All Episodes
Previous Next
July 3, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:31
July 3, 2012, Tuesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Mike on the sound bites.
Let's see.
We'll start at the top here.
We'll just start this up.
Great to have you back here, folks.
Rush Limbaugh, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Doing everything we can here behind the golden EIB microphone to preserve liberty and freedom.
It's a thrill and a delight to have you with us.
Our telephone number, if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, the email address, lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
Well, folks, I hate to be the bearer of this kind of news, but the news is what it is.
And this news is from the Washington Examiner.
Wages drop only the fifth time in the last 33 years.
Average weekly wages fell in 2011, one of only five declines since the category was created in 1978 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In a just-released review of employment in the nation's largest 322 counties, BLS found that weekly wages dropped over the year by 1.7% to $955 in the fourth quarter of 2011 from a high of $971 in the fourth quarter of 2010.
The wage drop comes as employment has increased in a majority of the counties in the last quarter of 2011.
Ah, the kidding.
And employment has increased.
That irony, it says here, makes it the only quarter in history where wages shrunk while employment grew.
If the election were today, it would be a landslide defeat for Obama.
And I don't care who Romney picks as his VEEP.
It isn't going to matter if the election were held today.
The manufacturing news, U.S. manufacturing shrank in June for the first time in nearly three years, adding to signs the economy's growth is weakening.
That's how the AP chose to characterize it.
Production declined.
The number of new orders plunged.
Good Lord, folks.
After three and a half years of being told by this administration that they have the answers for this, that they have the answers, and we're on the rebound.
We've turned a corner.
We're coming back from the brain.
All of this every policy that this administration has instituted has done great damage.
They talked about the manufacturing.
We have a little montage of media drive-bys talking about it.
Holy smokes, we haven't been under 50 since July of 09.
The softness in the economy is evident in the ISM.
The ISM report for the month of June came in weak.
That's taken the market down a dismal picture this morning.
Below 50 means contraction, not expansion.
Manufacturing is the thing that's supposed to be the game changer for our economy.
That was Charles Payne, Fox Business Channel there, the last comment you heard.
And he's exactly right.
Henry Nostrilitis Waxman was on C-SPAN Newsmakers on Sunday morning.
They were talking about the economy.
One of the panelists was a guy, a woman named Kate Hunter from Bloomberg, and she said to Nostrilitis Waxman, most people seem to think that passage of the health care law in 2010 contributed to the Democrats losing control of the House that year in the midterms.
I'm wondering, do you think that trade-off was worth it, getting the health care law passed and losing the House?
If that were the trade-off, but look, the president inherited a terrible economy.
We were hemorrhaging jobs in 2008 when he got elected.
So by the time he took office in 2009, we had over 10% unemployment.
We had the banks frozen.
They couldn't deal with their assets.
The economy has not recovered.
Some people call it a recession.
I think it's a depression.
It's a depression.
The Democrats are tweeting about manufacturing.
And they are, I kid you not, 10 reasons Walmart is responsible for the decline of American manufacturing.
That's what the Democrats are tweeting.
Walmart's responsible for it.
How can that be?
Walmart depends on people manufacturing stuff so they can stock it.
But I thought the private sector was doing fine.
That's what Obama said.
Private sector is doing fine.
Now it's Walmart's fault.
Now the fires, that's global warming.
Yep.
That's exactly right.
Colorado wildfires are due to climate change.
You know why the fires are raging out of control?
I don't know what started them, but the environmentalist wackos won't let anybody go in there and clear the deadwood out.
So forests in this country remain tinderboxes.
It doesn't take anything.
They will not allow forests to be cleared, the deadwood taken out.
All there is, therefore, is a bunch of kindling.
It is not an exaggeration.
The vast, vast majority of problems we have in this country are directly traceable to liberals, Democrats.
And I know that that sounds simplistic and it probably is not persuasive, but I'm sorry.
I don't know how else to say it.
I really don't.
And it isn't complicated.
It isn't complicated to explain why these things are happening.
And here's Henry West.
Well, you know, they generated a horrible economy hemorrhaging jobs in 2008.
They started hemorrhaging jobs in this economy after Obama was elected in 2008.
Go back and look at the monthly unemployment numbers and then take a look at November and December.
And then that bottom fell out.
The Wall Street bottom fell out.
And it hasn't recovered.
But these people had all the answers.
Hope and change.
Everything was going to be better now.
They had miracles waiting to enact.
Everything they have done has brought great damage to this economy under the guise of fixing it.
Smokers and pro-football players have something in common.
What do you think it is?
This is an AP story.
It's from yesterday.
Smokers and pro-football players have something in common.
They engage in risky behavior that can be potentially harmful to their health over time.
And to hear some lawyers tell it, the National Football League is the equivalent of big tobacco.
I, as you know, I predicted this, but I am way off in the number of years I thought this was going to take.
I thought we'd be looking at 10, 15 years down the road before people started getting serious about trying to poison people's minds about football and being serious about banning it.
But I'm telling you, we are on the road.
When the NFL is equal to big tobacco, when the NFL is Joe Campbell, I hope the people in the NFL have an understanding of what faces them.
I hope they know what's ahead of them.
Just like some people could not wrap their arms around what Obamacare really means for the future of this country.
I can see the NFL sitting there.
It is the most popular sport.
Its off-season is more popular than a lot of sports when they're playing in their regular seasons.
But this offseason has been really odd.
The bounty situation with the Saints and year-long suspensions for coaches and players, lifetime suspension for one coach.
Most of the stuff happening in the league appears to be happening in negotiation rooms or courtrooms.
The game is portrayed as something deadly that players are risking their lives every time they put on the uniform and take the field.
It is really, as an ardent football fan, this is different.
And now the NFL compared to big tobacco.
And I know a lot of people don't look at things as ideologically as I do, which is a problem for them.
But if you think going after big tobacco was a health-related thing, if you think the people that were going after big tobacco were motivated by your health and keeping you safe, you are full of it.
It had nothing to do with your health.
These people couldn't care less about your health.
They couldn't care less whether you get cancer.
This was all about what it always is about.
Another avenue, another springboard for more liberal control, big government, and a small group of people being able to dictate behavior for everybody else.
And it was a money opportunity.
It was an opportunity for a bunch of lawyers and others to score huge amounts of money off of big tobacco.
It was a shakedown.
And all during the proof of it, throughout the whole process, nobody once suggested banning the product.
If they really cared, if they really thought tobacco is a killer, if they really believed that, if they really were interested in your health, they'd make that product illegal.
They would ban it under their concerns for your health.
But there's no way anybody involved is ever going to ban that product because there's too much money to be made off of it.
Probably the same thing with the NFL.
But there are going to be people.
I can picture them.
I know who they look.
I know what they look like.
I know where they live.
I know what kind of people are.
They're going to start running around suggesting it be banned.
It'll be done on the basis of safety for the players.
And it's going to be, there'll be a racial component that'll be introduced into it at some point.
Well, you can't miss this one.
What, 75% of the players are African-American?
This is made to order.
Wait till somebody tells Al Sharpton the opportunity he's missing here.
He got slavery in America disguised as the NFL.
What do you mean, rush slavery?
Well, look at who's getting injured.
Look who's risking their lives.
Yep, they're being paid a lot of money for it.
Doesn't matter.
The vast majority of people play in this game are nothing more than gladiators on Sunday afternoon to keep the rich entertained.
It's going to happen like that.
You know it, and I know it.
A $206 billion tobacco settlement supposed to be shared among the states, supposed to go to education programs, all of that money.
Where's all that tobacco lawsuit money gone?
You can still buy cigarettes.
I'll tell you the convoluted has gone.
You can still buy them.
Can't smoke them.
Not legally anywhere, but they haven't banned the product, but they are funding children's healthcare programs with the sale of tobacco products.
At some point, if you can't smoke the product, but you can buy it, it's convoluted.
And now the National Football League is the equivalent of big tobacco.
Brief time out, my friends.
We'll come back and continue after this.
Don't go away.
Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.
That's our next stop on the phones here on Open Line Friday on Tuesday.
And is it Verena?
Great to have you here.
Hi.
Hi, sir.
How are you?
Very well.
Thanks.
I've been listening to you since I was a very young teenager, not to date you.
I remember one of my favorite songs was Secret Asian Man.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, going way, way back.
Yeah.
Well, I'm 32 years old now, and I have four children.
And I wanted to comment on your question about whether those people under 40 or under 30 paying attention.
And on Thursday, when the decision came out, I was furious and absolutely disgusted.
And I view Roberts, Obama, and everyone under him as traitors, traitors to our country, what the principles of our country are.
They're trying to destroy.
And I think it comes down to a basic philosophy of how you view government.
Who has the right to make your decisions?
Do you have the right to make your own decisions, or does the government have the right to make your own decisions?
That's the argument.
Who is most qualified?
That's the argument that we're all having.
Exactly.
Well, I mean, I don't understand why the question, I mean, the answer isn't clear.
I mean, we have countless examples of mess-ups that the federal government has done.
I mean, look at our public school system.
The answer is really simple, but it's hard to believe.
No, no.
Most of this stuff is very easy.
It's just hard to believe.
The reason why we're debating this is because there are people who want to make your decisions for you.
Liberals are a very specific bunch.
Now, you and I, you and I are conservatives, and we believe in individual liberty and self-reliance and making your own way, dealing with the consequences of life.
And if we find people who disagree with us, okay, they disagree with us.
We sometimes try gentle persuasion, get them to join us and so forth.
We would never, ever, you and I would never ever think of using the force of government to squash them simply because they disagree with us.
Because we don't consider them threats just because they disagree with us.
They are the most intolerant bunch around, and they're essentially so insecure that if they are surrounded or not even surrounded, if there are people near them who disagree with what they believe, those people have to be silenced.
And those people want the government to take care of you, meaning deal with you.
They want the government making decisions for everybody because that's how they think there's going to be fairness and equality and other related things.
They live their lives destined to get control of government so that they can make everybody do what they want them to do.
You and I don't think that way.
Right.
Because we're secure in what we know.
Well, we believe in freedom.
Right.
We believe in liberty.
Right.
We believe in liberty and freedom to do stupid things, to do dumb things, to be wrong.
We believe in the freedom to do that.
We also believe in the freedom of the consequences of your actions and so forth.
What's hard to understand, hard for some people to accept, is that there are people, I think it's becoming easier now for people to accept it, by the way, but there are people who essentially want to squish and eliminate people that don't see things the way they do.
I use this example too much, and I don't mean to focus on vegetarians, but they do irritate me.
They irritate me all to hell.
I don't want them telling me how to eat.
I don't want them telling me if I eat that, I'm going to die or that I'm destroying the planet, because I know I'm not.
I'm not stupid.
I don't suffer fools well.
I don't deal with people that are this way very well.
If they want to be vegetarians for whatever convoluted, stupid reason, they're more than free to be.
But do not make me live the way you do and do not think that's the purpose of government.
And that's who we're up against.
And I'm talking about sniveling little people in their pajamas who do nothing but write blogs all day that are leftists.
That's how they think, too.
It's not just the people in Washington who run the Democrat Party or all the think tanks.
All of their minions believe the same thing.
It's that's what the argument's about.
And all these things that are associated with it, they're tolerant, they're understanding, their compassion, none of it is applicable to them.
But I know you were my comments about people under 40.
That was a comment on how people have been educated, not on people's intelligence.
The polling said, people under 40 in a CNN poll are evenly divided on healthcare.
And that's only because they haven't been taught what the Constitution is.
Young people particularly think it is the role of government to level the playing field and to manage outcomes so that everybody ends up the same way because that's fair.
And they think that's what the Constitution is.
And that's what they think government is, because that's what they've been taught.
And that's the problem of the education system.
Berena, thanks much.
Carl, in Leona.
I've never heard of this.
Somewhere in California.
How are you, sir?
Oh, fine, sir.
That's Leona Valley.
Leona?
Yes.
Okay, that's not spelled that way.
Okay.
You know, my thought is going back to the problem of Obamacare and going back to the problem of how Obama got into the White House.
I was looking at the Constitution the other day thinking about when we repealed the 18th Amendment.
And I thought the 26th Amendment, which gave us the right to vote for 18-year-olds, if we're going to look back on this in 10 or 15 years and think this is where the problem started, we would not have, I mean, the dynamic was set up to have somebody that was this foolish get elected.
Nah, I can do one better than that.
Well, you know what?
When women got the right to votes when it all went downhill.
Because that's when votes started being cast with emotion and maternal instincts that government ought to reflect.
Well, you know, before 21, the 18-year-olds, they only know, their only financial knowledge is, hey, I need money.
I'll ask mom for it.
And with the state of education these days, I'm not sure there's that much history or government talking about it.
Look, I'm joking about the women's vote.
I just a little frustrated here.
But look, the young people don't vote enough.
I appreciate what you're saying.
I don't think it's quite applicable yet.
Yes, of course, I was kidding about the women's vote.
But you know who believes that is Ann Coulter.
She's actually written it.
She has written that the major problem in our welfare state is the women's vote.
And the guy was talking about the probably 18-year-old vote.
I was just making a joke.
No, the problem is the women's vote.
And I told him I was kidding.
But her point is that women bring this maternal instinct of thing that the government should take care of everybody and including her family.
And women will vote for bigger government every chance they get.
That's her point.
And she's seriously written this.
And she's taken her share of heat for it, but she has written that.
I don't want to be accused of stealing from Ann Coulter.
I just want to tell you that that's a position that she's posited for, well, gosh, a number of years.
But I'm told that's not even her original idea, that she got it from somebody else.
So nobody ever really does anything on their own.
There's always a hidden source for somebody's idea.
Jim Peffakucas, American Enterprise Institute, it's all what?
He used to write stuff for Reuters, right, which was incomprehensible to me.
I don't know what a guy who I agreed with as often as I agree with Jim Pethikucas is doing writing for Reuters, but he did.
He's not the American Enterprise Institute, which is a conservative think tank.
And he says, and I'm only going to share this with you because we were talking about much of this earlier in the program today.
It's about healthcare.
And his point is it's already too late why Obamacare isn't going to happen the way Obama thinks it is.
And he quotes actually a colleague of his at AEI named Joe Antos.
And the first point is it's going to be more expensive than anybody thinks now and that is on paper.
And we all know that because it's a federal entitlement.
And they are all more expensive than their projected costs.
The second point he makes, which we've discussed, is that the Supreme Court decision on Medicaid will drive up federal spending.
And it will, by definition, if the states opt out of the Medicaid expansion, the feds take it over.
The details are this.
By making the Medicaid expansion optional, some states are likely to not expand eligibility to 133% of the federal poverty level.
And the alternative is expanded enrollment in subsidized insurance through the exchanges.
Now, there is the lure of 100% funding for the first three years.
There's also the burden of having to pay 10% of the cost of the expansion in subsequent years.
States that do not expand Medicaid eligibility are likely to see many of those who would have been eligible seek insurance through the exchanges.
But then this is the point we really talked about.
The exchanges won't be ready.
A few states, Massachusetts, California, and Maryland, appear to be well along in their implementation activities, but 37 states have not yet enacted legislation or invoked an executive order to establish a state health insurance exchange.
It is clear that many states will not have their insurance exchanges operating in time to enroll their citizens in the plans before they become liable for the tax in January of 2014.
Moreover, it's doubtful that the federal government, which carefully describes its role as facilitating the states' exchange rather than running a federal exchange, it's doubtful the federal government will be capable of stepping in.
The task is too large and the time is too short.
And this is the point Michael Tanner was making at Cato.
They didn't authorize expenditures for the states to take over the exchange or the federal government to take over the exchanges if the states don't do it.
So the bottom line, what is the bottom line of all this?
The bottom line is that if there is a second Obama term, it'll be noted for two things: a continuing long recession and widespread breakdowns in the implementation of his health reform plan.
There's no question that's going to happen.
This thing is 2,700 pages and much of it is unwritten.
Much of it's left up to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as the Secretary shall determine.
My point, I don't think Obama cares.
I don't think that he cares about the details.
I don't even think he knows.
If you want to know the hard cold truth, all this is to Obama is bigger government, more power, more control, and the opportunity to raise taxes and redistribute the money.
That's all it is to him.
That's what he wanted out of it.
He wants the government in charge of this.
He knows that when the government's in charge of health care and when the government's in charge of the costs, that he can dictate behavior on the basis that certain behaviors are too expensive and will cost the government too much money, and therefore he can prohibit certain behaviors or tax them or what have.
That's what he salivates over.
That he doesn't care about the breakdown.
In fact, the more it breaks down, the better.
Because I'll tell you, isn't it true?
Government program A sign into law, government program A falls apart, does not perform anywhere near as designed.
Panic ensues, problem create.
The next thing that happens, we need a new program to fix program A. Government fixes it what they broke.
That's been the tradition.
They create these stupid entitlements and other programs.
They don't work.
And everybody clamors for the government to fix it.
And the government happily says, well, hell yeah, we'll be happy to fix it.
Because government gets bigger every time this happens.
And every time government gets bigger, you lose a little freedom and you lose a little money.
Every time it gets bigger.
So they come up with a program.
The program doesn't work.
People clamor for the program to get fixed.
The government says, we'll do it.
And what's convoluted about this is that the people who screw it up in the first place are the ones people ask to fix it.
Despite the absolute disaster the government is in running programs, still way too many Americans turn to government to fix these problems.
And it's because there's this misplaced belief that there is benevolence in the government.
And with this bunch running it, there isn't any benevolence.
So I don't, it's not a matter of thinking.
I know Obama doesn't care.
He doesn't care what's in this plan.
He doesn't care for the minutiae.
He doesn't care about the details.
And if there are bumps in the road in implementation, so what?
It's just more of an opportunity for more government to fix that problem.
And guess what?
There's an added bonus.
You get to blame the Republicans for what's gone wrong.
And the media joins right in.
Yep, the Republicans screwed that up.
Wait a minute.
Republicans didn't support any of it.
Yeah, and that's the problem.
If we'd have had Republican help, this problem wouldn't have existed.
If we'd have had a little bipartisanship, this problem is directly traceable to the fact that Republicans didn't care, but that's okay.
We'll fix it.
I imagine Obama's fluent in discussing these changes a bit, but he doesn't.
He'd even write this.
He'd even write the healthcare legislation.
He turned it over to Congress.
It's been sitting in a drawer collecting dust for 50 years.
And every year, some little staffer would add some more dreams to it.
Finally, it ends up as 2,700 pages of absolute liberal disaster.
And these guys are right.
It's not going to be implemented correctly.
And there are going to be people that will be fined and taxed.
Despite the fact there won't be any policy to buy, the exchanges aren't going to be set up.
And even if they are, they're not going to run right because it's the government running them.
It is an absolute disaster.
And you would think that when that happens, most people would say, aha, well, this is the wrong way to do this.
Let's turn this back over to private sector.
That's not what's going to happen.
What always happens is people turn to the government to fix it when the government broke it in the first place.
I don't know.
I just, but these guys are right.
It's if I don't, whether Obama's re-elected or not, if this thing isn't repealed, its implementation is going to lead to more confusion, chaos, murkiness, despair, tumult.
It's too big to work.
It's like everything liberal.
There's so much misplaced idealism, believing that what they believe is perfection personified.
It's utopia.
We believe in it.
It'll work.
And there's no evidence that that's ever the case.
And the people who aren't going to care are the rich because they're not going to be affected by it.
And Obama won't be affected by it.
Henry Nostrulitis Waxman won't be affected by it.
Members of Congress won't be affected.
It's not going to fall apart for them.
Brief timeout, another obscene profit break here on Open Line Friday on Tuesday.
Don't go away.
Folks, let me just tell you, Obama never expected Obamacare to be implemented the way he said it would be.
You're not going to keep your doctor.
You're not going to keep your plan.
He lied to everybody.
He doesn't care.
You think Social Security looks like it was originally drafted or originally intended?
It doesn't.
Neither does Medicare.
And they aren't concerned about being held to their promises.
They don't care.
And if there are obstructions to their efforts, what do they do?
Well, the next time they control Congress, they fix it.
And if this doesn't go right, it won't.
If it survives, it's going to be an absolute disaster, which is made to order for Obama, the Democrats.
Blame the insurance companies for not cooperating.
Blame Walmart somehow.
Blame the drug companies.
Blame Republicans for all the problems.
The media will be right in there.
Dupes like Juan Williams will be writing, oh yeah, it's the Republicans' fault.
It's the drug company's fault.
They'll all be in there.
That's the pattern.
The more chaos, the better.
The more problems, the better.
We get another government program to fix it.
See, Obamacare is just the baseline.
Obamacare is just the starting point.
When it doesn't work, we need a fixed problem.
We have a problem to fix this.
And then another program, I'm sorry, a program to fix that.
And pretty soon there's going to be 14 different versions of Obamacare, like there are 14 different versions of Social Security.
Now there's Social Security Disability where 8.7 million people are on the program.
I don't think it was part of the original idea.
Ditto the income tax.
Hey, folks, I want to remind you: in honor of the 4th of July, celebrate this great country, we got a little special here at our little tea company, 2IF by T. We'd like to give a gift to all of our 2F by T customers.
One if by Land, 2F by T. Liberals are coming, and they really are.
Today and while supplies last, we are giving you a premium patriotic gift set.
You get two American-made ceramic, oversized white mugs.
It's got the Rush Rivera logo on them and a pouch of Reagan's favorite snack, the red, white, and blue jelly beans in a nice gift box.
And all you have to do is go to 2ifbytea.com, T-W-O, 2IFBIT.com.
And if you buy two cases of any flavor of tea, and by the way, as an added bonus, it's the best iced tea in this country.
And you would expect me to say that because it's mine, but it is the best iced tea in the country.
You buy two cases, and your premium gift set will be automatically added to your order free.
Totally free.
Two cases, and you get the two mugs and the jelly beans.
It's a small token of our appreciation for your support and your loyalty on behalf of the 2F by T family and, of course, the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
But it's only while supplies last.
So just takes two cases, which you were going to order anyway.
You're going to order the two cases anyway.
So the special gift tossed in.
Kathy, Cookville, Tennessee.
Hi, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hi, Bayer Rush.
I have to thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for keeping my head from exploding.
You truly make the complex understandable.
And I think you are providing a free universal health care system by having your program every day.
I like the way that sounds.
This program's all the health care you need.
It is.
It is.
It's my antidepressant.
Yeah, particularly mental health care.
Yes.
Yes.
And it's a wonderful benefit.
And I just, I can't go a day without hearing you.
I listen to your repeats on the weekends, and I just, it's just wonderful.
Well, you know what?
Kathy, hang on.
Hang on.
I'm going to send you two cases of your favorite flavor of tea and a gift set.
Snurdley will be with you in your moments to get the address to send it to you.
Folks, I think one of the biggest problems that we face today is that freedom and liberty have just become empty words.
In some cases, people even laugh when you assert the notion you might lose your freedom or liberty.
And we've got to change that.
Freedom and liberty are not put in context or taught in school not properly.
If you're not of a certain age, it doesn't mean much to you.
And that has to change.
▲
Export Selection