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March 27, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:46
March 27, 2012, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to temper your expectations on this.
This is just oral argument, and we're nowhere near the vote on this thing, and we really don't know how this is going to go.
All we have right now is palpable fear on the left.
Greetings and welcome back.
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This fascinates me.
All of this shock and surprise on the left.
The media, court watchers, leftist legal beagles, they are in a state of shock.
Legitimate state of shock, folks.
They really believed this was going to sail through.
And we have to always keep in mind how relatively young most of these people are and thus how they've been educated.
And they didn't get Constitution 101 like I did.
They have been taught that the Constitution is a flawed document that needs to be changed whenever it can be.
And this represents the greatest opportunity to do that that they have all ever had.
The very fact that Obamacare became law against the objection of a majority of the American people in the way it became law, basically under cover of darkness with every legislative trick under the sun being tried, didn't matter that it might be illegal.
Didn't matter that it might be unconstitutional because that's precisely what this was about, making it constitutional by virtue of changing the Constitution and using this law to do it.
Then all of a sudden, the oral arguments come up today, and the four conservative justices and the so-called swing vote Anthony Kennedy all have problems with the mandate, and they're literally shocked.
A, that everybody doesn't have the same worldview of this that they do, and B, that there is any objection to it at all.
Remember, for these people, the government is the end.
It's the be-all, end-all.
Government is the final authority.
Government is where everything important happens, every important decision, and for everybody.
But it didn't go that way today in the case of oral arguments.
And so now they're scratching their heads and they're genuinely surprised.
Jeffrey Toobin, genuinely surprised.
The CNN legal guy predicted this would sail through.
And they probably were looking at this court's actions on campaign finance law.
McCain Feingold.
Well, if that sailed through, this will.
So where we are with this is the left now blogging incessantly their fears and their hopes at the same time.
There is a left-wing blog called SCOTUS Blog, Supreme Court of the United States.
And this is a very relevant post on that blog.
Towards the end of the argument, the most important question was Justice Kennedy's.
After pressing the government with great questions on the mandate all day, Kennedy raised the possibility that the plaintiffs, i.e. the government, were right.
The mandate was a unique effort to force people into commerce to subsidize health insurance.
It's totally okay.
But the insurance market may be unique enough to justify that unusual treatment.
They take all of Kennedy's questioning here, which indicated to Toomin, this thing's dead, this thing is a train wreck.
One question by Kennedy at the end is now giving them hope that he might see this as so unique that he would vote for the mandate.
A reporter at the Huffing and Puffington Post is saying that it's, quote, almost entirely unequivocal that a majority of the court thinks Obamacare is unconstitutional.
They are scared to death.
Lyle Denniston, he used to be the court reporter for the Baltimore Sun.
He posts this: if Justice Kennedy can locate a limiting principle in the federal government's defense of this new mandate, or if he can think of one on his own, then the mandate may well survive.
If Kennedy doesn't, or if he does, rather, if Kennedy finds a way here, he may take Chief Justice John Roberts along with him and therefore give us a huge winning majority.
But if Kennedy does not locate a limiting principle in the federal government's defense of the new law, then the mandate's gone.
That's where Tuesday's argument wound up with Kennedy, after first displaying a very deep skepticism, leaving the impression he might yet be the mandate's savior.
A lot of these blogs are being critical of the Solicitor General, the government's lawyer, Mr. Virility.
They are saying one blog, I can't believe how poorly prepared this guy was on the mandate.
I can't believe they sent him up there and he had no idea how to answer these very obvious questions on the mandates.
Apparently, the governor's lawyer didn't do a good job.
The left can't believe he wasn't prepared any better.
Well, how do you defend the indefensible?
What is this guy going to say when that burial insurance analogy comes up?
He's dead.
When the broccoli analogy comes up, he's dead.
If you're up arguing before Supreme Court that the government has the right to require us to buy health insurance, then why not burial insurance?
Why not broccoli?
And this guy had no answer for that other than a bunch of gobbledygook.
And all of his supporters watching this know what a poor job he did.
And so now they're worried.
And they've just got a little carrot.
Anthony Kennedy gave him a little carrot dangling there at the far end of the mine.
It's right down there next to the canary.
And he might find a way.
This situation is so unique.
And we're talking about healthcare.
Maybe this could be okay.
That's what they're desperately hoping.
But their instincts tell them that it was a train wreck today.
And I must tell you, I still find it, I don't know, I guess I shouldn't, because I know how they were educated, which was poorly.
I'm still struck by the fact that they're surprised.
That they're shocked.
What world do they live in?
This could not have been the first day in their lives that they've heard these objections to the mandate.
But what if it is?
What if they live in such a close-knit circle, they hang around only with each other?
What if it actually was the first time they've heard these objections?
That can't be.
They've been made these objections, these arguments against the mandate throughout the media everywhere.
So I guess they just locked in on the idea that it doesn't have a prayer of losing.
But like so much of liberalism and like so many liberals, they live in their cloistered world, the faculty lounge.
They sit around and they talk theory all day.
They don't understand dynamism.
Everything is static to them.
And then they get confronted with reality one day and it's like a cold shower or a slap upside the head and they are bewildered.
And it still amazes me that people who are reputed to be so intelligent and so smart can be so surprised when they hear arguments, logical arguments, that make it obvious this is unconstitutional.
But again, I fall back on something we must never forget.
That is, this is not about health care and it's not about the mandate, per se.
It's about changing the Constitution.
Not piecemeal with this one.
This is huge.
You have it codified as the law of the land that the government can make you buy something.
And my friends, the Constitution has finally been defeated.
And that's what they can taste.
That's, in fact, it's in their grasp, but it's a little slippery and they can't hold on to it.
But it's right there.
Right there.
Now, there's a piece by Terry, no, I did a piece by Terry Jeffrey, a piece by Peter Boyer here in the Daily Beast.
Peter Boyer once profiled me in Vanity Fair.
I know Peter Boyle, and he's a fair guy.
I actually really like Peter Boyle.
Every time I've seen him, so this is way, way back in the early 90s, I haven't stayed in touch with him on a regular basis, but whenever, and he still got my email address, and I'll probably hear from him now.
He has a piece in the Daily Call, or Daily Beast, which he works at Tina Brown.
Tina Brown is, you know, she ran Vanity Fair back when he wrote there, and she runs the Daily Beast now.
And he got a piece here entitled The Case for Losing Obamacare.
And we talked about this in the previous hour.
The left has come up, a lot of people have come up with political analysis of this that says no matter what happens, it's bad news for Obama to varying and differing degrees, but it's still bad for Obama.
And the way it's bad for him if he loses, sorry, the way it's bad for him if he wins, if this is found constitutional, is that it makes his re-election effort so much harder because there's so much public opposition to this.
And having the court find this constitutional will take us back to the energized Tea Party days that led to the 2010 midterms.
And folks, remember the name of Scott Brown, senator from Massachusetts who won the seat previously held by Senator Kennedy?
He won that seat for one reason.
He promised to vote against Obamacare in Massachusetts.
He won that seat for that reason.
Now, people like to forget that, and they like to chalk up different reasons for his victory, but that was the primary reason.
Now, he's running against an avowed Marxist by the name of Elizabeth Warren, a genuine Kennedy liberal this time around.
We'll see how that goes.
But he won that seat, and the 2010 midterms were all about the Tea Party and the rest of the American people showing up to the polls to say they didn't want this Obamacare and they want it repealed and get rid of the party who gave it to us.
And that's what it was about.
And so the theory is that if Obama wins this by having it found constitutional, that whole mindset and the American people are going to be reignited.
And the Republican enthusiasm to turn out and vote against Democrats, no matter who the Republican nominee, is going to be just as intense as it was in 2010.
And Obama is going to lose.
And that's the fear that they have.
My reaction is, so what?
As they get this passed, this is something you retire on.
This is such an achievement.
Okay, go ahead and head to the golf course for the rest of your life or go run the United Nations or the World Trade Organization.
Go run some global body or what have you.
Because this is no Democrat president ever will have been said to do more if this thing passes.
And then the other side of it, if it's declared unconstitutional, then Obama is saved by the same theory, that there will not be all this opposition to Obama to vote against him.
And therefore, he has a better chance to win.
The political analysis runs just all over the political backyard.
So that's why I look at this piece by Peter Boyer, the case for losing Obamacare.
While a Supreme Court rejection of Obamacare this summer would be an embarrassment for the president and an obvious blow to his legacy, a case can be made that a health care defeat in the high court might actually benefit Obama in his reelection campaign.
And after all, isn't that what really matters?
If you go to the White House, they ask them, what's really the most important thing you're doing today?
Is it trying to get this thing declared constitutional or winning reelection?
I think hands down, and it's a, believe me, it's a close call, but hands down, it's winning reelection.
That's what really matters.
Even the grand and glorious victory for social justice like Obamacare pales in comparison to the overriding need to get Obama re-elected so he can finish the job on America.
Back to Mr. Boyer.
Apart from the fact that Republicans would lose their most animating issue in the presidential race, the overturning of the health care reform law would free Obama of the burden of having to mount a broad defense of it as a centerpiece of his campaign.
Well, wait a minute.
I thought everybody loved it, Peter.
I thought everybody loved Obamacare.
I thought the Democrats loved it.
I thought this is the greatest thing.
Remember, there was an Obama pollster who told us shortly after it was passed, don't worry what the polls say now.
In a couple of years, people are going to love this.
I've got the story in the stack.
The Obama pollster pissed it two years ago.
People are going to love this once it gets implemented.
People don't love it.
It has been implemented in part.
And there are waivers and there are exemptions galore.
It's so wonderful.
So this would free Obama of the burden of having to defend a health care plan as a centerpiece of his campaign.
Well, I thought people were going to love it so much that that would be a ticket to re-election to run around and say, say that healthcare plan, remember, that was mine.
And I know you love it.
And I know everybody else loves it.
And that alone is why I should be re-elected.
They don't want to say that.
I wonder why.
In fact, ladies and gentlemen, can anybody think of a single Barack Obama accomplishment that will not be a burden to defend in his campaign?
There's not one thing in Obama's record he wants to run on.
Not one.
That's why this phony contrived so-called Republican war on women.
That's why this diversion trying to make women think Republicans want to take their birth control pills away from them.
Because Obama can't run on his record.
And Peter, I know you know this, but probably can't write it.
But there's not a single Obama accomplishment that is not a burden to defend in his campaign.
There's not a single accomplishment that he can point to.
There's, in fact, every one of them he's going to have to ignore.
But that's what comes of governing against the will of the people.
That's what you end up with.
Yeah, the Daily Beast, Peter Boyer.
It's fascinating here to watch the media say no matter how this Supreme Court rules, it's a win-win for Obama, which is really what's going on.
It's a win-win no matter what happens.
Remember, the two-year anniversary of Obamacare was recently, and Obama, there was no party for it, and Obama didn't show up anywhere to signify it.
And Peter Boyer, at the end of his piece, writes, if that or any other legal argument against Obamacare persuades a majority of the justices, it would certainly place a cloud over Obama's first term record.
But Obama might well see a silver lining in November.
In other words, the Daily Beast thinks that Obamacare, if you read the whole piece, would be better off dead so that Obama can run on the rest of his splendid record of achievement.
To be better off, folks, they are convinced now it's history.
And Wolf Blitzer was in hysterics moments ago on CNN.
He had the congressional correspondent Kate Boldwin on.
They had this exchange.
We already heard two, but Blitzer is beside himself with what happened today at oral arguments.
Kate, you were inside the courtroom.
The Solicitor General, Donald Vareli, was he sort of stumbling?
Did he not have the right answers?
Did he seem unprepared and overly nervous in responding to the conservative justices' tough questioning?
It's hard to get into his mind, but I can say if you compare it to yesterday, he did appear to stumble more, almost seem apologetic for some of the answers that he was giving.
Yeah.
So now it's time to dump on virility here, the government lawyer.
Blitzer.
Was he sort of stumbling?
Did he not have the right answers?
Did he seem unprepared?
Wolf, you go defend this law up there and see how you do.
There isn't anybody who can.
Obama's not even trying to defend it.
Pelosi's only defense is, what do you mean, unconstitutional?
Don't be silly.
Nobody can defend this.
It isn't constitutional.
Nobody.
Ha!
Harry, you're welcome back, Rush Limboy, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Feeling fine.
Right here behind a golden EIB microphone at the distinguished and prestigious Limboy Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
The last I noticed, the bounty on registered Democrat George Zimmerman was still in place.
The bounty placed by the new Black Panther Party.
The new Black Panther Party has put a, I'm hearing different number, $10,000 bounty somewhere else.
I heard $1 million bounty.
Regardless, there's a price on the head of George Zimmerman issued by a private group of citizens, the New Black Panther Party.
And they're saying that they've rounded up 5,000 black posse members to go out and find this guy, to bring him to them for justice.
And so far, not a peep from the Obama administration.
Not a peep that I've heard from the government of Florida.
I have to tell you, I'm literally in a state of disbelief over this.
A bounty on a private citizen who has not been charged yet with anything to bring him in for punishment, who knows what would happen to him.
A bounty.
This is clearly causing unrest, stirring the pot.
There's no attempt to cool this off from the highest levels of our government, nowhere.
From no one, the Justice Department, the Attorney General, Eric Holder, Obama, nobody has said anything about this.
They haven't made one effort to calm things down here.
I am I'm literally I guess I shouldn't be surprised because this is the kind of chaos that I have long predicted that would happen.
And I've told you since Obama was inaugurated that this kind of chaos is what they like.
Because this kind of chaos is when people turn to the government and say, please, would you do something?
Which is what they want.
They want to be the final arbiter.
They want to be the solution for everything for everybody.
But in this case, they're letting this ride, folks.
They're just letting it ride.
Well, I was just asked if I'm surprised the mother is trademarking his name.
No, nothing surprised.
That actually makes me sort of sad.
I mean, some of the stuff going on here.
And now there are the Miami Herald and a number of the news organizations have.
Remember, this story is a month old.
Three weeks went by.
Nobody knew anything about this.
Now I could put on my tinfoil hat and go conspiracy theorist on you.
Say, why is that?
Why did this story sit there unknown to anybody for three weeks?
Well, what was going on during those three weeks?
The manufactured Democrat plan to create this notion that there was a Republican war on women.
And incumbent in that war on women is an effort to get me.
And maybe they didn't want to interrupt the war on women by having this story pop up and take that off the front page.
I don't know, but for three weeks, nothing happened.
Then after actually a little longer than three weeks, three and a half weeks, then all of a sudden the lid blows on this story as though it happened yesterday.
Now the Miami Herald and other news organizations are learning who Trayvon Martin was.
They have found his Twitter handle and they're looking at some of the tweets and it's not pretty.
And they're looking at some of the quasi-criminal activities he might have been involved in.
That's not pretty.
And they're looking at other aspects of him.
So mother is now out there saying, first they killed my son, and now they're trying to destroy his reputation.
And I would have to say, folks, I don't care what he said on Twitter, and I don't care what he was doing with screwdrivers and stuff.
It doesn't necessarily, that doesn't justify his being shot.
Now, we don't know even yet what the details of this story are.
So whether or not this is a justifiable shooting, we don't know that yet.
But just because the kid said some strange stuff on that doesn't mean you should get shot.
I really, I'm starting to notice everywhere I look, it's becoming, again, the National Football League.
There's, well, you speaking of, talking about bounties.
Now, there's somebody who knows how to deal with bounties.
The NFL shuts them down.
Maybe the NFL should be in charge of shutting down the new Black Panther Party bounty, now that I think about it.
Well, what was it?
I was reading this morning.
Some of the owners' meetings are here.
And, oh, I know what it is.
Get this.
Last Friday, Warren Sapp, former defensive tackle, nose tackle for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, now works at the NFL network.
And he got a tweet last week from a source that he says a good source identifying Jeremy Shockey as the whistleblower who gave up everybody, snitched, was Warren Sapp's words, snitched on the Saints and their bounty program.
And so Shocky started tweeting, it wasn't me, it wasn't me.
And he's out looking at lawyers and so forth.
And the NFL network is getting a little heat because they then, after Warren Sapp tweeted this, they went and got him, put him on camera, and had him repeat it on the NFL's owned network.
So in reporting this story, another sports writer said, we're waiting to see if there are any penalties handed down to SAP for what he said.
Everywhere we look, somebody is justifying the notion that some high authority should be able to penalize people for what they say.
Now, this is not a First Amendment case.
The First Amendment is strictly the government abridging free speech.
If you work for a company, they can tell you what you can't say.
If you violate, they can fire you and all that.
Don't misunderstand it.
But my concern here is that no matter where we look, including in the world of sports, well, let's set up a federal commission to deal with concussions.
Let's set up a federal commission to deal with drug abuse in the NFL.
Just rolls off the tongue.
And then, just like saying, yep, the sun's going to come up tomorrow, we're still waiting on whether or not SAP will be penalized and suspended for what he said.
Words.
As though it is now expected, common, everyday thought that you can be shut up, punished, penalized, sent to the corner, fired for what you say as a matter of routine, rather than it being a rare exception.
It boggles my mind how oblivious people are to their own freedom, advocating for what would ultimately be the loss of their own freedom.
You sit around and you start saying, yeah, well, the league needs to do something about this.
League needs to find SAP, suspend SAP, fire SAP.
For what?
He's a football player.
He's not a journalist for crying out loud.
The League put him on the air.
I just, this is, it's getting out of hand here.
And I know we've got authoritarians and totalitarians that love to shut people up, but when average citizens just go along with it and think they're sounding erudite and enlightened and so forth, This is outright censorship that people end up supporting.
Whether they know it or not, outright censorship.
And yet the new Black Panthers can put a bounty on a citizen and nobody does anything.
Nobody at the upper levels of government even objects publicly.
You let somebody say something wrong on a football network?
Let's shut them down.
Let's suspend them.
Let's penalize them.
Let's punish them.
Let's fire them or whatever.
The new Black Panthers, after getting away with vote fraud in Philadelphia, voter intimidation, at the polling place, can now issue a bounty and put together a posse of 5,000 people.
And we twiddle our thumbs and go, ho-hum, no big deal.
Out of whack.
Huge.
Big time.
All right, we'll get to the phones after this break.
I promise it'll happen.
Okay, really appreciate all of you on the phones who have been on hold holding on.
It is your turn now, and we are starting in Monument, Colorado.
Hi, Dave.
Welcome to the program.
Rush, how are you doing?
Very good, sir.
Thanks.
God bless you.
You do so much for America.
Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I got on.
I agree.
We have to repeal the Obamacare, and that's why I went to my first ever Colorado caucus.
I spoke for Santorum.
He won in a landslide.
It's fantastic.
I do have two points related to your earlier scenario where if Obamacare is declared constitutional, what might happen?
First, I don't trust that Romney would do anything about it.
I really don't trust him.
But I'll tell you, a Santorum West ticket, and there's my plug, Santorum West, I think they would.
They would repeal it.
They would get rid of it.
But the other point is, is that the Democrats, the socialists, they must think that the Republicans will never get back in control again.
Because if they did, they could put a health and human service secretary in there that could undo all of the abortion, the infanticide, the late-term abortions, the new Sondra contraception welfare program, the DELT panels.
They could undo all of that.
And so the Democrats must think that they're going to be in power forever.
That's an interesting part of their plan.
Well, it's an interesting point, Dave.
What he's talking about is the health care bill itself, all 2,200 or 2,700 pages.
People who have read the whole thing have tabulated the number of times the bill actually says or as the secretary shall determine.
Throughout the health care bill, the Secretary of Health and Human Services is really the all-powerful individual who will determine practically everything about it, including appointing commissions and panels and so forth.
So what Dave's saying here, if the Republicans win the White House and therefore name the cabinet, you get a Republican director of Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Well, as the Secretary may direct, could include to do nothing.
But it's not that simple, Dave, because the law is, at the same time, it's very broad and specific.
It does dictate how health care will be mandated and parsoned out, paid for as years go by.
Who's exempted from it?
For example, Muslims are exempted from this in many instances of it.
Native Americans are exempt from it in spots.
A lot of groups have permanent waivers from healthcare.
So it's not universally mandated on everybody.
However, The Secretary of Health and Human Services is not going to be able to do nothing and therefore have no part of the bill implemented.
There are specific things that happen independent of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, but it is a good point that you're making.
And here's the way to express it: they have written a piece of legislation here that takes as much freedom from private citizens as possible and transfers it to the government.
Now, if you put Republicans in charge of the government, then they have that power.
And believe me, the Democrats and the left do not want an all-powerful federal government when the Republicans are running it.
Nowhere near us.
That's an interesting point.
I appreciate the call.
Up next, Valerie in Erie, Pennsylvania.
Hi, and welcome to the EIB network.
Hi, it's an honor.
If the Obamacare mandate is ruled unconstitutional, won't the new regulations and upcoming regulations, along with the IBAP board, destroy businesses and insurance companies?
I mean, they can just keep regulating and regulating.
It depends on how they declare it.
Suppose they say everything but the mandate is okay, which they could do.
Now, if they do that, if they sever the mandate from the rest of the bill, what they will then be doing, and this is theoretical because I think this is all bogus anyway, but the purpose of the mandate, the reason the mandate's in the bill is to pay for it.
The purpose of the mandate, as written in the bill, is to pay for ensuring the 30 million or whatever number it is that don't at present have health care insurance.
The mandate forcing people to buy health insurance or pay a fine is the funding mechanism for the 30 million.
So if you take that out, then the bill becomes two, three times more costly than it is now.
But I don't think that will stop them, do you?
From implementing the next- No, no.
I don't, if they just, you're right, if they just sever the mandate and leave everything else intact, what do these people care about cost?
That's why I think this whole funding mechanism is bogus anyway.
That was just to get the thing passed.
I don't, this much doesn't worry about what things cost.
They wouldn't have run up deficits the way they have if they were concerned about things like that.
And so they could rule with a narrow scope or they could toss the whole thing.
I don't know that actually they can toss the whole thing.
I think the mandate's what's up for argument here, but they can do whatever they want.
They're the Supreme Court.
If they just rule the mandate's unconstitutional, everything else is okay, then all those rules and regulations stay.
Other than those that mandate you buy something.
That's why this has to happen fast.
Your point is really a good one.
It has to happen fast because there are elements of it that have already been implemented, such as, and not limited to, your kids staying on your policy until age 26.
That was early.
The attempt to get people covered with pre-existing conditions, that has been partially implemented.
And there are a number of, look at all these waivers that were granted, or a thousand waivers to companies.
And those waivers were granted so those companies wouldn't literally be put out of business during an election year.
That would have doomed Obama's fate.
They had to waive a lot over a thousand entities from having to play ball with this law.
But those waivers are over now.
There are no new ones, and they will expire after the election, starting next year.
Well, those regulations are already in place, but not all of it.
But the more of this that Gemp's implemented before it is shut down and repealed, the tougher it's going to be.
These things get intricately woven into the fabric of society and culture and yanking this stuff out of there.
Has somebody named for me an entitlement that has ever been totally shut down?
I can't think of one that's been totally yanked.
So this has to happen fast.
It has to happen quickly as most of this doesn't get implemented until 2014.
It's in the Daily Caller today.
Former NAACP leader accuses Sharpton and Jackson of exploiting Trayvon Martin.
This is C.L. Bryant, former NAACP leader, accusing Jesse Jackson L. Sharpton of exploiting the Trayvon Martin tragedy to racially divide this country.
A former leader of the NAACP saying this.
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