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Feb. 2, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:57
February 2, 2012, Thursday, Hour #2
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Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
Rush Limboy half my brain tied behind my back just to make things fair.
As we are filled with loving compassion for every living breathing organism except the mosquito here at the Excellence and Broadcasting Network, telephone number eight, huh?
Well, because they serve no purpose.
I once asked a mosquito exterminator, do they do anything?
Is there one thing?
You know, normally in the in the grand scheme of the ecology, everything has a purpose.
And the only thing the mosquitoes are good for is being eaten by lizards.
Mosquitoes make lizards worth having.
These little geckos that you have.
But a mosquito in and of itself offers nothing.
It doesn't do one thing good.
Hell the mosquito gave us Rachel Carson, who in turn saved the mosquito.
That's her legacy.
Okay, okay.
Mosquitoes make Democrats look good.
I'll grant that.
But in the in the in the big ecological scheme of things, they're worthless.
Anyway, folks, great to have you back.
800 282-2882, if you want to be in the program today, the email address L Rushball at EIBNet.com.
And no, I don't know who Trump's endorsing.
He might end up endorsing himself before it's all said and done.
How do we know he's going to endorse either these?
It's all over the ballpark.
First he's going to endorse Newt, then he's going to endorse Mitt.
And then the Mitt bloggers went nuts when they found out he was going to endorse Newt.
They're lumping Trump in with all the sexual harassers and womanizers and predators of the of the day.
And if he ends up endorsing their guys, some of these mid-bloggers are going to do a very quick 180.
That'll be interesting.
Who says he's going to endorse anybody but himself?
He might be doing this.
What if Trump came out and talked about the latest hotel project he's building in Vegas?
Anyway, Marco Rubio delivered the keynote speech at a conference in Miami.
The HLN conference in Miami.
And no, I don't know what that is.
I'm having a metal block on it.
That doesn't matter.
I want to read you one quote.
I want to lift one paragraph of Marco Rubio's speech, which I think he delivered, if I'm reading this correctly.
Don't know if he delivered in Spanish or not.
Maybe the first uh one and a half minutes was in Spanish on YouTube.
No, no, not headline news.
Well, maybe it was for all I know, the headline news.
I I really don't know what HLN is.
But that is the name of their network, right?
HLN.
Doesn't matter.
Here's what he said.
And so when the choices that are put before us today are dangerous ones, because if we choose this path of pitting people against each other, if we buy into this notion that our economy really can't grow fast enough for all of us to prosper, so we're going to have to somehow empower government to distribute the wealth of this country among us.
We've chosen to become like the countries that your parents and grandparents came here to get away from.
And that's a powerful message.
And that's the message we need to deliver.
And that's the message we need to work on delivering.
It's a winning message.
Boy, he's exactly right.
Barack Obama is taking Hispanic leadership conference.
That's what it was.
The Hispanic Leadership Conference.
And if what Barack Obama is doing is taking this country back to be just like the country's your parents and grandparents came here to get away from.
We're gonna just like everybody else.
Barack Obama is taking this country in the direction of Europe just like everybody else.
He's gonna make this country the exact kind of country your parents and grandparents fled.
This guy, I've told you, from the first time I heard this guy's speech, I say he's got a future.
Now to the audio sound bites.
No, you want to okay, here's some more from Marco Rubio on his speech.
We have never been a nation of haves and have nots.
We have always been a nation of haves and soon to have.
A people who have made it, a people who believe that given the chance, they will make it too.
And if we lose that, we lose the essence of what's made us great in terms of economics.
And so when the choices that are put before us today are dangerous ones, because if we choose the path of pitting people against each other, if we buy into this notion that our economy really can't grow fast enough for all of us to prosper, so we're gonna have to somehow empower government to distribute the wealth of this country among us, we've chosen to become like everybody else.
We've chosen to become like the countries that your parents and grandparents came here to get away from.
That's the message we need to deliver.
That's the message we need to work on delivering.
It's a winning message, but it's a difficult message to get to, because the gateway issue of immigration stands in the minds of so many people who we live next to in love.
Hispanic Leadership Network, and that was in Miami.
That's where he was speaking.
Okay, as promised.
The audio soundbites.
We're gonna start last night on ABC's World News tonight.
We have a poorest uh uh portion of correspondent David Muir's report about Romney's remark that he's not concerned about the very poor, and this is the beginning of the uh saturation of comments by me, your host, throughout the drive-by media used to be.
Well, comment today, his opponents say again cast Romney as a wealthy businessman out of touch.
Even conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh.
He makes himself a target with this stuff.
He comes across as the prototypical rich Republican.
It's gonna make it harder and harder and harder to go after Obama.
And Duke Gingrich, who vows to keep going, saw an opening.
I am running to be the president of all the American people.
Well, flying across the country today, the governor shot back at any notion he dismissed the poor.
He again said if the safety net for the poor has holes in it, he would work to repair them.
Right.
That's that well, I'm being repetitive, but that that misses the whole point on the safety net as well.
But from the conservative standpoint, which is the American standpoint, which is the compassionate standpoint, which is the loving opportunity standpoint.
On CBS this morning, today, we have a portion here of the political correspondent Jan Crawford, and her report about Romney's remark that he's not concerned about the poor.
Opponents on the left jumped on it, saying it shows Romney is out of touch, just as radio host Rush Lembaugh predicted.
Everybody knows what he's trying to say, but he didn't say it.
He makes himself a target with this stuff.
He comes across as the prototypical rich Republican.
It's gonna make it harder and harder and harder to go after Obama.
They love that prototypical rich Republican assessment.
They all used it out there in the drive-by media.
Last night on CNN the Situation Room.
Here is the giddy Dana Bash, who, by the way, is married to the reporter John King.
Just a little gossip for you.
Well, it's not gossip, it's true.
Nana Bash and John King are husband and wife, joined in matrimony.
I think on Martha's Vineyard, I'm not sure not that it matters, but here is her report, and you can hear.
She's giddy.
The National Review asked, What's wrong with this guy?
And on conservative radio, Rush Limbaugh said he comes across as the prototypical rich Republican.
The National Review is um they've been all in for Romney for a while.
So they probably were a little disjointed about maybe scratching their heads going, oh gee.
But what not?
Not just them, not just National Review.
Last night on the last word on PMSNBC with Lawrence O'Donnell, the Huffing and Puffington Post editorial director Howard Feynman, fresh from the cock fights he said he watched in South Carolina.
They had a uh discussion about Romney and his remark about the poor.
Lawrence O'Donnell said, Howard, I don't believe we've had a Republican president in our past who'd be flat-footed enough to be caught saying, I don't care about poor people.
Romney doesn't seem to understand even what the Republican talking points are when faced with questions like this.
What the Republicans have tried to do over the last generation with people like the late Jack Camp and others is to argue that they, meaning the Republicans and the conservatives and the free market, have a better answer for the problems of the poor than the Democrats do.
This is what Rush Limbaugh was partly upset about.
He was defending Newt, but he was also upset about the idea that Mitt Romney's actually accepting the safety net.
He's sort of saying, yeah, well, for the poor people, we have the Democratic policies and let them have their thing.
So it couldn't have been worse in any conceivable direction for Romney, and the Romney people are quite defensive about it justifiably tonight.
Same show, MSNBC last night, Howard Dean.
Well, what are you frowning at?
Uh let's see.
That's a good point.
I wasn't defending Newt.
Not in this.
I don't think.
Look, I said a lot of words yesterday.
I don't remember everything I said, but I don't think I even associated any of this with uh with the Newtster.
At any rate, a minor point.
Howard Dean, last word, Lawrence O'Donnell.
Question after he plays the clip of me saying, uh, our team, not all that good, you know it, and I know it, they're just not.
Which I did say yesterday.
I did say it talking about the remaining field.
O'Donnell said honesty breaking out on the Rush Limbaugh show today.
Howard, that's uh that's how bad it's gotten for the Republicans.
That's that's the look.
These guys have a problem because the idea was to run against Obama and make Obama the issue.
The Obama campaign is incredible.
Uh, they've been on a roll since the job speech before Labor Day, and you're just not going to grind them down.
And the issue of this campaign is can you trust the Republicans?
That is a terrible issue for the Republican Party.
But that's the issue.
The issue is can you trust to the Republicans who got us into this in the first place to get us out?
That's not that's irrelevant.
That has nothing to do with what this is about.
But this is what happens.
This is what when you when you give them this opportunity, here's Howard Dean rolling on and oh, yeah, yeah.
You can you trust the Republicans?
That's a terrible issue.
The issue is can you trust the Republicans who got us into this in the first?
That's not at all what this is about.
But there they go running with it.
And we go to the Morning Joe show, Scarborough on MSNBC this morning.
Here is Mika Bzhinski.
Rush Limbaugh offered his take as well.
I'm not worried about the poor.
We got a safety.
The safety net is one of the biggest cultural problems we've got.
The safety net is contributing to the destruction of their humanity and their futures.
Everybody knows what he's trying to say, but he didn't say it.
And he's he makes himself a target with this stuff.
He comes across as the prototypical rich Republican.
All these wizards of smart in the Republican establishment, we can't have Newt out there.
Why Newt's gonna be the topic?
We need Obama be the topic.
What evidence is there that it's not gonna be about Romney with these kinds of statements?
Okay, that's what Howard Feynman heard.
Now, what I was saying was that the Republican establishment was saying we can't have Newt or anybody but Romney, because Newt, Newt's so bad, he's so bellicose, he's so bombastic.
He says so many crazy things that Newt's gonna end up being the issue.
We don't want Newt, but we want Obama to be the issue.
And now look what's happened.
Romney, for two straight days now is the issue.
And I was just making the point that the establishment doesn't know what it's talking about.
When they talk about only Romney's electable, and the uh campaign will only be about Obama if Romney is the nominee.
And my point is the Democrats are gonna who our nominee could be Mother Teresa, and by the time they got through with her, she'd be a prostitute with 15 illegitimate kids.
It doesn't matter who our nominee is, they're gonna be all over it.
They're gonna make our nominee the issue because they can't defend theirs.
Their nominee's record is something they've got to hide.
They can't run on it.
Everybody knows all the Democrats can do is to rip our nominee apart, tear our nominee to shreds.
Opposition research, and they've said that that's what they're gonna do.
And they're gonna go after character, they're gonna go after policy, they're gonna go after everything.
And yet our wizards are smarter sitting up there saying, well, if we nominate Romney, it can't go after Romney.
Hey, yeah.
Well, that that that way we'll be able to make Obama the issue.
Yeah, right.
Not going to work out that way.
Scarborough, Joe Scarborough, on his own eponymous show, then decided to reply to Mika Bzinsky.
That's actually the point of the day.
We've been hearing all along that oh, if if if you nominate Newt, it's gonna be about and yes, if you nominate Newt, it is gonna be all about Newt.
But the idea was that you could turn the focus on Obama if you put Romney in there.
But that I'm telling you, with every one of these gaffes.
I'm not kicking Mitt Romney when he's down.
I'm just saying for me, as a conservative, even.
I'm concerned when I hear somebody say I'm not focused or concerned about the very poor.
There's a disconnect there.
No, it's just it it's it's not a disconnect, it's just everybody knows what Romney was trying to do.
Every these guys all know.
Every one of these critics out there knows that Romney was trying.
Let me say what he was trying to say.
I'll give I'll just give you the words.
I'm Mitt Romney, and I know you and the middle class are the backbone of this country, and nobody is paying any attention to how you're suffering, and nobody is looking out for you, and I'm the guy that's going to.
I understand who makes this country great.
I understand who makes this country work.
It's not the rich.
You and the middle class are the targets of every one of these policies Obama's come up with, and you're the ones whose homes are underwater, and you're the ones can't make your mortgage payments, you're the ones who can't find work.
We understand, and I'm here for you.
That's what he wanted to say.
That's what he thought he did say.
With that comment.
But he didn't say that.
We all know.
But you don't get the benefit of the doubt.
You don't get this well, okay, we know what he meant to say, and then people correct people for it.
We've got to be back after this.
Don't go away.
Okay, back to the phones we go here on the EIB network, and it's to Miami, Don.
Glad you waited, sir, and you're up.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Thank you so much for taking the call and good afternoon.
And Megadito's from Miami, Florida.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Okay, sir.
My question is not political, and I apologize for that.
But I was working for a major airline like 20 years ago, proudly working, and of course they had some union problems.
Let me guess you worked for Eastern Airlines.
Could I say yes?
Yeah, I I I wonder how I knew that.
Okay, sir.
Well, let me tell you, I was a proud employee, and 40,000 people lost their jobs.
Many of my friends went to America and went to their and they clawed their way up for 20 years.
I have so many friends that's tried so hard.
Now, I went to a woodworking shop.
I did not do the airline thing.
But to tell me the truth, I have a few friends, and with the extra class, the extra baggage, the extra leg space, The early boarding.
I just can't understand how an airline like that with our high unemployment rate could put so many people in jeopardy, and I feel kind of bad for them.
So you're asking me why American is laying off thirteen thousand people.
Well, sir, every time I go on a flight, it's full.
Yep.
And you know, I don't have to tell you, oh, you fly a lot.
And I just feel that with all the extra things that they charge for, we didn't many, many, many years ago.
I just can't understand and I just feel bad for my friends who have clawed their way up after another.
You want to you want to know a little interesting statistic about airline industry.
Uh the industry, the entire industry has never shown a profit in a single year.
Individual airlines have now and then, but the entire airline industry as a whole has never shown a profit in a full year.
I find that so hard to believe.
I was stunned when I heard it myself.
Well they're laying 13,000 people off.
My my guess is that American Airlines hates people.
And I I just I my my guess is American Airlines doesn't really like all the passengers they've got.
Uh and they want to have fewer airplanes so that the passengers they have are sardined on these planes.
I think they love charging their customers for baggage and pets, whatever else.
I I I think American Airlines probably wants to go out of business.
I think American Airlines is in business to go out.
American Airlines loves screwing people.
Don't I'm just saying what the caller wants to hear.
That's what he he's a Eastern Airlines guy.
I'm telling you, that's what they think of the airlines.
All right, now I realize that I said some things in that last call.
I just did a Romney.
I gave the media wants to take I give them every opportunity.
It's one of those times where I might not have had enough sarcasm in my voice.
Because even Snerdley, when I finished the call, said, What in the world?
Why do you think that about American Airlines?
Now, I do not believe American hates its customers.
I do not believe American wants to sardine its passengers.
I don't believe that American Airlines wants to bankrupt their passengers.
I don't believe that American Airlines wants their passengers to be so uncomfortable and hot and sweaty they never fly the airline again.
I do not believe it.
American Airlines is secretly trying to crash a bunch of airplanes so they don't have to pay them back.
I'm simply being facetious.
I know these old Eastern Airline guys.
We hear from the ringleader of the Eastern Airlines Union.
He's an avowed communist.
He lives in San Francisco.
He calls us once every two years.
He hates Frank Bormann.
He can't stop talking about Frank Borman.
Frank Borman's gonna be dead for 25 years, and this guy's still gonna call me.
His name's Roger, and he's gonna be complaining and whining, moaning about Frank Borman, former great U.S. astronaut.
Eastern Airlines, the Borman was anti-union uh he downsized, he did union give backs, they hated him.
They despised him.
Just as most union people, leaders, despise companies.
So this guy calls me.
Why would they fire 13,000 people?
Those planes are full, Rush.
You see it all the time.
I know you fly a lot, and you've said charging for bagging, why would they do that?
Well, because they hate their passengers, sir.
They're mean rotten people in America.
That's exactly what he's probably I bet you if we had a camera on that guy on the other end of the phone, he's probably nodding in agreement with everything I said.
The reason he didn't say anything is because he was so stunned that I was agreeing with him.
He called here loaded for bear, loaded for he thought I was gonna start ripping into unions.
See, this is why I'm host, and he's the caller.
So the airline industry be it um I don't think people have the slightest understanding of the expense involved in maintaining an airplane to fly it.
The Federal Aviation Agency maintenance requirements, stringent, and they're far more maintenance for this for the for the schedule that a passenger airline must uh go through to have its planes proclaimed safe, pass inspection.
So it's it the the just the amount of money to maintain those airplanes to keep them approved after rigorous inspections, as often as they're flown, is astronomical.
The reason that the airlines as an industry have never made money is because in any given year there are at least one and maybe two airlines who have found a way to sell tickets and make money or break even at a price the others can't.
But they have to cut their prices to match the this is I remember back in the 70s, the airline uh industry was heavily regulated in favor.
I can remember a flight from my Pittsburgh to St. Louis with 600 bucks.
Coach.
And a lot of it was subsidized by the federal government.
It was it was impossible for the airlines to lose money uh at at that time.
Not impossible, but they got rid of the uh regulation.
The airlines were deregulated, that ticked off the union people, and that opened up massive competition in fares.
And you look at Herb Kelleher of Southwest, what Herb Kelleher does, he buys jet fuel five years in the future at today's price.
He has the ability to do it.
Every business is different.
If Herb Kelleher decides that he's going to give away free peanuts and free cocktails, or whatever he does, and not charge for baggage, and then sell the ticket at 199, one or the other, they have no choice.
If they're going to compete, they're gonna have to sell their tickets at 199 and try to get it back by charging for baggage or or what have you.
But there's always going to be an airline or two, regional, small, but enough places it goes enough places to undercut the big guys.
That's one of the reasons.
Just the the the expense, the on-the-ground expense of maintaining a fleet of airlines of airplanes is incalculable.
Now you think, well, but Rush, that's got to be uh uh uh factored in the in the whole cost doing business.
I'm telling you, they don't they can't charge enough on uh on their fares to make to make all this back.
That's why they take airplanes out of circulation, that's why everything gets full.
That's why you're flying around in cattle cars.
It's I'm not uh by any means a full-fledged expert in the airline business, and I'm just giving you essentially what our educated guesses as to as to why the whole industry has never shown a profit in a single year.
Now individual airlines have and do, but the industry as a whole never has.
I just think it's uh some of the costs are are impossible to recoup at the current.
That's the one thing I can't I don't know how an airline can lose five billion dollars a quarter and stay flying.
I don't that's uh above my pay grade.
Don't know it.
Well, you see these numbers, they're quarterly losses.
Plus, I don't know uh what about that uh is genuine, you know, what what kind of legal tax uh machinations that they're they're taking in writing off these losses and what their cash flow actually is.
Uh but I do know that in the last couple of years, a couple of airlines have reported business being good and way up.
And it's one of the reasons why they have merged is to help mitigate some of the costs that they have.
But I was just being facetious with the guy when I said, well, they're laying off 13,000 people because they hate people, because they hate unions.
That's just what he wanted to do.
I'm just one of these attempts to illustrate absurdity by being absurd.
Who's next?
Pete, South Hold, New York, glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIV network, sir.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
I love you.
Very good, sir.
Thank you very much.
Uh the only thing that keeps me sane.
Uh, but after uh twenty-five years of watching politics, listening to you, I'm I'm giving up.
I've come to the realization that people aren't misinformed or ill-informed.
They're they're just plain stupid.
Yeah.
Obama's got 48% approval rating.
Who are these people?
What planet do they live on?
That happens to correspond to the number of households that are receiving a government check of some kind.
Well, it's just too much to overcome, Rush.
I've I I have ten good years left.
I can't put up with the aggravation.
I talk to these people every day.
They give me every reason in the world why they support this clown in the White House.
I just let me give you two words.
New Zealand.
I know what you mean.
You look at you you uh the the I I know exactly what you mean.
Take any person in this country who's totally absorbed in pop culture.
The big thing in their life is watching entertainment tonight.
They vote.
If they vote, we're screwed.
You know damn well they haven't the slightest idea what's going on.
Uh but that's always been the case.
There's nothing new about it.
Uh Pete, right now it's the number of people who are clueless, uninvolved, no interest whatsoever.
They've always had a sizable percentage of the American population that qualify for that characterization.
You're just older than most, and you're far more informed than most, and you say, how come other people can't see it?
And you're singing my tune.
It's gonna take a hundred and fifty years to turn that attitude around, Russia.
I just haven't got the time.
Well, if you've only got ten years left, it's not your problem.
I'll work on it.
There's a there's there's it's it's look it.
It's dire.
This health care bill and uh I want to tell you again.
If this guy with his forty-two percent approval rating, with his unpopularity issue to issue, you look at Obama issues, look at how they pull.
If this guy gets re-elected, Katie barred the door where there's no accountability when there's not another election to win.
It isn't gonna matter.
The next four years is where Obama is gonna be totally devoted to fully implementing the agenda he's been trying to hide in large part these three years.
It's going to be earth shattering, and next four years is when what you wish were happening now is going to happen.
The next four years, if he gets re-elected, that's when people are gonna say, Oh my God.
What have we done?
You think it should be happening now.
Wait till the next four years if he gets re-elected.
That's when it's going to happen.
Because nobody is going to be untouched by this.
Everybody is going to be made poorer.
Everybody is going to lose significant amount of liberty.
Just in Obamacare alone.
Everybody is going to see the elemental elementary basics of life shoot up in price.
Food, gasoline, whatever.
It's going to skyrocket, and you are you're that that's when people are going, oh my God, what happened.
At a certain point in time in the future, there isn't going to be enough money in the hands of other people to tax it and redistribute it.
They will be bled dry.
The golden goose won't exist.
If this guy gets four more years, there's nothing stopping him.
The fact that he won't have to get re-elected.
There won't be any games of extending the Bush tax cuts for example.
There won't be any health care waivers.
There won't be any delaying the onslaught of the massive increase in the size, reach, and scope of government.
There's a reason Obamacare doesn't fully implement till 2014.
If it fully implemented by now, no Democrat would be re-elected in November.
That's why this is important.
That's why so many people are pulling their hair out over the Republican primary and demanding, hoping, praying for a genuine conservative.
That's why people are over or are willing to overlook some of the baggage.
Because the people who do get it, Pete, like you understand what's at stake here.
People who don't yet understand it because they're too clueless in a fog wandering around.
I know what you're you're wondering, how can people get up every day be happy?
How can people get up every day and laugh with what's happening in the country?
I know you turn on uh your television and you watch a sporting event or you watch television show, whatever it, and you wonder how come these people don't get it?
How can these people not understand what's going on?
You expect there to be expressed by everybody an awareness that we are in trouble when you don't see it, you scratch your head.
What are they what are these Doomkoffs not see?
I know exactly how you feel.
So what we're trying to change here, all in the same boat together at the same time.
2013, no more nice Obama.
But another thing about the airlines, I left something that's very important, and I should have, this is top of the list in terms of reasons.
The unfunded pension plans that they are responsible for.
They're talking 10 to 50 billion dollars in underfunded pensions if you look industry-wide.
I'll guarantee you, I can't I can't say this conclusively without looking it up and confirming it, but my wild guess would be that of the airlines year to year that do well, they're either not union or very small percentage of the workforce'union.
And the airlines that are in huge big trouble owe money years and years and years in the future to retired employees who aren't going to be productive and choking them.
That would be probably the top of the list to answer the question.
From the UK Daily Mail, workers limited to eight minutes of toilet time per day.
And other items in what is for the first time in a long time, a light hearted stack of stuff.
Just goofball stuff.
Somebody's actually calculated the amount of time people spend texting on the toilet, and they've concluded that it's increasing.
So we've got that and lots of other stuff still straight ahead.
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