Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, here I am again, ladies and gentlemen, the de facto boss, the de facto head of the Republican Party, as well as God's gift to women.
I don't know why saying that gives me such a kick.
But nothing has changed.
Here we are, Rush Limbaugh back at it from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Great to have you here.
Our telephone number, if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, the email address, lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
Well, Peyton Manning has made up his mind.
Denver.
Peyton Manning, what does that disappoint you?
Where were you hoping?
You know he wasn't going to go to Tampa.
What were you hoping?
Miami?
Not the Dolphins.
The Dolphins are having some trouble recruiting people.
Well, the Broncos are going to have to trade Tebow.
Now, some people might say, no, no, no, no, hold on to Tebow and turn him into something backup quarterback, H-back.
He's immensely popular in Denver.
This is clearly a learning experience for Tebow to play behind Manning, if they're interested in that.
But I would look forward to trying to trade Tebow.
The new owner in Jacksonville would love to have him, except they have a first-round draft choice quarterback from last year that they're trying to develop.
So that puts the 49ers quarterback Alex Smith in limbo because he's shopping around for a new job, thinking the 49ers were going to get Peyton Manning.
So anyway, what's happened is that Manning has called his agent Tom Condon and said, okay, you call the Broncos and you start negotiating a deal.
Now, that hasn't been done yet.
But Manning called his buddy John Elway, said, look, pal, I'm looking forward to coming a mile high and playing with you and being part of your team.
So barring a snag, that is what's happening.
You remember how we opened the program one week ago?
You remember?
We had two polls from the New York Times and the Washington Post, and they were devastating to Barack Obama.
Yeah, I've got the new iPad, and I'm going to talk about it in due course.
It is amazing, but I don't want to get into that yet.
I'll explain.
I'll give you my review of the new iPad here in just a second.
But a week ago, we had these two devastating polls that literally panicked and shocked the White House.
And they are still in panic.
And they still are shocked.
And that's why Obama did, what was it, five or six fundraisers alone on Friday?
Five or six fundraisers.
He was expected to raise $5.6 million and did not raise $5 million.
Came in at $4-something, $4.00 million.
Didn't even meet the expectations, which means, of course, the economists will be surprised, the unexpected results.
And at one of these fundraisers, some guy named Tyler Perry's house in Atlanta, they had a musical performance by a well-known rapper by the name of CeeLo Green.
Now, you remember the hubbub a couple, three weeks ago regarding me and all the so-called lack of civility, which is now also backfired on the Democrats.
This guy, CeeLo Green, showed up at the Atlanta fundraiser for Obama.
Mr. Civility, Barack Obama.
And this guy, Ceelo Green, dropped the F-bomb.
He's got a song entitled F-bomb You.
And he changes the lyrics around on occasion, but he showed up before Obama came out and spoke at this fundraiser and dropped the F-bomb in his song while Mr. Civility is backstage waiting to go on, I guess.
This is getting nowhere near the attention it should get in the media.
Mr. Civility, Barack Obama, is not being asked about this at all.
We have a 22-second blurb from this performance by Mr. CeeLo Green.
We've bleeped it.
It'll give you some idea how it went.
Can I hear you drive?
I'm like, can I cuss?
That's the change.
You and I for you fail me with that's at an Obama fundraiser in Atlanta.
I see you driving around town with the girl I love, and I'm like that.
And then he shot the audience, the bird.
He flipped them a middle finger at that point.
And he's saying, Can I cuss?
The change in my pocket wasn't enough.
I'm like, F-bomb you and F-bomb her too.
Said, if I was richer, I'd still be with you.
Ha!
Now, ain't that some shleeped.
This is before Obama goes on the same stage.
Mr. Civility, let's remember what he said.
March, this is going to audio soundbite number three.
I'm going to as well play this.
March 6th, he's at a press conference, gets a question about my apology to Sandra Fluck, wants to know whether he thinks it was sufficient and heartfelt.
I don't know what's in Rush Limbaugh's heart, so I'm not going to comment on the sincerity of his apology.
What I can comment on is the fact that all decent folks can agree that the remarks that were made don't have any place in the public discourse.
And, you know, the reason I called Ms. Flu is because I thought about Malia and Sasha.
His daughters, Malia, Sasha.
Thought about them.
What about this guy, Cee-Lo Green?
Now, CeeLo Green can sing what he wants.
I don't care.
But here it is at an Obama fundraiser on the same stage Obama will take not long after CeeLo Green sings the tune.
Yep, double standard, single standard, whatever.
Pure hypocrisy.
I know, but the point is, it isn't getting any press.
Nor is it getting any condemnation.
But don't doubt me when I tell you it's noticed.
It's noticed because just because the press, the mainstream press, state control media doesn't give it any attention.
It's out there.
Especially now, it's out there.
Just one week ago, New York Times has a poll with CBS News, Obama at a record low approval rating, 41%, in the Washington Post, a poll that showed Obama losing ground with women.
Approval number down.
It shocked the White House.
It's one of the reasons they went on this massive fundraising spree last week, culminating with five or six of them in Atlanta.
Coleman is the last one.
Five or six of them on Friday.
And he raised less than expected.
And now there are bad polls everywhere, folks.
We've got a new one from thehill.com, voter gloom over Obama's jobs, gasoline, and debt policies.
And speaking of that, there was, I'm trying to keep this organized in some semblance here of order, massive, long story, top of the fold, front page, Washington Post yesterday on last summer's very feisty debt limit battle.
It is a story.
It's very long.
No way would I even recommend you read the whole thing.
Well, I might recommend you read the whole thing.
I wouldn't read it to you.
I couldn't.
It prints out to 10 pages.
Front page Washington Post.
And what this story points out is that Obama purposely, intentionally lied to the American people when he told us that the Republicans were not interested in raising taxes, that they wanted a cuts-only solution to the debt crisis.
It turns out that John Boehner and Eric Cantor had indeed offered $808 million in tax increases.
Obama just lied.
He just flat out lied to the American people about the Republicans and their position in the debt negotiate.
Flat out lied on the front page of the Washington Post.
You have to read a while to get to that in the story.
And a couple of three other things that were momentous about it as well.
So that's yesterday, front page Washington Post.
It did.
This story paints Harry Reid and Pelosi as practically irrelevant, where everybody thinks they're part of the problem, part of the obstacles problem.
This story makes it clear that they're just up there to do Obama's bidding, but that Obama doesn't know how to negotiate.
This story points out that Obama's incompetent when he negotiates because he lies.
He told Boehner, he told the country that the Republicans were not willing to compromise in an area, and they were all along.
And Boehner said, I don't know what to do about this.
Boehner, by the way, I had a meeting with Boehner not long before that.
This is what last summer, sometime.
And I had a meeting with Boehner here at the EIB Southern Command some months before that.
I just casually asked him what it was like working with Harry Reid.
And he said, you know, he'd surprise you.
If it were just reading me, we could get a deal done.
Of course, I thought, oh my gosh, don't tell me he really believes this.
He did.
He said, if it was just reading me, we'd get it.
He said, Harry gets it.
And I said, oh, this story says that.
Or pretty close to it.
This story in the front page of the Washington Post pretty much says that Boehner and Reed could and did work together.
And it was based.
It's Obama is the whole problem.
Obama was campaigning.
Obama had to give his base something.
Obama, the whole debt limit thing was a phony baloney plastic, but had a good time rock and roller diversion.
Yeah, he wanted the debt ceiling raised, but he could not afford for his base, lunatic fringe base, to see him as compromising at all.
This is the bunch talks about compromise.
This is the bunch, along with the Republican establishment, too, the beauties and the wonders of compromise.
And here was Obama making it look like he was willing to compromise.
He was the stone wall, and he was lying.
He lied in a national address to the nation.
He lied in a prime-time address to the nation.
And don't take my word for it if you don't want to.
It's the Washington Post.
So now we've got this Hill poll.
Half of likely voters expect the Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare.
Strong majorities see other major policies coming from the White House making life more difficult for them and the country.
So the polling data continues to be bad, strikingly so.
And all of these polls are coming from state-run media organizations.
These are from organizations that are entirely invested in Obama's reelection.
They are entirely invested in the notion of an all-powerful, growing command and control, socialistic central government.
They're all in favor of that.
And I think they're not shying away from publishing the results of their polls because they too are scared and they're trying to light a fire under Obama.
Hey, pal, it isn't working.
You're going to have to find another way.
And don't forget, Stanley Greenberg, some weeks ago now, Democrat pollster extraordinaire told Obama, if you think you can gain traction by telling people that this economy is roaring back by virtue of whatever you want to say the unemployment numbers are, don't because it isn't believable.
The American people are not living in an economy that's roaring back.
And if you tell them that it is, it isn't going to work.
So I know it's only March, it's March 19th, and it's way early, but contrary to what people would love to have you believe, this is not the way any of them in the regime had this planned.
Half of likely voters expect the Supreme Court to strike down Obamacare.
It's more than half who want it struck down.
This is just 50% who expect it to be shut down.
More than that want it to be struck down.
Strong majorities see other major policies from the White House making their lives more difficult and making things for the country more difficult.
The poll indicated 49% of likely voters said they expect a court ruling that's unfavorable to Obamacare.
29% think it'll be upheld.
22% are not sure.
On economic issues, 62% of voters say that Obama's policies will increase the debt.
62 in thehill.com.
It's got to be even worse than this.
25% think that policies will cut the debt.
And by 48 to 38 margin, voters believe those policies will increase unemployment rather than put people back to work.
48 to 38 percent people believe Obama's policies will add to unemployment.
And they're right.
On energy, 58 percent say that Obama's policies will result in gasoline prices increasing.
Only 20 percent expect them to cut prices.
And 46 to 36 margin voters believe that Obama's policies will cause the U.S. to become even more dependent on foreign oil.
That's because they understand about the Keystone Pipeline.
This is not a poll in a right-wing website.
This is thehill.com.
Voters' wide-ranging pessimism comes as gasoline prices have risen sharply, which often dampens attitudes among U.S. voters toward those in power.
So, if we could just get the gasoline price down, the Hill hopes that all this stuff will go away.
Now, this debt deal, I'm going to spend a little bit more time as I'm not going to get into the whole nine-page story.
But don't forget, Obama wanted to be able to run against a do-nothing Congress.
There was never, and I remember telling everybody in this audience back then, that I thought, let me take a break, and I'll come back and say what I'm doing.
The Republicans held all the cards.
It was Obama that needed the deal.
It was Obama that wants to spend the money beyond the debt limit.
They held all the cards, but they believe got a compromise.
The American people, their consultants told them we got to compromise.
They tried to compromise, and Obama still stuck it to him.
All because he had to be able to run against a do-nothing Congress.
There was no way he was going to ever agree to a deal.
That was the point.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Rush Limbaugh serving humanity simply by showing up.
All right.
It's interesting.
You know, I use two words in 23 years that showed questionable judgment.
Two words in 23 years.
These entertainers and pundits on the left seem to use 23 obscene words every day or every two days.
Back in 2008, the rapper Ludacris supported Obama.
The two met in Obama's senatorial office in his rap song praising Obama.
He called Hillary a BI itch.
Obama smiled.
You remember that?
Hillary hated on you, said Ludacris.
So that B.I. Itch irrelevant.
Jesse talking slick and apologizing for what, oh, it was a special rap song written for Obama in which Mrs. Clinton, the former first lady, the current Secretary of State, was referred to as a BI itch.
Now, this debt deal, folks, it is profound what the Washington Post reported.
And the fact, I don't think MSNBC has talked about it.
Politico has a little bit of a piece on it.
But I remember Mark Halperin, Time Magazine, got suspended from MSNBC for a couple days because he said that Obama had acted like a male body part on this debt deal.
Yeah, he said Obama acted like a male body part.
Halperin's point was that Obama didn't want any grand bargain.
It was all just posturing.
Halperin has been vindicated now.
Obama was acting that way.
And this is what I said.
It was June 30th after playing the clip from MSNBC, Halperin's remark, I said, and after they stopped giggling on the Scarborough show, Halperin made a good point.
Obama doesn't want a deal.
He really doesn't want a deal.
He wants the chaos.
He wants all this to continue.
And that's what generates happiness for him.
He cannot permit a deal with Congress when he's setting up a campaign this year to run against a do-nothing Congress.
There was never any way he was going to.
And what happened was Boehner, okay, Boehner, I'll give you some tax increases.
And Obama panicked.
Oh, my God.
Then he went out and lied to the country.
That's all he knew to do.
Now, folks, I want to add another interesting ingredient to this debt deal.
Not so compressed for time.
Let's start at the beginning.
Washington Post, huge front page stories by Peter Walston and two other drive-by reporters.
This Walston guy apparently has a very solid reputation.
It might be at risk now since I've praised him.
But that's the breaks of the game.
It can happen to drive-by journalists.
If I praise them, they lose favor with all of their friends.
But so be it.
Wollston and two others write this huge piece, the front page of the Washington Post, which, if you slog through it, and you don't have to because I did, you learn that Obama intentionally lied to the American people in a primetime address announcing the failure of negotiations to expand the debt limit last summer.
What this story points out is that the Obama lie was telling the American people that the Republicans were demanding cuts to the budget only as a means of expanding the debt limit.
We'll give you the debt limit increase, but you have to have some budget cuts.
Obama lied to the American people and said that was the intractable Republican position, when in fact Boehner and Eric Cantor had offered tax increases in the $800 million range.
Now to take you back nine months ago, it was Obama who needed the deal.
I thought, I thought the Republicans held all the cards.
I thought that Boehner and the boys could hold out and demand anything.
It's Obama whose job is spending money.
It's Obama who needs the debt limit increase so he can continue to buy votes, expand government, whatever his plan is.
What Boehner and the boys decided to do was essentially call his bluff.
He was setting up to run against a do-nothing Congress.
I said, okay, here you go.
Obama rejected it and then addressed the nation and lied.
Told the American people that the Republicans were intractable, inflexible, was their way or the highway.
They wouldn't give an inch.
When in fact they had given Obama, this is the key, everything he wanted.
And that's what he couldn't afford.
The trick that they played on Obama was giving him what he wanted.
They forced Obama to reject that, then go do a national address, primetime address to the nation, and lie about it.
Mark Halperin goes on MSNBC and calls Obama a male body part, gets suspended for a couple days for this.
Ends up being vindicated.
This story also, if you slog through it, this story illustrates that Obama is incompetent as a negotiator.
That he is, what this story says is that he's profoundly arrogant and afraid at the same time.
And also, the story says that he's he doesn't know nearly what he thinks he knows.
He's, I'll use the word ignorant.
Arrogant and ignorant.
Arrogant condescension.
It's the way Obama is portrayed in this story in dealing with the Republicans.
Also, it points out that Reed and Pelosi were non-factors.
They took the heat, but they had to follow Obama's lead.
So not only is he incompetent, he's dishonest.
Once he got what he asked for, he moved the goalposts and did it in a primetime address to the nation.
But the story didn't end there.
From the New York Times, this is a story in July, July 23rd, debt ceiling talks collapse as Boehner walks out.
Then in August is when the country had its credit rating downgraded, August of 2011.
We lost our AAA credit rating all because the debt limit deal fell through.
And we now know, thanks to the Washington Post, it fell through because Obama refused to accept it.
And it had everything in it he wanted.
And that was the problem.
His bluff was called.
I think toward the end of the negotiations, Boehner and the Republicans just decided to, okay, let's see what happens.
This guy is, because it was proving impossible to negotiate with him.
Every day that they negotiated, Boehner and Canterbury would hear things that had not been agreed to.
They would listen to Obama recount things that had not been discussed.
He's basically making it up every day as a negotiating tactic, keep them off balance.
Nobody would know this to this day.
We only haven't speculated.
Well, Boehner and the guys know it, but had they made a big deal out of it, they would have just been accused of being crybabies and whiners.
So, no, I don't know the purpose of this.
I don't know why the Washington Post ran this thing yesterday.
I don't know why they spent so much time on it.
I don't know why the Washington Post basically lets anybody who reads this story know that Obama was the single problem here, that he's incompetent, arrogant, and lied to the nation in a primetime address.
Don't know why they're running this story, but folks, I'm just going to tell you here that the there's abject panic in the White House.
And again, things can turn on a dime in the business of politics.
Republicans could screw up tomorrow.
That's quite easy.
And Obama be back on a wave that nobody could stop him.
But as of right now, the polling data continues to just be devastating, including this piece at thehill.com today, which I shared with you in the previous half hour of the program.
There's another one.
This is ABC News.
Another random act of journalism.
Two-thirds of Americans say the U.S. Supreme Court should throw out either the individual mandate in Obamacare or just get rid of the whole thing.
The ABC News Washington Post poll finds the American people oppose Obamacare 52 to 41.
And 67% believe that the Supreme Court should either ditch the law or at least the portion that requires nearly all Americans to have coverage.
Supreme Court oral arguments begin a week from today.
Folks, this is profound.
Can I tell you how profound this is?
The fact that 67% of the American people in an ABC news poll believe that the Supreme Court should get rid of the individual mandate.
Sitting here, even knowing the power of this program, fully aware of the power of the alternative media, I have to tell you, I am still shocked that 67% of the American people even know what the mandate is.
And I don't mean that as an insult.
I mean, this is minutia.
Budgets, mandates, commerce clause.
But happily, 67% of the people do get it.
And I think I know why.
It's because this is a conservative country.
This is not a liberal country.
This is a country where the liberalism socialism groups are a minority, but they have the media and they are able to make everybody believe day in and day out that they are the majority and that the conservatives are the fringe kook extreme tiny little minority that are gumming up the works.
It's just the exact opposite.
67% of the American people oppose the mandate in Obamacare because they understand that it's the end of their freedom, or at least a remarkable transformation away from individual liberty, when the federal government can mandate that you buy something, and if you don't, either fine you or put you in jail.
That's pretty simple, actually, to understand.
Fascinating thing is that the state-controlled media, the mainstream media, has not made a big deal out of this.
And yet the American people are aware of it.
Folks, I'm telling you, there are countless reasons today to feel optimistic, regardless what's going on in the Republican primary.
We're going to end up having a nominee, and we're all going to end up supporting a nominee, who it is, because look at these polls.
67%, there's not one Republican candidate running who supports this mandate or Obamacare.
They're all running on the promise to repeal it, and that's what the American people want.
Got to take a break.
We'll do that.
We'll be back and continue here in mere moments.
Okay, that's why.
That's why.
I'm sitting here trying to figure out why the Washington Post would run such a story.
Folks, it's profound.
I'm overusing that word.
It's remarkable because of its length.
It's a front-page story on Sunday, the most red issue of the week.
Front page, top of the fold, right in the center of the page.
Well, it turns out that the New York Times is going to do a story on the same subject.
Now, I don't know why.
I don't know why all of a sudden the debt deal from last summer has become such a matter of great interest.
Bob Woodward is going to write a book on these debt negotiations.
I don't know why this has become such a big deal.
I mean, we could hope.
I mean, it was really a debacle.
It's a disaster.
There's a debt limit for a reason.
The limit, the way Obama's playing along, hello, all of Washington plays along, is the limit exists to be broken.
The limit exists to be exceeded.
Why even have a debt limit?
But with this, this was, I don't know how often presidents have intentionally lied like this in primetime addresses to the American people.
This was brazen.
Because Boehner, again, Boehner and Cantor had given Obama everything he wanted, and he panicked.
He rejected it because he didn't want a deal.
He wanted the Republicans as the ongoing enemy.
The Republicans as the obstacles to good government.
The Republicans as obstacles to welfare checks going on.
Remember, Social Security checks.
Remember all that?
Obama, the government would shut down the Republicans.
That's what he wanted, was everybody thinking the Republicans are going to shut down the government.
They gave him everything he wanted.
So you've got the New York Times coming out with the story, Woodward writing a book about it.
But Obama didn't just lie.
He referred to the Republicans as hostage-takers.
Joe Biden, I think my memory, I'm blessed with a good one.
I think that Biden even said the Republicans were acting like terrorists during all of this.
But it was Obama that called the Republican congressional negotiators hostage takers in the Bush tax cut debate December 2010 in the lame duck session.
That's when he called them hostage.
But Biden did call them terrorists last August during the debt ceiling negotiations.
Biden said the Republicans were acting like terrorists when they gave Obama everything he wanted.
The New York Times story is going to be in their magazine.
They are waiting eight months to do this.
I'm going to find a reason.
I'm going to find out what the answer to this question is.
I'm fascinated.
Why now?
They could forget this.
Nobody would ever hearken back to this.
Maybe that's it.
Maybe somebody's planning on it.
Now, something else happened over the weekend.
On this surface, to the casual observer, not a big deal, to me, I think this is big.
I think this is indicative of something.
Biden was in Pittsburgh for St. Patrick's Day, and he's walking the streets, and they turn on the Stanwick Street, and you got all these union people out there.
That's who shows up, St. Patrick's Day parade, in large part, the union people.
And it's a huge crowd in Pittsburgh, and Biden got booed big time, just for showing up and smiling.
Now, that is often called something just anecdotal.
You can't attach any scientific meaning to it.
But you put it in the mix with everything else that you know is happening, such as these devastating poll numbers, the fundraising nowhere near what they were expecting it to be.
And here's Biden at a St. Patrick's Day parade getting booed.
Here's the audio soundbite for this WPXI eyeball TV news in Pittsburgh.
The correspondent here is Brandon Hudson.
The vice president's trip was part business, part fun, all about the reelection campaign.
But as we followed him on to Stanwick Street, that warm welcome turned cold.
A chorus of booze rained down on Biden and his supporters on the last stretch.
Still, Biden kept smiling.
Oh, of course.
He probably didn't even know they were booing him, but he's so out of it.
But they did.
And we've got Jim in Pittsburgh on the phone.
Welcome, sir.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi, Greg.
Rush, great show.
Let me just say, put a little perspective to this, analyze this.
I have a degree in political science.
I'm a political junkie.
I follow every election since 1960.
And I'll tell you what it is.
He's lost the working class, the Reagan Democrats.
And I did some research on this.
1964, LBJ, it was McCune County, I think it was Michigan.
He won 75% of the vote.
In 1984, Reagan won by 35.
The difference is the Reagan Democrats are basically working class people, make $50,000 or less, lot of them are union.
They don't feel that the Democratic Party is attuned to their likes more to the special interests.
Now, and another further support...
Jim, let me add something.
The Obama campaign has written them off.
It's been written in opinion pieces in the Washington Post and the New York Times.
They're just writing off working-class families.
They're writing off their votes.
Oh, yeah, definitely, Rush.
And here's the thing: because of that non-connection, and this is something you talk about all the time.
Don't follow what everybody was saying.
Everybody's been saying, now, I think it doesn't matter whoever gets the nomination, it'll either be Romney or it'll be Santorum.
They're going to kill.
The only way I see Obama, well, I'm going to get into that.
Here's the thing: they're going to lose against this referendum, but they'll lose worse if it's Santorum.
And the reason, he relates more to the working-class people.
Give you an example.
The poll came out, two polls, Quinni Pack poll and public policing poll.
The public policing pool is, according to James O'Toole, the post is that.
You can read the article online.
I've got to step in here.
I'm out of time.
I'm out of time.
Let me.
What he was going to say, where he's going with all this, based on his expertise, political scientists, he thinks Obama will lose in the landslide.
That's where he was headed.
It's his opinion.
We'll be back.
Don't go away.
Okay, folks.
First hour in the can on the way to the Limbaugh Broadcast Museum warehouse of artifacts.