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May 8, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:14
May 8, 2013, Wednesday, Hour #3
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And greetings once again to you, music lovers all across the fruited plain.
Got you covered here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I am Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchor man.
America's truth detector and the doctor of democracy executing assigned host duties flawlessly.
Zero mistakes.
Telephone number, if we want to get, if you want to get on the program, 800-282-2882, the email address, LRushbo at EIBNet.com.
This is kind of funny.
Yesterday, when CNN was covering the events in Cleveland, they had a split screen.
And on the left side, as you were watching your TV, on the left side of the split screen was the info babe, Ashley Banfield.
And on the right side of your split screen was Nancy Grace.
And CNN indicated that they were connected via satellite link, that they were in two different spots.
It turned out they were in the same parking lot.
People eagle-eyed the coverage and saw the traffic drive behind Ashley Banfield and moments appear behind Nancy Grace.
Now, as you looked at your screen, you had Ashley Banfield on the left half and Nancy Grace on the right, but in truth, they were in the same parking lot, and Nancy Grace was just a little bit to the right of Ashley Banfield.
Because you'd see, whatever, a car delivery truck in the background at Ashley Banfield, and seconds later, the same car in the background of Nancy Grace.
Yet they wanted you.
It was like when Cokie Roberts put on a trench coat in the studio, because it was really cold out there, and made it look like she was outside on Capitol Hill doing a report.
She was in the studio, bundled up to make it look like it was cold in front of a backdrop.
Okay, so that's one thing.
So CNN now is complaining about the media scrum outside one of the girls' houses where she's returning home after 10 years in Cleveland.
It's just mildly amusing, the phoniness that is so much a part of television these days.
One more audio soundbite from the hearings this afternoon on Capitol Hill.
They've taken a break now, I believe.
But again, Fox is pretty much it on this.
CNN bumps in for, I don't know, when Eleanor Holmes Norton is testifying or questioning somebody or when Elijah Cummings is issuing profundities like, well, you know, life is part of death or death is part of life.
Whatever, he said.
So during the committee hearing this afternoon, Mark Thompson is a former Marine, the acting deputy assistant secretary for counterterrorism, testified.
And the delegate to Congress from Washington, D.C. is Eleanor Holmes-Naughton.
And she said, I'm quoting from this report, tried to cut the Counterterrorism Bureau out of the loop as they and other administration officials weighed how to respond and characterize the Benghazi attack.
That's the end of the quote, Mr. Thompson.
I'm asking you, is that a quote?
Is that quote accurate that you believe that the Counterterrorism Bureau was intentionally kept out of the loop for political reasons?
I indicated that the portion of the Counterterrorism Bureau that responds to crises, i.e. My part of the office was pushed out of that discussion.
The Counterterrorism Bureau was represented in subsequent meetings after the night of 9-11.
So, but do you believe you were kept out for political reasons?
I do not politicize my job, madam.
I have served under three presidents, starting with President Clinton up to the present.
I have served six secretaries.
I've got to continue.
Mr. Thompson, I was just quoting the quote.
So, the quote isn't entirely accurate then.
Correct.
Yeah.
The point of this is that the Democrats are desperate to portray these witnesses as partisans.
And Eleanor Holmes-Norton, as the Reverend Jackson pronounces her name, Eleanor Holmes-Norton, the delegate, she was trying to say that this quote that this counterterrorism guy had been kept out of things policy.
She was just trying to get that he was a partisan and he was making things up in order to harm the Obama regime.
And the quote was inaccurate, and she finally heard that.
So this quote is not really accurate.
That's correct, madam.
She barked up a tree that didn't exist.
But they're still trying, and they're going to continue to try to portray these people as partisan and these witnesses as having an agenda.
So far, they have not been able to do that, but they will continue that effort.
From the Politico today, the two issues dominating Washington in recent months-gun control and immigration-are near the bottom of Americans' concerns, according to a new poll.
Now, this, actually, not a new poll, this is a Gallup poll we had last week.
They just heard about this at the Politico, but since they published this, I wanted to go ahead and mention it again.
Only 50% of Americans said reforming immigration should be a high priority in a Gallup poll.
55% said the same thing about reducing gun violence.
These two issues were at the bottom of a list of 12 issues presented by Gallup.
You know what the top of the issues are?
It's what we've been hearing all week: economic issues, jobs, wages, salaries, you name it.
And of course, what difference does that make?
What you hear, the president's going to refocus on jobs.
Yeah, I just, he's going to embark on another campaign-type tour to, and that's the word in the headline: to refocus on jobs.
I don't know what he's going to do.
He's going to go out and tell people that he's refocusing on jobs.
He's going to go out and have campaign-style appearances where he's telling people he's working hard on jobs now.
Look at the gun thing bit the dust.
The immigration bill is in trouble.
Everybody knows that it's in trouble.
And now, this Gallup poll comes out where nobody cares about these things.
We talked about it yesterday.
This huge disconnect between people in Washington and what's important to them.
And nobody's talking about Jason Collins other than people in the media and in Washington.
Oh, by the way, ladies and gentlemen, let's see if I can find it here.
I put it near the bottom of the stack, and I wonder if it's still near the bottom of the stack.
Oh, I've got to pull it.
That's an interesting illustration of media.
Jason Collins got a book deal.
That's what I'm looking for here.
Yeah, here it is.
Jason seeking, not got seeking book deal, officials, LAP.
Jason Collins, the NBA veteran who last week announced he was gay, is seeking a book deal.
Officials at three publishing houses said Monday they'd been contacted about a planned memoir by Jason Collins, first active player in any of the four major U.S. professional sports leagues to come out as gay.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the proceedings.
But he's working on the book with Franz Litz, who was Sports Illustrated, to whom he broke the news that he was gay.
That's the reporter, Franz Lids, being represented by Christine Dahl of International Creative Management.
He doesn't have a book.
He's seeking one.
Now, this is just an illustration here in how the media does things.
And this is, it's a tech blog called All Things D, All Things Digital, and it's part of the Wall Street Journal.
Although that's where the similarity ends.
Now, T-Mobile was the last of the major American cell phone carriers to get the iPhone, and they just started selling the iPhone last month.
Now, April is the first month of the second quarter: January, February, March, Q1.
April, May, June, Q2.
And so it goes.
Headline: T-Mobile sold 500,000 iPhones in Q1, revenue dipped 7%.
So if you're a low-information voter, you read T-Mobile sold 500,000 iPhones and it didn't matter.
They still sell their business off by 7%.
T-Mobile released full first quarter financials late Tuesday evening, adding that it has also sold more than 500,000 iPhones since it began selling the iPhone on April 12th.
For the quarter ending March 31st, T-Mobile reported a 7% dip in revenue.
That 7% dip does not include the sale of the iPhones.
And the headline is factually incorrect.
T-Mobile didn't sell any iPhones in Q1.
The revenue did go down 7%.
T-Mobile sold 500,000 iPhones in two weeks or three, and they're not through selling them.
No, I'm not doing this because I have a thing for the iPhone.
This is an example of how they added 579,000 subscribers.
With those 500,000 phones sold, they added 579,000 new customers.
Yet, the story is how they're losing their shirt.
It happens everywhere, is my only point.
This kind of like the guns and immigration.
If you didn't know any better, you'd think that's all anybody cares about in America.
And they don't care.
I mean, the immigration and gun bills are concerning to people who do not want them to happen.
The media and the people inside the Beltway and in New York are of the belief that amnesty and getting rid of the Second Amendment are the only things that matter, and they're trying to force them.
The American people don't care about that.
They're trying to stop both of those things from happening and instead want jobs.
So it's the same misdirection, misreporting, creating false impressions of people in the news, false images, factually incorrect assertions.
Believe me, folks, it happens all over the place.
I've got to take a quick timeout.
We'll be back and roll right on after this, so don't go away.
Joe in Louisville, great to have you on the program.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Joe in Louisville, anybody there?
Yes, sir.
Hi, Joe.
How are you doing?
Great.
You know, this is only the second time in my life I've ever really felt a need to call you because of something I felt passionate about.
The first time I couldn't get through, but this, being a Marine, it really bothers me that our State Department has dwindled down the amount of Marines that are detached at embassies because there's only 1,300 to guard at 130 different embassies.
And if you had just the 10 Marines that should have been there, those 10 Marines, I'm sure, could have responded.
And, you know, I know this is all.
Look, it's inexplicable.
It's really curious.
We have a consulate in an area of the world which is dramatically dangerous, where we are not loved, although I'm sure Obama and his gang thought we were because we had dispatched Libya.
But still, how do you have this ambassador in a consulate with no security or little security?
And then under attack, not only did you not let the defense forces in, you tell the people who are there to stand down.
Whoever they were, they were told to stand down.
Now, three Americans are dead.
They didn't stand down.
They went over to help.
But I can't explain it to you.
You're like the third or fourth person to call here today wanting to know why in the world this did.
I can't tell you.
Other than incompetence, it makes no sense to me why there was no effort made to defend those lives.
I can't tell you.
That's really what the hearings are about.
People want to find out what the heck happened.
You do have Marines at these embassies.
There was an embassy.
Now, the embassy was not where the consulate is.
The consulate was in Benghazi.
The embassy, I think, is Tripoli, but you had a CIA station.
There were many installations over there.
So, A, you don't have proper security.
B, look, this whole thing doesn't make any sense.
You have the attack.
They lie to us out of the box telling us that it's an ad hoc protest based on a video.
I wish I had the answers for you.
I can only use my intelligence guided by experience to come up with guesses, wild guess theories.
And even some of the Benghazi security we have learned was handled by locals.
We farmed it out to independent contractor security personnel, native Libyans.
Some of them might have been terrorists for all we know.
Paul in Denver, you're next on the EIB network.
Hi.
Maha Rushi.
I'm crossing one A off of my list of things to accomplish is to talk to you.
One B is to have dinner with you, so maybe we can work on that after the conversation.
If we can fly a B-2 bomber round trip from Missouri over North Korea without refueling, how come we can't have a fleet of F-16s responding?
I mean, we could have P-1 Mustangs responding in the amount of time it took for them to do something about this.
Of course.
It's an outrage.
We had troops and forces in Italy.
We had C-130s.
All we had to do was make some noise in the sky, and it might have scattered them.
That's all we had to do.
I know, I don't have the answers.
I didn't devise the policy, but I don't have the.
All I know is that I'm the one causing the trouble by raising the questions and asking for answers.
I'm the problem.
And so are you.
We are the problem.
We are purists.
We're troublemakers.
We're stirring the pot here and we're making it uncomfortable for everybody.
We have to understand death is a part of life.
I saw a bumper sticker rush that said end term limits, Obama 2016.
How horrible is that?
And believe me, there are all kinds of people who want to get rid of the 22nd Amendment, who would love for Obama to seek a third term.
And then we're told, nah, don't worry about it, Rush.
The job's so beneath him.
He's so, so, so smart that this job actually bores him.
There really isn't enough in this job to challenge Obama, Rush.
So don't worry about him wanting a third term.
Just isn't going to happen.
Appreciate the call, Paul.
We'll take a brief time out and be back with more after this.
Now, some people, I'm going to answer the question that people, the security, Marines, white and hand people there.
Some people have said, nobody knows, folks, is that some people have said that it was Hillary Clinton's decision not to post Marines at Benghazi.
You have, folks, I know, this is so hard because all of this sounds unreal.
The left, the Clintons, especially, are known from their days in the White House.
They think that posting uniformed military people is intimidating and it makes them uncomfortable.
And some people say that it was Hillary's decision not to post Marines at Benghazi.
It's provocative.
They see the military in a totally different way than you and I do, right?
And when they see, if they're at the Super Bowl to see jets in a flyover, start up the game, they're threatened by it.
They see the agents of war.
You and I see freedom flying over.
The sound of those jets, that equals freedom to you and me, the defense of freedom.
To them, it's provocative.
It might make people mad.
So Mrs. Clinton not wanting Marines there, as I understand the way she thinks, makes perfect sense.
I shouldn't tell this story, but I want to try to come up with an analogy to explain this.
My father went out.
He loved flying.
He loved ABA.
He flew P-51s in World War II.
And he scrimped and saved and found a way to finance the purchase of a little Cessna 182.
And my mother was afraid that it would give people the wrong idea, that they would think that we were economically situated in ways that we weren't.
Well, that's the way Hillary is with the military.
Only in Hillary's case, it's not a protective thing.
To them, the military is provocative.
So they think other people would look at it that way.
Mrs. Clinton is, when I talk about incompetence, it's entirely possible that she could think that the presence of Marines in uniform would make things more dangerous.
Now, I realize how hard that is to understand.
I realize that to a lot of people, that just sounds crazy.
But you have to understand the way these people, and by these people, I mean huge leftists think.
At any rate, Mrs. Clinton said by some to have made the decision not to post Marines at Benghazi.
It was a big government store.
It was a colonel, some colonel who made that statement.
Also, we haven't heard much about this, but there are people who told these whistleblowers to keep quiet.
But we haven't heard much about who told them to keep quiet.
But they have been threatened.
These whistleblowers have.
Gregory Hicks did say that he got a call from Cheryl Mills, who was very upset about them talking to lawyers.
Now, that's not a direct quote.
That's just my memory of what Hicks said.
And Cheryl Mills wanted to know what had been said to him.
And so there have been some people very uncomfortable with this testimony.
Cheryl Mills is Hillary's top aide.
She was once Bill Clinton's deputy White House counsel during the impeachment hearings.
And at the time of her call to Gregory Hicks, she was Hillary's chief of staff and legal counsel.
Hicks said Cheryl Mills called me very upset.
She was very upset.
She wanted to know why he was going to testify and why he was getting lawyers.
So there has been pressure applied on these people not to testify.
It hasn't been threats per se.
They have just let it be known that they're not pleased.
People at the highest levels are not pleased with this.
And no doubt there have been efforts to silence these people, or at least intimidate them into saying very little.
But I can't tell you why, other than what this colonel says in this big government story, that it was Mrs. Clinton who didn't want any Marines there.
Okay, why?
Well, I only told you what I think could be a possible reason based on how I understand these people.
Yeah, well, if we post Marines there, that could provoke people into violence or it could intimidate them.
It could provoke them into hostilities.
And we don't want to do that.
We don't want to send them the wrong signal.
So we won't, we'll show that we don't intend them any harm.
We won't have any uniformed Marines there.
That'll show them that we don't intend them any harm.
And that will make them leave us alone.
Conflict resolution, 101 kind of stuff.
Dusty in Morgantown, West Virginia.
Hi, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
Thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
I was calling about another aspect to this whole Benghazi story I think was worth mentioning, the fact that when the administration and the State Department decided to use this whole video, online video, as a scapegoat for what happened in Benghazi, additional protests broke out all over the world after we decided to apologize for it.
As a result of those protests in Yemen and all over the Middle East, there were over, I believe the reports I read, 75 people died and almost 800 people injured.
And I don't think that those protests would have happened had the media in the United States and the administration used the video online as the reason why Benghazi had it.
You know, that's an excellent point.
Nobody had seen this video.
And then the president and Hillary and the media start talking about this really offensive video that's out there.
And that in turn did create a lot of protests.
That's a great point you've got there, Dusty.
Thank you.
You bet.
I'm glad you called.
Thank you.
Thanks so much.
I've got audio soundbites I've been intending to get to for days.
And now is the time.
It's about Ted Cruz.
Now, I mentioned at the top of the program, Ted Cruz wants to attach an amendment to the immigration bill.
A gang of eight immigration bills is fine.
They can't become citizens.
Whatever you do with them, you bring them out of the shadows.
They've been here illegally.
We're not going to reward them with citizenship.
Whatever else we do, they can't become citizens.
And that means they can't vote.
That's his way of trying to draw them out.
You know, we said on this program, hey, I'll support amnesty.
I'll drop my purity if you tell me if you promise these people can't vote for 25 years.
And of course, nobody would go for that.
So Cruz says, okay, but I want to make sure these people are not granted citizenship.
They've been here illegally.
They haven't earned it.
And whatever we do to them, pathway where they don't get citizenship.
He wants that amendment.
So let's go to the audio soundbites.
Cruz at the center of things.
He was sent to Washington to shake things up and to gum up the works.
And he's doing it.
This is Monday night, Senate floor, during consideration of a resolution to go to conference with the House to work out differences on the budget.
Here's what Senator Cruz had to say.
Reconciliation bills have been used to increase the debt ceiling at least three times in 1986, in 1990, and in 1993.
And so for that reason, reserving the right to object, I would ask consent that the leader modify his request so that it not be in order for the Senate to consider a conference report that includes tax increases or reconciliation instructions to increase taxes or to raise the debt limits.
Well, this is a full-frontled assault on Dingy Harry.
And this just isn't done.
McConnell wouldn't do this.
McCain wouldn't do this.
But Ted Cruz says, okay, look, when we go to conference with the House, I want a requirement in there.
We're not going to raise any taxes.
We're going to take what's been passed, and we're going to go over there, and we're going to conference what they've passed, but we're not going to start adding stuff to it.
After we've voted, this is his point.
We voted on our bill in the Senate.
You can't take it over there and start adding things to it, like tax increases we haven't voted on.
Makes perfect sense.
In a Democratic, Republican way, it makes perfect sense.
Well, the Senate voted on a bill.
Okay, we're going to take that to the bill that the House has.
We're going to put them together and combine them.
But you can't start adding things to the Senate bill that we didn't vote on, including tax increases.
Dingy Harry, not happy.
My friend from Texas is like the schoolyard bully.
He pushes everybody around and is losing.
And instead of playing the game according to rules, he not only takes the ball home with him, but changes the rules.
That way, no one wins except the bully tries to indicate to people he has one.
So I object to what my friend suggests.
It's actually fairly ridiculous if you want the truth.
Before we go to conference, determine what we are going to do or not doing the conference.
That's not how we do things around here.
That's exactly why it's going to be done this way in the future.
We've got a bill.
The Senate has voted.
The House has a bill on the budget.
So now we go, we combine the two.
We negotiate parts of the Senate bill combined with the House and the conferees get together.
And Ted Cruz has simply said, you can't add things to it, Dingy Harry, that we didn't vote on.
Well, you can't say that.
Why, you, you, schoolyard bully, schoolyard bully.
You can't.
The thing is, when was the last time a Republican went to Washington and talked to the Democrats like that in the Senate?
Dingy Harry is spitting mad because this is not how we do things around here.
So Ted Cruz, Monday night on the Senate floor, decided to respond, and he and Dingy Harry, presiding officer of the Senate, Joe Donnelly, had this little exchange.
I wasn't aware we were in the schoolyard.
There's either an objection or no objection.
Let's hear this.
We've had enough.
I'm reserving the right to object.
Reserving the right to object.
Ms. President, there's no such thing.
Okay?
Mr. President, I object.
Is there objection?
Yes, I object.
Objection is heard.
The clerk will read the bill for a third time.
There's either an objection or no objection.
Let's hear.
We've had enough reserving.
Let's hear the right to.
Okay, I'll object.
You can't do that.
You can't do that.
This is not the way we do things.
Anyway, I just, I wanted you to hear this because Cruz has got the Democrats just in.
And by the way, a lot of Republicans.
Oh, Jesus, he's getting in trouble.
Oh, my God.
Could this guy tone it down?
He's being too pure.
My gosh, this guy, oh, he whizzes hurt.
But this is what he was sent there to do.
Back in a second.
So the review.
Ted Cruz says, okay, we got our bill.
You can't go to conference with the House and put things in there that we didn't vote on, like raising taxes.
Dingy Harry says, you're acting a schoolyard bully.
You can't come in here and push everybody around.
Ted Cruz says, I wasn't aware we were in a schoolyard.
Harry Reid says, look, you're the very junior senator from Texas.
Just shut up.
You know, just make your objection and move on.
The next day, Tuesday, yesterday afternoon in Washington, Ted Cruz took to the floor of the Senate and responded to Dingy Harry.
I rise today in praise of Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Yesterday, our esteemed majority leader said the following: quote, my friend from Texas is like the schoolyard bully.
He pushes everyone around and is losing.
And instead of playing the game according to the rules, he not only takes the ball home with him, but he changes the rules.
Today, Leader Reid continued his demonstration of civility, referring to me as the, quote, very junior senator from Texas.
As I noted yesterday, the Senate is not a schoolyard.
Setting aside the irony of calling someone a bully and then shouting them down when they attempt to respond, today I wish simply to commend my friend from Nevada for his candor.
Oh, my friends, you just don't do this to Dingy Harry.
If you're Republican, you're supposed to shut up.
This means that Ted Cruz is a purist and he's going to be responsible for Republicans losing in the Senate acting this way.
You better be very, very careful.
Here's a story, investors.com.
Retailers are cutting worker hours at a rate not seen in more than 30 years.
A sudden shift that can only be explained by the onset of Obamacare's employer mandates.
Non-supervisory employees logged an average of 30 hours per week in April.
That's the shortest retail work week since early in 2010.
Retailers are slashing hours rapidly as they prepare for Obamacare to avoid two things, health insurance coverage and fines.
And this is just one of many such ways that they are having to prepare for this soon-to-come onslaught.
The New York Times has a story out today that tries to find the silver lining in all the people being forced into part-time work, job sharing, people going to have more time for their families, and so forth.
Really a stretch.
Okay, folks, that's it for today.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Be back here tomorrow.
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