All Episodes
Previous Next
Feb. 26, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:48
February 26, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #1
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 podcast.
Greetings to you, music lovers and thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plain.
Here we go.
We're wound up.
We are revved up.
We've got three hours of broadcast excellence straight ahead, and I want to remind you and warn you, there's a bunch of stuff that deserves to be discussed in the first half hour.
I'm not going to be able to get it all in the first half hour.
I mean, we're loaded again today.
Anyway, So I just want to urge patience and tolerance.
Balance and fairness.
On the part of those of you listening, I want you to be confident and be trusting in the idea that everything important will be discussed on this program.
And just because it might happen a third hour doesn't mean it's any less important than anything that might happen in the first hour, because I don't do it that way.
I just do this stuff when I feel like talking about it.
I don't I don't sit here and say, you know, I think this is the most important thing of the day.
I'm going to start with.
I don't do that.
Just whatever I feel like talking about it first is what we're going to talk about.
This flows from there.
It's 100% improv.
It's great to have you here.
Once again, the telephone numbers 800-282882, the email address, L Rush Ball at EIBNet.com.
I do want to start just a little bit of an observation.
Sequesteria.
We are in the midst of sequest area.
We're counting down the days to the disaster.
Zero hour.
It is this Friday.
We're talking about, you know, everybody is trying to think of ways to put the amount of money we're talking about here into some sort of understandable context.
Even if you say that we have 3700 billion dollars every year that we spend, i.e.
3.7 trillion.
Okay, we got 3,700 billion and we're not we're gonna cut 25 billion.
It's like, okay, I got 3700 and I'm not gonna spend a quarter.
Pretty close.
There's another way of looking at it, though.
And that is to say that we're going to cut government spending by one cent on the dollar.
One cent on the dollar is all.
I mean, the real secret is the real truth is that even if there is the sequester, even if it happens, we're going to spend more as a country this year than we did last year.
That perhaps is the best way of explaining what's going on now.
The even we've got this abject panic.
We've got a full-blown crisis unfolding before our eyes, and if it happens, we're gonna be spending more money this year than we did last year.
I want to put it to you this way.
If spending more money this year than we did last year is going to bring this country to its knees, shouldn't that tell us that the government has way too much control over our lives?
Shouldn't that tell us that they have seriously overreached?
Shouldn't that tell us that we are way too dependent on government if all of this can happen while we spend fifteen billion dollars more than we spent last year?
If we do the if if even look at it in the in the previous way I mentioned it.
Cutting spending by one cent on the dollar.
If even that is gonna bring the country to its knees, if that is going to cause all of these disasters, the cops saying bye-bye, the first responders out of there, and all that and the list, by the way, keeps expanding this disaster list.
Isn't it safe to say that this is way out of whack?
Way too much government, way too much involved in our lives, way too much control, seriously have overreached.
Well, what would the founders think to hear about all the things our supposedly limited federal government has its tentacles on?
Everything from scroll teachers to scroll principals and meat inspectors.
That's it's uh it's stunning.
John Kerry, the Secretary of State, is in Berlin, ladies and gentlemen.
And while he's there, he's probably reminiscing about the good old days of the Cold War, wishing that there were an East Berlin that he could visit.
You know, hang around with the buddies.
You know, go to East Berlin and say, hey, you know me, remember I'm the guy that threw the fake medals from my Vietnam War service over the White House fence.
Remember me.
But there is no more divided Berlin.
But that didn't stop John Kerry.
He was speaking with students in Berlin about freedom of speech.
The United States, Secretary of State, out representing the United States of America.
He is our emissary to foreign countries.
He is our guy out there representing America and what we stand for.
And what is it that we stand for?
What what did John Kerry think was one of the most important things he could convey to students in Berlin?
Well, we know.
We have it on audio tape, and here it is.
In America, you have a right to be stupid.
If you want to be.
And you have a right to be disconnected to somebody else if you want to be.
And we tolerate it.
We somehow make it through that.
And if we're Democrats, we damn well depend on it.
Now can you imagine the Secretary of State?
Can you imagine Henry Kissinger?
The one thing.
The one thing that we as Americans very much appreciate.
If we have the right to be stupid.
Of course I am not stupid, but most everybody else is.
And that's why I'm Secretary of State.
Can you imagine?
Even Madeline Obra, I can imagine he's Secretary of State of all the things you can say to some students.
In the United States, we have, and you have the right to be stupid.
What he didn't say is that, and we as Democrats depend on that.
We actually encourage ignorance and stupidity.
We tolerate it.
You have a right to be disconnected.
I don't know, folks.
I just we have a right to be stupid.
He also told them in Berlin how he lost his diplomatic passport when he was twelve years old after sneaking out to the Soviet-controlled East Berlin.
He actually did go there.
I was not joking.
I mean, that's why I'm sure he wishes it were still divided to go back and visit his friends.
He said he snuck out of the American embassy at age twelve for a clandestine bicycle ride into the Soviet-controlled eastern part of the city.
Yeah, I saw the difference between East and West.
I saw the people wearing darker clothing.
There were fewer cars.
I didn't feel the energy, didn't feel the movement, and that's exactly what we're trying to build in America.
We want it darker, we want fewer cars, uh, we don't want a whole lot of energy because we're trying to the planet.
Oh my friends, does this not inspire you?
Does this not encourage you?
And he said I was stupid.
That I I shouldn't have done what I did.
I got on my bike and I went out there and I did stupid things.
And we in America have a right to be stupid.
You have a right to be stupid, like I was, if you want to be.
Compare this.
Here is John Kerry, John Forbes Kerry, who by the way once served in Vietnam.
You may not know that.
In Berlin, talking to students, saying, "In America you have a right to be stupid if you want to be." Rinaldi Magnus went to East Berlin.
What he said?
Mr. Gorbachev teared down this wall.
JFK went to Berlin and he said, I too am a Berliner.
Mr. Gorbachev teared down this wall.
John Carey, in America, you have a right to be stupid.
Speaking of, speaking of stupid, from the Hill.com, House Democrats led by Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat communist from California, and she is.
Democrats in the House have introduced legislation that would create a federal department of peace building.
A new cabinet level bureaucracy called the Department of Peace Building.
It would be tasked with everything from finding ways to scale back U.S. military operations and bullying at the screws.
Under her bill, HR eight oh eight, the new department be led by a cabinet level Secretary of Peace Building, who would have a seat on the National Security Council.
They'd be dedicated to peace building, peacemaking, and the study and promotion of conditions conducive to both domestic and international peace and a culture of peace.
Ms. Lee, we have one of these already.
We have a Department of Peacemaking.
You know what?
It's called the Pentagon.
That's where the people who work there are.
It's called the United States Department of Defense.
Yes.
That is our Department of Peace Building.
They've got things in there.
They got jet planes.
If you ever have you ever been around when an American jet flies over, that's the sound of freedom.
That's the sound of your freedom going by.
Of course, these people uh don't look at it that way.
They they want to promote conditions conducive to both uh domestic and international peace and a culture of uh of peace, which means they want to regulate peace.
Barbara Lee wants to regulate peace.
What is a culture of peace anyway?
Passivity.
What is a culture of peace?
Now the bill does not appropriate a specific amount of money to create the new department says such sums as may be necessary.
So it's it's open ended.
Mantai Teo.
Man Titeo, the Notre Dame linebacker with the uh the fake girlfriend for how many years was it?
A year, two years fake girlfriend.
They're having the NFL combine in Indianapolis.
This is the meat market.
This is where the prospective players show up and they're put through their paces.
Physical workouts and uh management personnel and scouts from all the NFL teams are there to observe clock time, examine give tests to and all this to determine whether or not these guys are fit to be in the NFL.
They even set up never mind.
I've I won't go there.
Well, I was gonna never mind.
Look it as as as humorless as people, you would not believe I got the audio sound right roster today.
They're still talking about my observation.
I'm ashamed of my country, and they the people talking about it, Juan Williams, Mary Catherine Hammett Fox, apparently didn't even understand what I meant by it.
They think I'm really ashamed to be an American, that I'm ashamed of the country as it is.
I don't know how, folks.
I literally don't know how.
I am, perhaps, one of the best communicators in American media, and have been for years.
And I don't know how.
This is why I'm not gonna do my little NFL combine joke.
Nobody's got a sense of humor out there anymore.
It just it wouldn't understand it, they wouldn't find it funny, be offended by it, wouldn't laugh at it, wouldn't get it.
If they're not if even people on our side, if they're not gonna understand what I mean or meant, and I was perfectly clear by the way, the process by which w what we are being subjected to by our government makes me ashamed.
Not the Constitution, not the country, not the way we're founded, the current government and the way it's dealing with us.
Makes me ashamed.
Having our intelligence insulted every day.
Anyway, it's something else.
This hasn't been stolen yet, and I am shocked.
We had the uh we had the epidemic awards on Sunday night.
As you know, the epidemic awards that were hijacked there at the end by Muchel Obama.
And the uh Academy Awards would have an audience of what?
How many billions around the world?
And there were probably that many commentators.
And there were probably that many comments.
And I, El Rushbow, managed to have a unique point of analysis that I've seen nowhere else, which means nobody's stolen it yet.
Or else they don't think it's worth stealing.
And my observation plainly was okay.
Does anybody find it ironic that here we have Michelle Obama, who is the wife of the president, Barack Hussein Obama, presenting the award for best movie to the people that did Argo.
What is our go about?
Argo is about the successful rescue of embassy personnel in Iran in 1979.
This administration is noted for not only failing to rescue embassy personnel at Benghazi, but failing to prevent their death.
I found it ironic as it could be that the wife, the first lady of the president who failed to protect embassy personnel is giving out the Academy Award to a movie honoring people who rescued embassy personnel.
And I frankly must tell you again, I'm surprised that I'm the only one that came up with that interpretation.
Everybody else just fall right in line and talked, well, should she have hijacked it or should she have not hijacked it?
Was it really proper for the first lady?
Everybody looked at it from that stuff.
Wait a minute, does nobody realize what just happened here?
It'd be like Colonel Sanders going out there and be given a ward for humanitarianism to chickens.
Or close to it.
No, I'm not trying to forget talking about man titan.
What they're concerned about in the NFL and Man Titeo, let's just put it out there, is he gay?
That's what they're worried about.
And it's not me saying it.
We got audio sound bites, that sequesteria, lots of stuff on tap today, so sit tight, be patient, we'll come back and get started with all the rest of today's program in moments.
Is Man Titeo gay?
That seems to be what's on the minds of NFL executives.
We go now to the Dan Patrick Show, syndicated sports radio program, and they had a guest on there from the NBC Pro Football Talk website, Mike Florio.
They're talking about Man Titeo.
Dan Patrick said, Man Titeo, from all accounts seem to do pretty well with the QA at the combine.
He is getting rave reviews for his uh media performance under a lot of pressure, explained the fake girlfriend, how he got taken for a ride.
The review is through the roof.
He actually did very well.
And when it came to the on-field portion, the first efforts he made on field running the 40 didn't do so hot.
People say it's pressure, the fake girlfriend stuff, all the pressure.
So Dan Patrick uh said, look, there's more questions about Man Titeo off the field as well as on the field.
As far as being a first round pick, what's going on, Florio?
Here's the elephant in the room for the team.
And it shouldn't matter, but we have to step aside from the rest of reality and walk into the unique industry that is the NFL.
Teams want to know whether or not Man Taipeao is gay.
They just want to know.
They want to know because in an NFL locker room, it's a different world.
It shouldn't be that way.
Patrick then says, are they trying to finesse a way to ask that question?
Or Are they just gonna do the investigative work on finding out if he's gay on their own?
It's just that they want to know what they're getting.
They want to know what issues they may be dealing with down the road.
We've just assumed that at some point there would be an openly gay player in an NFL locker room, and the team would have to work with the realities and make sure that everything's fine.
Now you've got a situation where you have a guy who was in a relationship with a fake girl who ended up being a real man, and the man has said to Dr. Phil that he was romantically in love with Manti Pau.
It just creates a lot of questions that the NFL at some point is gonna have to deal with.
What's so strange about all that?
And nothing odd about all that.
Seems perfectly normal to me.
Fake girlfriend in love with the guy who is pretending to be the fake girlfriend and wanting to play in the NFL.
What's the problem?
You know what's got me confused about all this is that I I thought the NFL was okay with gay players.
I thought they wanted gay players, at least some of the teams like the Ravens, maybe not the uh the Niners, uh, but but I thought the Ravens, I mean, they got a player there that's pro-gay marriage.
You can't have gay marriage without without a somebody involved being being gay.
But it was Mike Florio of the ProFootball Talk, the NBC.
It's it's one of the best NFL websites, by the way, out there.
Pro Football Talk.
And Florio, look, you you you've got a situation here.
You have a guy who was in a relationship with a fake girl who ended up being a real man.
Now it's a Tuyasisopo character.
And the man, Tuyasa Sopo, said to Dr. Phil that he was romantically involved with their in love with Manti Teo.
So that's that's that's that's quite a circumstance there, and Florio says it creates a lot of questions.
The NFL at some point's gonna have to deal with.
They want to know who they're dealing with here.
And I thought that we were headed in this direction.
I think it was any big deal.
Okay, so you got a relationship with a fake girl.
You either knew or you didn't know.
The fake girl is actually a guy who is in love with the football player, but the football player doesn't know that, but he does now.
Now, anyway, Manti Tao was asked this question already January twenty-fourth.
It was on Katie Couric's show.
And and during the interview, they had this this little exchange about this.
One of the theories, many theories, Mantai making the rounds, is somehow you created this whole scenario to cover up your sexual orientation.
Are you gay?
No.
Far from it.
Far from that.
And they all laugh.
Not that there's anything wrong with being gay, of course.
But he's far from it.
So he's already answered the question.
The NFL clearly not satisfied.
The gay people I know, you know, he's talking about performing, the gay people I know are really quick on their feet.
So I don't know what the NFL's uh uh concern here would be.
And as I say, I've been under the impression that everybody knows this is a feta complet.
Anyway, and I told you this stuff was gonna happen.
I you know, the the NFL is is now the latest social playground.
It's the latest laboratory for liberal social experimentation, just like the U.S. military is.
That's just the way it is.
That's what the NFL has become.
The NFL is now a medical laboratory testing on concussions and the impact on players after they quit.
Does it turn them violent, suicidal, and all of that?
You remember, by the way, there's a there's an interesting cover story, I guess it's it uh New Republic Time Mag Time magazine.
Time magazine's long investigation of American health care prices missed one thing.
We pay our doctors way too much.
There was a in the current issue of time, there's a huge cover story by Steve Brill.
Twenty four thousand words.
And you know what he concludes?
He concludes that health care is very expensive, the prices are very high, and hospitals charge those high prices for the same reason that any other business would because they can.
And Brill concludes in 24,000 words that Obamacare is not only going to not help, it's going to make it worse.
And now the latest number is that Obamacare is going to add 6.2 trillion to the national debt.
Six point two trillion.
But the point of the Matt Iglesia story.
We pay our doctors too much.
Do you remember it wasn't long ago?
I warned you, be on the lookout.
Somebody on the left, and I predicted it wasn't going to take much time.
Somebody on the left is going to say, why should there be profit in health care?
Why should doctors get rich simply for making sick people well?
Why should that cost anybody anything?
But especially, why should there be obscene profit in treating the sick?
Why should there be anybody making loads and loads of money?
Obscene profit in simply treating the sick and making them well.
And lo and behold, here it is.
It's in Time Magazine.
We pay our doctors way too much.
This is an adjunct story to the Steve Brill cover story.
The long investigation, the American health care system.
They looked at prices, and this Iglesia story, as I say, is an adjunct because he believes that Brill missed something.
In his 24,000 word analysis.
And Iglesia says, you know, we're paying our doctors too much.
We could really cut costs.
We can make health care much less expensive if we just roll back what we're paying doctors.
And he gets into it just exactly as I knew.
Leftists are predictable, folks.
Liberals, I know these people.
And it's all about morality, fairness, justice, a fair shake, balanced approach.
It's just wrong.
It's just obscene.
That any one person should become a multimillionaire simply for treating the sick.
That ought to be something somebody would do for nothing.
That ought to be something that's purely humanitarian, but certainly it shouldn't include massive profit.
There is something institutionally wrong with that.
And by the way, that's going to sell.
I just I want to warn all of you doctors, now that this thing has got its official imprimonter in Time Magazine, this is going to take off.
You think the low information voters, and I'm going to lap this up, I have another thing to tell you.
Another bridge to sell you.
This is going to take off like wildfire.
You're going to have people going, yeah, that's right.
That's exactly right.
Doctors are the reason that health care is so expensive.
And they're going to focus on the kind of cars you doctors drive, and they're going to focus on your houses and where you live.
And they're going to focus on the country club memberships that you have, and they're going to focus on that you work four days a week.
And they're going to focus on the fact that you have all these people in your waiting room and you never get to people on time.
And they're going to focus on the fact that you've got these sweetheart relationships with the drug companies.
If they come in and they urge you to prescribe this drug or that drug and they pay you under the table, and then they're going to say, why should doctors be profiting like this?
And then why should hospitals, and it's finally, why should there be any profit at all in medicine?
It's nobody's fault that they got sick.
It'll that'll be the case in this scenario.
Now, normally it is your fault if you get sick because you ate the wrong thing, you behaved the wrong way, uh, you inhaled the wrong thing, you drive the wrong kind of car, whatever.
Normally you're getting sick is your responsibility, but now for this instance it won't be.
You're gonna be the essence of innocence.
You're gonna be totally taken advantage of by these mean, greedy health care professionals.
Doctors, hospitals, insurance comp it doesn't matter.
Whoever is involved in treating the sick is going to come under this bright light of protest.
Why should there be profit?
Why should there be obscene profit?
Why should anybody be getting rich treating the sick?
It's not the sick's fault.
Remember it was uh Pennsylvania Senator Harris Wafford who made the connection if the Constitution guarantees you a lawyer, then the Constitution ought to guarantee you health care.
If we will pay for your lawyer when you can't afford one when you're accused of a crime, why don't we pay for your health care?
And it took off.
So another prediction.
Here about the NFL and now medicine, another prediction coming to fruition in a much shorter period of time than I actually thought it would take.
Matt Iglesias in Time Magazine.
Remember now, Brill.
Steve Brill did a 24,000 word assessment of American health care and Obamacare, and he concluded that it's too expensive.
And by the way, he's right about something.
It's expensive because somebody pays for it.
But it's not the patient, and there's no and well, ultimately it is, but the patient doesn't know it.
There is no direct relationship between a consumer and the provider in health care.
And if there were, you would see prices come down faster than anything else you could do.
It's amazing.
You go into the free market, you buy any, go buy a car.
You deal with the dealer, you deal with a salesman, the price is on the sticker, you negotiate, get best price you can, you walk out of there and you lie to people about what a great deal you got.
With health care, you don't do any of that.
You have an insurance plan.
You might have a copay, whatever they charge, somebody's paying.
You may be paying a big percentage of it, but it's out of your hands.
But if you had to pay for every dime of health care you get, you'd be far more interested in how much it costs, and you would be you would be more dis discerning and discreet shopper, and there would be competition, and that doesn't exist.
And Obamacare is only going to make it worse, and Brill says that.
So anyway, it's a 24,000 word analysis of American health care, in which Brill concludes it's too expensive.
Right, we need 24,000 words for that.
But another reporter at Time Magazine says, wait a minute, Brill missed something.
24,000 words is almost the whole magazine these days, given how small it is.
Twenty-four thousand words and he missed something.
And Iglesias said, you know what he missed was the doctors are making too much money.
So Iglesias, the author of this piece in Time Magazine, says that we need Congress to mandate lower prices.
We need Congress to mandate lower payments to doctors.
Let me read from this article.
When foreigners force prices to be lower, they get lower prices.
Really?
The National Health Service in Great Britain really prices are down because people want them to be what I bet that it's absurd.
When Americans force prices to be lower via Medicare, we get lower prices.
So if we want lower prices through new legislation, a way to get them is to write laws mandating that prices be lowered.
Oh, well, why didn't I think of that?
Why don't we have somebody in Congress write a law that gasoline prices are too expensive?
And then why don't we have a law saying that houses are too expensive?
And let's have Congress write a law that says property, land is too expensive.
And next, let's have somebody in Congress write a law that college is too expensive.
Tuition prices are going through the roof.
We need Congress to mandate lower prices.
Now, the low information voters in the audience are cheering right now when they hear me say this.
I'm sitting here, you and I, well aware I'm making fun of this proposition.
Everybody knows that that's not how you make prices lower.
You cannot artificially, or you can, you can do it, but you're gonna blow up the whole system.
It does not work.
Wage and price controls have never worked, folks.
You know what the best illustration, and it still happens in countries where they freeze wages and prices.
Back in 19, the first time I was alive when this happened, 1972, 73, I remember I lived in Pittsburgh.
And it's working for a radio station that was owned by ABC.
Now I was very proud of that.
ABC was big back then.
And Nixon announced wage and price controls, just froze everything.
And management at the station loved it.
Oh, we would love to give you a raise, but the government's frozen.
We can't do it.
And they, of course, didn't look for creative ways.
For us, they did for themselves.
They invented bonuses, uh, stock options, all kinds of new kinds of compensation that were not covered by the freeze.
And then I noticed wage and price free.
Well, I'd go to the grocery store and prices still went up.
I said, wait, how does this happen?
I thought there was a freeze.
There's a freeze on my wages.
Why isn't there a free?
I asked an economist about this one day later on how this happened.
He said, Well, it's very simple.
For example, in the butcher department, the grocery store, all they did was invent a new cut.
Maybe the Del Monaco B that never existed.
And there were no price controls on the Delmonico B. So they stopped selling Delmonico cut because the price is frozen.
They create this new Delmonico B, which might just be an ounce bigger, and they can charge whatever they want for it.
The point is, the creative are always going to find ways around artificially mandated prices.
But this is one of these things.
Low information voters are never ever going to learn.
All they're going to do, they're going to hear if they hear about it, it's a roll of the dice even on that.
But if they do hear that this guy, because you think I don't think the low information crowds read in Time magazine.
But if one of them happens to stumble across it in the doctor's office, which is where a lot of low information people hang out, that in the bowling alley, if they happen to run in to a copy of Time Magazine, if they happen to open it and read the words, not just look at the pictures, and they stumble across this idea that Congress could just make health care more affordable by mandating lower prices, they'd start cheering it.
Well, they already think the government does everything else.
Why doesn't the government fix prices?
Why didn't the government make things cheaper?
They're doing everything else, and they would cheer it.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is up what we're up against.
That's why I'm warning you doctors, don't sit out there and think this is never going to happen.
The ball is rolling now.
And we've got a president who thinks the healthcare system's broken precisely because there are too many people in it getting rich in an immoral and unjust way.
And we have a whole bunch of leftists who believe there ought not be profit in anything.
Anything.
But especially health care.
Because that's a humanitarian pursuit.
Leftists really think that a drugstore owner, grocery store, whatever, should sell everything it cost.
Make no profit so that everybody can afford things.
They think that would be fair.
They act, why should there be profit?
You explain to them, well, there would be no reason.
What would the man who owns the store live on if he charges only what it costs him to buy the products on his shelves?
And he's got to pay his taxes.
He's not going to be able to afford to keep the store open.
He won't be able to buy his own food.
Well, let him go get food stamps then, like I do, would be the reaction.
Well, why should there be profit in food?
We all need food for crime.
We can't live without food.
Why should there be profit in it?
That's where we're headed, folks.
And we've got a regime that's promoting and rewarding that kind of misunderstanding being charitable.
Ignorance.
They're promoting it.
Brief time out.
I know, sequesteria.
Look, folks, we still have two hours.
By the time we're finished here, everything that matters, you're going to have heard about and in unique ways.
So just be patient.
New York Times has already done this story.
We told you about it.
January 8th, health care and profits, a poor mix.
It's a very long story, so the momentum is already underway.
Democrats are worried, folks, that the cuts in sequestration will actually not be that bad.
▲
Export Selection