All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 15, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:13
January 15, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Hang on a minute, folks.
A late start here.
I'm lighting the two o'clock hour cigar.
Oh, the one o'clock hour cigar.
finished it.
Excellent.
Okay, now, ready to go.
Great to have you back, folks.
El Rushbo and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
It's a thrill and delight to be with you.
It always is.
And I'm going to try to get, what have we taken?
Two phone calls today.
Is that it?
Maybe three?
And I really intended to take more than that.
So we're going to hustle this hour and get more in.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882 and the email address El Rushbo at EIBnet.com.
Lisa Murkowski.
I want to talk about the debt limit deal because it's happening all over again.
And frankly, I think this is all an exercise in futility anyway.
We don't have the numbers, but more importantly, we don't have the will to stop Obama here in what he wants to do.
He hasn't presented a budget in four years.
Well, the Democrats and the Senate haven't done a budget.
Obama presents a budget every year that's dead on arrival.
No Obama budget in four years has even gotten a single vote, folks.
Not one vote, including from Democrats.
And just yesterday, the regime told Congress that they're not going to be on time with this year's budget, which is February 4th by law.
The budget has to be submitted.
The administration's budget has to be submitted by February 4th.
They're going to miss it.
But it's all an academic proposal because Obama's budgets are never, they never see the light of day.
They're all dead on arrival.
They don't get one vote.
And the reason they're not intended to, Obama submits budgets that are instantly thrown out.
The reason that the Democrats have not proposed and presented a budget is because they've tried to shield from the American people and the low-information voter community what their real plans are.
The Democrats know full well that if they were to be upfront and honest about their plans, they would not win very many elections.
So the reason, everybody thinks it's a strategic or tactical reason for not presenting a budget.
And to a certain extent it is, I mean, because they allow then the budget to be funded with a continuing resolution followed by another continuing resolution, which gives us this never-ending budget crisis that we've been in for three years.
Every time we near the end of a continuing resolution, we have a crisis.
We reach a debt limit.
We're about to run out of money.
We've got to authorize new spending.
It's a never-ending crisis.
And all hell is going to break loose if we don't do something immediately.
And so the proper way to budget the expense of the country has not been done for four years.
And the real reason for it is that the Democrats have been trying to shield their plans.
The secondary reason is the creation of this crisis mentality that never goes away, that they have used exceptionally well to get what they want.
So we had the fiscal cliff deal, and all through the month of December, there was hand-wringing and a crisis, and oh, my God, what's going to happen if we don't deal with this cliff?
OG defense cuts and Medicare cuts and tax increases.
Oh, no, oh no, what are we going to do?
Woe is us.
Obama would negotiate.
Boehner was negotiating in private.
Obama was lying.
Boehner couldn't get anybody to get away with him, agree with him, none of it.
It was a mess.
And finally, at the last minute, as is always the case, we caved in on the premise, well, we caved by agreeing to raise taxes on the rich.
For the first time in 20 years, the Republicans gave up a core value.
They agreed to raise taxes on the rich and thereby allowed Obama to claim that that's the problem.
Tax cuts for the rich all these years is the reason why we have a budget problem.
It's why we have a deficit.
It's why we have national debt so big.
And the Republicans acquiesced so that they wouldn't be blamed.
They said they did it to make sure that taxes on the middle class didn't go up.
The Bush tax rates for the middle class were etched in stone.
They were made permanent, score big points for that.
But there weren't any points scored because people's taxes didn't go up.
So there was no change.
You don't get points for no change.
And I don't care what the rhetoric is beforehand.
By definition, the low-information people aren't paying enough attention to know what's going on.
The only way you're going to get their attention is if taxes go up, which they did, by the way, with the payroll tax cut not being restored, or continued rather.
So despite all this talk about nobody's taxes going up, everybody's taxes have, including the rich, which the Republicans expected to get some credit for, which of course is never going to happen.
Anyway, you get the drift.
Crisis to crisis, Republicans always cave, but it's a never-ending cycle.
It's a constant shell game that is played, and we are the suckers.
We look to the budget and Obama's budget and then the Democrats.
And will they present a budget?
And they don't.
And then Obama's budget's voted down.
Then it's to the continuing resolution.
And will we fund the new one?
Are we going to run out of money?
Will Social Security checks still go out?
Oh, no.
Will Medicare payments still be made?
Oh, no.
And then we solve that.
And then we're back to the debt ceiling.
Oh, no, we're about to run out of money.
We can't spend anymore.
Oh, my God.
We're going to face default.
Oh, that would be terrible.
We fixed that.
We go back to the fiscal cliff.
Then we go back to the budget.
Then we go back to the debt ceiling.
Then we go back to the budget.
And then we go back to shut down the government maybe.
It never stops.
It is a constant, never-ending shell game.
And here's where we are in it today.
At each stage of this shell game, in recent years, the Republicans have been the ones to cave in.
The Republicans have been the ones to give up things that are important to them, like tax cuts, spending cuts.
The Republicans cave so that people will like them, so that people won't think that they're mean, so that people won't think that they're extremists and racists.
And even after the Republicans cave, and if they give away everything, they're still racists and sexists and bigots and homophobes and creeps and lechers and purse snatchers and rapists and muggers.
And that's on a good day.
So here we are.
Up next in the shell game, since we've fixed the fiscal cliff, up next is the debt limit.
Now, do you remember one of the strategeries during the whole debt ceiling deal?
You heard it.
I heard it.
I passed it along to you.
Republican Wizards of Smart said, look, let's just, you know, this is not the field to fight this battle on.
Let's go ahead.
Let's do the fiscal cliff and let's take it to him on the debt ceiling.
That's what we'll do on the debt limit.
That's where we'll fight the battle.
That's where we'll take it to Obama.
That's where we'll make him pay.
That's where we'll get the spending cuts.
Remember that?
Okay, that's where we are.
We're now at the debt limit.
And guess what?
This is not the time to fight this battle.
We can't win anything on the debt limit.
Let's not even fight this battle here.
Let's go ahead and avoid this.
Let's authorize a new debt limit and let's fight on the budget in March.
And let's focus.
That's where the real spending is.
This debt limit, that's just a full faith in credit country.
We don't want to mess with that.
We don't want to mess with the bills not being paid.
Let's go ahead and let bills be paid.
Let's authorize that.
We'll take it to Obama on the budget.
And that's where we'll make him spending cuts.
We'll make him engage.
That's where Social Security checks will be threatened.
And that's where, and they'll go back to government shutdown.
That's where we are.
Lisa Murkowski, breaking with the GOP, said in an interview published today, she does not think the debt ceiling should be political leverage to cut government spending.
She said to the Fairbanks Daily Newsminer: if you incur an obligation, you have a responsibility to pay for that.
Murkowski doesn't think the debt limit should be used for political leverage.
Now, it was just less than a month ago that the strategy was: hey, look, we're not, this is not the hill to fight on.
This debt ceiling, the fiscal cliff, that's not the hill to fight on.
We will take it to Obama during the debt limit.
So here we are, and the proposal has been made now to ignore this and give away another vestige or core belief.
And Newt Gingrich, by the way, agrees.
CBS this morning, the co-host at Nora O'Donnell, interviewing the former speaker, she said, you say that fighting over the debt ceiling is a bad idea for congressional Republicans.
Why?
Because in the end, it's a threat they can't sustain.
No one is going to default.
No one is going to allow the United States to not pay its bills.
No one is going to accept the economic costs.
It rallies the entire business community to the president's side.
And the fact is, the Republicans have two much better arenas in which to fight overspending.
They have a continuing resolution which funds government, which comes up at the end of March, and they have the sequester, which automatically cuts spending unless it's dealt with.
Those two fronts they can fight, and they have much less resistance from the average American, and it's much harder for the president to oppose them.
And when we get to March and the continuing resolution, you know what?
What will be said then?
This is not the hill to fight on.
This, we don't want to be responsible for people not getting their Social Security checks.
We don't want to be blamed for it.
We won't be responsible, but we'll be blamed.
We don't want to get blamed for Medicare cuts.
No, this is.
And they'll delay fighting Obama and the shell game continues.
I'm telling you, less than three weeks ago, everybody was saying, okay, let Obama have it here on the fiscal cliff, and we'll take it to him on the debt limit.
We've got it right where we want it now.
We'll marshal our forces and we'll really take him to the wall on the debt limit.
And now here we are.
And I know Lisa Murkowski doesn't speak for the whole party, but it's out there now.
But Newt coming, this is not the hill to fight on.
And I'm just telling you that every stage of the shell game, the same thing, this is not the time.
We don't have the American people behind us.
A low-information voter won't understand.
We can't run the risk that we'll be blamed for Maud's Social Security check not arriving.
No, we've got to save this fight for the summer.
That's what we'll do.
And we'll really take it to Obama when the new iPhone comes out.
That's the plan.
19 new gun regulations.
It was just yesterday we had the audio soundbite of Calypso Louis Farrakhan from December 30th saying that he watched Django, Unchained, and or Django.
I get the name of that movie.
Anyway, he said, if a black man watches that movie and comes out of that movie, realizing what he really, if a white man watches that movie and comes out thinking there's going to be a race war, well, 19 new proposals.
19 is Minister Farrakhan's secret number.
19 is the number that proves the conspiracy.
We did a bid on it.
He made it in a million-man march.
You remember Farrakhan went through the whole thing about what 19 means.
Anyway, Christy, Strongsville, Ohio.
I'm glad you called.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hello, sir.
How are you?
Just fine.
Thank you very much.
I'm just fine.
Thank you very much.
How are you?
Oh, pretty good.
Excellent.
Go ahead.
Thank you for calling.
I'm calling because I'm a little offended.
Oh, no.
Yes.
At what?
Well, at your words that you use.
I am, well, I used to be an uninformed voter, and I get offended when you say that we don't care, that we really are just too stupid to know what's going on.
No, no.
Because we're not.
But we do care.
No, you are inferring things that I have not said.
I haven't even implied that.
But you said we don't care.
No, I've said low information means you don't know.
It means you're not informed.
Some low information don't care.
I mean, to the sense that they care around election time every year.
But other than that, it's TMZ and the E-Entertainment Channel.
Right.
And that's exactly what they watch.
That's really because the local news does not tell us anything.
That's exactly my point.
You are confirming what I'm saying.
You actually are uninformed is not low-informed.
Uninformed is not, I don't care to be informed.
Okay.
The low-informed voter simply chooses to be informed about other things, like Claire Danes and what she did with Clinton after the Golden Globes.
Or Kim Kardashian's baby with Kanye.
I mean, they care more about that than they do the debt limit.
I have found five more people that listen to you because they heard you say something about Kim Kardashian.
See?
So I think it's working.
You're actually working there.
Well, I do too.
It's the right thing every now and then when you give that little tidbit.
I'm happy to hear you say that.
Yes.
I really am.
It's working.
How many people?
Did you say five?
Five people.
I have been trying to tell everybody I know since I have become more informed that they need to start paying attention because I come from a group of people in my world.
We have children.
We have basketball games and football games and cheerleading practices and music lessons and PTA.
And then we have to clean up when we get home, and then we have to make dinner, and then we clean up from dinner, and then it's bath time, and then it's bedtime.
We don't have time to pay attention to CNN, NBC, MSNBC, all that garbage.
We watch the local news, mostly at 10 o'clock, and then we go to sleep because we can't stay up any longer.
When we're in our cars, we are either talking to our children or we are listening to the music stations, which tell you way less than any of the other things do.
And the local news is where we get our information from.
The local news does not tell you anything at all.
When I heard about the Benghazi thing, you know, that guy that did that stuff over in the Middle East, I rushed home and waited and made sure that I made the 10 o'clock news to watch it.
Even though I had 50 other things that I had to do, I made sure that I could watch it 25 minutes after it started.
It came on.
They spent a minute on it.
And I know it was a minute and 12 seconds because I rewound my DVR and I was at the 2012 on the Benghazi thing.
And the guy turned after he said an ambassador was killed and three other Americans over in, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And he turned to the lady beside him and he says, Those people are always fighting over there.
And in other news, a box of puppies was found on the interstate.
I was like, holy crap, you seriously did not spend more than a minute.
They spent five minutes after that.
Puppies in a box.
Christy, you're singing my song.
Your story about the Benghazi guy is exactly.
And that's just it.
I started calling people and texting people and messaging people on Facebook, 785 people in my list.
And I was able to find 12 people, literally 12 people that knew Benghazi was not a guy.
Seriously, they think Benghazi is some guy.
And Al Jazeera, he's the guy that owns that radio.
What they think is that Benghazi is a guy who made a video that caused a riot, and he's in jail now.
They didn't even know about the video.
All they knew was that Benghazi was some guy over in the Middle East that did something with the ambassador.
Well, what was it that allowed you to break through all this and graduate from low information status?
It was actually the Benghazi thing was a really big, big thing, but I've been kind of listening from time to time over the past few years because I came into work one day and it was before, not this last election, the first other election.
I happened to see this nice-looking black man on TV on the regular news talking about how parents need to be held accountable.
And that was really all I caught.
And I went into work the next day and I said, so there's this senator guy that's going to be running for president.
His name's something, Obama, something or other.
And I think he might be awesome.
And my boss hit the roof.
45 minutes later, after this tirade of Republicans and Democrats and political this and political that, he told me, he says, you need to start paying attention because that guy is not the guy you think he is.
And I kind of started paying a little bit of attention here and there, but then I had a baby.
I got busy.
I was doing some stuff.
I haven't really been paying attention.
A little bit here, a little bit there.
Then the Benghazi thing, I happened to be listening all day that day, caught the news in the morning.
I listened to several other political talk show people now.
And I was like, holy crap, I got to pay attention.
And they spent a minute and 12 seconds on it in the local news.
The last time any ambassador was killed was like 30 years ago.
Like I was saying, let me tell you something.
Christy, I'm running out of time here, but you've been great.
And I'm going to tell you something.
You have, because you know you were the person, you have perfectly described the low-information voter that we're trying to reach.
So busy with so many other things, dominated with lives by kids.
So, you listen to what they listen to, you watch what they watch, you catch 30 minutes of the local news, and then you got to go to bed.
Your day's shut.
We understand.
That's what we're trying to reach.
Did you hear everything she said?
She said, We watch local news.
We've got so much going on in our lives, we don't pay attention.
We watch local news, and he did an hour, you know, a minute and 12 seconds on this Benghazi guy who killed the ambassador, and then they throw it to a story about dead puppies found on the side of the highway.
And the anchor says, Yeah, they're always fighting about something over there.
What hope do people have if that is the sum total of exposure to news that they have everywhere?
What hope do they have of being informed?
That's why we've made it our mission here to bring low-information voters into the fold.
But I'm going to tell you, a low-information voter doesn't know he or she is low-information except in retrospect.
She had no idea she was a low-information voter when she was.
What are you laughing at?
This is a compassionate project here.
They're not stupid.
That's all they're exposed to.
What's stupid is the news.
What's stupid is the media.
The low-information voter is not stupid.
The low-information voter is busy.
The low-information voter has a busy lots of kids, a lot of financial pressure.
The economy happens to be in a tank.
They look for an escape wherever they can.
Hello, TMZ.
Hello, celebrity news.
They get all excited.
You know what I saw today?
The very first pictures of Blue Ivy are going to be on TV one night this week.
The very first pictures of Blue Ivy.
Blue Ivy.
You don't know who Blue Ivy is?
That's that, that's that's Blue Ivy is Beyoncé and Jay-Z's baby.
Well, you do now.
You know now.
And Blue Ivy, the very first ever pictures of Blue Ivy are going to be part of a one-hour special on Beyoncé.
It's on HBO or something this week.
And the pictures are of Blue Ivy, the size of a finger in a sonogram.
That's how they're promoting it.
The first ever pictures of Blue Ivy.
Now, if that is your exposure to the news, because that's all you've got time for, that's what your kids are watching.
Is it you who are stupid or is it the news that's stupid?
Note our project here is not aimed at changing the news.
Our project is aimed at informing the low-information voter.
Now, you heard Christy say she was a little offended, but I know you just did that.
You just got that call because you asked me earlier if I thought it was offensive the way I was approaching it, and I said no.
So you were hell-bent on finding somebody to say they were offended, just to ram it down my face.
Snirdly.
I know what you were doing in there.
But when she got going, she wasn't mad.
She wanted to be understood.
She was actually, I think, a little embarrassed at what she didn't know.
And mad that she didn't know what she didn't know.
But she's entirely capable of learning it, knowing it.
You heard her talk about it.
Once she found out about it, she knew exactly what was happening and what it was.
She just hadn't been told about it.
Ergo, low-information voter.
The problem here.
And by the way, folks, is the media, well, they might have choices to watch media-wise, but in a house full of kids, what's the TV going to be on?
Here's well, you can't compare it to when you were kids, when we were kids, because we didn't have the sources that we have today.
The bottom line here is every time somebody blames the media for something, there's the reaction, oh, that's the old dad, blame the media.
You're never going to go anywhere blaming the media.
You know, everybody's always embarrassed away from blaming.
I'm telling you, it is the media.
The problem is the media.
Even if this woman only watched MSNBC, what would she know about Benghazi?
Nothing.
If she watched CNN, what would she know about Benghazi?
That some dangerous video maker had made a movie that caused a protest, but for three weeks, there wasn't any coverage of it except here and on Fox.
It wouldn't matter what she watched unless she found us because they didn't cover it because they follow Obama's lead.
And if Obama doesn't want Benghazi to be news, it isn't going to be.
Pure and simple.
John, San Francisco, great to have you, sir, on the program.
Hi.
Good morning, Rush, or good afternoon, where you are.
Rush, I just have one question for you.
If President Obama decides that he is going to circumvent the Constitution by executive order, would he be liable for impeachment under the Constitution or I should say an offense against the Constitution?
After all, he did take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, and he's about to do it again.
And with your kind permission, I'm going to hang up on myself and take your answer on the air.
Thank you.
All right.
That's John in San Francisco.
Interesting that he brings that up.
A congressman from Texas named Stockman has actually suggested that it is an impeachable offense if the president starts using executive orders to in any way alter the Constitution, particularly the Second Amendment.
But, John, let me tell you, it's like the commission of any crime.
If you are not prosecuted for it, then have you committed the crime?
If you rob a bank, but nobody prosecutes you, nobody charges you, do you get away with it?
You do.
If nobody finds you, nobody prosecutes you in any crime.
So if the President of the United States wants to find his way around the Constitution, and if he thinks that his opposition is so cowed and so afraid to oppose him that they won't stop him, then yes, he can do it.
The citizens cannot bring charges of impeachment.
It has to be done in the House of Representatives.
And it's like a legal case.
Charges have to be filed, presented, voted on.
If it comes to it, there is a trial that takes place in the Senate.
It's an arduous process.
And it is obviously never done haphazardly, taken lightly.
It very rarely is a procedure taken.
So your question is, can he, yeah, be impeached?
Yeah, will he be?
Is an entirely different matter.
And I don't get the sense, John, that outside of Congressman Stockman in Texas, there's much energy to take that route in dealing with Obama right now.
Not among elected Republicans.
But impeachable offenses are listed, but they're not inclusive.
I mean, in other words, it's not a list that specified has to be one of these particular things.
It's like anything else.
The case has to be made.
The prosecution has to make the case for it.
And they have to get the votes for it.
And so the desire to do something like that in the House of Representatives at large isn't there.
Not a factor.
Nothing of the sort.
Outside of Congressman Stockman.
But I don't get the sense it's something you ought to hold your breath for.
Hey, got another name to add to the list of people suggesting the president could be impeached over potential executive orders on the Second Amendment.
That'd be Ed Meese, who is an emeritus official at the Heritage Foundation.
He became the latest conservative to warn that Obama could risk impeachment if he takes executive action on reducing gun violence.
Ed Meese, no casual figure here.
Ed Meese, a lot of weight he carries.
He made these comments in an interview on Monday night.
Here's Herb in Commerce Township, Michigan.
Hello, Herb.
Great to have you with us, old buddy.
Hey, it's great to be here.
First, I just want to say thanks for all you do, and don't ever hang it up.
Appreciate it all.
To my point, you know, Obama's having children to the White House tomorrow.
Right.
And, you know, he always does that to pull up the heartstrings.
Remember the young black kid that was at his elbow when he signed the quote-unquote Affordable Health Care Act?
So if he's so concerned about the country's children, then why doesn't he propose some real solution to that debt problem?
You know, the debt is probably, when you think about it, much more dangerous to the country and every child in it than guns will ever be.
What problem will be?
I said the debt limit.
The debt problem.
The debt problem is much more dangerous to this whole country.
We don't have one of those.
Yeah, to his point of view, that's true.
No, we fixed that with Obamacare.
It's what he's seriously.
That's what he told Boehner.
Yeah, correct.
I told Boehner we don't have a spending problem.
Yeah, well, I don't know.
But he's using these kids as human shields.
Obama uses kids as human shields.
The Democrats use kids as human shields.
He brings these kids, supposedly who wrote letters to the White House after Newtown, bring them up there to present a picture of support among the children for the president to do something about guns.
And it's going to be very difficult, very difficult to oppose it.
You got these little kids there.
They don't want to die.
And how can you not listen to them?
You've got to do something.
That's the picture.
That's the image that the presence of the kids is designed to create.
Again, folks, I'm telling you, it's all oriented.
Like I said yesterday, everything, and I, by the way, I want to thank Drudge posted that whole monologue.
He linked to my whole monologue on this yesterday, and I was really gratified that he did that because this is the political game in Washington right now, as far as Obama's concerned, is just to get rid of any opposition.
That's all he's doing.
He's not solving problems.
He's not presenting solutions.
It's all about eliminating opposition.
And the only opposition to him now is conservatives.
And the Republican establishment, Ditto, they want to get rid of the conservatives and their influence in the Republican Party.
That's all this is, is another effort to eliminate any opposition.
That's what's going on right now.
All this character assassination of conservative spokespeople, elected officials, you name it.
It's all oriented toward that.
Sadly, my friends, we have come to the screeching halt portion of the program today.
We are out of busy broadcast moments.
I should tell you, CNN is reporting that Anthony Weiner, the husband of Huma Weiner, might be thinking about running for mayor of New York City.
He's got $4.5 million in his war chest, some of it left over from 2005 when he thought about running.
Anthony Weiner thinking about mayor of New York City.
▲
Export Selection