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Jan. 15, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:46
January 15, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Hi folks, great to have you back.
El Rushbo, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, non-threatening.
Maha Rushi, here behind a golden EIB microphone, having fun, enjoying self, enjoying life, while wringing our hands over the future of the country.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address, ilrushbow at eibnet.com.
And we are going to be getting to your phone calls in mere moments.
Now, I cracked a little joke.
People just do not get, particularly in the media, people on the left, those who would qualify as my critics, literally have no sense of humor.
I am sure that an innocent little laugh line probably just royally offended a bunch of people who are now on the warpath writing that I am a sexist, misogynist,
extremist kook, all because I said that Claire Daines was asked about her meeting with Bill Clinton after the Golden Globes, and I quoted her.
She said, I was very touched.
And I said, I'll bet she was.
Now, normal people would laugh themselves comfortably over that.
The righteously indignant and the perpetually offended, of course, would be mad, angry, and upset, in addition to offended.
And so, I want to give you the full Claire Dane quote here, put a little context.
Claire Dane said, he very sweetly said that he appreciated how the character is kind of shedding light on mental illness, which is still a taboo subject.
So that was very flattering, and I was very touched.
We strive to be fair here and balanced in our approach, the EIB network.
And I wanted to give you the full Claire Danes quote in a fair, balanced, and unthreatening way.
Okay, the White House, the media is just salivating today.
Politico, the Washington Post, the New York Times, folks that can barely keep their pants up.
They are so extra- Yeah, I might not laugh at that either.
Yeah, some of them wear pants.
They're all excited over Biden's proposals.
19 proposals to try to limit the availability of guns.
19 proposals to get around the Second Amendment.
Many of these 19 proposals will come via executive order.
And if they do, they will be illegal.
Executive orders are not intended to be used this way.
Executive orders do not grant the president the power to break the law.
Executive orders do not grant the president the power to get around or violate the Constitution.
But there are 19 things that Biden is proposing.
And the story on my birthday, on January 12th from the Washington Post, sweeping new gun laws proposed by influential liberal think tank.
This is the Center for American Progress.
And I think it'd be worthwhile to go through what their proposals are because this is a think tank that has a lot of influence in the White House.
Much of what this think tank proposes, this White House attempts to implement or implement.
So what their ideas are, probably going to be very close to Obama's eventual list of demands.
And the most significant thing on the list here of gun reforms, new sweeping gun laws proposed by the Center for American Progress is to back Dianne Feinstein's bill, which, among other things, is a new assault weapons ban.
And it's preposterous.
The NRA has pointed out in some of its statements.
Feinstein's bill would basically outlaw the handguns that most Americans use today for self-defense.
Semi-automatic guns with magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds.
Now, never mind that none of her or the Center for American Progress proposals would have stopped the shooter in Newtown, Connecticut.
But that's not the idea here.
Don't doubt me when I tell you, none of these proposals, I'm sure none of Biden's 19, and I'm sure that none of the proposals, I know, none of these proposals from the Center for American Progress would have stopped the shooter in Newtown, Connecticut.
None of them would have.
And Dianne Feinstein's bill would outlaw the handguns that most Americans use today for self-defense.
She does not have the authority to do.
This is not the way you amend the Constitution.
If it were this easy, do you realize how easy it would be for them to pass a law eliminating free speech, which they've done?
How do you think Obama was able to tell the Catholic Church that they have no religious freedom guaranteed to them in the First Amendment?
Obama, with an executive order, essentially granted amnesty to a million children of illegal immigrants.
That's not what the executive order is for, but he used it that way.
He did it during the campaign.
The Republicans didn't have the guts to oppose it because the Republicans are convinced they lost the election because they oppose amnesty.
They believe the notion that they don't like Hispanics.
People think they don't like Hispanics.
Hispanics, therefore, hate Republicans.
And so what the Republicans have to do is become more like Democrats in order to be liked by Hispanics and maybe ever get their votes.
So there is no opposition to what Obama is doing.
He can't outlaw handguns with a piece of legislation.
It's not that simple.
The Constitution is not easy to change.
But here's what the Washington Post said about the proposals from the Center for American Progress.
They are recommending 13 new gun policies to the White House, some of them executive actions that would not require the approval of Congress.
And what this is, is basically a wet dream list, a wish list.
I remember there were some people during the campaign who were laughed at, mocked, made fun of for saying the Second Amendment might be endangered by Obama's election, re-election executive order.
People laughed when we said that.
Oh, you're paranoid.
Oh, you got him wrong.
Obama doesn't care about it.
And now look what's happening.
The proposals from CAP, the Center for American Progress, include requiring universal background checks, banning military-grade assault weapons and high-capacity ammo magazines, modernizing data systems to track gun sales, and enforce existing law.
Remember, we have a proposal to enforce existing law.
Don't forget while you hear all this that it was this administration that created the program called Fast and Furious.
And just to review, Fast and Furious Set up, not just allowed.
Fast and Furious designed a program whereby guns could be purchased legally in Phoenix gun shops and then walked across the border into Mexico and given to drug lords and vicious crime lords and gangs.
Those guns were then obviously to be used by the drug lords and the crime gangs, and they were used to slaughter hundreds of people.
The point of the program, what was supposed to happen after Fast and Furious is exactly what did happen after Newtown, Connecticut.
The news was supposed to be this.
Guns legally purchased, how could this be, in Arizona gunshots ended up in the hands of Mexican drug lords and hundreds of people died in gunfire.
And the American people are supposed to say, enough.
We can't permit this anymore.
We've got to tighten it down.
Meanwhile, the only way it happened was because the administration set up the program to allow it to happen.
It was designed to create the same reaction that did occur after Newtown, Connecticut.
So this talk about having a proposal to enforce existing law, it's absurd.
We're not enforcing existing law in a number of areas, particularly immigration.
Obama has voiced support for many of the proposals from the Center for American Progress, but it's unclear which policies he ultimately will propose to Congress.
Biden is planning to present his group's recommendation to Obama today.
And you can bet that this wish list is going to be Obama's eventual list of demands.
It's going to be a combination of what Biden's come up with is going to be largely what the Center for American Progress is dreaming about.
And it's going to contain language like, we'll try to go to Congress or get Congress to pass this and pass that.
But lurking over there in the shadows is the executive order.
If they are unable to get what they want legislatively, they'll just do it.
Now, the big thing from CAP is urging the regime to back Senator Feinstein's proposal to ban assault weapons.
She wants to prohibit the sale, transfer, importation, and manufacture of military-style assault weapons and ammunition magazines that carry more than 10 bullets.
None of these proposals would have stopped the shooter in Newtown, Connecticut.
None of them.
There is no such thing as an assault weapon, by the way.
An assault weapons ban is a catch-all term, but there is no such thing as an assault weapon.
That's not an official category.
But the fact that none of this would have stopped the shooter in Newtown, again, that was never the idea.
This is simply Rom Emmanuel, never let a crisis go to waste.
Everybody knows that the Democrat Party, if they could, would take your gun away from you.
Everybody, this is not a mystery.
I can't believe people want to try to make a big cause celeb out of this.
I'm 62 years old my entire life.
I've listened to them dream.
I've been confronted personally by people who have demanded that I see the right way.
I was, when I was the guest speaker, the NRA convention, sometime back in the 90s, I think I mentioned this story once.
I was invited to be the guest speaker.
I was at that time approached by two members Of the mainstream media and one member of the Clinton administration.
And they said to me, you can change the world with your speech.
You are rush limbaugh.
If you go to the NRA and you tell them that they've got to change, if you tell them that there are too many guns and that they are responsible and it's time for reform, you can change the world.
See, any of you who want to tell me that I am exaggerating or being extreme when I suggest that the nirvana desire on the part of Democrats is to get rid of guns, don't even try it.
I know that that's the case.
If they could write their ticket, if they could, they would eliminate guns.
And there are a whole host of reasons why, and safety is probably not in the top five.
They will say it's number one, but it's not in the top five.
But that's beside the point.
The point is, even last week and yesterday, all over cable news, I think it was last week primarily, a couple of networks tried to go to town on this notion that I was making an allegation that was never true, couldn't possibly be true.
The Democrats don't want to take everybody's guns away.
Who is this limbo guy?
Who does he think he is?
By saying this, he's creating dangerous tension in this culture.
I'm not inventing this.
I have been approached.
I have been approached by Democrats and media people who told me I could facilitate this if I would simply go tell the NRA the truth as they see it.
But even besides that, you know it and I know it.
Why are these people so focused on 19 proposals?
Why are they so focused on executive orders?
Why are they so intent on assault weapon bans, this weapon ban, that weapon ban?
What's the end result?
So to me, it's undeniable what their end-of-the-day dream actually is.
And I don't doubt how far they would go in order to make it happen.
It depends on the level of opposition they face.
It's solely a matter of that.
Got to take a quick timeout.
Your phone calls are coming next, so don't go away, folks.
We'll be right back.
I just heard that Obama and Biden, and now I'm confused.
I just got a note that said that Obama and Biden are going to present their gun control proposals tomorrow.
I thought it was today.
But regardless, I have been told that they are going to include lots of children at the ceremony or the announcement.
Children who have written to the White House asking the president to get guns made more safely.
Children who have asked the White House to protect them.
Children who have written to the White House expressing their fear, the fact that they are frightened over the existence of so many guns, and they worry that what happened at the school in Connecticut could happen to theirs.
And so there will be a parade of young skulls full of mush to make the emotional connection that we must do these gun reforms for the children.
Of course it's exploitation, but it works.
It works.
Bring a bunch of kids up.
We're doing this for them.
We're getting guns safer, reducing the number of guns to enhance the safety of our children, the future of our country.
Who could oppose this?
Jay Carney said that the children who wrote to Obama after the Newtown shootings will join Obama and Biden.
I guess it is.
They've moved the announcement to tomorrow.
Children who wrote to Obama after Newtown.
To the phones we go, Fargo, North Dakota.
We're going to start with Tim.
I'm glad you called, sir.
Great to have you here.
Hi.
Thank you, Rush.
Mr. Stern asked me to get right to the point, so I will.
You know, we talk about what Obama's doing, but when are we going to take some action, you know, like at the polls or at contacting our representatives or whatever, because he is acting, he's behaving like a dictator and he's violating the law.
We can talk about it and, you know, wring our hands, but we need to go contact our local representatives, our state, our federal representatives.
And we need to, I mean, I read that there's a senator in Texas or somewhere who's considering impeachment.
I think that's the right course of action.
We need to get our elected officials involved in this.
And by the way, those kids at this event tomorrow, if they knew how close they were to, you talk about an arsenal of weapons, I wonder if the Secret Service was going to be leaving their guns at home for that one.
Well, but those are good weapons, and that's a good arsenal.
And that arsenal is to protect them.
The kids will feel entirely, totally safe.
Those are good guns.
Those are good guns in the possession of good people.
Rush, we need to get every one of your listeners to contact the representatives.
They've been doing that, sir.
They've been doing that.
My listeners have done everything.
They have written, they've called.
They've voted.
They have donated money.
They have raised money.
They have joined Freedom Works.
They have joined grassroots efforts to get out the vote.
They've done all of that.
They've been doing it for 25 years.
They've done it.
The listeners of this program have gone above and beyond.
The listeners of this program is not the problem, sir.
The problem, we addressed it yesterday.
The conservative movement does not have a single spokesman, either elected or in the media, who has credibility with low-information voters.
Every single conservative that otherwise would has been destroyed.
Image, reputation, character, honor, dignity, they've been destroyed by the media, by the Democrats.
Whenever one pops up, shows any attempt or any ability, any effectiveness, they immediately join forces, set out to destroy that individual.
And the conservative movement never defends the individual under attack, or very seldom does.
The Republican Party oftentimes joins in the assault.
The Republican moderates will oftentimes join, as they did on Sarah Palin.
They will oftentimes join the assault on the effective conservative.
People in this audience, they're frustrated like you are.
They've done all that that you suggest and more.
And the level of their frustration is they don't see it making a difference.
And I understand how they feel.
The thing that I think is crucially necessary is unity in the opposition to Obama and the Democrat Party.
And there isn't any.
There's too much jealousy.
There's too much power seeking.
There's too much delight when an effective conservative is taken out by the media.
Other conservatives, some go, okay, that's less competition for me to be the big guy.
That's just the way things are.
Democrats, though, circle the wagon around every one of their people who comes under attack or under assault.
We'll be back.
See, right there it is.
Fox has it now.
Obama to be joined by the children at the press conference on gun control tomorrow.
Gun control plan.
Children who've written the White House after Newtown, Connecticut.
Here's why I was confused.
Biden is presenting his ideas to Obama today, but tomorrow is when they're going to announce them.
Now, folks, I want to tell you something in as non-threatening a way as I can.
These 19 proposals that Biden has have not been written in recent days.
They've been sitting in a drawer someplace.
And there are actually more than 19 of them.
But the I say it in a non-threatening way, in an attempted humorous way, the wet dream plan for eliminating guns in this country has been a plan that the left has had for years, and it's been sitting in a drawer somewhere waiting to be pulled out at the appropriate time, just like healthcare was.
The Obamacare bill is, it's either 2,200 or 2,700 pages.
I get confused.
It's over 2,000.
Now, we would want us to believe that this bill was written in 30 to 60 days.
And it was sitting in a drawer.
Congressional staffers for years have been writing it, adding to it, amending it, just waiting for the right time to offer it and implement it.
And it was determined in 2010 that that was the right time.
These gun proposal ideas, they're not new.
They're not based on any recent event.
That's just the catalyst.
They've been around for a long time.
Jay Carney at the White House this afternoon, a press briefing, got a question.
There's been some fears among gun owners, Jay, that the president might unilaterally try to restrict their right to bear arms or their access to weapons.
Does the president believe that his executive powers give him the ability to restrict someone's right to access certain weapons or ammunition?
The president, as he has said often and said yesterday, believes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms.
The president will take a comprehensive approach, but it is a simple fact that there are limits on what can be done within existing law, and Congress has to act on the kinds of measures that we've already mentioned because the power to do that is reserved by Congress and to Congress.
So I'm not going to get ahead of the president.
Congress didn't reserve that power for itself.
The Constitution assigned that power to Congress.
It's the Constitution that is the source authority for who it is that writes laws in this country.
Congress didn't say we want to do that.
The Constitution grants Congress that authority.
They do not grant the president that authority.
But here, Jay Carney refused to say whether Obama thinks that he's got the power to take guns by executive order.
Jay Carney did not say unilaterally no to the question.
Does the president believe that his executive power is given the ability to restrict the right to access weapons or MO?
Jay Carney would not say yes or no.
He retreated into minutia and boilerplate and said, don't want to get ahead of the president.
The president's going to announce whatever new ideas he's got on stage with the children tomorrow.
U.S. News and World reporting, a day before Obama scheduled to release Biden's recommendations, the NRA says that they have seen membership grow by a quarter of a million in the month since the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.
Now, the Politico reported membership of the NRA had grown by more than 100,000 five days ago.
The NRA says that when Politico reported that story, membership was close to 200,000, but now it's a quarter of a million.
Membership in the NRA up by a quarter of a million since the shooting.
Now, why would that be happening?
No, seriously, seriously, why would it be happening?
Wait, wait a minute.
Snerdley said because people are sick of the response.
So your theory is that people are joining the NRA in reaction to the government's efforts to limit the ability to get guns.
So just like Democrats, rich Democrats move their income forward to beat a tax increase.
So gun owners are buying guns before it may not be legal to.
And ammo.
And ammo.
Well, not only is ammo sold out, Walmart, you mean that Walmart announced yesterday a moratorium on selling it until the regime makes known its plans.
Why would Walmart do that?
Why would Walmart, on their own, ban themselves from selling ammo?
Exactly right to try to curry favor with Obama to stay, hopefully, in Obama's good graces, because Walmart's already a target of the left being non-union.
There's also another reason I think people are joining the NRA, and I think there's another reason people are buying weapons.
Safety to protect themselves against something like this happening in their house.
What if this shooter decided to shoot up the people in his house instead of a school?
Well, he didn't because his mother was loaded with weapons.
He went to a place he knew nobody had any.
That's what happens.
You announce gun-free zones.
That's where the people that want to use guns go.
It's human nature.
Criminals are relatively intelligent at certain things.
And if, for example, they're going to rob a bank, they do it because that's where the money is.
If the bank has no guards, it's even a bigger target.
If a school doesn't permit guns, then the gunman says, that's my place, Daddy O.
It's the presence of armed resistance that stops these people, like the shooter in Newtown.
So for a host of reasons, you have people arming up with weapons and ammo.
And yet the president and the media, and this ticks them, I can't tell you how it ticks them off, because what they hope is that this many people would be quitting the NRA.
They want this many people to be resigning the NRA.
They have hoped that they could dredge up such animosity toward the NRA, the way they've been covering the story, they want people to hate the NRA.
They want people to quit.
They want people to give up their guns because the media is saying that's how we're going to make our country safer is everybody gets rid of their guns.
And the media is frustrated that their influence isn't working here.
And when they see a quarter of a million people join the NRA after Newtown, when they see guns marching themselves off the shelves practically, when they see ammo sold out, I can't tell you how ticked off at you they are.
I can't tell you how angry this makes Democrats and the media, president probably too.
You're not behaving the way you should.
You see, this just proves to them that you need to be controlled.
This just proves to them that you are inherently not decent people, that you inherently can't be trusted to do the right thing.
The right thing here is to give up your guns so that another Newtown doesn't happen.
The right thing here is to renounce the NRA.
But since you don't do that, since you buy guns and buy ammo and join the NRA, you must be controlled.
You can't be trusted.
You're not good.
There is not inherent goodness in our society, not in their point of view.
There is inherent badness, evil.
This proves it.
Therefore, you can expect them to double down on whatever their restrictions are.
Of course, there'll be a response to that.
I don't we'll see.
I'm not entirely sure that the left is fully aware, even though it's as plain as day what's happening.
I see what they're doing in New York, and I said, Bloomberg, by the way, the mayor, is urging Obama to forget the Constitution and to ignore Congress and just ban guns.
Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, is urging this.
Yes, I know what Governor Kumo is doing.
They've already got the strictest gun laws in the country there in Washington, D.C.
They still lead the nation in crime with guns.
But the bottom line is they just double down.
When you don't behave the way they think you should, their effort and their intention to control you compounds.
You make them mad, and they're going to really come after you.
And that's what you're doing.
When you load up on guns and you load up on ammo and you join the NRA, you are making them mad.
You're ignoring them.
You're not doing what they think you should do.
So they're going to have to control you.
And we'll get an indication of how they intend to try tomorrow.
Mr. Snerdley just asked me a question.
He said, you know, you're addressing low-information voters in the low-information voter community, and then you're speaking to them.
Do you think maybe it's kind of counterproductive?
You think you might be offending them by denoting them that way, calling them out?
I said, no.
The low-information voter doesn't have enough information to know that he or she's in that community.
They think I'm talking about somebody else.
This guy was watching.
You know, sometimes I go back and I watch old black and white TV shows from the late 50s and early 60s.
This is a nostalgic trip.
I'll never forget my dad and mom, every Saturday night, 7.30, would watch Perry Mason, and my dad would grill steaks, still the best steaks I remember ever tasting anywhere.
He had his big, big oil drum barbecue pit that Vernon Kasten gave him.
And we'd go out there and we'd barbecue the steaks and this giant baked potatoes with butter and sour cream and my mother looking the other way and salads.
And we'd sit there with the TV trays and watch Perry Mason.
So sometimes I get just a nostalgic kick.
I've got a bunch of Perry Masons on DVD, but very few of them.
Only the most recent releases, seasons 6, 7, 8, have closed captioning.
So a friend of mine has gone out, found the early seasons with the closed captioning files, and has unified them.
And I've got them on my Apple TV.
Sometimes I sit there and I watch them.
And I watched one recently, and they had this caricature of some rich Hollywood guy, turned out to be the villain.
And he's on the witness stand, turned out to be the murderer.
But he's this arrogant, just total, perfect caricature of a Hollywood producer.
Lives in his giant mansion and has servants and everything.
And he's asked by Perry, what kind of card do you?
A rules, of course.
What do you mean?
A rules.
And he was asked if he could testify whether or not two particular people were at a party he had thrown.
And in his arrogant, aristocratic way, he says, Mr. Mason, my parties are so entertaining that no one's aware of anyone else who's there, much less me.
And it's sort of that way with the low-information voter.
They don't have enough information to know that they're low-information.
So they think I'm talking about somebody else.
Ask them.
They will tell you.
So Snerdley's all worried about this.
He said, because, you know, low-profile as a New Year's resolution to be far less threatening, even, I don't think I'm threatening at all, but to some people I am.
So I'm trying to dial that back.
So Snerdley, you might be offending them.
No, no, no.
It's not because they don't think they're in that group.
It's like the 47% when Romney was talking.
Nobody in that group really thinks they are.
That's what amazed me about people being offended by it.
Nobody thinks they're in the 47%.
Nobody thinks they're a sponge.
Nobody thinks they're a total taker.
Nobody thinks that they're just living off the fat of everybody else.
Nobody thinks they're in that group.
That's why I was surprised anybody got offended by it.
I thought everybody would agree with Romney, frankly.
Anyway, here's Jay Carney.
Here's his official.
This is Carney announcing the children at the gun control ceremony tomorrow.
I can tell you that tomorrow, the president and vice president will hold an event here at the White House to unveil a package of concrete proposals to reduce gun violence and prevent future tragedies like the one in Newtown, Connecticut.
It won't.
They will be joined by children from around the country who wrote the president letters in the wake of that tragedy expressing their concerns about gun violence and school safety along with their parents.
That event will be at approximately 11.45.
If a bunch of kids wrote the president and said that their parents aren't giving them enough candy, do you think Obama would have them to the White House and do candy control ceremonies?
Okay, so a bunch of kids scared to death over what happened in Newtown, write Obama, and they and their parents are going to be there as Obama holds an event to unveil a package of concrete proposals to reduce gun violence and prevent future tragedies like the one in Newtown.
And I'm telling you, not one thing I have seen would have prevented what happened in Newtown.
I say this in a balanced way and with all humility.
You can't stop all of these events from happening.
If we could, they wouldn't happen.
Now, that's, folks, that's too insensitive and heartless in some people's minds to say that.
That's realville.
That's where I get in trouble.
Too honest about stuff.
Here's Niall.
Is that right?
Niall, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Hi, Niall.
Great you called.
Hi, how are you?
Good.
Thank you.
Hey, Rush.
I'm 23 years old and Hella Ditto, by the way.
That's a Utah term, hella.
Well, thank you.
Very much.
I appreciate that.
Yep, and pretty much, Mike, I'm calling.
They certainly want me to get to the point.
I'm calling because I play quite a bit of video games myself, but I personally think that that's just not the correct argument.
I think the correct argument is that the people that go to the extreme while playing the video games because their parents are letting them use their system as a babysitter opposed to doing decent parenting themselves and getting off the couch.
That's what I think the correct argument is when they're blaming it on video games.
Wait, say that again.
It's not the video games themselves that's the problem.
It's the parents.
I think it is to the extreme.
It's the parents allowing the video games to babysit their children.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Because the children, they're on it eight and ten hours a day.
Yeah, yeah.
Basically, a bunch of parents who wish they didn't have kids or ran have time to themselves.
So here, kid play the video.
Anything that keeps the kid occupied, fine with them.
Is that what you mean?
Sadly, yes, that's true.
Sadly, exactly right.
Yeah.
See, even without kids, I know exactly how they feel.
Distracted every time.
So you're a gamer?
I do enjoy video games, yes, but I'm also a Rush.
I'm first-generation.
So you've never been, have you ever played a video game and say, you know what, this looks like fun?
I'm going to go fire my gun into a crowd of people.
Not a single time.
Not a single time.
And I honestly say that.
I like you.
I believe you.
I totally believe you.
And I didn't expect you to admit it anyway.
So what the heck?
Okay, that's it, folks.
Another exciting hour of busy broadcast excellence in the can on the way over to Limbaugh Broadcast Museum.
Yes, I heard that.
Somebody at the Golden Globes asked Bill Clinton, hey, how's Hillary's head?
And he said, not as good as.
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