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April 24, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:56
April 24, 2012, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yeah, I wish you all could have been there.
I really do.
We solved all the world's problems.
Let's see, sorry, Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
Three and a half days, we solved the world's problem, the annual spring fling at my fashionable oceanside estate.
I would love to tell you who was there, but it's like Vegas.
Whatever happens there stays there, and who shows up always leaves in total secrecy.
But boy, it was tremendous fun.
Three and a half straight days of some of the finest intellectual stimulation I've had in a long time.
Three and a half straight days.
Scattered with, peppered with rounds of golf every day, fine fine dinners and breakfasts.
So it was just a great time.
It's always a great time.
The annual spring fling.
This is like the seventh one.
And I know I'm probably teasing you by telling you all of this and not being able to divulge the attendees.
You'd know them all.
And only one of them, in fact, none of them from the world of politics per se.
A couple people from the news media, some from the sports media, some from sports executive suite, some from the world of authorship, novel writing.
It was just a great time.
It always is.
Even had an NFL owner drop by for a couple of days.
So it was just a hoot.
And I'll find a way.
I will find a way to work in all the things that we discussed, the brilliant points that were made.
But I just, I can't tell you who was there because of privacy and promises and so forth.
Well, I'll tell you one.
I'll tell you one thing.
Vince Flynn was there with his lovely wife, Lisa.
Vince is happy to be known to go anywhere.
So he was there.
Anyway, folks, it's great to be back.
It really is.
Happy to have you along here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Rushlin bought 800-282-2882, the email address, LRushbo at EIBnet.com.
One of the attendees said, you know, we're looking at the news.
We talk about the news that happens during the day at dinner each night.
And one of the attendees said, can you believe this?
And then offered a point of view.
I said, the problem is you can't say it.
And I said, I can.
What do you mean you can't say it?
Well, no, no, you can't say that.
Well, I've said it before.
I've just not said it in the words you just said it, but I've said it.
I'll tell you how I've said it.
During the 2008 campaign, you remember Mahmoud Ahmedine Zad started a rant against this country.
Sounded just like anything out of the mouth of Joe Biden.
And I remember saying, if I were Joe Biden or any other Democrat saying what I'm saying about the United States, and I heard it echoed by one of America's enemies, I'd be embarrassed.
And these people don't care.
I don't remember the specific things that Biden was saying that were being echoed by Ahmedini's.
In fact, the question really is, who's copying who?
You know, your average Democrat runs around, runs down America, criticizes America, and then Ahmedine Zad says the same thing.
Who said it first?
Biden copying Ahmedine Zad or verse Mysa?
Well, what reminds me of it is there's this story from MediaIte, which is a blog that covers television.
And it's from April 26th.
It's yesterday.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev says he supports President Obama.
Well, of course he does.
An environmentalist wacko, a communist.
Don't give me this former communist stuff.
Which one what?
Gorbachev.
During a speech to advanced placement students at von Stuben High School, where the heck is von Stuben High School?
During a speech to advanced placement students, I guess these are the students one grade above Votec.
During a speech to slapped me upside the face for saying that.
By the way, everybody, you know, I didn't know this either.
Because I really, I took, well, I didn't take time off away from the news, but I didn't spend a whole lot of time paying attention to anything to the news about me.
And so I started getting overwhelmed with emails from people on Saturday or Sunday about the NAGs.
And the NAGs are having some meeting in May oriented around getting rid of me, the national organization for women with a big convention oriented.
I mean, the objective is to get rid of me.
I looked at it and I said, these poor women, they must be running out of money and members.
Because that's all this is.
Don't worry about it, folks.
It's just a fundraising drive.
I am a fundraising magnet.
I mean, I'm the best thing ever happened to left-wing fundraisers.
The NAGs obviously running low on cash.
And I don't know, their membership probably isn't all that hot to trot either.
So drag me out.
This is not the first time.
Drag me out in the Hush Rush Get Rush convention and raise your fundraisers.
That's what's going on.
But people were emailing me worried, silly.
Whoa, Rush, what are they going to stop coming after you?
I said, never.
Okay, von Stuben Haskruel is in North Park, Chicago, during a speech to advanced placement students at von Stuben High School.
Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.
You know, I will never forget.
My mind is fertile today, folks.
It always is when I've been going for a while.
I'll never forget back when Frank Sezno worked at CNN and Gorbachev was still running the Soviet Union.
And there was a G7 meeting coming up in Europe somewhere.
I believe it was Flance.
And Gorbachev called everybody, said, hey, I'm coming.
Everybody laughed because the Soviet Union was never a major economic power, but Gorbachev decided he's going to go.
So that stopped every, it was news bulletins all over everywhere.
Flash, bulletin, breaking news, whatever it was called back then.
And I was watching Frank Cessno on CNN beside himself.
Mikhail Gorbachev!
Mikhail Gorbachev! says he's a Mikhail Gorbachev.
And ever since I've heard him pronounced Mikhail Gorbachev, I find it hard not to say Mikhail Gorbachev when I'm talking about Gorbachev.
Of course, I'm also the guy that invented the word gorbasm to describe the way Frank Sezno was reacting to Mikhail Gorbachev coming to the G7, thereby making it the G7.2.
Anyway, during a speech, I will get through this, during a speech to advanced placement students at von Stuben High School in North Park, Chicago.
By the way, how can the NAGs attack me after calling me God's gift to women?
You know, they did that.
I don't know if we it's because women can change their minds.
Is that it?
I guess so.
Did we have audio of that or was it just a printed report where one of these During the contraception craze controversy, they call me some fundraiser, some feminist fundraisers of God's gift to women or God's gift to their organization.
At any rate, the National Organization for Women, why would men want to crash it, Snerdley?
Well, I don't think I'm sure Alan Ald is invited.
I haven't seen anything about that.
I assume men can go.
The head nag, Terry O'Neill, says the work that we have ahead of us is not going to be easy.
Right now, it really seems like, you know, we got this godsend named.
We've got this godsend named Rush Limbosch.
She acts the head nag who's running their convention on May 2nd to get rid of me.
The work we have ahead of us is not going to be easy.
Right now, it really seems like, you know, we got this godsend named Rush Limbos.
God's gift to the nags not long ago.
Now they want to have a convention to get rid of me.
At any rate, during a speech to the advanced placement students at von Stuben High School in North Park, Chicago, former President Mikhail Gorbachev made a strong statement of approval for President Obama.
Of course, he said, of course, there are many people who don't like what the president is doing, but in my opinion, it's very good.
My opinion of him is very favorable.
I will support him.
Well, there you have it.
So you could say that America's enemies all support Barack Obama.
We know that the Iranians want Obama re-elected, do we not?
We know that the Muslim Brotherhood wants Obama re-elected, do we not?
We know that Hezbollah and these guys, they want Obama real.
We know that Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro want Obama real.
Well, who are these guys?
They're America's enemies.
And at the spring fling, my guy said, you can't say that.
You can't say, well, I've said it in other words, so why not just say again?
It's undeniable.
Now Snerdley's all worried I'm going to get in trouble.
But it's not one of these things that's up for debate.
I mean, Gorbachev didn't say, I'm thinking of supporting Obama.
He says, I like him.
My opinion of him is very favorable.
I will support him.
And Gorbachev said, I think you Americans need your own perestroika.
During his address, Gorbachev recalled an anecdote about a talk he gave to 12,000 university students prior to the 2008 election.
At that event, there were a couple of students who were particularly persistent on Election Day in how Gorbachev should advise them to vote.
When they asked this question, Gorbachev said, I don't want to teach you because often America teaches others how they should live.
If I give you advice, I said that would be a risk.
So here's Slay Gorbachev slamming.
This is the same old thing.
We've been telling everybody what to do.
We're a superpower because we've been running around keeping everybody under our thumb.
We've been ordering everybody what to do.
We've been stealing their resources, their oil, their minerals, their diamonds, their algae, and converting it into our own stuff and becoming an illegitimate, any immoral and unjust superpower.
But then Gorbachev said, Nevertheless, I did say I think you Americans need your own perestroika.
Snerdley, do you remember there was Glasnost and Perestroika?
You remember the difference in the two.
As Snurdly's memory says, that glasnost was openness.
That the Russians, the Soviets, are supposed to be open with us.
How did you just define perestroika?
Okay.
Perestroika, Snerdley says, is that we were supposed to be bipartisan with the communists.
And perestroika was, if I recall right, and I usually do, Snerdley.
Perestroika was Gorbachev's attempt to parcel out freedom but hold on to communism.
Perestroika was limited free.
And that's what he's telling us we need here.
You Americans need your own perestroika.
No, we do not want to limit our freedoms here.
We don't want to parcel out freedom.
It couldn't work.
When you start parceling out freedom, but then you try to hold on to communism, the two are in conflict.
You cannot have both simultaneously existing.
Perestroika essentially was communism with a capitalist base.
It's what they've got in China today.
Democratic centralism.
Perestroika.
So what Gorbachev is saying is we need a little bit of capitalism here, but for the most part, a command and control government in charge of it.
That's what he says.
And who does he support?
Barack Obama.
Is that what you think we need?
You think we need a little bit of capitalism out there with the command and control of the whole thing coming from, because it's where we're headed if we don't stop.
Anyway, folks, the New York Times is in the news twice today.
There is the most hilarious six-minute video.
We're going to play the whole thing for you, but a bunch of employees of the New York Times are just fit to be tied that little pinch wants to change their pension plan on them.
Now, the New York Times right now has a defined benefit plan, which basically is what General Motors used to have and what a lot of big companies used to have until they found out they couldn't afford it.
What happened was that in negotiating union contracts, they allowed early retirement in some of these places because the jobs were so mundane and boring.
But you could retire early, and then after you retired, you got health benefits as part of your pension for the rest of your days, even though you weren't producing anything more for the company.
And for a while, sounded good, looked good, until the moment came when all of these people began to retire at once and pretty much became obvious that the companies could not afford this.
Couldn't afford lifetime health benefits and pensions for people that weren't working.
Well, that's what the New York Times has.
And so Little Pinch and the management want to change from a defined benefit plan to a benefit plan where the workers contribute to their own retirement that is matched somewhat by the company.
The company will match 3%, basically a 401k.
And the employees at the Times are livid.
And they've put together a six-minute video.
They've been in practically bare knuckle union negotiations over this for a year.
And the reason it's funny is because it's happening all over the world, all over the world.
Governments, states, cities, federal, whatever companies can't sustain themselves with these deals.
They're all having to revise backwards and change it in order to stay solvent and sustainable.
Wisconsin's a good example.
But the employees of the New York Times, despite reporters covering this and seeing the reality that it cannot work and cannot be sustained, and despite the New York Times being in a news business and therefore seeing what's happening to that business, are still saying, heck with it.
We won the money.
The sense of entitlement and greed is on display in this video.
We have that.
Plus, they're promising a hard look at President Obama editorial.
A hard look at the president coming up soon.
The New York Times got to take a break, folks.
But is your whistle wetted?
Should be.
Yeah, here it is.
Scrab audio soundbite number 37.
This is from March the 10th in New Orleans.
The National Organization for Women Mid-South Regional Conference, the now President Terry O'Neill, delivered the keynote address.
We have the really only important thing that she had to say.
The work we have ahead of us is not going to be easy.
Right now, it really seems like we've got this godsend named Rush Limbaugh who has like, whoa, dropped this thing in our lap, which is just wonderful.
But the road ahead is really not going to be completing rosy.
We've got to be very clear on what the challenges are and very clear about how we can move our own agenda forward in the current political climate.
There you have it.
Godsend named Rush Limbaugh.
I was God's gift to the NAGs back on March 10th.
And now on May the 2nd, they're going to convene again, another convention, this time to get rid of me.
God's gift to women.
See, this is how quickly you can lose favor with them.
But at any rate, ladies and gentlemen, it's a fundraising thing and probably a membership drive as well.
Jessica Yellen of CNN is following Obama.
Obama's in North Carolina.
By the way, there's a sex scandal in North Carolina.
Started out to be some very small, inconsequential thing.
It's ballooning now.
Details are coming up.
Jessica Yellen is tweeting that Obama's crowd today is 50% the size it was when he went to the same place in 2008.
He's at, where is he?
Chapel Hill, yeah, Dean Smith Center.
9,000 people.
Having more fun already than a human being should be allowed to have, Rush Limbaugh.
The distinguished and prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I think the funniest joke over the weekend has to be that editorial by the New York Times public editor.
The guy's name is Arthur Brisbane.
And the piece is entitled A Hard Look at the President.
Here we are, four years, for all intents and purposes.
Well, yeah, if you count 2008, four years into coverage of Barack Obama as either the president or presidential candidate of the New York Times, and they promise in a piece on April 21st, a hard look at the president.
And get this.
Snerdley, listen to this.
Got to know this because people might call you about it.
The last line of the New York Times piece, which it's an editorial from the public editor.
The last line ends with, readers deserve to know who is the real Barack Obama.
And the Times needs to show that it can address the question in a hard-nosed, unbiased way.
That is the funniest joke of the weekend.
Four years into it, the New York Times is promising us that readers deserve to know the real Barack Obama, and the Times needs to show that it can address that question in a hard-nosed way.
Now, this is just flat-out hilarious.
Unless you think how much the rest of the news media depends upon the New York Times to lead the way in coverage, will the rest of the news media now just, okay, well, I guess we have to show people who the real Obama is.
Here we are, more than three and a half years into his presidency, more than $5 trillion into more debt.
And the paper of record decides that its readers deserve to know who is the real Barack Obama.
Now, the question is: why does the New York Times need to show who Obama is now?
Where is the pressure coming from to do this?
Why now?
Well, I think largely people are getting their news from other places.
And the things that these other places are reporting and saying about Obama doesn't jive with what the New York Times wants people to know about Obama.
That would be my guess.
So the New York Times has decided with all this other information out there about Obama, they have to come out with their own version of it to try to guard against the truth being reported about Obama.
Now, I'm jumping ahead.
I skipped into something very quickly here.
This Jessica Yellen, but we'll get back to the New York Times thing in a minute because there's a second piece to it.
But Jessica Yellen of CNN is traveling with Obama.
He's in North Carolina.
That's a big problem state for Obama.
Everybody's talking about Ohio.
Republicans need Ohio or Florida.
Maybe, but Obama needs North Carolina.
If he loses North Carolina, there's trouble all the way down the Electoral College that they don't want to mess with.
So they got their convention there.
There's a number of trips that have been slated.
We did that story about the 45,000 professionals that work in the Uber triangle, whatever it is, Raleigh, Durham, and that area, and how they vote depends on the way North Carolina votes when coupled with certain voters from the Charlotte area.
Research triangle.
So Jessica Yellen has tweeted in 2008, candidate Barack Obama spoke at University of North Carolina's Dean Smith Center, capacity 22,000.
Today, he's at Carmichael Arena, seats 9,000.
Where's the love?
Jessica Yellen at CNN is pointing out that Obama is drawing less than half the crowd today that he drew four years ago.
And I mention this.
This is not insignificant, folks.
This campaign is in trouble.
Obama is not popular.
And there are, when I get to them, stories in the stacks about Obama not doing well with women, Obama not doing well with young people.
There's a lot of mythology out there still today about Obama and his strengths and how there hasn't been any fallout from the dismal record that he has amassed.
None of this is true.
They're in trouble.
They're in deep trouble.
You basically have David Fluff, who's the president.
You got Axelrod, who's the chief of staff, and Obama's out playing golf.
Obama, not quite.
Obama's out doing the fundraising.
But David Pluff is the acting president, Axelrod's chief advisor.
And Obama's out playing golf.
Obama basically has a 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. day.
And it's these other guys that are formulating policy, doing all this other stuff.
He knows what's going on.
Don't misunderstand.
And he's guiding an influence.
I'm not saying Obama's disengaged, doesn't know what's going on, and he's a puppet.
Don't misunderstand.
Not saying that at all.
But he's not known as a hard worker.
He's not known as somebody who gets in there early and stays late.
The only time he stays late is when he's got Netanyahu over in another room waiting for him to finish dinner with his family.
Then he'll come back and stay late.
Well, he did that.
So the crowds aren't what they are.
The fundraising isn't what it is.
Romney is showing the ability to sneak up on people in a way.
The New York Times promising a hard look.
Readers deserve to know who's the real Barack Obama.
The Times needs to show that it can address the question in a hard-nosed, unbiased way.
Now, this editorial in the New York Times begins by the public editor Arthur Brisbane admitting that there's been a lot more negative coverage of Romney than Obama in the New York Times.
But that's just the way things go with primaries.
But he says, now, though, the general election season is on, and the Times needs to offer an aggressive look at the president's record, policy promises, and campaign operation to answer the question, who is the real Barack Obama?
Is that not laughable?
Here is the newspaper of record, the newspaper of the greatest newspaper in the world by reputation, deciding after four years that they're going to find out who is the real Barack Obama.
You know, I'm reminded of this soundbite we play often, Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw, on October 30th of 2008, about a week before the election, and these two guys sitting around, I don't know what books he's read.
I don't know who his primary influences are.
We really don't know what his foreign policy is.
We don't know.
Who is this man?
We don't really know who this man.
I couldn't tell you, Tom, nor I, Charlie.
We don't know.
He had two primo journalists a week before the election proudly admitting they had no idea who it was they were supporting.
They had full intentions of voting for the guy, and they're admitting they don't know who he is.
Here's the New York Times four years later promising to find out who he is.
And then after they find out who he is, they're going to tell us.
And after telling us, then they assure us that they're going to be honest and they're going to be brave.
And the Times has got to show that it can address the question in a hard-nosed, unbiased way.
Brisbane notes that according to a study by media scholars, the Times coverage of the Obama's first year in office was significantly more favorable than its first-year coverage of three predecessors.
Yeah, we wouldn't have noticed that if they hadn't told us, right?
They could have added the last two and a half years as well.
He says, the warm afterglow of Mr. Obama's election, the collateral effects of liberal-minded feature writers, these can be overcome by hard-nosed, unbiased political reporting now.
Now?
So the New York Times is four years late and $5 trillion short, as they promise and endeavor to tell us who Barack Obama really is.
So while David Pluff is the president, Axel Rod's the chief advisor, Obama's out raising money after his campaign stop in North Carolina today, he's going on his comedy tour.
He'll be appearing on the Jimmy Fallon show and then with Jimmy Kimmel before being roasted at the White House correspondence dinner this weekend.
Snerdley, were you invited?
You weren't?
I thought you got invited every year to the White House correspondence dinner.
I used to.
I used to be invited until it became widely known I would never go.
I would never accept.
Now the invitations don't come in.
It's like last week, Snerdley was all upset.
Was it you or was it?
No.
Yeah, it was all, you know, my guests at the spring fling were all up.
Apparently, Vanity Fair had a 100 most powerful, influential, and one of my guests said, how can somebody with an audience of 1 million people be on that?
Colbert, and how can you not be?
And in Time magazine, 100 more powerful, how can you not be on it?
I said, because I don't go to the party.
I've been on that list twice and I've never gone.
They're going to invite people who aren't going to show up.
It's a party invitation.
It's a party list, and I don't go.
I'm through being Circus Act.
I got the T-shirt.
I got no, I would be the Circus Act if I went.
I would be one of maybe two or three conservatives, and the rest lives would be sitting around pointing like I'm a baby polar bear in the zoo.
That's what I mean by Circus Act.
Well, it doesn't matter.
They still be yucking it up.
Anyway, I just decided not to go.
So anyway, Obama's out doing what he's doing, which isn't working.
He's fundraising and going on comedy tours.
He's in North Carolina today, drawing half the crowd that he drew a year ago.
Now, I want to go back to this New York Times employee video.
Folks, this is very telling.
Let's go around the country.
In Wisconsin and many other places, governments and businesses are no longer able to fulfill agreements, no longer able to meet agreements they made years ago.
The greatest illustration is GM or the United Auto Workers.
By the way, Michael Barone has a great piece about this.
I want to get to today, too.
But the bottom line is that United Auto Workers members were by contract allowed to retire long before age 65.
And at retirement, they were allowed to keep as a benefit lifetime pension and primarily health care benefits.
And that is what is sinking every state government, every city government, every town government, and many companies.
It's what's sinking many foreign governments.
This idea that you can continue to pay people either a full salary or 80% plus health benefits for 30 years when they're not working, in addition to having to pay that for current employees, just isn't the money there for it.
And so states are revising these plans, as has happened in Wisconsin.
And the unions are so ticked off, that's why the recall of the governor, the attempt of the recall of Scott Walker, in Greece, in Spain, wherever you go, the fact of the matter is that lifetime health care benefits and pensions when you no longer work for the company cannot be sustained.
The money isn't there.
And what happens is if they're forced to make the payments and keep, they'll go bankrupt and out of business.
So accommodations have to be made.
The New York Times is having the same thing happen to it.
The same exact thing.
They cannot maintain their current defined benefit plan.
Now, these are reporters.
These are news people.
They see this happening all over the world.
They see it happening all over the country.
Many of them are reporting on it.
Now, when it happens to them, they are demanding an exemption.
And it's funny because the New York Times runs around and rips Scott Walker.
The New York Times management and editorial rips Scott Walker and rip any government or company that tries to renegotiate these deals to stay in business and stay solvent.
They rip them to shreds, and yet here comes that little pinch doing the same thing his paper ripping everybody else for.
So there's hypocrisy.
There's entitlement.
It is delightful to behold this in a, in a, well, not delightful, but it's instructive as it can be.
I've got to take a break.
I'm way long here, but don't go away.
I'm going to come back.
I'm going to close the loop.
I'm going to make all this complexity easily understood.
Okay, back we are, Rushland Bob.
And half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
Talent.
Oh, so much talent on loan from God.
Okay.
So the New York Times is having pension problems.
Company cannot afford the defined benefit plan anymore.
Cannot afford it.
Wisconsin couldn't afford it.
General Motors couldn't afford it.
Nobody can afford anymore to pay lifetime salaries and health benefits for people that don't work for them, especially for 20 or 30 years.
The Times covers this.
The New York Times rips Scott Walker for making these changes while the New York Times institutes its same, very same changes.
So the Times reporters, editors have put together a six-minute video whining and complaining.
They think they're going to get our sympathy.
It is the most illustrious example of being out of touch that I've ever heard.
It's 53 seconds.
We've edited six minutes to 53 seconds.
Listen to this.
I'm horrified.
I'm sickened by what's been going on at the Times.
They would take away $350,000 between $65,000 and $85.
$350,000 is a lot of money.
$350,000 is worth fighting over.
Does mean a threat to what I thought my retirement era was going to look like.
Even if it's like a couple thousand a month or whatnot, at least it's there for me in my old age.
Hopefully, I won't find myself, you know, scruffling around looking for a cardboard box to live in, for God's sakes.
If the pension was not frozen and I worked here 30 years, I would collect $58,000 a year until the end of my life.
If the pension is frozen, I will collect $15,000 a year.
I would be one of those elders covered in the Times who's living on food stamps.
What am I going to do?
Am I going to eat cat food?
And am I going to move in with my kids?
Am I going to commit suicide?
It's a very ugly choice to stick people with.
Welcome to the real world, New York Times reporters.
This is happening all over the world.
And you know why?
For those of you at the New York Times, it's happening because of policies you've supported and people you've endorsed.
You have brought this about with your own reporting.
You've brought around your own future with your own reporting choices and your own votes in support of candidates and liberals who have broke the bank.
It's almost safe to say you deserve this.
This is what you have advocated your entire journalistic lives.
Oprah, why are you asking me about Oprah?
Oh, oh.
Well, yeah, I know exactly what went wrong.
I tell you what went wrong.
I'm an expert in this stuff.
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