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Jan. 27, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:14
January 27, 2012, Friday, Hour #3
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Greetings, my friends, and welcome back the EIB Network and Rush Limbaugh on Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open live Friday.
And the telephone number is 800-282-2882, the email address, El Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
One exciting big broadcast hour remains.
And we are happy to have you along for the ride.
By the way, from the Omaha World Herald newspaper, Warren Buffett says the criticism of his secretary is ridiculous.
And he says that he's getting tired of it.
He wants everybody to leave his secretary alone.
Well, who brought her up?
Who brought up his secretary?
That's right.
He and Obama.
And who put her up there in the gallery next to Muchel during a State of the Union rally?
That was Obama.
Obama and the Oracle of Omaha.
Warren Buffett's secretary, after being pointed out on national television during Tuesday's State of Union speech, now is facing criticism over her salary and second home.
Debbie Bosnik and her both both, a boss both declined Thursday to disclose how much she's paid, saying it's private.
In an interview with the Omaha World Herald, Buffett also said none of the online guesses about her salary is right, and the critics are missing his point.
Buffett said the issue is not her income, nor is her tax rate unusually high.
They can't attack the facts, so they attack the person.
It's ridiculous.
Who's attacking her as a person?
Who is attacking her as a person?
Nobody's attacking her as a person.
You know, I don't even know how many people are really talking about this because everybody's afraid of Warren Buffett.
I know I'm talking about it.
Everybody's afraid of him.
Everybody's always afraid of millionaires and billionaires.
They think they can take their money away from you or whatever.
They're powerful people.
But what I resent is this portrayal of her as some kind of a victim, as though there's nothing anybody can do about her horrible situation.
Okay, so Buffett's paying his tax rate.
She's paying her tax rate.
It's inherently unfair.
Somebody ought to do something.
Well, you're talking to the president of the United States.
William Ducey, he's the guy that's demanded these tax rates be extended in the lame duck session.
Well, what I resent, that place by tradition is reserved for heroes.
We don't put victims up there, and she's not a victim.
She's a football.
She's being used as a political football and a pawn.
Now, Obama told some college students today that Buffett's secretary told him about Buffett paying less of a tax rate at the State of the Union, which I don't understand because they've been saying that her tax rate is higher than Buffett since before the State of the Union.
Anyway, Warren Buffett is tired of the criticism, and he wants it to stop.
But he put her out there.
Nobody would know who she is if he weren't running around saying if Obama hadn't picked up on it.
Other items in the news from the New York Daily News, Treasury Department approves huge paydays for executives at firms who receive TARP bailout money.
Folks, do you remember how Obama put a cap on CEO salaries of guys who took TARP money?
He capped CEO salaries at TARP firms at 500 grand.
If your company took TARP bailout money, then your CEO is limited to a salary of $500,000.
You remember when he said that his pay, his compensation czar, his PAISAR, a guy named Kenneth Feinberg, was going to rein in all those crazy Wall Street salaries.
And that we had to get rid of all of these bonuses.
Well, it turns out that during the height of the recession, the PASAR, Kenneth Feinberg, approved pay packages for the bailed out companies that gave 49 executives more than $5 million each.
In fact, AIG's CEO alone got $10.5 million for two years in a row.
And now, Obama tells this guy, Feinberg, you go out there and we're going to cap these people's earnings at $500,000.
If they're getting bailout money, their salaries are capped at $500,000.
And everybody's, well, how can you do that?
We can do it because we're keeping them afloat.
We've bailed them out, so we're telling them.
But under the table, while nobody's looking, the Treasury Department approved pay packages worth $5 million or more for 49 executives and a handful of companies that received the biggest taxpayer bailouts between 2009 and 2011.
It's a scathing audit this week by the Inspector General for the troubled asset relief program blasted those payments, all of which occurred despite a $500,000 salary cap that Obama and Congress established in 2009 at firms receiving exceptional assistance under TARP.
Now, we know Obama never really meant to put a cap on the salary of his donors, friends.
It was all a show.
It turns out that wasn't true.
Obama's, none of these bonuses are too high, and I'm the only one separating you from the peasants, but now on, you can't earn more than $500,000 a year.
And they're earning $5 million.
An AIG guy, remember how you were told to hate AIG?
Remember how you were told SEIU goes to the AIG exec's front lawn up in Connecticut and protests?
You were told these people are rotten to the core.
You should hate them and you should despise them.
And then you were told Obama's going to get even with them by limiting their pay to $500,000 a year.
They're getting $10 million.
$10 million, ladies and gentlemen, all under the table while nobody was noticing.
Great story.
Actually, it's an editorial in the Wall Street Journal.
And I'll tell you another reason I love Santorum last night.
He actually referred to global warming as a hoax.
Do you hear that?
He called it a hoax.
He did, and it is.
Wall Street Journal has a editorial today that it's very important.
Very important.
Here's a poll quote.
Why is there so much passion about global warming?
And why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Gaver resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word incontrovertible from its description of a scientific issue?
There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question, qui bono, follow the money.
No need to panic about global warming.
There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to decarbonize the world's economy.
Wall Street Journal.
There it is.
The evidence continues to mount.
They even have the guts to say that CO2 is not a pollutant.
Carbon dioxide, what we exhale.
Finally, some common sense is entering this in the mainstream media.
Here's another pool quote.
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many.
Providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucrats to grow.
Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise.
I could have written this.
The Wall Street Journal is simply rewording what I...
Here's the way.
You are destroying the planet.
Not on purpose.
No, no, no.
You've been duped by big oil and big gas and big everybody.
And you're driving these cars around.
You're driving these SUVs.
You think you're keeping your family safe, and you're destroying climate.
And you are killing the polar bear environment.
You're killing the polar bears.
You're killing all these animals.
Species are dying.
You're doing it now.
What do we do about it?
Well, you're guilty.
Not intentionally, though.
We'll let you off the hook.
You simply have to go along with raising taxes.
You have to agree to a tax increase.
You have to agree.
Stop driving all these things and using a light bulb that you want to use.
And then you got to live your life the way we say, pay higher taxes, go out and drive a bunch of junk cars and so forth, and you can save the planet.
And of course, the dunces of our code, oh, well, because everybody wants to matter.
Everybody wants their life to have meaning.
So the wizards are smart, tell them you can save the planet.
And people wallowing away in their otherwise miserable lives are given meaning.
Wow, I can save the planet.
Oh, man, that's, and then they become evangelists for the whole cause.
They start wearing ribbons.
They drive little podunk cars.
And then they get in your face and tell you how you ought to live like them because you're destroying the planet and their lives have meaning.
And the whole thing perpetuates itself.
Alarmism offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet.
And it also allows smart CEOs to come up with green aspects of their business, like McDonald's.
Look at this.
Our new styrofoam container has less thyroam.
We're saving the planet.
Come in and buy our Big Mac.
And then they get credit for caring about the climate.
I just see a marketing opportunity because you've been duped.
And anything that saves the planet, people want their lives to matter.
They want their lives to have meaning.
And they've unwittingly been destroying the planet.
And so, and so all I have to do is buy a Big Mac in this 50% less thyroid because I'm mattering.
And so they go buy Big Macs, but they're helping out.
And the CEO say, oh, man, what a scam we got going here.
Our clientele thinks that they're saving the planet.
All we got to do is tell them that by buying our stuff, they're saving polar bears.
That's how you get one of those, was it a Nissan commercial where some polar bear wanders a neighborhood in suburbia?
Yeah, the Leaf.
Wandering a suburban neighborhood looking for somebody driving a car that will not kill his iceberg.
And he finds the driver.
He finds the car in the driveway.
The polar bear goes up and hugs the driver.
And Toyota thinks, man, are we smart?
It's just, it's been one of the biggest scams out there, folks, and it continues.
But nevertheless, the journal is on the camera.
I can't believe I'm reading it there.
I mean, even though they're conservatives on the editorial page, I've never seen it this pointed.
For example, speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public orifice.
There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to decarbonize the world's economy.
No compelling scientific argument.
Even if someone accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the United Nations, aggressive greenhouse gas control policies are just not justifiable economically.
Not only that, we can't do it.
Spain suspends subsidies for new renewable energy power plants.
You know, green technology, that's been one of the constant themes of the regime.
All of his state-of-the-hoax speeches, the class warfare rallies.
From the 2010 state-of-the-hoax, we can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow.
From the first railroads to the interstate highway system, our nation has always been built to compete.
There's no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.
You know why Obama gives speeches written on the eighth grade level, by the way?
It's the only demographic naive enough to believe what he's saying.
People with an eighth grade level of understanding.
It's like he said in Vegas just, yeah, we want to build stuff.
We want to make stuff and we want to move it.
That's my economic dream for America.
Build stuff and make stuff and move it and sell stuff too.
Yeah, we want to sell it.
So what do we have here?
Spain has had its Sputnik moment.
They were the Soviets and they lost.
Spain's government suspended subsidies for new renewable energy plants as part of the administration's efforts to curb the budget deficit.
The government today passed a decree that will halt subsidies for new wind, solar, cogeneration, or waste incineration plants as it bids to rein in electric system debts that reached 24 billion euros, 31.5 billion dollars, by the end of last year.
So Spain, green energy, green jobs, they lost all kinds of economy won the tank and now going further, suspending subsidies for renewable energy plants.
Obama-ism is collapsing everywhere around the world.
It's being tried.
That Wall Street Journal editorial is signed by 16 scientists who put their names to this.
That's gutsy.
There's also an article about Germany cutting its solar subsidies as well.
Obamaism everywhere around the world is going down the tubes except here, where we're still getting it cranked up.
Anyway, welcome back.
Back to the phones.
Who's next?
Tammy, Marble Falls, Texas.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Thank you very much, Rush.
I never thought that I would call in, but I'm just honored.
Thank you so much.
What made you call in?
Actually, I was listening to one of the other callers earlier this morning, and you were talking about market forces in medicine.
Yes.
And you gave an analogy about, for example, the hotel rooms for the Super Bowl.
Yes.
I absolutely agree that market forces need to play in medicine, but I don't think the analogy is quite accurate.
And the reason is that in medicine, there are times when it is not discretionary that you be seen by a physician or have a surgery or something like that.
Whereas going to a hotel or any other transaction is oftentimes something that you can decide to do or not.
Well, that's true.
So I just, and I was, while I've been on hold, I've been trying to think of an analogy that actually would work.
Well, rather than do that, the point of my analogy was to try to say that since the government has taken over, become the primary provider, as far as most people are concerned, insurance companies, it's not them.
Their ability to pay is not a factor.
And until we get some semblance of market forces in as much of the healthcare system as possible, no price is ever coming down.
Open Line Friday and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Telephone numbers, yeah, I'm looking at Soundsbite Russia.
800-282-2882 and the email address El Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
Let's see.
That's so many of them here, folks, and a lot of them are debate related.
Let's, Rhonda in Twin Falls, Idaho, let's pick up the phone here.
Great to have you with us.
Thanks very much for waiting, by the way.
Hi.
Thank you for having me, Rush.
You bet.
I have a question.
Well, I have a statement, actually.
I've never voted in my life, so you can't blame me for this mess, but I feel that this year...
Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, not necessarily so.
Well, I know it's a crucial time, and I'm very serious about this.
I've written notes, taken notes.
I don't have a computer at home, but I go on the internet when I'm at work, just go tell my boss.
But if I could tell the candidates one thing or ask them one question, my question would be, because I don't know who to vote for, my question would be, would you be willing to die for your country?
And if they could answer that truthfully and state that they could do that, that would mean they would have the character that I was looking for, the honor that I was looking for, putting the people first instead of their pocketbooks.
And I'm just really serious about this.
I'm very bothered about the ways and where this country's going.
This is the first time I've ever called in, so I'm kind of nervous.
Yeah, I understand.
I've been where you are.
I have called talk shows when I was much younger.
I've been waiting on hold, and then I've had the screener come up and say, okay, maybe about 10 minutes, and it's always longer.
And then finally, you're sitting there, and there's been no noise on the phone for 20 minutes or so, and then click on the phone, and the screener's, okay, stand by, you're next.
Oh, no!
Oh, no, oh, no, what did I call him?
Oh, gosh, I don't even remember what I call you sitting out there.
Then the host says, and hello, Rhonda, Twin Falls, and you are in utter panic trying to remember.
And so then you tell the host you've never voted, but you want to know who's willing to die for the country.
Yep.
And if that's a good candidate.
Because I just don't know who to vote for, but I'm going to vote this year.
But I just, I don't, I can't.
Well, I don't know that anybody's going to ask him that question.
So you might.
You might have to come up with an alternative way to judge.
Because I don't know who's going to ask him.
Are you willing to die for your country?
A lot of people think just joining the campaign is a slow death.
You know, just running is a slow death.
Right.
Well.
What is it that's, I mean, you've never voted.
Now you're going to vote.
Why?
What's changed?
Because I don't want Obama in there.
I think he's run us down to the ground.
I mean, we're going to hell in a handbasket real quick.
And I'm going to say that.
Yeah, and you've got a shortage of handbaskets.
Yeah.
And I just think it's my vote needs to be counted this time.
I just don't know who to pick.
Well, given what you've said, the answer is easy.
Vote for whoever is not Obama.
You're not going to get your question there because nobody's going to say, well, you never know.
Now, you know, the drive-bys listen to this program.
They do.
And there are some debates left.
Not in Florida, but there are some debates left.
So it'd be easy to drive by and go say, you know, I was listening to Russian Liberal.
I was listening to a radio talk show the other day.
A very, very bright woman from Idaho wanted to know which of you will die for your country.
Congressman Paul, would you like to take that question first?
And I just don't see it.
Well, we're all going to die if we keep on mongering with these wars would be his answer.
Romney said, of course I'll die for my country.
I've died for my country many times before.
I saved the Olympics.
I want to repeal Obamacare.
And I worked in the private sector.
Of course, I'd die for my country.
And Newt said, let me give you the facts.
The fact of the matter is, there's an extraordinary question.
Extraordinary that we want to die for our country.
What a great philosophical question.
George Washington was willing to.
And I'm the monitor equivalent of George Washington.
So maybe you could say I might.
Santorum says, listen to these phonies die for their country.
They wouldn't die for their wives.
I'm the only guy up here who has died for my country by being part of this process.
And then they go ask Obama, what did you think of the Republican answers to the question, would you die for the country?
Well, it's a history question, but that's fine with me if all of them did.
That's probably what would happen.
Rhonda, if the question.
James, no, no, sorry, Mary in Montgomery, Illinois.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Well, thank you.
The last time I spoke with you was in 1992, I believe.
I was very upset because we were talking about Ross Perot.
We were talking about when Ronald Reagan, what I thought, took away my credit card interest deduction, and I thought it was a tax increase.
And you set me straight on that.
I loved Ronald Reagan.
I was one of those conservative Democrats, Democrats for Reagan, but I was upset with him, and I went with Ross Perot in 92.
I remember that 86 tax reform when they took away that credit card deduction.
But, you know, I got to tell you the rest of the story because you saved my life.
You saved my whole family.
I listened to what you said.
You ended up talking about it for a couple days.
I got involved.
I stayed with Ross Perot's organization, United We Stand.
We got involved with Newt Gingrich in the contract with America, and we were part of that Republican revolution.
And we have been with Newt ever since.
He has been so right on so many issues, and so was Ronald Reagan.
It totally changed my life.
And I just wanted to share that with you because my granddaughter, who was born January 2nd of this year, my daughter, who was a baby at the time, named her Reagan Rose because without you and without Ronald Reagan and without Newt Gingrich, our family would not have been the same.
And we just wanted to thank you for that.
And I hope as Florida's most influential voter that you will at least tell us who you're going to vote for on Tuesday because this election is too important to let it go back to somebody who's not a conservative.
That's the second mention of this.
I will be voting next Tuesday, and you want to know who I'm voting for, is that right?
Yes, or else I know you have a brother who's very conservative as well.
Sarah Palin didn't endorse, but her husband did.
Maybe your brother David would like to endorse, and you could announce that on your program, but we have to make it clear.
My brother goes rogue.
That'd be a good way of passing the button.
You know, I remember Mary, that whole, you'll, that 1986 tax reform that took away credit card interest as deductibility.
That didn't go on for two days.
That went on for years.
People were livid about that for years.
And I, and it was in exchange for a lower overall tax rate.
And I remember it went through lessons.
Why do you want to incur debt to think you're screwing the government?
What is the what?
Why are you going out and spend money you don't have and you get it going in debt to be able to deduct 28% of it or whatever your tax rate is?
But it I know it was a bit big.
I know people and I, people didn't like me.
Coupled with that they thought I was on the wrong side of Perot issue.
I'll never forget that.
She's absolutely right.
Grab soundbite.
Let's see.
What do I just add it here?
Yeah, number 20.
Soundbite number 20.
Last night on the Fox Bidness Network, John Stossel's show, Stossel spoke to former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, and they had a discussion about the Republican primary.
And this is what Governor Palin said.
Newt Gingrich, what's going on with him?
The establishment's attacks.
They're trying to crucify this man and rewrite history, rewrite what it is that he has stood for all these years.
So it's not just Ron Paul.
I believe it's also Newt Gingrich that the establishment that the liberal media, certainly that the progressives and Democrats don't like.
She was responding to the coordinated or the apparently, apparent coordinated assault on Newt yesterday.
And I don't know whether it was coordinated or not, but there were about five or six anti-Newt things from across the spectrum of the media.
And she clearly upset about it.
So it doesn't sound like Sarah Palin's changed her mind.
She said in South Carolina, if she lived there, she'd vote for Newt.
And obviously she has not changed her mind.
Now, after that, on the Fox News channel's on the record with Greta Van Susteren, Britt Hume appeared as a guest, and he said this.
The Republican Party can't fool around with Newt Gingrich, who's a fireball.
He could be terrific in the debate.
But my sense about it is the one thing Newt Gingrich nationally has never been in all the arc of his career since he became Speaker and beyond, he's never been popular with the public at large.
Independents in this campaign are worried about deficits and debt and, of course, the overall economy.
People are looking for government to do less, to spend less, and for the private economy to flourish because of that.
And I think a significant majority of people believe that's how it works.
So in this election, I think that you don't necessarily want to be a candidate who has a big idea for something new for government to do.
So, Gingrich, the Republican Party can't fool around with Newton.
It's not going to work.
That's Britt Hume.
Gingrich, negatives.
Disapproval numbers are at 60%.
And the conventional wisdom is that nobody is going to win the presidency with 60% negatives.
Just isn't going to happen.
And that's what Britt Hume, without citing it, is referring to.
Last night on PMSNBC, the last word, Lawrence O'Donnell show, he spoke with New York Magazine National Affairs editor John Heileman about the Republican primary.
O'Donnell said, Look, in Florida, Gingrich clearly taken on the establishment.
He's not trying to duck and pretend that this stuff isn't happening.
He's saying you, the Florida voters, have to rise up against these people trying to take me out.
There's a really clear divide between the kinds of crowds that are showing up for Romney events, the kinds of crowds that are showing up for Gingrich events.
You're talking about a big class divide where you have a much more blue collar, much more tea party, much more populist crowd showing up for Gingrich events and a much more upper crust wine track.
You know, when people used to divide voters into the wine track and the beer track, you got the beer track for Gingrich and very much the wine track and the cucumber sandwiches with the crust trimmed off kind of crowd showing up for Romney events.
The Brie and Croissant crowd shows up for Romney and the beer guzzlers show up for the Nootster.
This is according to a liberal at New York magazine.
I got to take a brief pause back again before you know it.
Apparently, Obama did not get the message from Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, who said, Leave my secretary out of this.
I don't want anybody talking about her.
Why are you talking about her?
Because you brought her up.
So he doesn't want anybody talking about it.
Obama's out there.
Didn't get the message.
Just told a pep rally for House Democrats he's going to keep pushing the Buffett tax.
He vowed to push hard for the Buffet rule to make the rich pay at least a 30.
We've already done this.
It's called the AMT.
The AMT was precisely for that reason.
We've already tried it, and we look who it's ensnaring now.
Now, Snerdley just asked me a question.
Demi Moore is all over the news.
Apparently, she had to go to the hospital.
She's not dealing well with the breakup of her relationship with the boy toy.
And everybody's asking me, gee, what do you think that's about?
Why are people asking me that?
Okay.
Let me just, folks, you're a woman, you're 48.
a 30 year old guy leaves you.
A caller a moment ago wanted to know who my brother would vote for next Tuesday here in Florida if he lived here.
And he just tweeted, my brother David just is tweeting out there that he would vote for Santorum if he could.
He's tweeting it, so I can tell you.
Yeah, they're asking me because it's Open Line Friday.
They say she called 9-11 because something she smoked that wasn't marijuana.
Was like incense.
That's it, folks.
Another great week of broadcast excellence.
Toto la completa.
And soon to be at the Limbaugh Broadcast Museum, which again, virtual museum.
You have to see it.
And the whole website, by the way, even if you don't become a member, you should.
It's the best value knowledge information out there, rushlimbaugh.com.
You have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back on Monday.
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