Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yeah, this is one of these cigars.
I'm gonna have to keep drawing on it to keep it lit.
You ever had one of those?
The draw just a little tough.
You almost get a hernia smoking the thing.
So I probably ought to just pitch it and go get a new one, but it tastes good.
That's the dilemma.
Or I could just focus on the show.
Hi folks, how are you?
Great to have you.
It's broadcast excellence, hosted by me, L. Rushbow.
And we have three hours straight ahead for you.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882.
And the email address L Rushball at EIB net.com.
Bob Menendez, the uh Senator from New Jersey who finds himself embroiled in a bit of a sex scandal.
Uh going down the Dominican Republic with a donor from here in South Florida on a donor's plane, which happens to be a Challenger 600.
And Bob Menendez, finally speaking about this, said that, well, you know, yeah, yeah, I've I I forgot to reimburse my my donor for the flights.
It kind of a reimbursement fell through the cracks.
He actually said that.
An embattled Senator Robert Menendez.
By the way, all of this happened.
All of this became known before the election.
And it didn't matter.
And you know the media, the drive-bys and so forth, they're not really interested in this.
And they're being driven to the Menendez story by Menendez and his staff, and they're covering the story the way Menendez wants.
The Menendez staff is directing CNN to a Univision story, which all these girls down there in Dominican are virgins.
Menendez couldn't have done anything.
Then you and you have other media people saying, you know what, it's a Democrat.
There's no such thing as a sex scandal.
Well, a Democrat Democrats don't out there make noise about family values and morality and all that.
A Democrat having sex with 16 year olds, no big deal.
That's been done before.
17-year-old, no big deal.
18 doesn't matter.
Been there, done that.
Now if Menendez were out there talking about family values, and yeah, yeah, we'd be on this case like white on rice.
As Mohammed Ali once said.
But a Democrat, it's not possible for a Democrat to be involved in a sex scandal because the Democrat's life is a sex scandal.
It isn't news.
And that's what's that.
Well, the the email I don't know about the email from the girl.
I haven't really been studying the story for the same reason the media isn't covering.
It's a Democrat, and everything they do is a sex scandal.
It really isn't, it really isn't big news.
When you look at I I'm sorry, folks.
I I'm I I probably should I shouldn't say this.
I the guy in the in the GoDaddy commercial kissing Bar Raffielli, this would be Menendez to me.
That's the thing, it gets me.
I I look at this and I said, Really?
Really, they're asking us to believe a lot here.
Anyway, Senator Menendez says that the reimbursement for the flights down to the Casa de Campo fell through the cracks.
He said it, not me.
Just uh passing it on.
We've got some audio sound bites, and we'll get to it.
No, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna get to the Tea Party Rove stuff here in just a second.
I'm I'm not I'm no no no, I'm not putting that off.
Snerdley came in and you know, you promised people you're gonna talk.
I know, I know.
They think you're kind of putting it off, you know, because your good friend would rove and you're afraid to talk.
No, I'm not afraid to talk about it.
Snerdley's in here saying, well, you know they're saying that it's all over Twitter.
You're a good friend to Rove and you're afraid to talk about it.
You're gonna try to get away with not talking about it while telling everybody you did that they just missed it.
I would never do that.
You know, back in the old days when I was a DJ, um program director, KQV Pittsburgh, Bob Harper, a brilliant top 40 programming mind.
And I forget what the song was, but there was a big top 10 tune in the 70s that we weren't playing because Harper considered it morally decrepit.
And I said, why are we playing?
He said, You can never be hurt by a song you don't play.
Meaning a song that people don't like that might cause them to tune out to a competing station.
Don't play it if you're worried about it.
But if you never play it, nobody will ever know for sure that you don't play it.
So you can't be hurt by a song you don't play.
Well, the same philosophy, I can't be hurt by something I don't talk about.
Except even when I don't talk about it, I'm accused of talking about it.
There's a couple things I'm accused of talking about today.
A Republican Congress.
Let me find this.
I know I get blamed for things I haven't said.
I get blamed for things I haven't done.
I don't get credit for things I do say and do.
It's really cockyed.
Here it grabs on number eight.
I'm not even sure what the uh context of this is.
It was yesterday afternoon at Washington at the Academy Health, National Health Policy Conference, Representative Michael Burgess, Republican Texas.
Congressman spoke about the uh the coming federal and state health exchanges and other changes in health care as a result of Obamacare.
Now, folks, would you please do me a favor and do not call this man?
I don't want you emailing his office, please don't fax or call.
I I really don't.
It's not worth it, and it's not you know, I never if I if I ever want you to do something like that, I'll ask you specifically.
But Congressman Burgess said something that I about said that I said something I don't recall.
Here's the sound bite.
I don't want to make this too personal, but despite what you hear on Rush Limbaugh, members of Congress are going to be covered under the exchanges.
Texas is not going to do an exchange.
So yeah, I'll be covered under that federal exchange if I choose to get my insurance through the through the federal government.
It will no longer be done through the FEHP.
So this is a matter of of of no small importance.
There are a lot of people who will be looking to this federal exchange to be set up to their own state exchanges, and it all does have to work on October 1st when it's switched on for the first time.
Okay, uh fine and dandy.
Somebody help me out.
Did I somebody, somebody, somebody do a an archive search?
I have never said that members of Congress aren't going to be covered by the exchange.
I I haven't discussed members of Congress health care in the in the terms or the context of Obamacare.
You know what's going on here?
I am talk radio.
So if anybody on talk radio says something, it gets it just a default gets gets channeled to me.
I don't want to make this too personal.
See, he's afraid he's gonna get beat up by you.
These guys are all afraid that if they criticize me, you're gonna rip this.
That's it.
Don't call the guy.
It don't, don't please don't email none of that.
I don't want to make this too personal, but despite what you hear on Rush Limbaugh, members of Congress will be covered under the exchange.
When have I said they weren't?
I don't even know how members of Congress are going to be covered.
I I I don't care.
All I know is members of Congress are going to have health care.
And that we're paying for it.
That's all I know.
I don't know where they're gonna go to the doctor, I don't know where they're gonna get it.
Exchanges or not.
All I know about the exchanges is that if the states don't set them up, that is the bill is written as Obama is care is written right now, the feds can't set up an exchange unless they do a quick change in the bill, which would not be hard to do.
It's a given the political lay of the land, but the original Obamacare law had a problem.
If the states don't set up exchange, there is no mechanism for the federal government to operate one in the states.
Now, I don't know if that's been changed, but uh has it been changed?
Well, I'm not I didn't even know that.
Um but I don't know.
There might have been a flap right after Obamacare was passed when the people who wrote Obamacare couldn't say whether Congress was covered or not.
I have a I have a faint memory of that.
That after Obamacare was passed, 2700 pages, there was a lot that people didn't know.
Remember Pelosi said we have to pass this before we can know what's in it.
But anyway, this is a classic example.
I never said anything like this.
Despite what you hear on Rush Limbaugh, members of Congress are going to be covered by Did I did I say that they weren't gonna have I've I've I've the exchangers are not forefront in my mind, even is as uh as talking for so anyway, anyway.
I want to get that out of the uh out of the way.
Eric Cantor is out saying the Republicans have to change.
Republican Party has to change.
Republican Party has to show that we want to help people.
Republican Party has to reach across the aisle.
Carl Rove and his uh his pack, what is it, American Crossroads?
Is that the name of his pack?
New York Times story um a couple days ago that basically said they are gonna end up choosing Republican primary candidates so that they're not gonna be Tea Partied.
The Republican establishment has had it with nominees like Sharon Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Todd Aiken, and Murdoch.
And they say no more.
And if we have to, we're gonna run Republican money against Tea Party candidates.
To keep the Tea Party out of here, because the elites say the Tea Party is destroying the Republican Party.
Let me tell you what really is happening.
Either by accident or by design, this announcement, this newspaper article about Carl Rove's intentions, is only serving to unite the Tea Party in ways even now it hasn't been.
It is energizing the Tea Party in ways that it hasn't been.
And there was some after the election, everybody on our side faced a bit of demoralization.
And this has ratcheted it back up.
This the the the conservative base of the Republican Party has now been targeted by the Republican establishment.
That's how they interpreted Rove's comments.
So what the Tea Party people now realize is that they got two political forces gunning for them Obama and the Democrats and the Republican establishment.
Now I I will take you back.
Grab audio soundbite number one.
Once again, folks, I told you this was on the table.
I told you this was going to happen.
I predicted it almost literally.
And I'm not saying this so that you go, wow, this rush guy.
And I'm not I'm not looking for kudos.
I'm simply, you can trust what I tell you.
You can you can trust the predictions.
I know the kind of people we're talking about.
Let's go back.
October 19th, 2010, before the midterm elections.
And those midterms in 2010, the Tea Party swept the House.
Big margin, took the House from the Democrats.
It was a Tea Party slam dunk landslide, and the Democrats lost seats all the way down to ballot to dog catcher level.
The Democrats lost over 700 seats nationwide in the midterms.
This is why so many of us thought that there was a good possibility to win in 2012.
So here about three weeks, three weeks before the midterm election in 2010, I warned everybody in this audience the following.
This is how third parties are born.
These morons have no clue how short their lease on life is.
These elites, they really don't.
They have no clue how short their lease on political life is.
They seem to think that the Tea Party is going to end on November 2nd.
They think the Tea Party's over.
And once the elections have taken place, then the elites, Republican Party as well, are going to now take over and start to manage The victories that have been secured by virtue of the Tea Party.
What'll happen is the Spectres and the Charlie Christs and so forth will go ahead and they'll officially become Democrats.
Worthwhile Republicans that go to the Tea Party, and the remaining of these insider people like David from the David Brooks and the inside the Beltway so-called conservative intelligentsia, the let's make a deal types who believe that crossing the aisle and compromise and moderates, that's what the American people want, then they think that's what this election will say.
They're gonna be all that remains of the Republicans.
They'll go to the Hamptons or wherever, but they're gonna be all that remains of the Republicans.
The Republicans could end up being a ten percent party if they're not careful here.
They could end up being the third party and they could be the ten percent.
That was me predicting exactly where we are now today, with the announcement that elements of the Republican Party are now going to seek to make sure Tea Party candidates don't win primaries.
The Tea Party slash conservative base has been energized.
I I've it's been a long time since I've seen I'm getting feedback, email, phone calls, and this kind of thing.
People are furious about this, and they're getting focused, and coming back after having been demoralized by the election results last November.
But again, that sound bite, October 19th, 2010, before the massive Tea Party landslide victory, and further evidence that I was right on the money after that landslide.
What was one of the most amazing things?
The Republican Party did not seek to capitalize on it at all.
The Republican Party sought in no way to capitalize on the birth of the Tea Party, its growth, its energy, its electoral prowess.
They they uh they sought to minimize it, diminish it, which they continue to do.
And we'll see what the end result of it is.
But right now, there's a a unity and uh and an energy.
Freedom works people, people like that, Tea Party groups out there all over the country.
Let's take a brief time out, and we will see, see, Snerdly, he can't you're not gonna talk about.
I know you're gonna try to get away with not talking about it.
I just know you are.
Wrong oh, pal, big time wrong.
And we are back, Rush Limbaugh, the excellence in broadcasting network.
Now, to to be to be fair and balanced.
Ladies and gentlemen, the establishment Republicans, the inside the beltway establishment types.
Remember, these are the people they supported Charlie Christ over Marco Rubio.
These are the brains.
These are the guys who are gonna protect the Republican Party from you.
They also opposed Rand Paul.
Remember, they supported Arlan Specter over Pat Toomey and on and on.
There are countless examples.
The bottom line is they don't have any better record at picking winners than the quote unquote amateur Tea Party types do.
And even when they pick winners, what do we end up winning?
We get we get squishy Republican moderates.
You know, my biggest problem with uh all of this is that i w and we talked about this before, within the Republican Party, there is a huge line of demarcation.
And on the establishment Republican side, they don't see the country at risk.
There's nothing really special about where we are.
We've had deficits before, we've had the national debt before.
The numbers are just bigger, but there really isn't any crisis here.
We just need to start winning elections.
They're not really small government people.
They're not interested in a serious decentralization of government or reduction in size.
They are more interested in controlling the levers of power.
I mean, that's a lot of money.
In the federal budget is a lot of money, and when you're the majority party in Washington, you are in control of the money, and that's power.
And inside the beltway ruling class, I mean, that's a term that um I've appropriated from that great story, The American Spectator by Angelo Codvilla of a couple of years ago, who wrote about the ruling class.
I mean, they're they're of both parties.
They are inside the beltway, the New York Boston Axis.
But they don't see the future as threatened as you and I do.
And they they don't see the country in crisis like you and I do.
Even after that huge 2010 midterm landslide defeat, there was still some embarrassment over the people who won.
That those people were actually in the Republican Party.
Actually, it's not new, by the way.
What is new is the birth of and the surging of the Tea Party.
And so the elites have finally just said, okay, well, we gotta we gotta tamp it down.
Now it's gotten too far.
We've got to beat it back ourselves.
And we are back.
Great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
A little bit of news here from the Pew Research Center, actually the Pew Hispanic research group.
Twenty-six percent of legal Latino immigrants in the U.S. haven't tried or are not interested in attaining citizenship.
That's a pretty significant number.
Twenty-six percent of legal Latino immigrants don't care about becoming citizens.
Which the reason why that's interesting is because they have ramifications for this entire debate that we're having on illegal immigration and more specifically the Republican Party's uh heartfelt belief that unless they reach out to the uh Hispanic population with a stated position of uh clear path to citizenship that might even include amnesty,
that they don't have any prayer winning elections.
Eric Cantor said that Republicans need to better express why they're doing what they're doing.
Cantor said this yesterday.
We need to better express.
Don't anybody call Eric Cantor, please.
Do not email or call or fax Eric Cantor.
Do me that favor.
He says we need to express why we're doing what we're doing.
So Canders, we're not getting our message out.
We're not explaining who we are, we're not explaining why we're doing what we're doing.
We gotta do better job at that.
He said what this is about, it's about making sure that we can express why we're doing what we're doing.
We believe very strongly, obviously, in things like fiscal discipline, not spending money you don't have.
We also believe in that because it helps people.
But we have to do a better job of explaining it.
In a sense, he's right.
What he's basically saying is we need outreach to the low information voter who doesn't care about this.
Last night, Governor Christie was on the Letterman show.
I haven't seen the Letterman show.
I I'm not kidding, in ten years, maybe longer.
But the television, the DVR, was on CBS because the last time I had a TV on was on the Super Bowl, which was on CBS.
And I don't know why I fired it up last night about 1130.
I forget I was gonna watch something else, but it came on and Letterman was on, and just wrapping up with Joe Flacco, the Supervol MVP from the Baltimore Ravens, and then Letterman said up next to Governor Christie.
So, well, I'll I'll stick around and watch this.
And Governor Christie came out, and the first party interview was nothing but fat this and fat that.
Why are you fat?
Do you think about diets?
Why do you eat so much?
Have you ever tried to not eat so much?
And Christie grabbed a donut in the middle of this, started eating the donut.
Letterman started laughing.
Letterman apparently I didn't know this and made a bunch of Christie fat jokes over the years, and Christie was talking about which ones bothered him and which ones didn't.
He said the jokes that aren't funny don't bother him at all.
Only the governor of New Jersey was on Letterman and didn't talk about anything other than fat.
Now I don't know what happened to the second segment, because I didn't when they went to commercial break and promoted the second segment, I didn't hang around.
But I can tell you this the Letterman audience is the low information audience.
And they were eating it up, folks.
They were eating it up.
And my point is I don't care what Chris Christie last night said or didn't say about issues.
The Letterman audience dug the guy.
And I think what Cantor is saying, I don't know, I don't know if it's words in Cantor's mouth, but what he's saying is we need to express why we're doing what we're doing.
He's talking about outreach to the low information voters.
There's a the problem with this, though, I think when you come up with a marketing plan, you don't tell people about it.
You just execute it.
And I think the Republicans right now are engaged in a bunch of hand wringing and introspection.
And it seems like every day a new Republican goes to the microphones to offer an opinion about what they need to do in order to reverse their fortunes.
I think it's time they stop telling everybody what they need to do and just do it.
At some point, when you have a marketing plan, you execute it, but you never tell people what the marketing plan is, because then you give people a chance to resist it.
You don't, you execute the plan.
What is the purpose of marketing?
Marketing ultimately, everything leads to sales.
And what is sales?
Separating people from their money.
You don't tell people how you're going to do that.
You just do it.
And hopefully you make them happy to give them your money.
Well, in this case, the Republicans want votes, and they also want money, obviously.
You don't tell people how you're going to get their vote, just go do it.
But I guess we're going through this period of introspection now, and there's this great concern in the Republican Party about the Tea Party and the fringe cooks and the pro-lifers and the anti-immigration people and the gun nuts.
And the Republican Party is worried, oh my God, what are we going to do about the gun nuts, the amnesty, anti-amnesty types, anti-immigration?
What are we going to do about uh about these hayseeds?
Farmers, what are we going to do about it?
And so they're they're going public with this.
And it's uh it's an uh internacene war, and it's been going on for quite a while.
Uh I think one of the things that the Republicans obviously don't do well is explain conservatism.
Would you agree with that, uh, Snerdley?
I don't I don't think they explain conservatism very well.
And I really think that one of the reasons for that is that many of them are embarrassed of it because of the forces arrayed against it inside the beltway.
I mean, conservatism is the epitome of uncool.
Conservatism is the epitome of unhip inside the beltway and and outside.
And so they're a little bit reticent, but even the ones who are conservative have a tough time explaining it.
I think that that's clearly uh uh something that that needs to happen before they're gonna be able to make a connection with people.
And then of course, the you know make make conservatism part of the pop culture.
And there are ways to do that too.
But again, in the in in that instance, you don't talk about how you're going to do it, you just do it.
And if you talk about how you're gonna do it, you offer people resistance or give them an opportunity to resist it.
A lot of people look at sales and marketing as as efforts to fool you, efforts to lie to you.
I mean, the youth car sales would look at the image people like that have, or any salesman, their images that they're never honest with you, they're always trying to run a scam on you, and this is just the image.
So you tell people how you're going to separate their vote from them or their money from them.
You you're you're giving them just a chance to build up resistance to it rather than just executing the plan.
Now, here's we got some Cantor sound bites.
He was on uh CBS this morning today, Nora O'Donnell said, You got a big speech today asking the Republican Party to change.
Is this about tone or is it about ideology?
What this is about is about making sure that we can express why we're doing what we're doing.
We believe very strongly, obviously, in things like fiscal discipline and not spending money you don't have.
We also believe in that because it helps people.
In the same way, we've got to address the plight of so many working Americans right now and those who don't have any work, and say that yes, we've got policies that'll help you in terms of giving you an opportunity for a quality education in terms of trying to help you bring down the cost of health care.
We've got some real policies that we want to put to work to help people, and that's what this is about.
You seen the saw a chart the other day.
A comparison in the growth of food stamps to the growth of employment.
The employment line, as you know, is flat or trends down.
You put it on a chart.
The food stamp line is heading up at a 45 degree angle.
In other words, there are more people signing up for food stamps every week than there are people getting jobs.
And once they're on unemployment, they're on for 99 weeks.
I mean, this is uh it's a it's a it's a pretty big challenge to explain the values of work, if you don't understand it.
It's you know, Ron Paul said his so-called farewell address to Congress, his last speech on the floor in the House.
He said it's amazing how hard it is to sell freedom today.
And that struck me, because he's right.
Freedom equals responsibility.
It's a hard sell.
There's a lot of easier choices out there right now, with Obama in the White House and the current uh makeup of the Democrat Party.
Food stamp growth, just to give it 75 times greater than job creation, food stamp growth 75 times greater than job creation.
We don't have access to the mainstream media, so marketing is the only way we get the message out for conservatives and marketing and behavior.
Marketing and living what you believe.
Marketing and putting into practice what you believe.
But Ruby or Cantor says clearly we need to do a a better job of explaining why we're doing what we're doing.
Well, one of the things that we are in favor of is people working.
Now, how bad is it if after you state that position, you've got to pause and explain to people why that's a good thing.
If we've gotten to the point, for example, where we have to explain fiscal responsibility, if we've gotten to the point where we have to explain what we mean by you should get a job.
If we have to take the time to explain why that is good for you and your country, for you to work, my God.
We're no, we're not.
We're raising children, if that's the case.
We're we're dealing with uh with children.
So anyway, Nora O'Donnell said uh no, Charlie Rose, he had to get in on this.
Charlie Rose said, there's this issue.
Uh, Eric seems to be going on out there, Republican Party.
Cludes that the party has to rebrand and reform.
Governor Gendal called it the stupid party.
You've got Senator Rubio talking about immigration reform.
I mean, is this a recognition the Republican Party's not spoken to the American people about issues that concern them and how government can work for them?
Our party has always stood for the conservative philosophy of self-reliance, of faith in the individual, accountability in government.
But what we're trying to do is to explain that these uh proposals of ours actually can help people, and we love to see the Democrats join us uh in trying to set aside differences and seeing We can come together to actually give some relief to the millions of Americans, frankly, who just want their life to work again.
We're trying to be constructive to help people again, Charlie, and hopefully we can bring folks together on both sides of the aisle, something that has not happened too often here in Washington, so we can provide a path to a better future for more Americans and make their life work again.
Well, okay.
We have to convince people that we don't want to hurt them.
We have to convince people that we want to help them.
And ideas are good for them.
Our ideas can actually help people, and then we've got to get the Democrats to agree with us and cross the aisle so we can all work together on this.
Now, I have to take a brief time out.
I just looked at the clock.
Let me do that.
We will continue in mere moments.
Don't go away.
I don't say this happily at all.
I don't think there's any doubt that even now, a whole bunch of Republicans don't understand what the Democrat Party is trying to do.
The Democrat Party, the White House on Down, is literally trying in a political sense in the political arena, annihilate them.
The Democrat Party is trying to wipe them out.
The Democrat Party wants the Republican Party to be extinct.
They want it to be a vanishing species.
They're not interested in helping the Republicans get their message out.
They're not interested in making government smaller.
They're not interested in promoting self-reliance.
The Democrats have no interest whatsoever in promoting individualism or self-reliance, accountability in government, smaller government.
There's not one Democrat anywhere who is interested in any of that.
And thus there is no Democrat who's ever going to cross the aisle and work with the Republicans to make the Republican agenda a reality.
The Republicans are going at some point, uh may they may never get there.
Well, they're going to have to realize that if they are to prevail, they are going to have to engage in a political fight that results in the defeat of the Democrat Party, not bipartisanship and not crossing the aisle and working because they don't have anything in common.
There isn't any common ground between what Eric Cantor said the Republicans hope to do and want to accomplish and what the Democrats want to accomplish.
There wasn't any common ground in the fiscal cliff negotiation.
There's no common ground in the debt limit deal.
There isn't going to be any common ground when we get to the sequester.
There isn't any right now.
There just isn't.
There's no area for compromise.
This is a political battle to the death.
Democrats are on the march.
They don't want to have to wake up every day and even deal with the existence of Republicans.
They want to wipe out any effective opposition.
Not get along with it.
Not compromise with it.
Anyway, Sylvia, Clinton Township, New Jersey, great to have you up first today.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
You know, the thing is, I don't think that Carl Rove and that party are trying to get rid of the Tea Party.
I think they're trying to get rid of the idiots that just splash over onto everybody else and make you look like the stupid party, as Bobby Jindell says.
And realistically, Rush, you don't help.
I mean, when you call a law student a slut, that just offends a lot of people.
And when you like say all these, you know, the stuff about no common ground, et cetera.
When the president puts forth a health plan that is basically the Heritage Foundation plan and Mitt Romney's plan, and no Republican will work with him and get additional things like, you know, torque.
I'm sorry.
Sylvia, I'm sorry, you're misrepresenting who you are.
You can't call here and be honest about who you are.
It doesn't make any sense for me to talk to you.
You and I have no common ground.
This is and you are illustrating my precise point.
You mischaracterize things I say.
You mischaracterize what's going on in the Republican Party.
You're an Obamaite, which is fine and dandy, but you and I don't have any common ground.
And there isn't any right now between the Republicans and Democrats.
And that is just the way the Democrats want it.
Sorry about that, folks.
Sylvia is a seminar caller.
She's from Rutgers.
She's from New Jersey.
She's well known.
But you see, Snerdley is a sucker for people who tell him they love me.
He thinks I'm so underappreciated.
He just he thinks that people don't really have enough appreciation for me.
So when a caller tells him that they love me, I'm giving you seminars because I want to use the tune.