Rush Limbaugh having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, serving humanity while executing assigned host duties flawlessly.
Zero mistakes so far.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address lrushbow at eibnet.com.
Wolf Blitzer, CNN, is ecstatic that Chuck Hagel has been named by Obama to be the new Secretary of Defense.
Even as the president was speaking, I got an email from General Colin Powell, the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the former Secretary of State, strongly endorsing Chuck Hagel to be the next Defense Secretary.
I believe that more than ever, he writes, we need that kind of independent and bold leader who thinks in and out of the box, General Powell endorsing Chuck Hagel.
Yeah, okay, so who are we to complain now?
That's exactly right.
Colin Powell, a titular head of the Republican Party, has just endorsed Hagel.
Wolf Blitzer him to breaking news, and there you go.
Now, I got an email from some, because I meant I talked about this in order.
The email said, what do you mean you don't care?
That's not the way to put it.
But folks, look, when it comes to Chuck Hagel or when it comes to anybody else in Obama's cabinet, there's nothing I can do to stop it.
There's nothing you can do to stop it.
And Obama's going to pick people that he wants.
He's going to pick people who are just like him.
And any of these people in the conservative media who think they can change that or stop that are whistling.
It just, it's, you know, I guess I just rely on the fact that elections have consequences.
Obama wins, he gets to pick his Secretary of Defense.
If he picks a guy that's not particularly a big fan of Israel, so be it.
Nothing I can do about it.
I'm not going to get exercised by it.
Yeah, it has meaning.
There's certain bits of analysis you could get into on it, but it is what it is.
Anyway, it's great to have you back.
Here's the phone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882.
I want to go back.
Mitch McConnell was on ABC's this week, yesterday, and he said that with the fiscal quiff deal that the tax issue's finished.
It's over.
They got that taken care of.
That's off the table now.
Oh, yeah.
The tax issue is finished, over, completed.
That's behind us.
Now the question is, what are we going to do about the biggest problem confronting our country and our future?
And that's our spending addiction.
It's time to confront it.
The president surely knows that.
I mean, he has mentioned it both publicly and privately.
So are you saying that any discussion of revenue is completely off the table going forward?
You will not accept any new revenues in any new deal.
Yeah, absolutely.
The tax issue is behind us.
There you have it.
The tax issue is behind us.
And one of the reasons it's behind us is because, and the Republicans are celebrating, by the way, I should tell you.
The Republicans are celebrating because the Bush tax rates for 99% of the country are now locked in.
The middle class, they're locked in.
They were permanent.
Now they're locked in.
I mean, they were temporary.
Now it is said they're permanent.
But, of course, nothing's permanent in Washington.
If we get a Democrat House, those taxes are going to balloon.
And middle-class taxes are going up anyway.
I just wanted you to hear McConnell say that from the Republican standpoint, okay, cool.
We did it.
We got taxes off.
This is why, by the way, if you're reading, if you're paying attention, you're seeing this, or you're hearing it.
I don't care where you look in conservative media, you are seeing, hey, you know what?
The Republicans actually put together a winning deal here.
They actually pulled it off.
The Republicans.
Obama doesn't know it yet, but he got skunked.
Now, that's the extreme.
Not all in the conservative media are going that far, but National Review, Weekly Standard, the blogs are all making the case that the Republicans.
So what it means is that the conservative media inside the Beltway is tied or linked to the Republican establishment, and that's the storyline.
So they're putting it out.
And that's what McConnell's, that's what, oh yeah, tax issue, done!
We won that.
We got tax rates for the middle class locked in.
Obama wanted to raise them.
Obama never wanted to raise middle class taxes, not openly like this.
That's not, I mean, they can tell themselves this.
If it makes them feel better, they can go ahead.
But that's not going over the cliff.
The taxes would have gone up because the rates would have expired, and Obama would have been the first guy proposing middle-class tax cuts.
I guarantee you that outside of conservative media, Obama's getting all the credit for this.
Republicans aren't.
Anyway, I'm distracting even myself.
The point here is you heard McConnell.
Taxes are done.
It's over.
No more taxes.
We got that off the table.
It's another reason why the Republicans are being said to have really gotten the best they could out of this.
So I got a core belief off the table here and a core belief off the table there.
And now we can get down to talking about spending.
Except Obama doesn't think we've got a spending problem.
He told John Boehner, this is in a Stephen Moore column in the Wall Street Journal.
Every time Boehner told Obama we had a spending problem, Obama said, no, we don't, and I'm tired of hearing it.
Boehner quotes Obama and says, we don't have a spending problem.
I'm tired of hearing about it.
The reason that we're in debt is because of health care costs.
And I fixed that with Obamacare.
So, no common ground.
We're not, there's not going to be any spending reductions here today.
You can hope and dream it ain't going to happen.
But I just want you to hear some Democrats talking about taxes.
Since the Republicans are convinced that's done.
Oh, yeah.
Tax issue is behind us.
First up, Barack Obama, Saturday morning, White House YouTube channel.
For the first time in two decades, we raised taxes on the wealthiest 2% of Americans in a bipartisan way while preventing a middle-class tax hike that could have thrown our economy back into recession.
But all this was just one step in the broader effort to grow our economy and shrink our deficits.
The wealthiest individuals and the biggest corporations shouldn't be able to take advantage of loopholes and deductions that aren't available to most Americans.
Okay, so they got the Republicans to confess and to concede that tax cuts for the rich were the problem.
And we fixed that in a bipartisan way.
But we're not through on the rich because now we've got to go after their deductions and loopholes.
But wait, the Republicans say taxes are off the table.
What's going to happen when Obama comes back and says, we've got to close some of these loopholes on them?
I guarantee you what's going to happen.
Every time Obama, the Democrats say jump when it comes to tax increases on the rich, the Republicans will.
Now that they've got it up behind them.
Okay, so that's Obama.
We're going to go after loopholes, and we're going to go after deductions.
Here is Senator Dick Turbin from Illinois on CNN yesterday.
Candy Crowley, so let me ask you about money to be saved in tax reform.
Because if the government saves money in tax reform, that means somebody's taxes go up.
Do you think taxes have been raised enough on the wealthy?
There are still deductions, credits, special treatments under the tax code, which ought to be looked at very carefully.
There are plenty of things within that tax code, these loopholes where people can park their money in some island offshore and not pay taxes.
These are things that need to be closed.
We can do that and use the money to reduce the deficit.
So there are other taxes that you believe that you can, however you want to put them, raise, retrieve, whatever, from the wealthy.
Absolutely.
Taxes are off the table.
Tax issue behind us.
We don't have a tax problem anymore.
See, we put the tax issue.
We got that done.
Now we're going to be talking about spending.
The Democrats haven't gotten a message.
They're still talking about raising taxes.
Now with closing loopholes, here's Pelosi also on Slay the Nation.
No, it is not.
I mean, the president had said originally he wanted $1.6 trillion in revenue.
He took it down to 1.2 as a compromise.
That is not enough on the revenue side.
We've changed the rate, the high-end tax rate, 39.6, very important step.
And again, there's much more that we can do by just subjecting it to the scrutiny of what is bringing in revenue, what is creating growth.
Well, look, she's often totally oblivious.
She doesn't know what she's talking about.
There is no growth, folks.
And there can't be.
Mathematically, it's not possible.
You can't take all the money out of the private sector that they are taking and then have the private sector grow.
The private sector has to shrink.
And the less money, the less capital circulating in the private sector for wages, raises, investments in growing, less money means less investment.
It can't grow.
And they want to take another trillion dollars.
They've got $1.2 trillion they've taken out, they think, with this latest maneuver, they want another trillion taken out of the private sector.
And Pelosi starts talking about growth at the same time.
It's not possible, mathematically.
But they're not through, is the point.
And if they ever get control of the House back, those middle-class tax rates are going up.
The welfare state is the most important thing to them, not the middle class.
The welfare state is the number one thing.
It must grow.
It must include more people.
Santa Claus, it must include more voters.
So Bob Schieffer said to Pelosi, well, people who are listening to you this morning are going to say that you're talking about more taxes.
You talk about bringing in more in one way or another.
You're still talking about increasing taxes.
One thing I'm not talking about is bringing them in more at the expense of the middle class.
At the expense of the middle class.
Are you then saying to the upper classes, get ready, you're going to have to pay some more?
This is not the end of it.
Well, I'm saying that's not off the table.
That's not off the table.
That's not off the table.
Wait, Mitch McConnell, tax issue is finished.
It's over.
It's completed.
It's behind us.
And then you've got Pelosi and Dick Turbin here and Obama talking about they're going to get even more.
And the money they're taking is from the people who hire other people.
I got one more Pelosi bit here, and it's also Slay the Nation.
Bob Schieffer said, why do we go through this debt limit thing every year now?
Why do we go through all these crises, madam leader?
Because it, you know, it embarrasses everybody.
Well, you ask the Republicans because we always pass the debt ceiling when President Bush was president as he was incurring these massive debts, and the Republicans weren't saying boo at the time.
If I were president, I would use the 14th Amendment, which says that the United States will always be paying for it.
You would just go ahead and do it.
You wouldn't have to do it.
I would just go do it, right?
Yeah, just got to do it.
I just raise it to hell with Congress.
I just use the 14th Amendment and just raise the debt limit.
They always have that's what Pelosi was.
So Schieffer said, What happened in Washington?
What happened?
It simply did not used to be this way, Ms. Pelosi.
What do you think is wrong here?
What happened?
What needs to happen?
I keep saying to my Republican friends, take back your party.
This isn't the grand old party that did so many things for America, that commanded so much respect.
We need a strong Republican Party.
This is really the over-the-edge crowd.
That's the way I see it.
What she means is that too many conservatives still in the party.
She doesn't want a big Republican Party.
She wants a small Republican Party made up of traditional Bob Michael type Republicans who know that their mission is to go to Washington and be losers and smile about it.
That's what she is advocating returning to.
We'll be back, folks.
Don't go.
Folks, I was going to get into our low-information voters segment complete with soundbites at this time, but our caller, the next caller, can't wait till the next half hour, is busy, must have a job or something.
So we're going to take the caller now.
It is Bill in River Falls, Wisconsin.
Welcome to the program, sir.
Good.
Thank you very much.
My comment was, I'm standing outside.
Hold it a minute.
Hold it a minute.
I can't understand what you're saying.
Are you out in the wind or something?
Yes, I was standing outside.
I was on my way into my yeah, that's what I thought.
I have experience with that.
I have to say, I was listening.
I've been very concerned about this football stuff.
I'm a big fan, but I really care.
And I think we need to start a new organization.
Something about safety.
My thought was perhaps fans outraged, organized, water safety.
Well, one of the things we could do, you know, long ago, folks, I must tell you, and we didn't talk about being in a cutting edge.
Way back in the 90s, I first became aware of the concussion problem in soccer.
And I put together a group called Keep Our Own Kids Safe.
And it was an attempt to educate people about the dangers of soccer.
This is, I mean, this is 10, 15 years ago.
And he remembers it.
It's one of the things that he's talking about here.
And it's another reason.
Don't discount what I'm saying to you about the future of football.
Because I called it on soccer.
And we put together a couple of, I remember we had people calling here telling me that I was full of it and didn't know what I was talking about.
And other people called and agreed and thought I was really onto something.
So we put together a PSA.
We have two, actually, do we not?
We have four.
We have four PSAs that keep our own kids safe.
Let's listen to a couple of them.
And again, now, this is easily 10 to 15 years ago.
And now a word from the National Keep Our Own Kids Safe campaign about the danger of soccer.
I have played soccer since I was in kindergarten.
I think that it has affected me.
After soccer games, I would be lightheaded from heading the soccer ball.
I broke my leg playing a soccer game two years ago this time.
I was in physical therapy for eight months with a hip injury, all from soccer.
Keep Our Own Kids Safe, National Celebrity Spokesman Rush Limbaugh.
We thank God, Lisa, that you are among the fortunate few to have learned in time.
But think of the people who have not learned, who don't know, who are being led down the primrose path.
My friends, I think it's time for serious, drastic action.
It is time to ban soccer from television.
That obviously is encouraging a lot of people to play.
Don't let any of the sponsors that sponsor soccer advertise on TV.
Something must be done now.
You heard her story.
It's not worth risking my body injuries that I could be stuck with for life.
I mean, who knows?
I could be like 500 years from now.
I could be like a paraplegic.
I mean, who knows?
It's not worth it.
Join Rush Limbaugh and help support the Keep Our Own Kids Safe campaign.
Look for the Keep Our Own Kids Safe chapter near you.
You'll find them everywhere.
And now a word from the national Keep Our Own Kids Safe campaign about the danger of soccer.
If they have a competitive player on the field that they can't beat, they are coached to hurt them and take them out of the game.
Keep Our Own Kids Safe, National Celebrity Spokesman Rush Limbaugh.
At what age is that taught?
Fairly young.
That is the entirely different picture from what I have always thought soccer was.
I thought soccer was a refuge from violence.
I thought that's one of the drawing cards of soccer.
And his parents were sending their kids out there so they wouldn't get involved in those kinds of activities.
Well, that's exactly why we had our boys play soccer.
This same son went to college on a soccer scholarship and he thought he would get away from this being attacked.
In a tournament game, he again won the ball and the kid he won it from ran wide open at him, lunged at him with his knee up and got him in the groin and shattered a testicle.
They left him laying on the side of the field during that game and he went into shock.
This is a genuine horror story that I'm sure pains you to tell.
I think it's important to point out that the soccer moms obviously didn't know and don't know.
It's not that they were irresponsible or are irresponsible like Jane here.
They were just uninformed.
This is why our education campaign is so important.
Join Rush Limbaugh and help support the Keep Our Own Kids Safe campaign.
Look for the Keep Our Own Kids Safe chapter near you.
You'll find them everywhere.
That's right.
They are everywhere.
And then there was another guy that called who thought that I was raising concerns way beyond what was necessary.
And he pointed out he'd played soccer all his life, and he was entirely normal.
And I asked him, I said, well, have you asked your family members if you're maybe different?
He said, oh, yeah, there's no problem.
I said, well, I said, victims are sometimes the last to know whether they've been hurt.
You should ask people if your brain's any different now than it was before you started playing soccer.
He thought I was full of my only point here is that it was years ago, or 10 years ago, that we spotted first the dangers in soccer, which now you can find almost routinely referenced, particularly head injuries.
And the same thing is going to happen at football.
Well, it is happening in football.
And once again, we were here on the cutting edge, the first to warn you of the trends in society toward changing and altering this game in a way and make it unrecognizable.
And we are back.
Great to have you here, El Rushbo on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
How many of you all watch Downton Abbey on PBS?
You watch it, Dawn.
HR, do you watch Downton Abbey?
You don't watch it.
I do.
I have seen every episode of season three, which just premiered last night.
And I'm just going to tell you, no, no, no, no spoilers.
But I'm just going to say there are two surprises.
No, I'm not even going to go.
The last episode of the season, it goes along and it's fine and dandy.
And the last 90 seconds, guarantee you, you won't come out of left field and wipe you out.
If you're heavily invested in the characters, the last 90 seconds of the last episode, the two-hour episode, only took me an hour and a half.
No, it's an hour and a half.
Two hours if they run commercials in it, which PBS I don't think does.
Ted Cruz, the new senator from Texas.
Folks, this guy's terrific.
Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, we've got a bright future in the conservative side of the Republican Party with these two guys.
And I've got four sound bites from Ted Cruz that I want you to hear.
He knocks it out of the park.
He's on Fox News Sunday, and he just knocks it out of the park here on anything that's asked of him.
He is fearless.
He doesn't make excuses.
He's not defensive in any way at all.
It's a pleasure to hear.
And when you hear Ted Cruz, you wonder, what happened?
Why aren't there more?
But he's not that he's not good enough.
He is.
It just makes you realize what was at one time, what could be.
Here's the first question from John Roberts, who was filling in yesterday for Chris Wallace.
How are you going to vote on Chuck Hagel?
If Hegel is nominated, it is very difficult to imagine a circumstance in which I could support his confirmation.
It's interesting.
The president seems bound and determined to proceed down this path, despite the fact that Hegel's record is very, very troubling on the nation of Israel.
He has not been a friend to Israel.
And in my view, the United States should stand unshakably with the nation of Israel.
Yeah, well, I got to say, Obama picks people like him.
I always had to laugh in the first term.
You've got these weirdo members like Van Jones, a mountain-out communist.
How did this guy get past?
How did Obama end up with it?
Obama knows him.
Obama wanted him.
Obama is an authoritarian figure.
There's nobody either in the cabinet or a czar who is not personally acceptable and really loved and adored by Obama.
The idea that extreme leftists somehow get past Obama, I've always been amused by that.
Next question.
Senator, are you willing to risk default on our debt by taking the debt ceiling battle right to the limit?
No, and let me be very clear about this.
I do not support default on the debt.
We should never default on the debt.
And the only players in Washington who are threatening default on the debt are President Barack Obama and Harry Reid.
Whatever happens with the debt ceiling, we will always pay our debt.
We will never default on the debt.
And the reason the president isn't doing that is he's trying to scare people.
is trying to raise this specter of a financial apocalypse.
Exactly.
Keep people on edge, always on the edge or the verge of chaos, always in the midst of an emergency, crisis emergency.
Have to do something this minute.
We don't have time to think about it.
And what we have to do is exactly what Obama wants done.
Next question, is there any new gun control that you would accept?
The reason we're discussing this is because of the tragedy in Newtown.
And every parent, my wife and I, we've got two little girls, age four and age two.
Every parent was horrified at what happened there.
To see 20 children, six adults senselessly murdered, it takes your breath away.
But within minutes, we saw politicians run out and try to exploit this tragedy, try to push their political agenda of gun control.
I do not support their gun control agenda for two reasons.
Number one, it's unconstitutional.
But is there any that you would accept?
I don't think the proposals being discussed now make sense.
Senator Dianne Feinstein's bill would create a national gun registry.
I don't think the federal government has any business having a list of law-abiding citizens who choose to exercise their right to keep and bear arms.
Let me tell you something.
Obama wants more than that.
If Obama could wave his magic wand, you would all lose your guns.
270 million guns or more.
He'd make sure you gave them up.
If he could, and don't doubt me on this, if Obama, not only that, he would, barring that, if he can't get everybody to turn in their gun or forcibly take it from them, he wants to register everybody that has a gun as though they're no different from a sex offender or what have you.
Law-abiding, peaceful people.
Barack Obama wants them branded as gun owners because he wants them thought of as potential sources of chaos, disaster, and danger.
But you notice, one of the things, another reason I like Cruz, John Roberts, I don't know him.
He's Fox.
But you notice what Ted Cruz said in the answer to his question is not even relevant.
Is there anything you would do?
Is there anything you would accept?
Anything?
Is there nothing you won't accept?
I mean, come on, Senator, is there nothing that could make you give up your guns?
And whatever answer Ted Cruz gives, no matter how brilliant, no matter how sensible, doesn't matter, is there nothing?
So the template is, we got to get rid of our guns.
We've got to register all of our guns.
Guns are dangerous.
Guns are the problem.
More people die because of hammers.
I read this the other day than guns.
This is, we're at a point in our culture where rational, factual, sensible explanations are not relevant.
And I don't know about you, but that's one of the most frustrating things to me about where we are in our culture.
You do, he's right.
Everybody's having a cow here because of Newtown.
Newtown's terrible, no question.
Like, take people aside.
Okay, Newtown happened, but do you realize that the number of mass murders taking place with guns is declining in this country?
I don't care.
I don't care.
I don't mind.
I need to get rid of the gun.
No, no, listen to me.
It's not the big problem you think that it is.
And the federal government can't stop this from happening anyway.
I don't care.
We've got to get rid of the guns.
Newtown, I saw it on TV.
Kids, we got to get rid of it.
No, no, listen to me.
The number of instances of mass murders taking place with guns is really declining.
It's happening less.
It happened far more in the past.
I don't care.
I don't care.
We're going to get rid of guns.
Newtown, I saw it on TV.
Catch your diet.
We got to get rid of it.
No, no, listen to me.
I'm trying to tell you it's not the big problem that you think it is.
It's not happening every day.
It's not happening every month.
It's not happening every year.
We have to ripping against Newtown.
I saw it on TV.
Catch it.
We're up against brick walls here.
Factual, rational explanations of things that are, by the way, focused on people maintaining their freedom and liberty don't get through.
You're up against a brick wall.
People's emotions get revved up here, and rational, factual explanations of things that are oriented toward preserving their freedom don't register.
And that's what Robert's question is.
Is there nothing you would support?
Is there nothing?
Is there one thing you would support and getting rid of it?
One thing?
No, I don't think that's the problem.
Come on, not one thing.
And that's and Cruz doesn't back down from it.
He's not trying to please the journalist.
He's not trying to curry favor with the journalist.
He is articulating the truth rationally and factually.
At some point, that has to carry the day.
One more.
Again, John Roberts.
You wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post the other day that, no, you need to retrench conservative values, develop opportunity conservatism to try to help people live the American dream.
Is that really the right way to go when you're looking at changing a demographic?
You really, Senator, do you really think that that's what to do?
Talk about opportunity conservatism and helping people live the American dream.
You really think that makes sense?
Here's what Cruz said.
It's exactly the right way to go.
The reason I am a conservative is because conservative policies work and they improve opportunity.
They are the avenue for climbing the economic dream.
And what I have been talking about for many years is opportunity conservatism, that every policy should focus like a laser on easing the means of ascent up the economic ladder, that we should be championing the 47% to take that now infamous comment.
Look, the great thing about Americans, Americans don't want to be dependent on government.
Dependency saps the spirit.
It doesn't work.
Americans want to stand on their own two feet.
And the best way to do that is have policies that allow entrepreneurs and small businesses to thrive and to create jobs and advance the American dream.
You know how many people think he sounds like a dinosaur?
What is this?
Thrive, stand on their own two feet, policies that allow entrepreneurs and small businesses to create jobs, advance the American.
You realize how out of touch he sounds, Mabel?
You realize, well, that guy's a dinosaur.
That's how it sounds to a lot of people.
When he says the American people don't want to be dependent on government, how many of you think, I don't know if he's right anymore.
Because I've got this piece that ran exclusively in the New York Post yesterday.
Welfare recipients take out cash at strip clubs, liquor stores, and X-rated shops.
A story that appeals right to low information voters, low political information voters.
Great story for TMZ.
They're on the dole and watching the poll.
Welfare recipients took out cash at bars, liquor stores, X-rated video shops, hookah parlors, even strip clubs where they presumably spent their taxpayer money on lap dances rather than diapers, according to a New York Post investigation.
A database of 200 million EBT records, electronic benefit transferred, debit cards.
January 2011 to July 2012, 18 months obtained by the Post through a Freedom of Information request showed that welfare recipients using the debit cards to make dozens of cash withdrawals at ATM's Inside Hanks Saloon in Brooklyn,
the Blue Door video porn shop in the East Village, the Anchor, which is a sleek Soho Lounge, the Patriot Saloon in Tribeca, and Drinks Galore, liquor distributor in the Bronx.
One EBT machine stationed inside Club 11, an infamous Hunts Point jiggle joint, known as much for its violent history as its girls in pink thongs.
They got a welfare machine inside Club 11.
Santa Claus.
Michael Tanner, senior fellow of the Cato Institute.
This is morally scandalous.
I have nothing against strip clubs, but that's not what benefits are for.
I don't blame recipients.
If you're poor, it's a crummy life and you want to have a drink or see a naked woman.
I blame the people who are in charge of this.
So it's not the welfare recipient's fault.
Hell no.
If I was a welfare recipient and I had a card, I'd go to a strip club too.
That's what the Cato guy said.
Okay.
Al Jazeera bought Al Gore.
They didn't buy the network.
Nobody can convince me that that network is worth $500 million.
What Al Jazeera bought is Al Gore.
He is now Al Jazeera Gore.
And I want to expand on this tomorrow when I have a little bit more time.
And we didn't get to our low-information voter segment today.
It was loaded.
So I'm going to do that tomorrow.
But here's just one item from our low-information voter pile.
Kyle XY.
This is my breaking news from TMZ right now.
Kyle XY star Matt Dallas has come out.
30-year-old Kyle XY star Matt Dallas took to Twitter to announce that he's gay and engaged to musician Blue Hamilton.
This is the first time that Matt Dallas has acknowledged in public that he's gay.
So he's starting off his new life with a new fiancé, Blue Hamilton.
Great way to kick off 2013, he says.
And we want to wish the new couple all of the best.
You know, I mean, it's about guns and gun control and registering guns and all kinds of seems to me that that's beating around the bush.
And we're not really getting to the heart of the problem.