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Feb. 21, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:07
February 21, 2013, Thursday, Hour #3
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Time Text
And the views expressed by the host on this program, documented to be almost always right 99.7% of the time, as usual, my friends.
Half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
Delight to be with you here, 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, the email address, lrushbo at eibnet.com.
Well, no, this business of the you know, there's this ongoing battle about me being too conservative for the Republican Party and too powerful.
And the Republican Party is scared of me, and nobody will stand up to me, and they're not going to get anywhere until they have the guts to stand up to me because I'm too conservative, and they need to be more moderate.
They need to move to the center more, but I won't let them.
But really, how powerful am I?
How good am I?
And then people are out there saying, look at Limbaugh's track record in presidential races.
He's one for six.
In the first place, I'm three for six, but the whole premise is flawed because I don't pick a single candidate.
I am not in charge of any candidate anywhere in his campaign.
I don't choose the consultants.
I don't choose the ad people.
I've got nothing to do and never have had anything to do with one election in this country.
Zilch Zero Nada.
So this is the kind of thing I'm talking about.
This is the kind of stuff that is just infantile.
And it's insulting.
And it's insulting to everybody's intelligence, like this whole debate on the sequester.
We're all being played for fools here.
Once again, they're throwing fear-mongering crisis cards at us.
And it's embarrassing.
And it's embarrassing anymore to get caught up in it and play in the game.
The Republicans, all these people not in the Republican Party say it needs a big tent.
No, that's not what they mean.
They need a smaller tent.
They want the party to be nothing but moderates.
They want to get rid of the conservatives.
And they put out this nonsense that conservatives are the reason that they lose.
We haven't nominated any conservatives.
We don't know if conservatives would win or lose because the party hasn't nominated any.
Not for president, anyway.
But my friends, let me tell you, it's just another testament to my overall powerful impact and effectiveness that somehow the Republican Party is discredited by the fact that I am one for six in presidential array or that the party is too afraid of me.
And as long as they remain too afraid of me, they're never going to go anywhere.
That the Republican Party notice it's always media people with whom I am in competition, by the way.
At least that's how they view it.
I don't think I have any, but they view it as competition.
And they stand up and say, yeah, till the Republican Party ditches Limbo, and they're never going to go anywhere.
I'm not in charge of the Republican.
I don't have anything to do with the decisions that they make.
I've never even met the chairman of the Republican National Committee.
I don't even know how to pronounce his name.
I wouldn't know where to call him if I wanted to talk to him.
And yet, it's all on me.
It's all my fault.
And this is what media people say, who, if they had their drothers, would just have me swept out of the way.
Anyway, speaking of media people, last night, Jay Leno made a joke about the president not understanding economics, and the studio audience cheered, applauded, and whistled.
Leno said, hey, over the weekend, President Obama, you know that President Obama played golf with Tiger Woods, and Tiger said the president was a very good golfer for a guy who only plays five days a week.
Actually, you know, the president's handicap is, anybody know?
He doesn't understand economics.
That's the handicap.
Other than that, he's fine.
And the audience went nuts cheering.
The tonight show audience, an NBC audience, cheering over a joke made about Obama's ignorance when it comes to the economy.
But right here from, let's see, I guess it's Bloomberg.
Obama enters the latest budget showdown with Congress with his highest job approval rating in three years.
Public support for his economic message stands at a record.
I'm sorry, this is written poorly.
Let me start this again.
President Obama enters the latest budget showdown with Congress with his highest job approval rating in three years and public support for his economic message.
That's a dangling sentence fragment that has no relationship to anything.
Then there's a comma.
And then while his Republican opponent's popularity stands at a record low.
So what they're trying to say here is that Obama's job approval rating and public support for his economic message is at an all-time high.
You see, his economic message.
Do you understand the crucial importance of that wording?
Not his economic policies, not his economic governance, his message.
And he's campaigning.
He's campaigning as an outsider.
He's campaigning, fighting these powerful Republican forces who want 800,000 Pentagon people to lose their jobs.
He's fighting these Republicans who want meat inspectors to stay home.
He's fighting these Republicans who want air traffic controllers to get fired and laid off.
He's fighting these Republicans who want to make sure the cops and the firefighters and other first responders don't have money to go to work tomorrow.
That's his message.
And Bloomberg says that public support for his message is at a three-year high.
They didn't poll people's approval of Obama's economic policies.
And I'm telling you, do not minimalize this.
There is a profound and huge difference between polling Obama's economic message and his agenda because they're two different things.
And he's getting away with having no relationship whatsoever to the economy of the country.
He has a message.
It's Republican policies that are the problem.
And the Bloomberg poll, that's what it says.
Republicans are all to blame for this.
Obama's message is really cool.
55% like it.
The problem with Leno is that the American people laugh about it, but Obama does understand economics.
And he knows full well how he can use and create and capitalize on a crisis, a bad economy, to expand the government.
Now, this Bloomberg poll also would seem to be lying about how popular Obama's amnesty policy is because there's a Reuters poll.
Majority of U.S. citizens say illegal immigrants should be deported.
More than half of U.S. citizens believe that most or all of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants should be deported, according to a Reuters poll released yesterday that highlights the difficulties facing lawmakers trying to reform the U.S. immigration system.
The online survey shows resistance to easing immigration laws despite the biggest push for reform in Congress in 2007.
So this poll directly contradicts this Bloomberg poll, at least on the issue of amnesty for illegals.
I don't know.
I just have to take both of them at face value.
But I just, I think it's profound here, folks.
I don't think this is insignificant at all.
Public support for Obama's economic message.
That is, I'm telling you, it is profound because they're supporting what he's saying.
They're polling what Obama is saying that he wants for the economy.
They are not polling Obama's policies.
They are polling current economic policies as though they are Republican policies that are in force and being implemented.
And Obama is getting the benefit of being seen as opposing them and trying to stop them when it is Obama who's president.
And it's Obama who's getting everything he wants.
It's actually mind-boggling to me.
Never seen this before.
This is one thing that is new.
I have not seen a president in the eyes of the public have no relationship to the events of the day.
I've not seen that before.
I have not thought about this.
I started doing shows like this in 1984.
Reagan was president.
Every president that I have seen has always been tied to national policies, be they military, be they economic, be they social.
Obama is the first president that a majority of people do not associate with actual events and experience, actual occurrences.
He's seen as not involved but trying to stop them, not involved but fighting them.
Five years he's been president and he gets away, well, four and a half, four years and a couple months.
He gets away with not being perceived as governing.
He's still fighting Bush.
He's still fighting Reagan.
He's still fighting all that crap that happened before he got here.
Every president would love this, by the way.
They would love to be able to pull this off.
Obama's just the first one who has.
Let's grab soundbite number one.
I'm going to get started.
It's got some good ones here.
This is Madam Albright, the former Secretary of State for Bill Clinton.
She's the one who said many things over the course of many years.
Among the things that she has said is that she always thought it was a bad idea that the United States was a lone superpower.
That wasn't good for the world.
That was a world that was not balanced.
If there wasn't a competing superpower, there was nothing to stop us.
So in Madeline Albright's view, we're not the good guys.
We're just as bad as any other superpower that's an enemy of ours.
And it was a good thing to have the Soviet Union, another superpower.
These superpowers, you know, they keep themselves and each other in check.
We made sure the Soviets didn't establish communism all over the world, and the Soviets made sure that we weren't able to spread freedom all over the world.
Can't have that.
There are certain places people don't know how to be free.
They need to live in tyranny.
They need to live in chains and dungeons, like Cuba.
Certain people, I remember Madeline Albright was part of the group when the Berlin Wall fell.
There are a lot of liberals that were very worried about that, that the people in Russia, the old Soviet bloc, they'd been living under communism for so long, they weren't going to know what to do with freedom.
And they wouldn't be able to handle it.
Meaning, without shepherds in their lives, they wouldn't be able to know what to do day to day.
So that's Madeline Albright.
It's not good that the U.S. the only superpower.
No, no, no way.
That's bad for the world because we're not the good guys.
Excuse me.
So he's on with Charlie Rose on his show on PBS.
And Charlie said, talking about the budget and the sequester, of course.
And Charlie Rose said to Madame Albright, we may face sequester.
What will that do to America's ability to conduct a wise foreign policy?
Can I just tell you not a damn thing?
Look, we were unable to prevent the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi before the sequester.
So what's going to happen with the sequester?
We're going to somehow be able to stop the loss of life.
Anyway, here's what Madam Albright said.
In answer to the question, we may face sequester.
What will that do to our ability to conduct a wise foreign policy and defense policy?
I think it will hurt us immensely.
It just makes us look incompetent.
We are not presenting, I think, the right image to the world in terms of what can be done when Democratic and Republican, or when leaders that have been elected are able to come to some kind of a solution.
We are looking dysfunctional.
This is a sharp criticism of your president.
No, I think the president is doing everything he can.
Oh, so it's just Congress.
I think that at this stage, I truly do believe that, that there is an awful lot of game playing.
And I think the president has offered a variety of solutions.
I think that he gave a great inaugural speech at a State of the Union.
You see, so we're being embarrassed.
This is embarrassing.
Everybody in the world is looking at us like we can't get anything done.
And Charlie just assumes, wow, that is a sharp criticism of the president.
Madam Orbit.
No, no way.
The president's doing everything he can.
It's the Republicans.
It's Congress, Charlie.
Charlie, you're off message here, pal.
It's not Obama's.
He's doing everything he can.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, no, she came out and said she didn't think Clinton had sex with Lewinsky.
She didn't really believe that.
I mean, you'd have to be an idiot to believe that Clinton wasn't having sex with Lewinsky and a bunch of others.
They just, they circle the wagons.
I mean, they do not throw their people overboard, snurdly.
They defend.
It doesn't matter.
You know, they will protect the ideology.
They will protect liberalism.
They will protect Dan Rather does what he did with that phony story, circle the wagons and give him a couple awards.
We conservatives will throw each other overboard at the first chance we get because there are certain conservatives just want to get rid of others so they can ascend to whatever they think the top of the mountain is.
But these guys don't do that.
How many people, and I said, I remember wanting to throw Clarence Thomas away because they believe, well, even if Clarence Thomas is truthful and even if she's lying, he's damaged.
How many people wanted to throw Sarah Palin overboard?
Say that the Democrats don't do that.
I got to take a break back after this.
Don't go away.
By the way, folks, this is the Wall Street Journal.
Key senators are exploring an immigration bill that would force every U.S. worker, citizen or not, to carry a high-tech identity card that could use fingerprints or other personal markers to prove a person's legal eligibility to work.
The idea, signaled only in vaguely worded language from senators, crafting a bipartisan immigration bill has privacy advocates and others concerned.
A law would create a national identity card.
Exactly.
My only question is, what's Jesse Jackson going to say?
I mean, you start giving people national ID cards, a federal ID card, you can have a photo on it.
You're going to have some method of identification on it.
What's they going to do to vote fraud?
Well, we can't have photo ID at the polls.
Don't does this mean Democrats will be exempted from the federal ID card?
Probably so.
I mean, if these people don't hold true to form, only Republicans and legal immigrants will get the federal ID card.
Democrats and illegals will be exempted.
No.
It says here the lawmakers have not committed to the biometric ID card.
Folks, trust me, they have.
Well, the group that wants it has.
And they are wary of any element that might split the fragile coalition of Democrats, Republicans, and outside organizations working toward agreement on a broad overhaul of immigration laws.
At least five of the eight senators writing the bill have backed the biometric ID cards in the past.
Three of them, Senator Graham, Senator McCain, Senator Chumer, have said they support requiring the cards under the law but are open to other options.
They do want this card.
In fact, they want this card even if they don't get the immigration bill.
Don't doubt me.
I happen to be aware of this.
And I'm serious when I raise the question about the photo ID at the polling place because as you know, the civil rights coalitions and a lot of Democrats are dead set against it.
Photo ID, you need everywhere but at the voting booth because somehow a photo ID will contribute to vote fraud, is what they say.
So, how are these people who are opposed to a photo ID at the same time going to support a federal ID card that will use fingerprints or other personal markers to prove a person's legal eligibility to work?
Once you do this, why not use this thing to vote?
Are we going to exempt the card from being required to vote?
Probably is what they'll do: exempt it from having to vote, only to get a job.
So they will say.
But your social security number, you see, is no longer enough of a federal ID.
Nope, need one of these.
Moving on to the audio soundbites, this is Nora O'Donnell.
CBS this morning reported the following about the budget and the sequester.
Now to Washington in the argument over automatic budget cuts that could happen next week.
A new poll from Q Research in USA Today finds 40% of Americans are willing to see those cuts take effect.
Government agencies are already sending out warnings while the president and Congress are pointing fingers at each other.
The media not happy about this number.
40% want to see the sequester?
That doesn't jibe with them.
They think everybody ought to be opposed to it because Obama's opposed to it, even though it was Obama's idea.
But they're not sure about this.
The media are not sure.
And there's 40% of the people who want to see these cuts.
That has them bamboozled.
Now, Bill Plant on CBS this morning had a report out there about the effect this sequester might have on people.
And he talked to the Navy administrative assistant, Sue Ann Falkenberg.
Sue Ann Falkenberg, Navy administrative assistant, said this.
I would have to get a part-time job to support my family.
I can't exactly call my landlord and say, hey, I got a 20% cut in my salary.
Can you reduce the rent for 20%?
Sue Ann, what you should do is say to your landlord, if this actually happens, you say, look, I'm going to get this money back.
We just had a federal employee who admitted that back pay is made during such times as this, during furloughs, momentary shutdowns.
So you can tell your landlord, you're good for it.
You're good for that.
And a holiday turkey at the appropriate time.
But anyway, you see what CBS is doing.
Go out and find civilian Pentagon people.
The day after the story comes out, the Panetta says he's going to have to fire $800,000.
Well, furlough, $800,000.
You go find one.
I pay my rent.
My landlord was skunk.
He won't let me get by one.
I'm sorry, folks.
I deeply apologize.
I'm just trying to be lighthearted here.
I'm not personally insulting Ms. Falkenberg.
This is the kind of thing that makes young women nervous.
I apologize.
Just, you know, I just, it is worth crying about to the people to whom this is going to happen.
And I didn't mean to minimize that.
Really sorry.
Max Baucus.
Let's see.
Yo, Max Baucus.
He's a Senator Montana.
Tuesday night.
He's in billings on a local TV.
The White House recommended it, frankly, back in August 2011.
And so now we're feeling the effects of it.
Now, I don't want to save the president solely to blame he's not.
Not going to make the regime happy.
It was probably not known outside of Billings TV until just now.
Max Baucasoya, the White House recommended the sequester back in August 2011.
So now we're feeling the effects.
I don't want to say it's president solely to blame.
Me is not.
And let's see, moving forward.
I don't want any more Obama.
I really don't want any more in Obama.
Grab a call.
And it's Julian in Albuquerque.
Hi, Julian.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Thank you for taking my call.
And God bless you for all you do, keeping us well informed.
Why don't I tell you a little bit about your comment on for the first time?
Well, for the first time, actually, it was for me when the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and secondly, when this lying mentor, excuse me, lying imposter was elected to the presidency.
But, you know, I became a proud American in my high school years.
Served in Vietnam.
And now, you know, my wife and I have a business, proud to be part of the Art Williams business.
But one of my proudest days was back in 1995 when my mechanic told me about you.
Listening to you has been rewarding to me.
And I wanted to call and thank you for that.
Thank you.
So you have a mechanic?
That's cool.
You got a friend of mine.
Do you have a pool guy, too?
Yes.
All right.
All right.
And one of your neighbors, of course, Art Williams is my other mentor other than you in my business.
And that makes me to be a proud American, to be part of your listening audience.
And it's just great to talk with you.
Well, thank you.
Are you saying that this is the second time you've been ashamed of your country?
Yeah, the first time was the Lewinsky scandal, period.
It was a shame to be an American then.
And now with this Fughesi, as somebody called him, of a president, was re-elected.
And this is a shame.
Julian, I have to tell you, it's guys like you that give us all hope.
And I'm not kidding.
I mean that seriously.
It's people like you that give us hope.
You said you served in Vietnam.
Did you know that John Kerry did too?
Yes, I heard about that, but don't know the full details.
Well, he did.
Look, I really, I'm being serious.
It's people like you who give us.
Julian, people like you are the Democrats' worst nightmare.
Well, I want you to hang tough.
In fact, I'd like to.
If you have a mechanic, you probably have an iPad.
No, I don't.
You don't have an iPad?
No, we haven't been able to secure one yet.
Well, would you like the full-fledged retina 9.7-inch screen iPad, or you want a mini?
Wow.
Whichever one you have available, it would greatly help us in our business.
Okay, I'll tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm going to give you the retina.
Okay.
The full-fledged 128-gigabyte storage.
Since you're going to use it in business, you'll need a lot of it.
So let me give you the full-fledged big one.
Because the iPad Mini, by the time we get to October, they're going to have a retina screen in it anyway.
And I'd be giving you something that is not going to be outdated, but it's going to be improved, but it's on October.
So I'll come around with you just hang on, okay?
Mr. Scott.
Pardon?
God bless you.
God bless you and keep up, keep informing us.
Julian, you're a great guy, you're a great caller, and I'm really honored you're in the audience.
Now, hang on so we can get your address.
Do you want white or black?
Doesn't matter.
Black may be better.
Oh, good.
You're not a racist either.
Excellent.
Okay.
So we'll send you a black iPad.
It'll be with AT ⁇ T, and we'll get it out today.
Don't go away, folks.
We'll be right back.
Back to the phones where we go to St. Joseph, Michigan.
This is Robert.
Thank you for waiting, sir.
Great to have you here.
Professor Limbaugh, loyal student since 1988 with a near-perfect attendance record.
Well, I appreciate that.
Thank you.
I'd like to tell you my theory as to why the Democrats and liberals circle wagons while the Republicans throw people overboard so quickly.
The liberals are all about the big picture.
They're all about the greater good.
You know, reaching utopia is the most important thing, and nothing else matters.
So little things like scandals and lies and facts, those aren't important because getting to the big picture, the greater good, that beats all else.
Republicans and conservatives, on the other hand, are completely driven by their ideology, by truth, by the message, by character.
And when somebody comes along who steps outside of the rules, the laws, the message, they have to distance themselves from them because the press knows this about conservatives and are always waiting to pounce.
Robert, a lot of what you say is true, but there's some key things in that that I disagree with a bit.
And there may be small things.
And they may just be semantic.
Well, no, they may just be semantic.
I know what you mean.
The liberals, it is their ideology that they are being loyal to.
Liberalism must never suffer slings and arrows.
Liberalism cannot be seen as the reason for anything going wrong.
Liberalism can't be seen as a failure.
Dan Rather, as a liberal, cannot be seen as forging documents and running a phony story.
That cannot be allowed to taint liberalism.
They are protecting liberalism.
It is the ideology.
It is the roadmap.
It's how they want to get to this place you describe, which is total power.
On the Republican side, it's not just truth.
Sarah Palin wasn't wrong about anything.
She didn't lie about anything.
Sarah Palin embarrassed some people.
So they had to get rid of her.
The point is, the Republicans will not circle the wagons and defend very many.
Conservatives will not circle the wagons and defend.
Now, I defended Clarence Thomas not even knowing who he was because I knew what happened.
I knew the libs were lying about him because I know the libs.
There are some conservatives today, if Clarence Thomas was accused today about Anita Hill, would throw him overboard, not because she was maybe lying or telling the truth, but because he would be tainted.
They would throw him overboard.
They wouldn't even bother to defend him because he's making them look bad by supporting him.
It's a far different thing.
The number of conservatives wanting to pop up and defend each other doesn't happen.
We're quick to throw everybody because we don't want the media saying bad things about the rest of us.
It's really a big difference.
The left will circle the wagons and protect their reprobates and they promote them.
They promote their failures.
It's a huge, huge difference.
But I know what you're trying to say, and your instincts are right on the money with it.
Jay Carney, White House spokesman, said a few minutes ago Obama called Mitch McConnell and John Boehner earlier today, had a good conversation with both of them.
Guess he couldn't wait to tell them what it was like to play golf with Tiger Woods.
That's about all we know.
Anyway, folks, Open Line Friday tomorrow.
You be here 21 hours, counting down from now.
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