All Episodes
Previous Next
May 31, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:54
May 31, 2012, Thursday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane broadcast excellence is all yours.
Great to have you here.
Overloaded today.
I mean, we really have lots of stuff.
We have some carryovers from yesterday as well.
So it's going to be a struggle here, but I'm going to do everything I can to get it all in.
I can't believe the John Edwards jury.
Nine days.
They are still deliberating.
Oh, by the way, telephone number 800-282-2882 and the email address, Lrushboy Vnet.com.
The Edwards jury deliberations now are in their ninth day.
And the only thing I can figure is that these jurors just love going through all these salacious details.
It's sort of like rereading a novel.
You just are watching a TV show that you really just don't want to stop.
It can't be the $15 a day that they're getting.
It's got to be something else.
And I figured they're just probably just going over all the testimonials saying, wow, let's relive it again.
Can exercise be bad for you?
This is another great story, folks.
We have found out through research, extensive research, that exercise is harmful to some people, but nobody knows why.
My first, I'm sorry for not picking up on this years ago.
This is something that I feel the need to apologize for.
Everybody fell for this.
Everybody fell for the notion that exercise is good for everybody.
And what should have been the first tip-off that that can't possibly be true?
We're not all the same.
Anything that says something is great and good for everybody can't possibly be true.
We're too unique.
We are too different.
Researchers studied 1,687 people and how they reacted to rigorous exercise.
They found that 10% of the participants got worse.
10%.
And I'm convinced that had I been in the study, I would have been one of them.
10% of the participants got worse based on one or more measures of heart disease, including blood pressure and levels of insulin and HDL cholesterol.
In fact, 7% got worse on at least two measures.
The weird thing is that nobody knows why.
Claude Bouchard, one of the researchers and the professor of genetics and nutrition at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, could only say that the finding is bizarre when the New York Times asked him about this.
Why is the finding bizarre?
It's because everybody just assumes that exercise is good for everybody.
It's just one of these universal truths that has to be.
Now, I often say that we need to look at everything through an ideological prism.
And I get this snerdling and said, no, don't do that.
Don't turn exercise into liberal versus conservative.
I'm not turning exercise into liberal versus conservative.
The exercise advocates, no doubt, trying to tell everybody what to do, trying to guilt and shame people who don't do what they think they should do.
They're liberals.
And so the weird thing is, nobody knows why.
I'll tell you why.
We're not all the same.
We're different.
And so now the New York Times and its readers, my gosh, can exercise actually be bad for you?
Oh, no.
And then a holdover, a carryover from yesterday for many people.
A decision to lose weight isn't just made because of the obvious health advantages.
Many people lose weight to change the way people think about them.
In fact, what percentage do you think people lose weight?
It has nothing to do with health.
Has everything to do with looking better and having other people approve of or like the way you look.
Wouldn't you think that'd probably be the majority reason people lose weight, particularly younger people who have no concept of death?
People who have more years ahead of them than behind them clearly would be focused on that.
Some people probably get taken into health arguments as well.
Well, here's the sad thing about this.
New research.
I love this.
I love all this research.
Funded by tax dollars, no question.
New research suggests that in the minds of friends and family, a fat person, once fat, is always fat, doesn't matter how much weight they lose.
The research was carried out at the University of Hawaii at Manawa, the University of Manchester, and Monash University examined how anti-fat prejudice persists.
It's about women, by the way.
Persists even after women lose weight.
So to do that, the team of researchers asked participants to read short descriptions of women who had either lost 70 pounds or had stayed consistently fat or stayed consistently slim, thin.
Then the participants were asked their opinions of the women, including how attractive they found them, as well as being asked about their general attitude towards fat people.
Janet Lattner, one of the researchers, University of Hawaii, said that essentially those who have been fat in the past were perceived as less attractive than those who had always been thin.
Despite having identical height and weight, the findings demonstrate that residual obesity stigma.
We have a new disease.
Residual obesity stigma persists against women who have ever been obese, even when they've lost a lot of weight.
The researchers blame the effect on a widespread societal belief that weight is highly controllable.
While there is evidence that both supports and refutes that assumption that it's easy to lose weight, it's undeniable that weight is thought of negatively, a notion regularly amplified by the popular press.
But the point of the story is that once people get this picture of you as fat, even after you lose the weight, they still see you as fat.
The dirty little secret is the same as true of the fat person.
I don't know how many times I have lost.
At one time, I could honestly say I'd lost 40 pounds six times, 60 pounds four times, 90 pounds a couple times.
I've done it.
Every diet there is, including fasting.
And the one thing I've learned is no matter how much weight, you never feel thin.
I never did anyway.
Never.
And I never felt like, yeah, this is, after I'd lost a lot of weight, I liked it.
I enjoyed it for a while.
But I never did think it was the real me.
Can't explain why.
Just never did.
But once you go fat, you can never go back.
Don't you get the play on words that once you go fat, you can never go back.
You know, that's a little sexual thing there.
If you don't get it, I'm not going to explain it to you here, maybe someday in a future fourth hour.
But the fat person who loses all the weight never really, you notice them.
Everybody loses a lot of weight.
Check them out.
Any chance they have to check themselves in a mirror or reflecting glass, they'll do it just to make sure that they've actually lost the weight.
They don't have to have that confirmation.
They don't feel it.
But the same token, if you get.
Known as a fat person, no matter what happens, they're always going to see you as fat.
And here's, I can help out with the research on this.
It's not so much that you were obese and then lose weight and people still see you as obese.
It's that once you've demonstrated you know how to get fat, it's assumed you're going to get fat again.
And it being thin is just temporary.
That's all it is.
It's an acknowledgement that, yep, you got there once and the trend, the statistics are you're going to get back up there again.
I'm not advocating anything.
I'm not saying go ahead and stay fat because it doesn't matter.
I'm going to do what you want to do.
Do what makes you happiest.
Do what makes you feel more fulfilled.
I'm just sharing with you the latest scientific data.
This takes us to New York and Mayor Doomberg.
I swear, we just had news that 3.4 million New Yorkers have left town.
I don't know if the city or the state, I'm not sure which in the last 10 years fleeing to states where taxes are lower, Texas, Kentucky, Florida, no state income tax.
3.5 million people is not an insignificant number.
Mayor Doomberg, you may have heard this.
Mayor Doomberg is now placing a ban on supersized sugary drinks.
16 ounces or higher not allowed to be sold.
Now, that doesn't apply to 2F by tea.
Mayor Doomberg did not include 2F by T in this.
And he did not include diet drinks.
You can still go out and buy a 32-ounce Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Sprite Zero, what have you.
But if it's got sugar in it, if it's a standard soft drink, this is where Doomberg doesn't get it.
Okay, if you can't buy a 16-ouncer, go buy two eight ounces, have your own cup and pour them in together.
What is this?
These liberals, I don't know, they have no concept of the dynamic way people live their lives.
So if you tell people in New York you can't buy anything larger than 16 ounces, a Coke or a Sprite or 7 or whatever, they're going to find a way around it.
Just buy two eight ounces.
Doomberg even outlawed Slurpees.
You realize, folks, only outlaws are going to have Slurpees in New York.
In addition to guns, only the outlaws are going to have Slurpees.
I wonder if Mayor Doomberg has a backup plan in case some people get the idea of buying two drinks and combining them.
How's he going to deal with that?
Has he even stopped to consider that people like just buy two?
Once he figures that out, he's going to have to ban that as well.
Now, the New York Times article on Doomberg's plan to ban extra large sugary drinks, he said he foresaw no adverse effects on local business.
No way.
It's not going to affect local business.
He suggested that restaurants could simply charge more for the smaller drinks if their sales drop.
Just charge more.
Just like the subway does.
Ridership goes down, raise the price.
Is that not a textbook example of liberal thinking?
You're losing money, so all you have to do is jack up the price, tax revenues down, so you raise tax rates, and three and a half million people move out.
It's just, in first place, it ought to be outside his purview.
He ought not have the ability to do this.
New York City, we're talking about, but this is the place that anything used to be possible.
Never shut down.
It's just, it's laughable.
This is a classic.
This is exactly one of the reasons why New York has lost 3.5 million residents in the last 10 years.
And again, I want to remind everybody that these threatened, they're not real yet.
These are just threats.
This is just Doomberg's dream.
But none of these threatened restrictions should hurt 2F by tea.
We don't sell our tea in extra large bottles.
So our tea is exempt from Doomberg's autocratic rule.
In fact, this might even help us out a little bit.
But nevertheless, we're adamantly opposed to it.
First quarter economic growth revised downward to 1.9%.
Corporate profits, the worst quarter in three years.
That's why there isn't any new hiring.
Economic growth revised downward.
It was, I think they reported it at 2.1%.
Now been revised down to 1.9.
That's economic growth.
And corporate profits had their worst quarter in the first quarter in three years.
Now, that's a success story for Obama.
You know, when he talks about profits, he spits the word out.
Liberals hate profits because they don't understand them.
And they think they're evil.
They think profit results from screwing people, cheating people, stealing.
They haven't the slightest concept.
So they're happy with this.
I'm sorry, the number was 2.2%.
The Advanced Report a month ago said that the first quarter annualized growth rate would be at 2.2%, which was down from the fourth quarter last year, 3%.
So we've gone from 3% growth to 1.9% growth.
Would somebody explain, and I'm serious now about this.
Would somebody explain to me how Obama's poll numbers are as high as they are?
Honestly now.
I don't care likability, popularity, approval.
I don't know with the circumstances as they are, with Obama not the cool, calm, collective guy where he thought he was.
There's nothing, I don't get the likability anyway.
Somebody explain to me why his numbers are so, I think the media must be polling itself.
I think these approval numbers, these likability numbers, the media is polling itself.
I guess the only way, or maybe they're polling at Zaybars in the Upper West Side.
Or Soho.
I dance that I know they're oversampling Democrats.
They have to be doing that.
Romney, I have to tell you something.
Romney, I meant to mention this yesterday.
We played for you the CNN sound by its Wolf Blitzer after a pre-interview with Trump, which Trump was not told they're going to be asking him birther questions.
That interview was total birther questions.
And then that set up the media all day yesterday with the narrative, the template, that on the big day that Romney finally secures the Republican nomination, he's overshadowed by Trump's birther talk.
And that's all the media did all day yesterday was talk about that.
And then the media and the Democrats did what they always do.
They started demanding of Romney that he denounce Trump, and then they threw my name in there for good measure.
And that's always the way it is.
It's always the way it is.
Republicans are always told they have to repudiate this person.
They have to apologize for that person.
And Romney didn't do it.
And this needs to be pointed out and noted.
I know that a lot of people still unhappy with Romney, establishment candidate, moderate, not really conservative.
Understand all that.
But I'm telling you, this is not the McCain campaign.
McCain had the left demanded that he distance himself from Trump, not only would have distanced himself, he would have gone public and kicked Trump out of his campaign.
And Romney did not do that.
I got to take a break.
Romney did something else.
There's a tweet here, Mitt Romney Central.
Romney supporters drown out Axelrod press conference in Boston, shouting five more months, five more months.
Axelrod showing up everywhere.
And he was in Boston, had a press conference, and Romney voters showed up and shouted him down.
Five more months, five more months, meaning until we're finished with you.
So Axelrod shows up in Boston, and he's up there for Elizabeth Warren.
By the way, is that not the strangest?
This is descending or deteriorating into the weirdest.
Now, she says she was the first.
See if I understand this.
Elizabeth Warren says she was the first Indian law professor to breastfeed at school or something like that.
Maybe she didn't say first Cherokee, but first, why is this woman still the viable candidate?
Why is this woman still polling with one person willing to vote for her?
This woman's literally deranged just by virtue of the things that she is saying.
Anyway, Axelrod shows up in Boston for her.
Big press conference always for Obama.
And the protesters are out there shouting five more months, five more months.
They also are shouting at Axelrod, where the jobs?
Where are the jobs?
And Axelrod yelled back at them, you can't handle the truth.
Imagine somebody from the Obama regime telling people they can't handle the truth.
CBS, Eyeball News in New York, went out and talked to some New Yorkers about Doomberg's ban on large sugar-sweetened beverages.
And like I said, yes, it's the little things.
They went out and talked to average New Yorkers, and some of the things are scary.
I'll tell you in a minute.
My friends, it's really bad out there for the regime.
It really is.
Axelrod's in Boston.
We've got some audio of this.
Axelrod, who's everywhere.
Do you realize, maybe you don't.
The New York Times has this big story on the bravery and the involvement and the hands-on of Barack Obama when it comes to killing terrorists.
The kill list, as it's called.
The names of the bad guys that our drones in the sky are supposed to wipe out.
And the story is that Obama is in there personally signing off on the names of the terrorists to be wiped out by the drones.
He's competent.
He's involved.
He cares.
He's smart.
He's tough.
He doesn't take any gruff from anybody.
Barack Obama.
He's the guy.
It really is a pathetic story.
If you have to tell people that the president of the United States is involved in something like the war on terror, then there must be some question about it.
Otherwise, why do the story?
Wouldn't most people assume the president is involved in something like this?
Maybe not, because the New York Times has this big long story, but even Axelrod's in the room.
Axelrod is helping Obama pick the names.
He's everywhere.
And so is Fluff, the campaign guy.
And a lot of people are wondering, is Obama really doing anything or is it these other two guys making all the decisions and writing the stuff for him to say on the prompter?
At any rate, here's Axelrod.
He was in Boston this morning.
And he's in Boston where this happened.
Listen.
Romney Economics didn't work then and it won't work now.
And with that, if there are members of the news media who want to address questions to us, who want to contend with it, we're happy to entertain them.
You can't handle the truth, my friends.
That's the problem.
You can handle the truth.
You quiet down.
That's the way to run the campaign.
So you got in Boston, anti-Obama, anti-Axelrod processors show up.
Where are the jobs?
Where are the jobs?
Five more months.
Where are the jobs?
Axelrod, you can't handle the truth, my friends.
That's a problem.
You can handle the truth.
You quiet down.
Exactly as a statist, exactly as somebody works for a dictator, would-be dictator, would look at the crowd.
You shut up.
You can't handle the truth.
It's the little things.
Here's Obama's chief advisor.
These are voters.
These are American citizens.
They are attacked and insulted by the president's guy.
You can't handle the truth.
That's a problem.
You can handle the truth.
You quiet down.
Just wanted you to hear it for yourself.
Email bottom of the hour break.
What do you mean, rush you've done every diet?
I have, folks.
I'm not your typical media guy that does these things publicly, chronicling weight loss every day.
I've done it in earlier incarnations of my career, but I don't do it.
Not in every diet there is.
And you know what?
They all work.
Well, there was one time I was on two diets at the same time because one diet didn't let me eat enough.
So I had to do two diets at the same time.
I don't know how many people have ever done that, for example, but I did.
Ban all sugary drinks over 16 ounces.
CBS, Eyeball News, New York.
Every single menu in New York City could soon be getting a major overhaul of Mayor Doomberg as his way.
The man behind calorie counts is set to announce a new public health initiative to battle obesity, taking aim at super-size sugary drinks.
So they went out.
They talked to people on the street in New York.
Jamie, so actually I found a tourist from Oklahoma, Jamie Sawyer.
I disagree with it.
It's the right to choose.
If you want to drink a Slurpee, you ought to be allowed to drink a Slurpee.
So an out-of-town visitor to New York gets it right.
Art Lensvelt, a tourist from Amsterdam.
It's stupid.
Bloomberg's done a lot of good things, but this he shouldn't do.
Then other people, a resident in Canarsie named Gillian said, it's a good idea.
A lot of obese people are in New York.
The little things.
Now, I don't want to make too big a deal out of this, but it's understandable.
New York, you can find people who all support this because they buy the notion it's the government's business to run everybody's life.
It's the government's business to protect everybody from themselves.
It's a good idea.
A lot of obese people are in New York.
I'm all for it.
And a couple other people were basically praising Doomberg and his idea, but it does not include such things like large milkshakes, large servings of fruit juice, large servings of adult beverage, but oversized cups of Coca-Cola, Pepsi, set it up, whatever.
Not permitted.
When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was considered, this is the stimulus bill.
By the way, this is a new CBO report, Congressional Budget Office.
The CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the stimulus would increase budget deficits by $787 billion.
The CBO now estimates that the total impact from 2009 to 2019 of Obama's stimulus will be $831 billion.
So by the CBO's estimate, close to half of that impact occurred in fiscal year 2010.
The bottom line is this.
The amount of money that they calculate the stimulus will cost and add to the deficit equals $4.1 million per job created.
That's the efficiency we got from the regime.
$4.1 million per job.
And the reason it's $4.1 million per job is because there weren't that many jobs created.
We've got new unemployment news, by the way.
It's Thursday.
And what does that mean?
It means that we have a revised figure from last week.
New claims for unemployment benefits rose last week for the fourth straight week, which could heighten concerns.
The labor market recovery is softening.
This is Reuters, and they're worried.
Reuters is very concerned.
This was not the trend.
Remember, last week and two weeks ago, when they were telling us that the unemployment claims, the new claims for unemployment insurance were steady, maybe dropping 1,000 or two, they said the number doesn't really matter.
It's the trend.
It's the direction.
It is the trajectory.
It's the momentum.
Well, for that to mean anything, the trend, the trajectory, the momentum better continued down.
And now it hasn't.
New claims for unemployment benefits rose last week 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 383,000.
Last week's figure was revised up to 373,000 from the reported 370,000.
Economists that were consulted by Reuters had forecast claims unchanged last week.
So in real numbers, given that last week's figure was 3,000 higher than what was reported, the new claims number is up 13,000 from what was reported last week, not 10.
I know numbers are hard to follow on radio, but let me try.
Last week, they tell us 370,000 claims, right?
But wait, but wait, no, no, no, because it was revised upward by three, 373,000.
But they're reporting 383,000, which is going to be revised next week, probably 386 or higher.
So we've actually had an increase of 13,000, not 10, if we consistently report numbers.
But the point is they never report the worst number because the worst number is not available for a few days later afterwards.
So they revise it up.
Now, I could spend a lot of time here.
You know, my relentless quest for the truth.
This never stops.
Relentless daily pursuit of the truth.
And I went back into our archives and I dug out the Reuters and the AP articles about weekly jobless claims from the past three weeks.
And I did this just to be able to demonstrate how the one-party media that we have here is lying to us.
Now, I've been saying, pointing out for weeks now that Reuters and the AP and the rest of the news media have been hiding the increase in new jobless numbers by reporting the unrevised number, which they then compare to the prior week's revised number, which is deceptive since the new number is always revised up, in this case, worse than what was originally reported.
In fact, the weekly jobless claims number has now been revised up 19 weeks in a row and 64 out of the last 65 weeks, meaning that the 383,000 job claims reported today, it's going to be 386, 387, who knows?
It's going to be revised upward next Thursday.
But that number will never be reported.
So the number is always worse than what is reported.
Now, though, what's happened in today's story, Reuters is doing an about face, and they're actually admitting that new jobless claims have gone up for four weeks in a row.
This is unprecedented in the modern era.
Reuters and AP have been carrying the regime's water on this unemployment news.
And even today, they're trying to.
They report the numbers and they're right about it.
But then could heighten concerns?
The labor market recovery is softening.
Now, Reuters has not shown any recent concern about the labor market softening.
They have been trying to tell us that it's on the verge of burgeoning.
They've been saying just the exact opposite.
Now, what is with this sudden admission of what we've been saying for weeks?
The job recovery market doesn't exist.
The unemployment number is coming down because of people leaving the workforce.
It's not because new jobs are being created.
Reuters has done a one-in-one.
The AP has not.
AP will not give up the ghost.
AP's headline is, U.S. filings for unemployment aid at a five-week high.
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits rose last week to a five-week high, evidence the job market remains sluggish.
What happened to last week when the trajectory was what counted?
The downward direction, the momentum.
We were all headed in the right direction.
Finally, Labor Department said Thursday the weekly applications for unemployment rose 10,000 to 383,000.
No, they had to rise 13,000 from what was reported last week to get to 383.
They reported 370 last week, not 373.
The four-week average, a less volatile measure, increased for the first time in a month to 374,000.
Applications had leveled off at about 370,000 for four weeks.
That decline suggested hiring could pick up in May.
Oh, no!
But when applications drop below 375,000, it suggested hiring is strong enough to reduce the unemployment rate.
But the AP doesn't even bother to mention that new jobless claims have actually gone up four weeks in a row.
And I think with as much time as been spent on this, the American people are now wise to the reporting of unemployment news, and they're greeting all of this with laughter.
And it's not hard.
People are living the reality of the job market.
And AP and Reuters and the rest can do everything they want, try to convince people that everybody else is doing well.
And there's no evidence.
You don't see it.
Nobody's living it.
So they're now becoming jokes.
Let's take a break.
We'll be back.
We'll continue with much more in mere moments.
We are back.
Rush Limbaugh, the cutting edge of societal evolution.
Starting on the phone's Matthews, North Carolina.
Hi, Neil.
Great to have you with us.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, how you doing?
Very good, sir.
Thank you.
Hey, listen, there's an important lesson to be learned when you examine the stark contrast between Governor Scott Walker's campaign and President Obama's campaign.
What would that be?
Both men have records, but only Scott Walker is running on nothing but his record and winning big.
And Obama can't run on his record.
Is that the lesson?
Well, the lesson is, you know, we've got a campaign going on in Wisconsin that the world is looking at, the United States is looking at, and this guy's running on nothing but his record.
Every time he talks, he talks about what he's done and what's going good for him.
And it's just a great contrast.
Well, but there's an interesting aspect of that.
He's not lying about it either.
Here's a guy talking about his record, but it has the added benefit of being true.
And people don't have to question whether he's telling the truth or not.
They're living it.
The unions, I was going to get to Scott Walker at some point in the stack, but I might as well touch on it briefly.
There's a couple of stories here in the stack about the unions losing strength in Wisconsin.
Republican Governor Scott Walker widened his lead over Democrat Tom Barrett to seven percentage points in a new poll released yesterday.
It's less than a week.
Walker at 52.
Barrett is at 45.
Wall Street Journal, Wisconsin unions see ranks drop ahead of recall vote.
Public employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership by more than half for the second biggest union since a law championed by Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions.
And this Wisconsin recall election, a Democrat, this is their election.
They demanded this.
It's a recall.
They started it.
They wanted it.
It was going to be a proving ground.
It was where they were going to demonstrate the power of unions, public sector employees.
They were going to get rid of a Republican governor and his ideas.
And the exact worst case scenario is happening.
The Democrat National Committee has pulled all money out.
They are conceding already.
The big risk in Wisconsin, I'll tell you what it is.
The big risk in Wisconsin is that Walker voters get a sense of complacency, think this is over, and don't show up.
That's the biggest risk right now.
And that's what the largest concern is.
But this election that the Democrats demanded, this has considerable ramifications for organized labor.
I will explain when we get back.
The lesson in North Carolina, I'm sorry, Wisconsin.
A lesson in Wisconsin is that conservatism works.
Scott Walker has done everything that Obama says is impossible to do.
He cut spending.
He expanded the economy while lowering taxes and laying off no one.
▲
Export Selection