio, and he said that you are coming to terms with Romney.
Is that true, audience?
Is that really true?
Is Joe Klein accurately describing Snerdley, the people that called here last week?
By the way, Snerdley is telling me that this is a blatant lie.
Let's put it this way.
Klein has it wrong.
That the majority of callers, sorry, Klein wanted everybody to think that the Limbaugh audience was coming to terms with Romney.
And Snerdley, who was working last week, says it's not true.
So there you have that.
Now, last Thursday on Hard Boiled on MSNBC, Huffing and Puffington Post, editorial director Howard Feynman had this to say about Gingrich and me.
Newt had several ads on the Rush Limbaugh Radio Show, which is on WHO, the big 3,000-watt station here.
He had lots of ads saying, I'm a great guy.
Then Mark Stein, who's substituting for Rush, comes back on and just bangs Newt over the head.
Again, the whole conservative movement has decided that Newt is a mistake waiting to happen.
I can quote Mark, who said, Newt Gamrich is like Yosemite Sam.
The dynamite's going to blow up.
This is akin to that everybody's waiting for the implosion.
Stein said it was an explosion, but people are still waiting.
Yosemite Sam.
I think I described McCain as Yosemite Sam back in 2000.
And it didn't sit well.
It did not sit well.
Call him Yosemite Sam.
I forget.
It was so accurate.
I forget specifically what it was about.
But do you listen to your show while you're?
And I don't.
I don't.
I never have.
And Stein was really dumping on Newt.
Joe Klein says that the audience is coming to grips and sidling up to Romney.
Don't worry, Snerdley.
He said it on Candy Crowley sitting in for John King on CNN.
Nobody heard it.
It isn't that big a deal.
It's Stenny Hoyer, who is one of the Democrat leaders in the House.
They had a press conference on December 22nd about the payroll tax cut legislation.
That's what almost everybody in this country, including the Wall Street Journal, says we ought to do, Mr. Speaker.
Now, perhaps Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist don't think that's what we ought to do, but Americans think that's what we ought to do.
Was that a press conference or was he on the floor of the House saying that?
Grover Norquist, me, Grover Norquist, you know, the villains of the day.
The Democrats actually think naming the villains of the day will somehow move their issue forward.
And I, oh boy, can I tell you, sometimes it works.
Yeah, I had a guy, a friend of mine, come meet me about a month ago on a Saturday, asked to come by for a couple hours.
I said, sure, come on by.
Started crying about what Obama's doing to the country.
I was surprised.
I thought this guy would, regular Democrat voter.
He said, we got to start working together.
Got to work with each other.
Got to work together.
I said, oh, no, who sent him?
I'm saying, right now, who sent him?
And he started talking about, yeah, Grover Norquist.
I said, do you even know who Grover Norquist is?
No, really, who is?
Okay, I explained that Grover Norquist is a guy who doesn't believe in tax increases.
And he makes people sign a pledge.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Those kind of guys are going to kill us.
No, no, no, they're not going to kill us.
But these guys are standing in the way of agreements.
No, they're standing in the way of tax increases, which is not what we need right now.
Anyway, so here's a guy who didn't even know who Norquist was, but some Democrat had told him that Norquist was a villain.
So they got to do something about it.
A pointless, mindless little story, but it's still illustrious.
Let me grab a quick call before we go to break.
It's Ron in Edgewood, Iowa.
I'm glad you waved it.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Wow, Rush, this is really an honor.
Thanks.
I'm giving you Hawkeye Caucy Dittos from beautiful Northeast Iowa where I wouldn't live anywhere else.
And I'm a caucus leader, and I'm in a county where there isn't even a stoplight in any of the towns around here.
Most of the towns are a one-way street and lead out of town.
But we are concerned about.
Wait a second now.
Is that a local Iowa joke that most streets are one way and lead out of town?
It's my joke.
I'm a smart ass.
All right.
And so, but you are a caucus leader.
How many people do you expect in your caucus?
This time I figure maybe 40 people.
You guys eat.
You have coffee, donuts, what have you?
We'll have coffee and we'll have some brownies and we'll have some good discussions.
Everybody has their chance to speak about their candidate.
Okay.
And when an economic cornfield by any chance.
Joe Clinton.
I am outside of a cornfield right now.
As a matter of fact, I'm on a dairy farm.
Ah, okay.
Okay.
Now, the economy isn't devastating here in the Midwest at this point.
But when we hear $16 trillion deficit, we know it's coming.
We're not stupid here.
We're not a bunch of hicks.
And we are afraid of what is coming.
And we do discuss it.
And it's coming to the point where we actually are asking ourselves, what's the point anymore?
How can we stop it?
Is it going to do any good?
I totally understand that.
People have gotten the point.
We're in so much debt that even if we stop now, does that fix anything?
Yes, the Paul Ryan plan balances the budget in 10 years, and they're touting that.
And I thought, my God, $7 trillion were down in three years.
How can we not start cutting things with an axe to get us back to where we are?
I know.
Exactly.
So what you're talking about, Iowans care about the whole country.
Iowans are patriotic.
Oh, my God, yes.
Oh, my God, yes, yes.
And we live, it's rule.
Even if you are not suffering in your cornfield, you are aware that people elsewhere are, and you know what the debt means for everybody and their taxes and their freedom.
You know exactly what it means.
Yes, we do.
Yes, we do.
We're patriotic.
We love our men and military and women.
What do you think about all the media in town for so long or in the state for so long?
I guess you just get used to it.
Yeah, we're not seeing that so much in this.
We're in Northeast Iowa here.
We don't see much of that going on.
But we know that we always fight to have first in the nation caucuses because we want the recognition too.
We know if we don't have this little niche, we'll be nobody.
Yeah.
It's a great marketing thing.
Oh, my God.
Every four years, look at what happens.
Iowa in January.
That's big.
Yeah.
This influx of economic activity and people, it's big.
Yeah.
2FIT did those also.
It's excellent.
My mother, who is a lifelong Democrat, loves the peach.
I sent them to her.
You're the second guy today who's pointed at the tea, a point or tea crosses all boundaries.
Yes, it does.
I don't know if she's going to start listening to you, but she sure is going to drink your tea.
Well, tell her if she likes the tea.
There's no reason not to like me.
I mean, how can you not like the guy who produces the thing, the tea that she likes?
It's not that.
She is not one of those kind of people who doesn't.
So have you come to terms with the Nomney Romney nomination?
Is that the thing?
When they talk about 40% undecided, they're not kidding.
I'm a caucus leader, and I'm torn.
I mean, it made it easier when Herman Cain had to get out, had to.
I love Herman Cain, but I'm also locked in San Francisco.
What did Herman Cain do?
Do you know?
What did he do?
Yeah, what did he do?
I mean, he quit the race, but why?
What did he do?
I know what they said about him, but what did he do?
He was pressured by the media and the Republican elite with all the accusations against him.
He had to go.
Yeah, but nobody's really proved anything, did they?
No.
What's it going to take to?
I got to go pretty quickly.
What's it going to take to decide you, Ron, as you caucus tonight?
A coin flip.
Nah, not quite that bad.
Well, I understand it.
I am a Bachman supporter.
I really love Michelle Bachman, and I think that she is what's best for the country because she loves the country.
Yeah, I know.
I think she'd be great.
I like the field.
Anyway, Ron, I appreciate the call.
I really do.
I got to go.
I'm a little long here in this segment.
I appreciate it.
We've had two or three cauckey leaders just at random get through today.
That's cool.
Back in a moment.
Yesterday, Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Washington, offered a rather, this is from Mediaite, and she rapped a blunt analysis of Iowa as she was covering the Hawkeye caucus.
Andrea Mitchell, NBC News Washington, said the rap on Iowa is it does not represent the rest of the country.
Too white, too evangelical, and too rural.
Still, here, politics is personal.
So there you have it.
I have no doubt that that is exactly how all the media look at Iowa.
Too white, too rural, too evangelical.
But there they are covering the Hawkeye cauckey.
41% will show up tonight undecided.
Anything can happen.
So the question is, ladies and gentlemen, when did being white, evangelical, and rural, when did those things become negatives?
And what would Andrea Mitchell say if there were a caucus in Washington, D.C.?
Would she say, now this is America?
Is that what she'd say?
But white, rural, and evangelical.
That's those are negatives now to NBC News.
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