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Feb. 15, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:29
February 15, 2013, Friday, Hour #3
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Folks, we're about 19, 18 minutes away.
18 minutes away from our brush with death.
18 minutes and counting until the asteroid comes dangerously close to our precious, fragile, precariously balanced earth, and we could all die.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open line Friday.
A friend of mine just asked me, Rush, what would have happened if the Russian meteorite had flown over New York City?
I don't think it's too hard to imagine the media cacophony and crisis and chaos that would have resulted from that, but it didn't.
It landed over there in Russia.
It's an amazing video if you haven't seen that thing penetrate the atmosphere and head-on down.
It's actually stunning.
Anyway, Open Line Friday, great to have you.
Whatever you want to talk about, fine and dandy.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address, illrushbow at EIBnet.com.
And I want to go back to Bill in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
Let me reset the table.
Bill, very nice guy, but he said at the outset of his call, he disagrees with me respectfully, affectionately, but he sees no hope.
Bill, repeat your theory.
You don't think that the Supreme Court, well, you tell, just repeat what you said, why you disagree with my optimism.
Well, I disagree with it three points.
I believe the Supreme Court will uphold whatever far-reaching gun control laws Obama seeks to implement.
I believe that we will lose the House of Representatives.
The Republicans will lose the House of Representatives in 2014 due to the pandering that's going on.
And I believe that somehow Obama will find his way back into office in 2016.
Do you think the presidency is enough for him?
By 2016, he might want to run the world.
Well, through the presidency, I agree with you completely.
I think that's his plan all along.
I don't doubt that one bit.
If I had to guess, if I had to guess, you would, well, let me just ask you.
Do you think that by the time we get to the campaign for 2016, in 2015, that a majority of the American people would be in favor of, say, repealing the 22nd Amendment so that Obama could run again?
Do you think the American people, a majority of them who vote, would maybe even support the idea of just canceling the election and anointing him for a third term?
Well, I don't know that they would put it in those terms, but I believe that he is pandering so completely to so many facets of our society in this country that these people are going to be obliged to vote for him.
Otherwise, they will lose their livelihood.
Well, here's some realities, though.
Maybe they're not.
Let me ask you what you think about these propositions.
Do you accept that the economy is only going to worsen?
Yes.
Do you believe that the debt that's going to keep growing and growing and growing is going to shrink the private sector?
And do you think Obama's tax policies are going to further limit the ability of individuals to achieve prosperity?
Absolutely.
Okay, at what point then, do you expect people to just sit idly by and accept this and have no problem with it, no matter how bad it gets?
Do you think that they'll be covered with enough benefits from Washington, their health care, whatever, food stamps, unemployment compensation, that they won't care that this is happening?
I believe that this blitzkrieg of events that the president is using to keep the public off balance has managed to prevent the public from focusing on any one issue.
I think there are so many things that have happened in the last two to three years that we go from one crisis to the next, and before one can be resolved, there's another on the horizon.
But Bill, here's the point.
And no matter what poll you look at, be it New York Times, CBS, ABC, Washington Post, or even Rasmussen, no matter what poll you look at, there is already sizable, majority dissatisfaction with the country's direction.
The one anomaly is that these people who are expressing dissatisfaction with the country's direction and with where the country is right now do not associate Obama with it at all.
That's the anomaly.
But they still are dissatisfied.
So how long a free ride do you think Obama can get?
Well, I don't know.
Again, in using, as I sort of jokingly referred to, the passengers on the Titanic, they don't want to hear that the ship is going to sink.
They want to hear that their salvation, and so they will wait.
They already think it's going to.
Well, some do.
As I said earlier, I have many friends who are well-educated, but they just cannot grasp the notion that this ship is sinking and that it can sink.
And I believe it's because to do so will admit I'm going to lose everything.
And they would rather not think that thought.
Yes, okay, maybe he'll take a few guns away.
I just don't think that the public as a whole, the ones that you don't hear from, there are so many of them who just don't believe that it can get that bad.
Okay, let's explore that because there, and I'm just going by the polling data, which I'm going to choose to accept.
I didn't believe it prior to the election, and it was dead on.
Polling data was right on the money, and I'm going to accept the polling data today as accurate.
So we have a vast majority of people, either overall dissatisfied direction country or issue by issue by issue, are unhappy with Obama's policies.
Now, they don't associate him with any of the downturn or any of the sluggishness or any of the things wrong with the country.
And they may never, is what I'm asking you.
But about this observation of yours that you know a lot of people who don't think we're going to reach the brink or the breaking point.
I have.
I know a lot of people, and the key to them is they've all earned it.
They've all worked very hard.
Some of them still are.
I know some retirees, but most of them are still working, and they've worked very hard, and they're scared to death.
They are afraid of an economic collapse that is going to devalue what they have.
They are afraid of wild inflation that's going to devalue what they have.
They are scared to death of a wealth tax that's going to take away the value of everything they have or literally strip their portfolios.
They are scared to death of a VAT.
They are VAT tax.
They are frightened of any number of proposals because Obama is clearly aiming at the producers and the achievers in this country.
And he's got the people who have not achieved and succeeded to a high level believing that their economic circumstances are what they are because the successful have stolen from them or cheated them out of it or what have you.
Now, I know there are people out there that you're talking about, but I don't know them personally.
I can imagine there are some highly paid athletes who don't think the salad days are ever going to end.
They never do.
Even though they know their careers are going to end in the mid-30s, they never do think that their high-falutinal lifestyle is ever going to come to a screeching halt.
So I know there are a lot of athletes who are, no matter what, they're going to be cool.
But I don't, and I know that there are some people that are not invested in politics.
They don't pay attention to the day-to-day stuff that's in the media.
So they're a little insulated.
And they've got theirs.
And they think that all they've got to do is keep working hard.
No, hold on.
I know they're out there, but I must, I have to reiterate, everybody I know personally is living in major fear that everything they've worked for is going to eventually, one thing's going to happen, be taken from them or going to be rendered worthless.
Well, and I have some friends like that too.
The people I am speaking of are the people I see when I go walk my dog at the park up at the end of the street here.
These people are essentially making it from day to day.
They're more concerned that gasoline has gone up 15 cents a gallon in the last week in Arizona.
They're more concerned that a loaf of bread is going to be $5 a loaf before too long.
These people are, they're so focused on the very day-to-day things that they cannot seem to think in long terms.
And when I bring up the subject of the potential for disaster in 36 months, they just kind of wave it off.
And Rush, I'm telling you, it is a large number of people.
It's almost as if there is sort of a subconscious apathy that exists in this vast majority of working class people who just don't want to believe this because it's like admitting that the train is going to go off the track here pretty soon.
And I'm just busy trying to find a bathroom and to get a meal.
I think I know the kind of people you're talking about.
You're characterizing them differently than I do, but I think I know who you're talking about.
You're essentially talking about people who don't want to rock the boat.
They don't really want to accept the reality because that would then require a call to action.
They'd have to do something about it.
They don't want to.
They just want to get up every day.
And if a loaf of bread costs 15 cents, they'll bitch about it, but they'll pay it.
But they don't want to actually get involved in action required to stop it.
They'll let somebody else do it.
And then they'll relax and comfort themselves with the idea that the country can't go up in flames.
The country can't collapse.
It's never going to happen.
We'll be okay.
And then they just kind of put their head in the sand and ignore it.
Right.
That's what you're talking about, right?
Exactly.
And there are a huge number of people out there who believe this, and it's frightening to me.
Okay, and those people, no matter what you do, you can't wake them up.
You cannot get them to see things as you do.
Right.
Well, I don't disagree with that.
I know those people are there.
I had an original misunderstanding of who you were talking about.
I know there's all kinds of people.
Basically, what you're making is a comment about people and their politics, not their economics.
Just don't want to hear about it because it's negative.
They don't want to be exposed to it because that means they got to get involved and they don't want to get involved.
And they've done okay.
Let other people handle that.
That we elect people.
I get my tea time.
Is the gas station going to have gas?
I mean, that's the extent to which they get concerned.
And that's it, exactly.
And I fear for this country because I believe that, like cancer, this thing is going to come upon them at a point that's beyond controlling it.
Well, one thing is true.
There's an old Indian proverb.
I heard this attending a Washington Redskins game, and that is that you cannot wake someone up who is only pretending to be asleep.
And that's essentially who and what you're talking about.
You can't wake people up who are pretending to be asleep.
And there's another truth out there.
If Obama can take away our guns, and there's a Second Amendment that says he can't, but if he can, then why can't he take away people's wealth?
Once he's allowed to start taking X away, why can't he take Y and Z away?
The people I know, that's what they're afraid of.
Everyone.
Now, I don't know everybody.
Don't misunderstand, but I'm telling you, we all have circles of friends.
And I happen to know, and one of the great perks of my success has been to meet a lot of other very profoundly smart, successful, wise people.
But I tell you, I know what you mean.
I look at Warren Buffett and guys like Gates and say, do these guys have the slightest clue?
Or do they think I've got 40 billion?
I don't care what happens.
If George Soros takes it all, I'll still have 20 billion.
I don't care.
I don't know how they think.
They vote for this.
Buffett and Gates voted for this.
So I don't know.
It is frustrating.
I understand why you're pessimistic.
I appreciate your call.
I must now take a brief obscene profit time out while we still can, and we'll be back.
Okay, 30 seconds.
30 seconds.
It's hard to calculate because we are on a quite lengthy delay here.
So I say it, but you don't hear it for a while.
So I'm trying to judge where we are.
I'm looking at the Drudge report, and I'm laughing myself crazy.
Drudge has got these pictures depicting the end of the world, and he's putting a different one up every five minutes as he counts down to zero hour with this massive asteroid passing by the Earth.
It's passing by the Earth right now.
We are threatened.
We're engaging right now with a close brush with death.
It's happening right now.
Of course, I feel different.
I can feel it.
I feel the gravitational pull.
I'm getting a sense of a different tilt on the axis.
Something is happening.
My nose is running faster.
I'm having to blow it more often.
My voice is a little, it's changed a little bit.
Obviously, there are changes, some of them not so subtle, that are taking place.
So right now, this is it.
Right at this moment, asteroids as close as it's going to get, folks.
Apparently, we're going to survive.
I mean, it's going really, really fast out.
It's going to pass by.
You could miss it in a couple blinks.
And it's, I think we've survived now.
I think it's safe to say we've survived it.
I think it's now beyond our gravitational pull.
So, yes, Obama did it again.
Saved us again.
That's absolutely true.
Ladies and gentlemen, a couple of sound bites.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats are right in front of our eyes, losing openly now, losing their sanity.
And if you don't accept that, if you think they already have lost their sanity, what they're doing is admitting it.
We get two bites.
This is on Capitol Hill.
Nancy Pelosi, press conference, talk about the budget and the sequester.
Folks, do you realize the sequester features no budget cuts?
All it does is reduce the rate of growth.
It's all baseline budgeting.
There's no difference in this round of so-called cuts and any other.
There is no real cut from a zero baseline.
This is simply a reduction in the rate of scheduled growth.
Spending in defense and Medicare is not going to go up as much as fast because of the sequester.
But this is causing panic, an irrational, insane panic.
We have two Pelosi soundbites of oppressor today.
Here's the first.
The Republicans are poised to shut down government.
The Republicans are poised to let sequestration go forward, which is sequestration.
Do you know what that word means?
Well, what it means to the American people is unemployment.
No jobs.
Take us to recession.
It's not quite an exact Latin translation, but that's what it means.
All right.
Now, in the past, we'd play these soundbites, and we would laugh ourselves silly.
And at the same time, we'd say, nobody is going to believe this.
And that's where we've been wrong.
A majority of people vote believe this.
That's what we're going to have to come to grips with.
A majority of the people who vote, who hear this, are going to believe this, that the Republicans are going to cause unemployment.
There will be no jobs.
Republicans are causing this with sequestration.
We're going to go back to recession.
Truth is, we haven't come out of it ever, but no jobs, unemployment.
And she wasn't through.
She was just getting warmed up.
The Republican Party in the Congress is dominated by anti-government ideologues, and they will forever, forever want to reduce taxes on special interest, make cuts in the education of our children and the care of our seniors and the rest, because they do not believe in government.
So shrink the tax revenue and make serious cuts that undermine our economic growth, that undermine the education of our children, undermine the creation of jobs.
But that's who they are.
And bless their hearts, they act upon their beliefs.
And that's what they believe.
And that's what this fight is about.
So the Republicans, there aren't any taxes involved in the sequestration.
But that doesn't matter because the Republicans are going to shrink tax revenue.
And they're going to make cuts that undermine economic growth.
Because economic growth can only happen from the government.
And a majority of people believe this, folks.
A majority of people believe that prosperity comes from government.
The Republicans are going to cut government.
That's cutting prosperity.
And they're going to take us to recession.
They're going to lose jobs.
And you know what?
They want to.
Because the only people who aren't going to be hurt on this are the rich.
They've already got theirs, and the Republicans are going to exempt the rich from the recession and the economic disaster that the sequester will cause.
It's insane, but people believe it.
Folks, the only thing Pelosi forgot to mention, and I think it's because the press conference she had occurred before the asteroid got close.
Since the asteroid missed and did not hit the world, the Republicans are going to have to use sequestration to destroy it.
And I want to make this prediction to you: there will be no sequester.
I know a lot of you are sitting out there hoping like hell that it happens because you want to see some spending cuts, even though there really aren't any.
You want to see some.
You want to see the Democrats go absolutely bat excrement.
You want to see it.
And I'm here to predict to you that there will not be sequestration, that a last-minute deal struck so as to avert children starving or the Pentagon shutting down or whatever the panic crisis theory the Democrats use, Republicans will cave and there will not be a sequester.
Isn't that the way this stuff usually happens?
So that's my prediction.
But here's the truth about it in terms of numbers.
Now, the Democrats are telling us that with sequester, the Pentagon will have to shut down, that there will be no border patrol, which they ought to like.
The Democrats ought to actually like no border patrol.
I mean, that's just a flood of illegal immigrants can come in and nobody can stop them.
But they say that the Pentagon will shut down, no border patrol, and they say there will be no embassy security.
So there'll be dozens more Benghazi type attacks.
What difference does that make?
Now, all of this is going to happen because of a 2.2% reduction in spending.
However, the 2.2% reduction in spending is offset by the baseline budgeting scheduled budget increases.
Pentagon spending and Medicare spending are slated to go up in the 8% to 10% range.
So a 2.2% cut, the Pentagon may grow by 6%, Medicare by 6%, instead of 8% to 10%.
There will no be real cuts.
There won't be any.
All of this panic, all of this is just, it's over nothing.
Literally nothing.
And there's one other thing, folks, that I've left out of my explanation this week of how it is that every poll can show dissatisfaction with the direction the country is going, but support for Obama's agenda.
The fact that he never governs, never ever will be seen governing.
He's constantly campaigning.
I forgot to tell you the end point of this and where it all leads.
And this is the real hideous thing.
As it gets worse, the perception that will be is that we need Obama even more.
As the circumstances in the country get worse, as the economy worsens, as the debt worsens, Whatever is calculated, as it gets worse, the low-information voters who do not attach Obama's policies to what is happening, they don't see him that way.
They see Obama as trying to stop all this bad stuff.
They see Obama as trying to fix it.
The worse it gets, the more they say he will be needed.
Because in their mind, Obama's the only guy that's ever tried to fix this.
Every other president caused it, particularly Reagan and Bush.
Clinton, he'll get a pass.
Reagan and Bush, other presidents, Nixon, they caused this.
Obama, he's the first, maybe in the country's history to try to stop it.
So the worse it gets, the more he will be needed.
And that will be the media template.
I'm just warning you.
Now, that's a prediction, and I would love to be wrong about it.
But make a note, here Snirdly, February 15, 2013.
As it worsens, the media template and among the people of country, we need Obama even more.
We need to support him even more.
We need him to do more.
We need to get behind him more.
We need to stop undermining him.
We need to do whatever we can to help Obama fix this.
That's how he's seen now.
What's going to change?
The worse it gets, the more we're going to need him.
Mark my words.
Up next is Victor in Silver Spring, Maryland on Open Line Friday.
Hi, Victor.
Hi, Rush.
Yesterday, I was listening to your show, and I heard you play the clip of, what's her name, Jackson Lee, saying that she's a free slave, Sheila Jackson Lee.
And you were asking who the owner was.
Well, I decided to call her office and ask that question.
And I was very polite.
I said, I really want to know who her owner is.
I'm just curious.
And the person said, are you some kind of a nut and hung up on me?
No kidding.
No kidding.
They really hung up on you?
Yeah.
I've got the bite some here.
If I can find it.
I probably wasn't the only one that called up.
So, you know, maybe I wasn't the first one or whatever.
But, you know, I'm really sick and tired of this slavery business.
And when I have to jump into conversation, I say, fine.
If I want to play your game, then I'm going to start complaining about everything you cited people have done to the blind over the years.
But I don't play that game.
Well, I understand your frustration because we're not a slave state, but we're being portrayed as one.
The left is acting like slavery is still alive and well.
And that's what justifies Christopher Dorner, by the way, in his murderous spree.
But liberal Democrats, they're really never concerned about real-life slavery that exists today in other parts of the world.
But boy, do they go to town on the pretend slavery that doesn't exist anymore.
But there is real life slavery in Africa today and in Middle Eastern countries.
And it's women who are largely comprised of slavery.
And it's totally ignored.
And the make-believe, pretend slavery of the past to them is real.
Now, thanks for the call, Victor.
Here is audio sampler number 24.
This is Sheila Jackson Lee on the floor of the House on Wednesday morning.
We're at the bone almost.
And sequester that is across-the-board cuts will literally destroy us and put us in a recession.
I don't want to hear the fact that the president is divisive.
The president is leading, and he is led well.
The American people are listening.
When are our friends on the other side of the aisle going to listen?
Want to challenge this body to be the kind of Lincolnist attitude as yesterday was the official birthday of President Lincoln, February 12th.
And although it was a tragic time in our history, I can assure you that it showed the greatest promise of America when people could come together and do something great.
I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together.
So Victor called her office because she said Wednesday that she was standing there on the floor of the house as a freed slave.
And we were asking who owned her.
We played the soundbite on Wednesday, and we wanted to know who her owner was.
And we wanted to know how much he got for her.
You know, was it a good deal when he sold her?
Or did he just get rid of her?
You know, she might have outlived her usefulness on the plantation.
I mean, never know.
Child rearing years are over, so maybe her value had plummeted.
These are valid questions that we had.
So Victor, loyal member of this large audience, called her office and said, who owned her?
Who sold Congresswoman Lee?
And they, what are you insane?
And hung up on him.
A very, very mean thing to do.
He was just reacting to something that he had heard her say.
So they won't admit when you call her office who sold her.
They won't admit who owned her.
They won't admit any aspect of the deal that resulted in her freedom.
But she did say she was free.
She's not a slave anymore.
She was maybe that morning that somebody sold her.
I imagine Jamie Fox brokered the deal somehow, probably rode in with a six-shooter.
Quentin Tarantino, and they took care of it.
Maybe the owner doesn't want to be known and covering it all up.
I don't know if this is real, but it could be.
A friend of mine, the noted thriller author Ted Bell, has sent me a note that has an attachment.
It's been going around the internet.
You might have seen it, and it could be a hoax.
I don't know.
But even if it is, it is so close to reality, it could be true.
It is a reproduction, actually a photostat copy of a letter to the editor from January 17th of this year in Beaufort, North Carolina.
And it is, there's no name attached to it, just proud to be an American.
But I want to read this to you.
Again, it could be an internet hoax, but if not, it's for real.
And if it is a hoax, it's close enough that you could see something like it in your paper in a letter to the editor.
To the editor, Beaufort, North Carolina.
That doesn't mean it's the paper there.
This guy could be writing a New York Times, who knows?
Although I doubt it because it's long.
Republicans and so-called conservatives are at it again.
They're claiming that the Constitution gives people the right to have guns without the permission of the government.
If that were true, then how could New York and Chicago have laws against guns?
We Democrats are sick and tired of Republicans constantly using the Constitution to cover up their true plans, which are to make us all afraid of everybody else.
Our great president came from a civilized part of the country where there is a strict gun control law, and he is only trying to bring the benefits of that more modern way of living to the rest of us.
I don't know the exact statistics, but I'm quite certain that Chicago is a lot safer than Moorhead City when it comes to gun violence.
Morehead Cities, North Carolina.
But do Republicans and conservatives listen to the voice of reason?
No, of course not.
All they want to do is whine and complain about how gun control and wealth distribution violate the Constitution, as if the Constitution were all that great anyway.
There are a lot of things that need to be changed about the Constitution, I'd say, and President Obama needs to change it.
The Republicans are just trying to stand in the way because the president is black.
They even dared to question whether he was born in this country.
And I think all that demonstrates that the Constitution needs to be amended when it comes to the qualifications for being president.
Right now, it says that a person has to be 35 years old to be a natural-born citizen.
Wait till you hear what's coming, folks.
And I'm telling you, if this is, does this not sound like it be written by real-life idiot Democrat?
Wait till you hear what's coming next.
This person's upset with the constitutional requirement for the presidency that you have to be at least 35 and be a natural-born citizen.
Well, that's obviously unfair because there are a great many otherwise qualified people who can't run for president because their mothers had to have a C-section.
But because the Constitution was written 100 years ago, nobody even thought of the discrimination that would result from a doctor having to deliver a baby in this unnatural way.
Now that we Democrats are in control of the government, that's just one more thing that we should change in our drive to make life fair.
Please withhold my name because I don't want to get crank calls.
Proud to be a Democrat.
So according to this wizard in Beaufort, North Carolina, if your mother had you via C-section, you are SOL, baby.
You can't be president because that's not natural born.
Okay, the Snopes fact checker site says that that letter to the editor is real and it's gone viral.
It's more than 12,000 comments to that letter.
But what the Snopes people say is it was almost certainly written as a spoof rather than an earnest letter from a Democrat.
So it's real, but it can't possibly be real.
Nope, they don't give out the guy's name.
It's got to be a guy making fun of them, and it's a real letter.
Sorry, Snopes.
Also, an internal email has been discovered from Walmart.
Seriously, folks, seriously.
Snergly, look at me.
February sales are a total disaster.
The worst start to a month I have seen in my seven years.
Bloomberg has this.
They found it.
It's an internal Walmart email.
February sales, worse than seven years.
Look, it can only be true, but the point is it's going to cause people to say we need Obama even more.
The economy is getting worse.
Obama's going to have to do more.
What he's doing now is not enough to fix it.
And that's going to be the take.
By the way, the Walmart people say that their horrible February is due to the fact that the payroll tax cut was ended and paychecks are smaller.
And of course, nobody's going to blame Obama for that.
I mean, because he said that nobody's taxes were going to go up.
So the Republicans must have done something while nobody was looking to raise people's taxes, and it's really hurting Walmart.
And we need Obama even more than ever.
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