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May 2, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:03
May 2, 2012, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
It's Rush Limbaugh, and this is the EIB Network.
And we are not going to be distracted by the campaign speech in Afghanistan.
We're going to tell you about the dismal job report in April, and we're going to tell you about the dismal manufacturing numbers.
And we're going to tell you about the continuing plummeting of the U.S. economy.
And we'll also tell you about what happened in Afghanistan, what it was really all about.
The politico headline, Obama steps away from politics in troop visit.
I kid you not, that is the politico headline.
And Chris Matthews has the tingle up his leg again.
It said that Obama reminded him of Henry V last night from Shakespeare.
How great that speech.
All the drive-bys are orgasmic over this speech that Obama made last night.
Here's an interesting story.
In fact, no, I think I'll wait and tell you this interesting story in timeline context.
First, I must start off with some housekeeping, and I beg your indulgence on this.
Normally, ladies and gentlemen, we don't talk about how the program happens.
We just do it.
We just execute the program.
I got a letter.
I got an email this morning from, oh, by the way, before Commissioner Roger Goddell has suspended four players from the New Orleans Saints for the bounty program, and Jonathan Vilma, the linebacker who paid $10,000 for Brett Favre to be taken out of the game, I think it's Brett Favre, paid $10,000 for somebody to get taken out of the game and spended the whole season.
Starting now, all the way through the Super Bowl.
The other three Saints players suspended are Anthony Hargrove, eight games, Will Smith, four games, and Scott Fujita, who is now, I think he's playing in Cleveland.
He's not with the Saints.
He's been given a three-game suspension for his role in the Saints bounty program when he played for the team.
They can all four appeal, which they no doubt will, but this news hit just before the program began.
I got an email.
I did not know this was going on.
I got an email from a very famous lawyer friend of mine.
I know a lot of lawyers.
My dad was one.
My grandfather was one.
My cousin's a federal judge.
Dear Mr. Limbaugh, I'm an intellectual property attorney and fan of yours, and I believe you may have an unfair competition claim against Sherry's Berrys.
Apparently, ladies and gentlemen, you need to know this.
Both ProFlowers and Sherry's Berrys are still using the offer code Rush in advertising for those products.
And I need you to know that they are not advertisers here.
They are two advertisers who went public during the Sandra Fluck episode and expressed their shock and their outrage how they could no longer possibly be associated with anything like this program.
And yet they continue to try to associate themselves with this program.
There apparently still is a RushBerries.com website, for example, that you can go to.
And I think a ProFlowers, a Rush ProFlowers website you can go to.
And I'm told that certain, well, people have heard advertising on the radio using offer code Rush.
So I just want you to know the most we can do with it here on the air is to let you know that we have no official linkage.
We're not part.
They're not advertisers here.
They look all they're making it very tough on me.
I would try to play this above board.
But I'll just, there are a number of advertisers who back then, in the heat of the moment, canceled it and asked to come back.
And we've said no to them.
And I just, this is an attempt here after they went public with how they could not possibly be associated with such a program.
They endeavor to be associated with the program on the sly.
So I just wanted you to know.
What, Snerdley?
What do you, what are you going to do?
You have a question in there or a comment?
That's Snerdley saying, that's just dastardly.
No, it's sneaky.
It's sneaky.
They're trying to, it always worked.
They're just trying to get it for nothing now.
That's all.
But yeah, I know.
But it is the interesting thing here is the email from the intellectual property lawyer who claims, who says that I might have an unfair competition claim against him and goes on to detail how this guy has found, he said, I tried.
I went to rushberries.com and this automatically transferred me to the Sherry's Berrys site and talks about other website and links that include a reference to you, Rush Limbaugh listeners.
When you enter Rush, and this guy called.
He said, by the way, he quite said, well, I thought you guys canceled your advertising of Mr. Limbaugh.
And the person taking the order, I don't know anything about that.
Well, you know, it's some customer service rep that doesn't know anything other than the script that they're supposed to say when they answer the phone.
But I wanted to pass that on.
Here are the economic numbers, just so you know, it's only fair that you know that they are not sponsors here.
They publicly said that this program had a could not possibly be associated with anybody.
It's just not in any way, shape, manner, or form.
Could ProFlowers or Sherry's Berrys any longer be a part of this program?
And yet, on the sly, they try to be.
Private sector adds just 119,000 jobs in April.
This is from the payroll firm ADP.
Private sector employment increased by just 119,000 in April, according to a report from ADP that puts a dent into the notion that the jobs market's on the path to a solid recovery.
The report was well below forecasts of 170,000 and comes after a string of stronger numbers.
So even the ADP experts thought it would be 100,000, which would have been putrid.
170,000 jobs created and it would have been putrid.
Well, let's see if anybody was surprised here.
You know, I only print out the first page of these things because the rest of it's gibberish.
You really only need to read the first two paragraphs of any story and it's over.
I don't.
You know, stuff that prints out the three pages, first page is all I read.
And then I get to my comments.
Private sector, well below forecast.
I assume they were surprised since it's well below forecast.
But the word surprised or unexpected is not in the first two paragraphs.
Now, you want to talk Orwellian?
You want to talk Orwellian?
What they tried to say was, you know, what's her name, Leslie Stahl, insure, making Khalid Sheikh Muhammad drink insurer.
That's Orwellian.
You want to talk Orwellian.
How about a socialist campaign slogan that says one thing when the reality is just the exact opposite, forward?
Do you realize there already is a Wikipedia entry for Forward as the official campaign slogan for Obama Biden 12?
And they're thinking of pulling it back.
They're thinking of yanking it because forward Is already, I think, an official moniker for the state of Wisconsin and a number of other things.
But I mean, just to show you how biased even Wikipedia is.
But here they've got this slogan, forward, when we are going backwards so fast that we're about to implode.
Forward is the Preezy's code word for socialism.
That's where we're headed.
Well, the Preezy of the United Steasy, Jimmy Fallon, had Obama on his show, slow jammed the news.
So forward is Preezy's code word for socialism.
I remember Reagan.
Well, in fact, we've got some Reagan soundbites.
Cookie dredged them up in Reagan talking about Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society and the war on poverty since I was talking about it yesterday in regards to the new book about John Smith's out.
So we'll get to that as the program unfolds.
And then there's this factory orders post, biggest decline in three years.
It's Reuters.
New orders for U.S. factory goods in March recorded their biggest decline in three years as demand for transportation equipment and a range of other goods slumped, according to government data today.
Commerce Department said that orders for manufactured goods dropped 1.5% after a revised 1.1% rise in February.
Now, the news continues to be dismal no matter where you look.
And that's why the trip to Afghanistan for a seven-minute speech in front of a bunch of military equipment.
It is pathetic.
Folks, it is pathetic what President Obama is doing.
It is so beneath the office of the presidency.
But it is what it is.
And got to deal with it as it is.
In the meantime, Rome burns.
You know what I expect?
You know what I expect from economic data and business stories reporting on the state of the U.S. economy?
I expect robust numbers.
I expect startling growth.
I expect exciting advances that makes us all proud.
The reason is that Preezy Obama has, in essence, spent $5 trillion that we don't have.
Where is all of this economic growth?
It's not just the $800 billion stimulus.
Preezy has spent $5 trillion in three and a half years.
And what do we have for this?
That's how much has been added to the national debt since the Preezy was emaculated in 2009.
You would expect, I'm being facetious, of course, we would expect just exactly what we've gotten, a plummeting economy, because that spending of $5 trillion is money that's essentially been taken out of or will be taken out of the private sector.
How can it grow?
How can the economy grow when $5 trillion is removed from it?
Or a portion?
How can the economy grow when over 2 million jobs have been destroyed?
I was thinking more last night and even this morning about that quote from Stuart Rothenberg that we had yesterday about how bad it's in North Carolina for the Democrats.
And they may have made a mistake, chosen their state for their convention.
And he had that passage in the piece.
I don't have it in front of me, but I remember it close enough.
He said, Obama's objective, Obama's goal is to find a way to put the United States back on the path of fiscal responsibility.
And when I read that yesterday, if you were listening, I was appalled.
And then it hit me again just how, and I don't mean this in an intelligence sense, just how ignorant the people closest to this government are, be they analysts, think tankers, or I guess I say tank thinkers, news media people, the closer to it they are, the more removed from it they actually are.
How can anybody who is intellectually rigorous and independent, how could anybody take a look at what's happened in the last three and a half years and conclude that what Obama's interested in is fiscal responsibility?
Isn't it just the exact opposite?
Rothenberg talking about how we've got Obama's next, his biggest challenge is to put the country back on the path to fiscal responsibility.
That's not what Obama wants to do.
Obama's going the exact opposite direction from fiscal responsibility.
The guy who has spent more in his three and a half year first term than all previous presidents combined through deficit creation and fiscal responsibility just don't go together no matter how you massage it.
Anyway, I got to take a break here.
Sit tight.
We'll come back much more.
We'll get into see Obama listen to excerpts of the speech and have analysis that you won't get anywhere else.
That's why you're here.
Be back right after this.
Don't go away.
Check out this headline on the ADP story.
Private sector adds just 119,000 jobs in April, ADP.
The CNBC headline is ADP private sector employment up 119,000 in April.
No, it's not up 119,000 jobs were added, but it's down.
It's not up.
You talk about Orwellian.
CNN.
Honestly, CNN, some economists blame the warm winter for the sudden slowdown in job growth in the spring.
They're blaming nice weather for the lack of hiring.
If it had been snowy and blizzardy, they'd blame that.
They're blaming the weather.
Whatever the weather is, CNN is blaming the weather for lack of hiring.
But according to Doomberg News, companies add the fewest number of U.S. workers in seven months.
So Doomberg News gets it right.
Then from the Wall Street Journal, more from the ADP report.
March data were revised downward to show an advance of 201,000 from 209.
So it isn't even just the regime who revised downward after the fact.
It's ADP.
Bottom line is there isn't any good news on the job front, and there isn't any good news on the economic front.
And I think Obama going off to Afghanistan, celebrating one year later the anniversary.
By the way, you know, I'm being pestered by a bunch of leftists warning me not to talk about Obama in Afghanistan because they think that I defended Bush landing on the aircraft carrier under the banner mission accomplished.
Two things about that.
That mission accomplished banner was, I think, requested by the sailors on that boat.
The second thing is Bush didn't do that a year after the fact.
And the mission was accomplished, getting rid of Saddam Hussein.
The mission to get rid of Saddam was accomplished.
That was one part of it.
But I don't even want, it's silly.
What Obama's doing is incomparable.
No other president's ever done anything like this.
You leftists could go out there and Try to say that Bush had done this or that LBJ did it, others did it, Vietnam, whatever.
You can try as hard as you want, but we have never had as narcissistic, as self-absorbed a human being in the Oval Office as we have now, as we have now.
And we've never had somebody in the Oval Office who is apparently able to fib to himself on a daily basis of how good he is, how well he's done, how overwhelmingly better than every other president he is and has ever been.
I don't think we've ever had anybody this delusional, either in Afghanistan or sitting in the Oval Office.
I don't want to make too big a deal of this, but I think it's important, this business, that Washington insiders think that part of Obama's campaign, his reelection effort, is to put the country back on the right fiscal track, fiscal responsibility.
How can anybody think that?
Stuart Rothenberg is as, I mean, that's in terms of people in Washington, D.C., he's in the top five, top 10 of political commentators, political scientists, pollsters, whatever he does, he's in the top five.
He's got one of the most recognizable, incredible names and reputations, and yet even he misses it.
And I'm saying, why does he think?
It's almost like it's just an automatic thing.
He thinks that any president would be striving to reduce the deficit, bring the national debt a little lower, get our deficit spending under control.
He would do it if he were president.
So therefore, every president would see this.
They assign these templates, these images, these narratives.
Obama's a Democrat.
Of course he wants to get the deficit.
No, he doesn't want to get the deficit under control.
There's no evidence to suggest that he wants to get the deficit under control.
That's the thing.
You live in Rioville.
You look at reality.
There's no evidence that Obama cares about fiscal responsibility.
In fact, the evidence is the opposite.
It's just assumed that presidents would want to get the fiscal house in order.
But it's not true here.
And it's easy to see.
So why deny it?
It's El Rushbo on a midweek Wednesday here behind the golden EIB microphone.
Happy to have you along.
And we are going to take a call real quickly here.
It's from Renee in Nicholasville, Kentucky.
So glad that you called, Renee.
What is your pregunta?
Well, it's a privilege to speak with you.
I've listened to you plus 22 years, four kids, some stretch marks.
Well, thank you very much.
Appreciate that.
My question is, if I talk to Democrat friends, they all tell me, listen, the Republicans control the purse strings.
No, they don't.
No, they didn't.
This is why I am so happy that you called.
Because for all of 2008 and all of 2009, the Democrats had control of everything, Renee.
The House.
But what about when Boehner went ahead and just jumped through hoops like Obama wants him to?
I mean, I just sit stung not knowing what to say.
Wait a minute.
Let me finish.
Okay.
2008, Obama's first year since immulation.
2009, Rena.
2010, the second year.
The Democrats ran the House.
They ran the Senate.
They ran the White House.
They ran everything.
The Republicans did not have the votes to stop anything, Renee.
I understand that part.
Okay, stick with me.
Now, you are running into people who want to know, well, wait a minute, doesn't spending Ridgie originate in the House?
Doesn't it come from Congress?
Obama can ask for what he wants, but it's the House that did.
Is that what you're basically Well, I'm giving you the answer.
Obama's been in office for three and a half years, and two of those years, the Democrats did everything.
The Republicans couldn't stop them.
But there's still, okay, so there's one year that we still don't have any Republicans with backbones, it seems to me.
We don't have any Republicans with backbones.
Wait a minute.
I'm misunderstanding.
I thought you're being, maybe I'm totally misunderstanding that question.
Is this about Republicans with no backbones or is it about No, it's about talking to Democrat people who basically are saying blaming it on the Congress.
And I do understand for two years it was the Democrats with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
But what about the last year?
Didn't Obama ask for $1.6 trillion, you know, just a few months ago or more recently?
And yet, in each of the last two years, in 2011 and this year, Obama's budgets have been defeated without a single vote in favor in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
In the House, the Republicans have run it since 2011.
The Democrats have not presented a budget for three years in Congress.
I know that part.
So what do you tell a person when they say, okay, so the Democrats control the purse strings for two years, but not the third year?
What do you do about that one year, I guess?
I don't.
Are we supposed to ignore the first two years?
That's when we got health care.
I'm worried about a financial collapse.
Well, the vast majority, the bulk of all of this spending took place in those first two years.
Since the Republicans got, they've been able to stop some of it.
There have been fights on the ⁇ if you recall, the Republicans have done a pretty good job of trying to stop the increase in the debt limit.
But let's face it, you've got to tell people what Obama wanted.
Obama wants the debt limit raised.
Obama wants all this to happen.
He wants all of this spending.
I don't know where, intellectually, you can blame the Republicans for the simple fact that Barack Obama has authored more deficit spending in three and a half years than all previous presidents combined, added to the national debt.
The Republicans for two of those three and a half years couldn't stop him.
I understand that part.
So I don't understand the problem you're having with these Democrats.
Well, I just.
Other than you can't, they're not interested in the truth, and they're so blinded by partisanship that no matter what you tell them, they're still going to find a way to blame all this on George W. Bush or the Republicans, no matter what you tell them.
I think your problem here is that you're expecting to persuade them, and you're not.
They're not interested in truth.
They're not interested in reality.
Their political partisanship and making their case in their own minds is all that really matters to them.
Since the Republicans took over the House, the Democrat-controlled Senate has barely taken up a single House bill.
The legislation is being shut down for the most part.
Legislation that would limit spending.
The Republicans have offered all kinds of plans to limit spending, to cut taxes, to create economic growth.
The Democrats stop it over in the Senate every chance they get.
The Republican House is one of the three branches of the executive branch, House, Senate, and White House.
And they can't stop the Democrats.
The Republicans still don't have the votes to stop.
Okay, I thought they currently did have enough to stop it, but boy, that's good to know.
Well, it depends on that the House has done what they could to slow things down, but I don't care who you are.
When the Democrats have the White House and have the Senate, there's no way the Republicans can reduce spending.
There's no way the House of Representatives alone, they don't have a veto-proof majority in the House.
Obama can override every veto that would come out of there.
The Senate would not vote to oppose Obama in this way.
Right.
This is one of the big problems here.
The best that can be hoped for right now is gridlock, bring a stop to everything that Obama wants.
But even at that, the built-in increases on all the entitlements and baseline budgeting, this budget is going to grow regardless if nothing is done.
Well, it was a privilege speaking with you.
Thank you so much for taking my call.
I still think you're leaving unsatisfied here.
And I still am not really understanding.
I don't think.
Well, I thought.
No, she doesn't want to blame Republicans.
You're talking.
No, no, no.
Would everybody be quiet for the time?
What you are asking, Renee, you've got Democrats who are trying to blame Republicans and you don't know how to refute them, right?
Yes.
And what I've trying to, they may be using such things.
Well, you know, all spending starts in the House and the Republicans control that and blah, blah, blah.
Yes, sir.
Well, fine.
Obama can veto anything the Republicans come out with and they don't have the votes to override it.
All right.
Well, I'll tell them that next time.
I'm sure I'll have another chance very soon.
But I just want to warn you, it isn't going to matter.
Right.
You may as well start.
You want to test this.
Go to any Democrat website and leave a comment and see what happens to you.
Well, I know you're right.
My husband comes from a strong line of Democrats.
He's the rebel being a Republican, and he cannot convince a sister who really does admire him, so it's hopeless.
Well, here's the thing for you to do.
All the spending, there hasn't been a budget in two years.
Right.
I know that everything is being well, then how we get how is it happening?
Well, that's what I'm asking you.
Continuing resolutions.
The government is being financed with one CR after another, one continuing resolution after another.
The Republicans can't do anything.
Every continuing resolution comes up in a moment of crisis, a moment of emergency.
We must spend this or the death limit or we can't pay Social Security.
We must spend this or there won't be any money for food stamps.
We must spend this.
There is, at this stage, the only way the House could control spending is via the budget.
And there isn't one.
The Democrats won't present one.
So when you're doing continuing resolutions, basically every time you need to re-up one, that's to keep the government operating because it'd be such a crisis if it didn't.
This is why there's a constitutional obligation to present a budget every year, and the Democrats have abandoned it.
And I'll tell you this.
It's been a strategic move to not present a budget so as to allow their allies to do to you exactly what they're doing.
Blame it all on the Republicans.
The Democrats have not left any fingerprints.
There is no budget.
Is no architect, Democrat architectural rendering of their spending.
My senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell, gives some sort of power to the executive branch that should have stayed with Congress in like the last six months to a year?
Oh, well, the odds are, yeah.
But I don't specifically know what off the top of my head.
You keep ladling new things on me here.
But this, you are actually a great call and a great example of why the Democrats have not presented a budget.
It is so that they can't be criticized for any of the spending.
There is no Democrat budget.
There is no architectural rendering of what they think should be done spending-wise.
They have violated constitutional law here in the sense that they have not presented a budget.
Obama does.
It gets voted down routinely, politically.
It doesn't ever get a vote.
The Democrats do not want one bit of evidence pointing to them on this spending when it's all them via these continuing resolutions.
And you can't, by the way, you can't just eliminate, you can't pretend the first two years of total Democrat control didn't happen.
That's where health care happened.
That's where the stimulus happened.
That's where all of this, most of this new spending happened.
And if your Democrat buddies, well, what about Benner?
What about this year?
They're just trying to sidetrack.
You've got to stay focused on the facts and what really happened.
The first two years is where all this started, set new baselines.
Well, I did not realize that if Congress does vote on something in this last year, Obama can still go above that.
So that's good to know.
If Congress votes on something, what do you mean?
Well, okay, so the Democrats, of course, controlled everything for the first two years of Obama.
But this third year, Congress has, quote, been in charge of the purse strings.
But if Obama can override that, I didn't know he had the power to override that.
I thought all three branches were equal.
No, no, no.
Nothing's getting passed.
P-A-S-S-E-D.
Nothing is getting passed.
It's stopping in the Senate.
And therefore, continuing resolutions continue to be brought forth to authorize spending.
All of this $5 trillion, the vast, vast majority of it, was what took place in the first two years, which led to the Tea Party arising and sending a Democrats packing in landslide defeats in the midterm elections in 2010.
Continuing resolutions require that spending stays at the same rate, the same level.
So they got their first two years of massive increase of health care that slowly implements in little increments by the year.
They got the stimulus bill, a whole bunch of other spending.
That raised the baseline on which the budget growth is projected every year.
They got that done in the first two years.
There hasn't been a budget since.
Continuing resolutions make sure that spending stays at the same rates.
The Democrats are using the CR, the continuing resolution, to protect all of their spending.
Republicans could pass a piece of legislation.
They could pass it by 215 to whatever.
You send it over to the Senate.
It'll die.
Even if the Senate passes it, just for an example here, it goes to Obama.
He doesn't like it.
He'll veto it.
The Republicans do not have enough votes in the House to override a presidential veto, and the Democrats and the Senate wouldn't.
Okay, I did not know that, and I do try to stay up on things, so that's great to know.
I don't want you to go, you know, we make the complex understandable here, and I've spent a lot of ⁇ I don't want you to go away disappointed because believe me, there's nowhere else you can call.
Well, it's an honor getting to speak with you.
To have this answer.
But I feel like giving you a pop quiz.
Look, the Ryan budget, can I give you the Ryan budget is a great example of what I'm talking about.
Paul Ryan, two years in a row, Renee, has submitted responsible budgets to do something about entitlement spending.
And all he is is raked over the coals, personally attacked and destroyed, mocked and made fun of by your precious Democrat friends.
There is one party.
We can talk about how good they're doing it or how well they're doing it.
There's one party trying to stop this.
Paul Ryan is the leader of the budget process in the House for Republicans trying to stop this.
Yes, and I appreciate him doing that.
Well, yeah, but you've got to pay attention to what's happening to him if you want to understand why these Democrats are talking to you the way they are.
He represents a threat.
Your Democrats don't want spending cut.
But they know most people do, so they're going to try to find a way to blame the Republicans for doing what they actually want done.
I don't know.
It seems like a lot of people are getting worried about us having so much debt.
Oh, yeah.
Well, they have been for quite a while, not just this year.
I got to take a break.
I just noticed a clock.
I'm way long.
Renee, thanks.
We'll be back.
Don't go away.
I'm still trying to get my bearings from that last phone call.
I still don't think I got through to her.
As I think back at last phone call, the thing that did, as I heard it, maybe you'll agree with me, the thing that did get through to Renee in Kentucky was when I told her that the Republicans do not have enough votes to override an Obama veto, that turned on the light of understanding for her.
So what does that tell us?
Remember, she's a 22-year veteran, this program.
She called here because she doesn't know how to answer Democrats teasing her about all this spending being the Republicans' fault.
And it was, but Renee, the Republicans don't have enough votes to override an Obama.
That's what gave her the ammo that she called here wanting.
What must she believe if that ammo works?
I always study this stuff.
And the media for so long has done such a good job.
Republicans are automatically guilty.
They're automatically the problem.
They're automatically responsible in terms of media reporting, Democrat Party, Democrats thinking.
And so she is on defense, being attacked by all these Democrats.
Well, the Republicans, and she didn't know quite how to respond to it because she too thinks the Republicans are guilty.
She asked me, did Mitch McConnell do something in the last six months to expand Obama's powers?
I don't know, probably.
I just threw that in there.
But the success that the media has had in building this umbrella over the Republicans as responsible and guilty for all this bad stuff.
And there's our young, courageous, brave president dodging bullets in Afghanistan, doing everything he can to save America from the destructive spending of the Republicans.
I am unable to intellectually understand how anybody can believe that, but I guess I'm going to have to face it.
People do.
Even on our side, I'm talking about.
And I know the Republicans haven't done a lot to help themselves.
The establishment Republicans too often have, you mentioned government shutdown, and you've never seen the biggest bunch of quitters as the Republicans become.
For example, Democrats say, you're going to shut down the government.
No, no, no, not us.
Here, here's $2 trillion.
Take that.
We don't want to shut down the government.
So maybe it's understandable why this would happen.
Well, that call from Renee took up pretty much a half hour of this program, and I didn't do one second of direct show prep for it.
I mean, life is show prep.
Don't misunderstand.
But it was totally unexpected.
Still have a lot of stuff here.
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