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July 2, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:51
July 2, 2012, Monday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host on this show make more sense than anything anybody else out there happens to be saying because I am not trying to impress anybody.
I'm just trying to get it right.
And when I try, I do.
Happy to have you here, folks.
Rush Limbaugh behind this.
The Golden EIB microphone here at the Distinguished and Prestigious Limbaugh Institute.
Or advanced conservative studies.
It was then the Jan Crawford Greenberg.
She's separated from Greenberg now, so that's why it's just Jan Crawford.
But I remember she she used to cover the Supreme Court for PBS.
She's a lawyer herself.
And I'm telling you all this as a means of helping you to decide whether you want to accept her report Sunday on CBS as accurate or not.
She did.
This is what I remember.
She did an eight-part interview with Justice Thomas when his book came out.
And she traveled all over the I remember uh I was uh guest at a Nebraska football game in Lincoln.
Uh Dan Cook, Mr. Nebraska, Catherine and I were there, and unbeknownst to me, Justice Thomas was there.
He's a huge Nebraska fan.
I ran into him.
We were doing a tour of the field before the game.
And Jan Greenberg was there doing a profile of him for his book, eight-part interview.
It was fabulous.
It was it was profoundly fair, and she established that he is his own man, and all this talk about how he's just a scalia clone was blown out of the water.
It was extremely well done profile.
And she has uh deep connections with a lot of people inside the court.
So when she says that she has a couple of sources, I think people are tending to believe her report simply because she she brings the uh experience and credibility to it.
Jan Crawford.
So get that out of the way.
Now, one one well, not one, there'd be many more things about this, but I got a note from um a friend of mine, former prosecutor in the Department of Justice.
Over the weekend, we were emailing back and forth a bunch of us, just uh appalled at all of the so-called conservative intelligentsia were trying to find silver linings here, and some of the most uh peculiar things were being said in support of Justice Roberts' ruling.
We were beside ourselves.
They're as a what asking ourselves, what is so hard to see about reality here when it hits you between the eyes.
And my buddy sends me this noise.
I wish I had more time to write this.
I'm totally under to have to move on, but I'm reminded of when I was a prosecutor, and we used to have the judge order the defendants that they were barred on pain of being held in contempt not to disclose sensitive discovery material of people not entitled to have it, such as the press or hitmen or people that uh that might use to kill witnesses.
Prosecuted the mob, a number of other things.
I always used to laugh, Rush.
I used to laugh when I had to seek those orders.
It was office policy to do so at DOJ.
Uh the judge telling some guy that's murdered 15 people don't divulge what's gone on here in court.
Come on, people who commit mass murder, mafia style extortion, big time drug trafficking, those crimes, knowing they were risking life prison sentences, you really think they're going to be intimidated by and thus conformed to a threat that they might be held in contempt by a judge.
To think so is to be an egghead so into judicial majesty that you've lost touch of the real world.
Now, why do I bring this up?
Well, let's put aside Levin's bulletproof argument that Justice Roberts holding on interstate commerce is not the opinion of the court and is thus not binding.
And it's not, I can't believe even now.
There are law professors writing that that Roberts gave us this great, great ruling on the Commerce Clause.
He didn't.
He was writing for himself, as our caller said on Friday.
It was dicta.
It didn't even need to be in the opinion.
He was not writing for the court on the Commerce Clause.
The Commerce Clause has not been shrunk.
The Commerce Clause was not impacted by this.
But the point of the email, even if it was, it doesn't matter.
Because the Democrats can just go back at it again.
That's the point.
Let's pretend for argument's sake that say George Will is right.
And let's say that this commerce clause thing that Robert said is binding precedent.
So what?
Roberts broke faith on Thursday, regardless of what political agenda he thinks he was serving.
He showed that if necessary, he's totally willing to put aside the result the law compels in order to serve whatever agenda is important to him.
There was plenty of binding law that, as the dissent showed, compelled the conclusion that the mandate could not be a tax.
And Roberts just ignored it.
Even if you buy that his commerce clause reasoning is binding, and it isn't.
What makes anybody think that this would make a difference to him if he believed in some future case that his political agenda was more important than the law?
Once you do this, you've done it, you've set a precedent.
It's there.
And once you've established that you'll ignore the Constitution and write something to fulfill your agenda, you've broken faith and you'll do it again.
It doesn't matter.
What comes next?
As long as in this case, in this instance, whatever the media wants done, if they think Roberts is the crucial vote, they're pretty confident they can get it now.
Just by threatening him with bad news coverage.
Really?
This is one of the reasons these people have life terms to be immune from this kind of stuff.
It's one reason they're not elected to be immune from this kind of pressure.
I think Roberts was outvoted eight to one on the Commerce Clause anyway, but it.
Once you break faith, you've shown you can't be relied on to follow precedent.
Therefore, what what the hell difference does it make that you've created great precedent?
You're not controlled by precedent.
Once you've committed the greater sin of making the law subservient to your personal agenda, twisting the precedence to make them say whatever you want to is not something you're going to sweat over no more than a terrorist is going to be stopped from leaking discovery material by something meaningless to him as a possible contempt citation.
So all these people who are thinking that we've got this magic commerce clause ruling here whistling in the dark.
Because how did we get it?
We didn't get it by way of the law.
We got it in dicta.
I don't know.
Maybe maybe you pass a law.
Judges on the Supreme Court can't read newspapers, can't go on the internet and news sites, and can't go to cocktail parties.
Not allowed to be interviewed by people from the New York Times or the Washington Post.
I don't know.
I it's just and then couple it today here with Pelosi now, all of the Democrats that the free writers.
And now to listen to the administration people all over the Sunday shows yesterday, this is not a tax.
Not it's it's not even Obamacare, it's Obama tax.
This is a tax.
A tax written by the judicial branch of government.
They'll take it, obviously.
But now they're asking everybody to move on.
Yep, that's right.
Time to move on now.
Democrats want to move on after ruling.
That's how we got move on.org when it's time to move on from Clinton.
If you remember.
We just move on, Clinton Lewinsky.
So we got moveon.org, which, by the way, is reporting they're having trouble raising money.
So maybe now they can revitalize themselves.
Move on from Obama tax.
From the political.
Never mind what the Supreme Court said.
The White House is doubling down on its insistence, the individual mandate is not a tax.
Sorry, it is, Chief Justice said so.
Speaking on State of the Union, White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew said that the mandate penalty is not a tax.
Supreme Court ruling didn't make it a tax.
In any event, he said very few people will have to pay it.
That's none of that is true.
There is perhaps a silver leg.
You've heard all the governors saying they're not going to implement the law.
That's the Medicare expansion business.
Now that is kind of interesting.
But again, you've got to remember who we're dealing with now.
We're dealing with people who don't care about the law.
Obama himself granted amnesty to a million people a couple weeks ago.
When he, a couple of years ago, admitted he didn't have the power to do that constitutionally.
But now it's an election year, so guess what?
I'll just go ahead and declare amnesty for these people, even though the Constitution says he doesn't have the authority.
The Medicare expansion is uh quite see one of the ways that the federal government was able to quote unquote keep the cost down on Obama tax was two things.
First, they cut Medicare by 500 billion, but then they put it back in the form of the states having to share almost all of the new burden on Medicaid.
So Obama promises all of this health insurance for the 30 million uninsured.
Now the free riders, spoken with contempt by Pelosi.
Her own voters, the free rider, the party of free riders, a party of freeloaders.
They can't survive without free riders.
Anyway.
The states under Obama tax have to pay for all of that new insurance coverage for the people who aren't insured via Medicaid.
Well, the problem is many of the states have their own fiscal emergencies.
California and others have already been buried by unfunded liabilities when it comes to public employee pensions and health care.
You make $125,000 a year working for the state.
You retire at age 50.
You get 90% of your salary for the rest of your life and free health care for the rest of your life, times tens of millions of employees.
States don't have the money.
And unlike the federal government, they can't print it.
But Obamacare offloads all this new spending on the states.
But the court decision said that the states, if they refuse to accept the new spending mandates from the feds, cannot be punished by the feds.
If anybody wants a silver lining, this could be it.
However, who are we dealing with here?
We're dealing with lawless people anyway.
The bottom line is the states can opt out.
They can refuse to pay health insurance costs for the newly covered, the former uninsured.
And in so doing, in refusing, they can't be punished by the federal government in any way by having money for other programs taken away from them.
Okay, well then how can Obama settle that score?
Because there are a bunch of states, I think 12 of them so far, who've said we're not going to implement this piece of garbage.
Rick Scott of Florida, the most recent one, said we're not going to implement it.
Okay, let's take Florida.
Rick Scott says, I don't care.
I'm not implementing this.
I'm not accepting these new costs.
My state can't afford it.
Tough toenails, Obama.
Okay, here comes Hurricane Pelosi sometime in September.
And it goes down there and it destroys where the Miami Heats play basketball.
And it uh uh it destroys South Beach so that the Miami Heats don't have any place to party.
The Miami Heats.
It's what Obama called them.
So the Miami Heats arena's destroyed in the South Beach where the Heats party, all the hotels are destroyed, and all that kind of thing.
And of course, we're gonna need disaster aid.
I mean, the Heat's arena's been destroyed and the Heats Party places.
Obama says, well, sorry, you're on your own.
Uh you declare it a disaster area and a national uh that's fine.
You're on your own.
I'm not we're not sending any FEMA people down there, and we're not gonna send any trailers, people you're on your own.
That that's that's that's how this bunch would do payback.
That is just one example.
There are many other ways that Obama can exact revenge, just as the states are too.
But you know, this is a matter of principle as well as uh finance for these governors.
There isn't the money for this program, folks.
There isn't the money for it.
I don't care what Jack Lew or any other regime official says, everybody is going to be paying more.
Premiums are gonna go up, taxes are gonna go up, coverage is gonna go down, there's gonna be rationing, there will be death panels.
It's the only way this can in any way, shape, manner, or form appear to be working.
And I'll tell you what else is gonna happen.
There is still going to be private sector health care for the rich.
It will still exist.
It exists in Great Britain.
It exists in Cuba.
Do you think Fidel uses what his citizens use?
Ah.
Doctors from Spain flew over to try to fix his colon, which came detached because he didn't want to wear a bag.
That's when he got sick.
He got really infected in there.
But in this country, it's gonna be the same.
If you don't want to buy insurance because you pay your rich guy, you pay the fine, and then you make a deal with the doctor and the hospital he works at, you put it on your credit card, you write them a check somehow you pay them direct.
It'll cost less with no insurance, but that's still gonna be available.
He won't get to that in the second term because that's how he's gonna get his health care.
He's not Obama's not gonna fix that.
He's you think all these rich Democrats in Hollywood are gonna be forced on Obama because there's no way.
There is going to remain a top drawer health care in this country only for the rich because it's gonna be direct pay with no insurance involved or very little insurance.
And that's why you don't see any of the super rich upset about this, because they know none of it's gonna impact them.
That's why Buffett doesn't care.
That's why Gates doesn't care, it's why Clooney doesn't care, or any of these other little Hollywood people that run around raising money for Obama.
They don't care because the best health care is gonna remain available to them because they are gonna be able to afford it with money to spare.
So it's gonna be the best is still, and we're still gonna end up with a tiered system.
And for all these people think we're gonna have this massive utopia where everybody's now equal and everybody gets the same and it's always gonna be the best.
You wait.
The best is still gonna be there, and it's gonna be as far away from the average citizen as it is today.
And nothing about Obama tax changes that.
And we're back.
Great to have you here, the EIB network.
One more thing, we're gonna get the phones here after the break coming up at the bottom of the hour.
This I pledge to you.
And one more thing about the states being forced to pick up the slack.
The states being forced to pay for the coverage of all these new people that don't have coverage.
Somebody explained to me, I I've never understood how it is.
Some people think forcing more people to buy a finite resource will lower its cost.
We only have so much health care because we only have so many doctors and so many hospitals.
You know, 30 million, 40 million uninsured, they say we're gonna add them to it.
Imagine if there were only 10,000 iPhones.
Would the price go up or down if everybody was told they've got to have one?
It would not go down.
I'm just saying.
But here's the real irony about Obamacare.
All of this is being done for the poor, right?
Oh, the poor free loaders, writers, whatever they are.
Medicaid for the poor.
Medicare for the old seasoned citizens.
But we've been led to believe that the uninsured, oh man, they're the greatest people on earth.
They're the poor and they're the downtrodden.
They've been stepped on by everybody in this evil country.
They're just victims left and right.
But we're going to cover it.
We're going to make they get covered.
Except, wait a minute, states are opting out.
So guess who doesn't get covered in Obamacare?
The poor.
The victims.
The very people this whole thing ostensibly aimed at are the ones if all these states opt out and are going to get covered.
But then wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Hold it.
We're not finished because what does Obama want?
He wants everybody going to the federal government anyway.
He wants single payer.
So all the states opt out.
They say, sorry, we don't have the money.
We cannot afford to provide insurance for all these people.
Okay, well, just send them back to us here at the federal government.
We don't have any budget constraints.
We don't care about deficits or debt.
We'll we'll cover them, and we're on our way.
And we go to the phones.
As promised, we're going to start Fairmont, West Virginia.
This is Nathan, and I'm glad you called, sir.
It's great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Hi, Rush.
The Democratic talking point is that those that can afford insurance but do not purchase it will be free riders.
That's right.
If they need health care services later.
However, many of those people are not going to be free riders if they have the wealth to purchase their own insurance and do not.
The hospitals and doctor's offices will not write them off as free riders.
They will be charged to pay the bill out of their own pocket, or they'll be put on some sort of payment plan with a hospital to pay over time.
The only people that the hospital would write off as free riders would be the very poor.
And the very poor, however, this law defines that have been slated to receive tax credits, so they will have their insurance pay purchased for them.
The vast majority of the free riders are not created by the people who can afford health insurance and choose not to do so.
Exactly right.
That that's what that's why this ruling is so much so big of a debacle that Pelosi has had to turn on her own volders.
Right.
The poor.
Here she's ripping her own the party that creates free riders, the party that lives off of free riders, the party that wants more people to be free riders.
She's out there now ripping them as the reason we had to do this whole bill.
But they insinuate that these people will be free riders who can afford health care.
Well, if they can afford the insurance, then they can probably afford some of the out-of-pocket costs for their health care.
For example, Rush, you would probably be defined as a free writer because you don't pay for health insurance, but you're not in reality a free rider because you just pay out of pocket.
You're not a free rider or a burden to the health care system.
You pay for the cost.
But to them I am because I don't have insurance.
It doesn't matter.
This is another thing.
I would try to leave myself out of this because my situation is admittedly unique.
But according to their definition, I'm a free writer because I don't have insurance.
I don't I pay out of pocket.
Now I'm not a burden because I'm not making other people pay, but I am a free writer.
I will be requ even though I pay out of pocket and I pay direct, I'm still gonna have to buy insurance or pay a penalty, even though I pay every penny of my health care costs and for my family.
I'm still gonna have to go out and buy insurance.
Right.
I don't want it.
I don't want to have to mess with it.
I don't want the lines.
I don't want to have member of my family die in the emergency room filling out the form for insurance before they get treated.
I don't want any of that.
Well, their argument that's not challenged by the press when they say these people who can afford it will become free riders assumes that the hospital will say, oh, well, we're not going to charge you anything once you get care.
But they will be charged, and they will pay.
They will pay the only people who won't pay are the people who can't afford it at all, which uh hospital would write off, but those people are getting their insurance paid for anyway through tax credit.
So this creates more free riders, not the ones that they're talking about.
That's a good point.
That's an excellent.
Are you a free writer?
Is that how you know this?
No, I'm not a free writer.
I know.
I know.
I just I just wanted to ask.
But you're just frustrates me that they're not challenged on that because the logic obviously doesn't work.
They've used this talking point that, oh, these people will be free riders because they assume the Democrats are assuming that everybody that pays for health care does it through insurance.
Well, some people don't.
Well, that that's that's that's what's amazing about this.
Because up until this weekend, this health care legislation was all about taking care of the poor, disadvantaged victims of this unfair country who either worked for people who were so mean they didn't provide health care on the job, or only hired them part-time so they wouldn't have to pay their health care benefits.
Or people who are unemployed.
What about what do the unemployed do when they get their penalty?
Anyway, all of a sudden now, what was an altruistic, we're told, what was an altruistic piece of legislation.
I mean, I can't tell you how many times I heard it.
Richest country in the world, worst health care in the world, treats its citizens, the only country in the world that doesn't have a and now all of a sudden the people don't have insurance are a bunch of freeloaders.
Now all of a sudden the people don't have insurance or targets.
Now all of a sudden, according to Pelosi, if you don't have health insurance, why you're game the system.
Why you're probably cheating on food stamps, too.
Look at the 180 they've been forced into because they can't.
They cannot admit that this is a tax.
Yeah, the uninsured are now scum.
Free riding scum.
Look, folks, as I said, I don't like being in this situation.
And I'm a let all these people on our side who are finding all these silver linings out there.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you know anybody?
And did you hear or read anybody say, well, I really hope we lose this at the Supreme Court so that it strengthens our position politically for the election.
Did anybody say that?
There wasn't a single person hoping we lost this.
Because it would strengthen our electoral position.
Okay, so we lose it, and guess what?
Oh, man, look at the silver line.
Now I understand the idea of wanting to be positive and all that, but you got to be realistic at the same time.
And this is an utter disaster.
It is.
It is just a crying shame what is happening to our country.
The law of the Supreme Court, it's just to try to find a silver lining in this is to is to put your head in the sand and not be able to face reality.
So we've got we've got a monumental task ahead of us.
And it is up to us.
And I'm not one of these people thinking that's the way it ought to be.
In a democracy, rush, that's the way it ought not be this way.
What ought to be, the law should have been voted unconstitutional.
That's what should have been.
Not this.
Well, Judge Roberts had it right, though.
He's not gonna save us from the consequences of his duty is to uphold the constitution if if we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are If all three branches were devoted to defending the Constitution as they swear under oath to do, we wouldn't be here.
So now we are basically in a campaign for the survival of the United States of America as founded.
That's, and I don't know of anybody who wanted and thought this would be a great position to be in after the ruling of the Supreme Court.
The Constitution was written to protect us from government.
The Constitution limits what government can do.
That's been totally lost.
We ought not be anywhere near where we are.
One of the reasons the left is celebrating is because we've talked about it.
They view the Constitution with rage.
They look at it as what they call a charter of negative liberties.
Now the average person upon hearing that will be so confused that he or she won't even try to understand it.
What in the world could be negative about liberty?
What in the hell is it?
Charter of Negative Liberties, what's that?
Well, here's what it is.
If you're a statist, if you're a dictator, if you're an authoritarian, the Constitution of the United States is your biggest enemy because all it does is tell you what you can't do.
It limits you.
It limits your power over your citizens, your subjects, your people.
We can't have that.
Barack Obama, Cass Sunstein, all the rest in his legal circle, hate.
That the Constitution limits government.
Well, I'm going to tell you something for this ruling has just stood the Constitution on its head, because now all of a sudden the government's been told what it can do for the first time.
In a real sense, it's not really the first time, but but but this is so big it may as well be.
The government has been told what it can do.
There is nothing limiting about this decision.
It is a decision that expands the government, limited only by the imagination of people in the government.
The Constitution has been stood upside down, inside out on its head.
And that's why people who are devoted to government as the command and control authority in everybody's life are ecstatic and happy.
Because the Constitution just had a big chunk of it written out.
And now the people in government have a pretty wide berth as to what they can do to us under the guise of doing it for us.
They can now tell us to do things under penalty if we don't.
So, yeah, we've got a huge task ahead of us.
We have to hold the House and somehow increase the number of conservatives in it.
We have to take the Senate.
We don't need 60, but we have to take the Senate.
And we have to win the White House.
Then after we do that, all the people who promise us from now until the election that they're going to overturn and repeal Obamacare have then got to do it.
They're going to have to go in there and disempower themselves.
And the Republicans have shown themselves to be equally adept at spending money.
They like favorable newspaper stories about them in Washington where they live.
They like being thought of as cool rather than fringe outliers.
I don't know.
So it's a monumental task, and I don't uh there is not a person I know That thought this would be a win-win situation prior to the court's ruling on this case.
Here's what Obama said about negative liberties.
This is quote back in 2001, 11 years ago.
To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical.
It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution.
He's upset that the court of Earl Warren did not break free from the constraints on government, the founders put in there.
In other words, he's trashing the founders here, and anybody else who's come along and upheld them.
To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the war in court, it wasn't that radical.
It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted.
And the Warren Court interpreted the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties.
It says what the states can't do to you.
Says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the government or the state government must do on your behalf.
And that hasn't shifted.
Well, it has now.
And that is revolutionary.
That is monumental.
And I'm probably talking to a brick wall to anybody under 30 who hasn't the slightest idea what I'm talking about, because they haven't been taught what the Constitution is in the first place.
And that is the greatest document ever written in the world regarding individual liberty and freedom.
Greatest document ever written in the world.
It's not taught that way.
It's taught as an antiquated piece of out-of-date junk that limits what the government can do for people, giving them this and giving them that, and making them eat that for their own benefit and making them drive that for their own.
But hell, it's far more ugly than just eat, drive and stuff.
I mean, that the stuff that can be done once government takes over.
Well, the world is a wash with living examples of what happens.
To quote Hillary, we're taking things away from you, money for your own good.
To quote Bill Clinton, yeah, we're gonna raise your taxes because we don't think you spend the money the right way.
They tell us this.
I gotta take a break.
Don't go away.
We'll be right back.
Back to the phones we go, Rush Limboss serving humanity.
How you ask.
Simply by showing up.
Simply by being here.
This Joan and Tavaris, Florida.
Hi.
This is she.
Thank you for taking my call and for speaking for the people.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
I just want to say that this ruling enshrines deceit and propaganda of unconscionable human beings.
And it fails to uphold truth and protect people from being forced to swallow lies.
And I think we got there because it takes two parties.
Those who would deceive and those who will be are willing to be deceived.
And I think Obama deceived, and Roberts was willing to be deceived.
I don't know why, but he wasn't deceived.
He wasn't don't don't misinst uh uh uh uh misinterpret my tone.
I don't I'm not trying to sound uh dismissive of you.
I'm I'm I'm saying he did ex-he knew exactly what he was doing, is my point.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
He was he found a way that nobody asked for To find this law constitutional when it isn't, and we don't know the why.
Right.
We can only, you know, we have Jan Grawford and her story that he was he cave to uh a political pressure brought by the media and powerful Democrats, including the president.
Uh, it could well be he's just a political hack all along.
Who knows?
I mean, there are all kinds of theories going around out there, some of them I'm not gonna mention.
Uh, but uh I'll just stick with what's what's what's been reported.
But it could be uh Joanne, he just one of these people just wants to please the people in power.
Who knows?
Maybe maybe he this is how he gets into big click.
You know, life is high school.
We never get out of high school.
Life is always high school.
You can always boil it down to that.
And my fear is that, though, by enshrining deceit, that doesn't leave much for people.
That doesn't leave them that's exactly right because he's broken faith once you break faith.
It's like J.R. Ewing said back in Dallas.
Once you get past integrity, honey, the rest's easy.
Or something like that.
It's close.
You know, I think our previous caller was remembering a um earlier time in America, an earlier time in our culture when lying had consequences.
A lot of people still caught in that trap.
Think lying has consequences.
Well, it doesn't anymore.
Not in Washington, and certainly not politically, and uh not negative consequences anyway.
Depends on who you lie to and about what.
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