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May 17, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:48
May 17, 2013, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 Podcast.
Yes, my friends, the fastest week in media.
The fastest week in all of major media, it's right here the Rush Limbaugh program, the EIB Network.
It's already Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Okay, here we go.
Open line Friday.
We have uh a new tune-in factor each and every day here at the EIB Network.
What that means is if people are tuning in here for the first time every day of the week.
So that means there's first time people listening today.
What's open line Friday, they are asking?
It's very simple.
Monday through Thursday, when we go to the phones, and admittedly it isn't very often, but when we go to the phones, callers have to talk about what we're talking about that there, what I'm interested in, or they don't get on.
Rare exceptions to that.
But on Friday, it doesn't matter.
You can talk about whatever.
That's why I call it the greatest career risk known to exist in major media.
Turning over the all-important precious content of the program to veritable rank amateurs, you lovable but rank amateurs.
It's a great opportunity.
It can be fun.
Find out what's on your mind, things that need to be just if you just want to vent.
I am getting the sense that there is an effervesing rage in the country over what is happening.
If you're watching these hearings today, if you are listening to the media, I hate to say I told you so, but the media is circling the wagons around the regime.
It was just yesterday and the day before.
People eagerly called here, sending me emails thinking this was it.
The media finally going to turn on Obama said it's never going to happen, not for real.
And they already are circling the wagons.
And one of the big memes, themes in the media today is will the Republicans overplay handling the scandals.
Will the Republicans overdo it?
And how could the Republicans overdo it?
Well, they can overdo it by focusing on Obama.
Because the public loves Obama.
The people that voted for Obama love Obama.
They don't think Obama's done anything wrong.
So if the Republicans start focusing on Obama, then Obama will be stronger.
This is what the drive by's are saying.
There may be, by the way.
Something too bad.
I have to tell you also, it doesn't sound like it, but I t Sitting at home yesterday, I was minding my own business, I always do, bothering nobody, and a wave began to sweep over me.
It took me about 20 minutes to realize this I've got a cold coming on.
I mean, there is nothing that makes me angrier than that, because I'm like a big baby with those things.
I they just distract me and they make me feel sorry for myself and get mad at everything and then start wallowing and how uncomfortable I am.
So I immediately took remedial action.
I took action to stop it and arrest it, and I think I did.
It isn't getting any worse from when I first noticed it yesterday afternoon.
But I've still got it.
It's still lurking out there.
Well, it's not lurking.
I mean it's it's just hiding behind a wall.
So I may spend a little bit more time taking phone calls today.
Simply because not feeling up the snuff.
Now I normally wouldn't say anything about this, but I just wanted you to know because we are into full disclosure and total honesty here.
Here's the telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882, the email address Ilrushball at EIBNet.com, and a reminder, this is it.
This is the last day.
This is our next major sweepstakes at 2 if by tea.com.
All the rules, all the prizes are there for you to see at the website, 2 if by tea.com.
All the details coming up later, but basically, a huge Grand Poo Boss surprise winner gets five days and four nights in Hawaii.
And we take care of everything, getting you there and getting you home first class on the airline, and $1,500 cash credit to spend.
But we we don't want to give things away here that cost anybody or cost people any money.
And you have until 11.59 p.m. Pacific time tonight.
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You go to twoifytea.com and shop, and what are you buying?
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Ladies and gentlemen, it's becoming more and more clear, more and more obvious that President Obama is using the full weight, has used, in fact, the full weight and resources of the federal government to literally block the political participation of millions of American citizens.
Every day we are treated to new discoveries, new evidence.
The latest is conservative Hispanic groups were targeted by the IRS, groups that wanted to found tax-exempt organizations.
We have also learned that the woman who was in charge of this has been promoted.
She received a total of 103,000 in bonuses.
She is now running the Obamacare division of the IRS.
The woman in charge of denying conservative groups tax exempt status.
And this is a fear that many people had.
If you want to really go back to the origins of this, it's Obamacare that gave birth to the Tea Party.
Not the passage, but Obama's first expression of desire.
And then the two years of debate, people in this country realized what that would mean if the government took over health care, nationalized one-sixth of the U.S. economy.
In addition to everything else Obama was doing, people realized what it would mean to the future, what it would mean for their kids, their grandkids'future, what it would mean to the shrinking private sector, the shrinking opportunity to earn prosperity in the private sector.
And it mobilized people.
It gave birth to the Tea Party.
The Tea Party became educated and informed.
Here's how they compete.
They learned what it was necessary to do to compete.
Raise money.
501c3 is 501c4 is tax-exempt charitable organization, just like the Democrats have.
And we now learned that the IRS tried to deny as many of those applications as possible.
And the woman in charge of that was promoted and has now been placed over at the Obamacare division of the IRS.
And people, since the first days of discussion of Obamacare, have asked what turned out to be now very intelligent questions.
What if I didn't vote for Obama?
What if I'm not a Democrat?
What's that going to mean for me when I get in line for health care, when the government runs it?
Well, pretty good indication of what it could mean.
You might be moved to the back of the line.
While Democrat voters, Obama donors get moved to the front of the line.
The government running health care, essentially.
The government has your gateway to access.
They can grant it or deny it.
And this is what happens when liberals end up in charge of government.
Big government, out of control government, tyrannical government, if you want to say, but it just expands.
And the government ends up populated with people who are there to use the power and the full force of government against citizens.
This is what has happened and what will get worse.
And it's become clear now, more and more clear that Obama used the full weight and resources of the federal government to block the political participation of millions of Americans.
There is no media outrage over this.
Again, the media is focused on gee, can Obama survive this?
Gee, how will the Republicans screw up investigating this?
This is the kind of stuff that happens in banana republicans, uh republics in totalitarian regimes.
And you know, Americans have always said it can't happen here.
You even a member of Congress during the hearings this morning of these IRS people asked, is this still America?
Not some bitter clinger desperately trying to hold on to his guns while he goes to church, not some bitter clinger asking, is this still America?
A Republican member of Congress during the hearings, said to an IRS employee and to the audience watch, is this still America?
It is happening here.
Everywhere you look in the drive-by media, you see the media doing everything they can to downplay the scandal.
CNN, for instance, has covered everything under the sun.
They have been dragged kicking and screaming to the IRS scandal.
They've covered it some, but they're not wall-to-wall with it.
They're doing it as an afterthought.
The news media have become the information launderers for Obama.
Which is exactly what the media's role is when it is in bed with leaders of the regime.
Launder news and information so that nothing harmful to the regime gets out.
Where were the whistleblowers?
Is the culture of corruption so pervasive at the IRS that so many people felt they could get away with these illegal activities?
Do you realize how easy it must have been for these IRS employees to go to work each and every day?
They never worried about what they were doing.
They just lowered the hammer on all these conservative groups, and they never once worried anybody would rat them out.
NBC's Lisa Myers reported this morning.
The IRS deliberately chose not to reveal that it had wrongly targeted conservative groups until after the 2012 election.
Duh.
So inside the IRS, nobody was worried about whistleblowers.
There was nobody in there doing this nefarious activity.
It was worried about anybody blowing the whistle on them.
There weren't any whistleblowers.
Was the oppressive work being done at the IRS?
Was it so encouraged that no one had the guts to come forward to report what was going on?
Or were the people at the IRS threatened and told to keep silent, just like the whistleblowers at the State Department were told in the case of Banzi.
About that, Bob Woodward to say, hey, don't call Benghazi a scandal.
It's worse than a scandal.
Bob Woodward is saying it's like Watergate.
And what he means is when they had tapes of Nixon in the Oval Office, you could hear Nixon say, no, we're not going to report that.
Delete that.
No, we're not going to publish that part of the transcript.
Take that out.
He said that's exactly what happened in the Benghazi transcripts.
These Benghazi emails.
He said the regime has taken two days and pretended nothing happened.
There's no emails in those two days, or what they have released is sanitized.
And even after 94 emails, not a word about the video.
Not a single word about what the regime said was the primary reason Benghazi happened.
There's not a word in the emails back and forth among any of the principals in Benghazi.
But back to the IRS.
You had one or two people in the Cincinnati office putting the brakes on all the conservative tax exempt applications being directed out of Washington.
There was nobody apparently worried that they would have the whistleblown on them for doing this.
I made a point yesterday, you don't need to hire people and give them instruction.
You hire people because they already know what to do.
You hire fellow travelers, you you hire hacks, you hire activists, you hire true believers, you hire people who rejoice in the opportunity to get a job in the bureaucracy because what that means is it's an opportunity to wage war on your political enemies.
I have a story in the stack here about the government, uh, ladies and gentlemen, making sure Homeland Security Guidelines advise deference to pro Sharia Muslim supremacists.
This is the Daily Caller.
Now I think this is an important point to make.
The Department of Homeland Security, which under Secretary Janet Big Sis Napolitano has shown a keen interest in monitoring and warning about outspoken conservatives, takes a very different approach in monitoring political Islamists.
According to a 2011 memo on protecting the free speech rights of pro-Sharia Muslim supremacists, the Obama regime, the federal government, has more tolerance, more deference, more respect for Islamic extremist Muslims than they do for their own citizens who happen to be conservative or Christian.
This administration considers conservative Americans and Christians and pro-lifers and people who care about the social issues to be greater enemies of the state.
and And not worthy of respect or deference.
However, militant Islamists, extremists, and Muslims are accorded all of that.
Homeland Security document discovered by the Daily Caller also seems to discount evidence unearthed by the Justice Department about the aims of some mainstream Muslim organizations.
Instead, Big Cis sends out memos warning everybody at DHS, make sure you do not infringe upon the free speech rights.
The constitutional free association right, whatever, of pro-Sharia Muslim supremacists.
But when it comes to American conservatives and American Christians, this administration is willing to trample all over their constitutional rights and deny them.
And then warn everybody that it is they, these conservatives and these Christians who pose the real threat to America.
And folks, they mean it.
They really mean it.
We'll be back after this.
I want to play a soundbite from Mike Lee, who is a senator from Utah, a Republican.
He was on Greta Van Susteren last night.
This guy is right out of my own heart, folks.
She said you've written an article.
You've uh you've said all this with the the scandals of Obama.
It's not about character or competence, it's about big government.
That's where you lay all the blame for all of this.
Big government, right?
This isn't about one particular person.
It's not necessarily even just about one particular party, although one party is in control of government right now and is certainly to blame for what happened here.
This is bigger than that.
When our federal government gets to be something that spends four trillion dollars a year, it's unmanageable.
This is one of the few moments where I find myself agreeing with something David Axelrod has said.
He said yesterday that the Federal Government's just too vast for any one person, including the President of the United States to be able to control.
That means it's time to ramp it down.
That means it's time to simplify.
That means that what we have is too dangerous to Be trusted.
Yeah, he doesn't go far enough as far as I'm concerned.
But he's on the right track.
And I think he's agreeing with Axelrod.
But let's said all this.
It's too big.
I mean, for Kernell, government too vast.
Obama couldn't possibly control.
He's not saying the government's too big, but he's saying Obama couldn't be responsible for any of this.
It's too big.
He's just trying to excuse Obama.
But he's not criticizing big government.
Axelrod isn't.
Now, Mike Lee is right.
But you can tie a political party to big government.
More so than any other party.
But his point is that this is a result of what happens when you have people populating big government who have a particular ideology about government's use.
That's why we're we're it's not just Obama.
It doesn't even have to be Obama.
It's all the people Obama has hired.
There are miniature Obamas all over this government doing his bidding for him.
And we're back, open line Friday with Rush Limbaugh.
Hear me behind the golden EIB microphone.
And as usual, talent.
So much talent.
I wish I could share it.
On loan from God.
Here's the next Mike Lee sound, but he's on last night with Greta Van Suster, and he's the Democrat sorry, Republican Senator from uh from Utah.
And he's mostly right in what he's saying.
Uh Van Sestra's question what do you make of this IRS scandal, the targeting of the Tea Party?
I mean, why do you think it happened?
You didn't get just a couple rogue people at the bottom.
Or do you think it's part of the culture, part of the big government, or even something more sinister than that?
What sparked a lot of this was Obamacare.
Uh a few years ago, some groups started putting themselves together as a result of the fact that they were afraid about the fact that the federal government was about to get a lot bigger and a lot more expensive as a result of Obamacare.
They started speaking their minds.
And all of a sudden, the ruling class in Washington got scared, and it started retaliating before this movement could gain too much momentum.
And that's why this happened.
And it's no coincidence, Greta, that the IRS, which is about to become a lot more powerful as a result of Obamacare, was threatened by these groups that were trying to undermine Obamacare.
Yeah, he's he's uh far more right than he's wrong.
What Mike Lee is trying to do here is win the argument.
What he's trying to do is persuade as many Obama voters, low information voters.
He he's not trying to give you what you want.
He knows you're already there.
He's trying to find ways to reach the outliers.
And he believes that he's got to leave Obama out of that equation if we're going to succeed.
And I, by the way, folks agree with that in this sense.
This is much bigger than Obama.
What this really is, this this is not so although it is, it's Republicans versus Democrats right now.
It's much bigger than that.
It's all of us versus Washington.
This is the ruling class of Washington attempting to have its way with all of us, the peons, the hoy poly, the bourgeoisie.
Now, I understand I'm into persuasion too.
And I would love to have a bunch of Obama voters call here and tell me, you know what?
I laughed at you and I hated you and I cussed you for the last five years.
But you know what?
You're right.
I would love for that to happen.
But you know what, folks, it isn't going to.
Those people end up thinking that way.
They're never going to give you or me the satisfaction of calling, you know what, you're right.
It's never going to happen.
So don't don't set yourself up to define success that way.
The reason this is bigger than Obama, and the reason it needs to be talked about, attacked as something much greater than Obama, is that he's going to leave, but if the Democrat Party remains in power, the same stuff's going to keep happening.
They're going to use the IRS against people.
They're going to do uh same kind of things.
They're they're corrupt.
The Democrat Party is liberalism.
Liberalism is the problem here.
Liberalism, socialism, big government is whatever you want to call it.
Everywhere you look, the media is doing everything it can.
And they think they're helping him.
He didn't know, he didn't know, he didn't know that.
It's too big, he couldn't possibly have known.
They're trying to excuse Obama from having personal any personal role in any of this.
The point is he doesn't need to have a personal role in this to be responsible for it.
Obama is a charismatic figure.
Obama is the leader of the Democrat Party, and he is a radical, and he motivates and inspires other radicals to want to get involved, help him.
And they do.
He doesn't have to ever meet them.
He doesn't even have to know them.
They can show up and apply for a gig at the IRS, it can be an Obama donor.
They get the job based on whether they know what to do.
They're in there trying to please him, they've never met him.
It doesn't matter.
He doesn't have to issue anybody any instructions.
Liberals are a certain kind of people.
I have 25 years.
I've gone, I don't know how many ways I've tried to convince people that the battle in this country is ideological.
And most people aren't ideological and they don't want to be ideological, which is frustrating to me because it's the simplest, fastest way for people to understand what they face.
But given that most people don't want to go there.
Okay, so what do we do?
Well, the second thing we don't do, you know, don't make it about Obama because really that's missing the point.
If if we focus on Obama as the bad guy, we're leaving out all the other guilty parties, and believe me, they're there in the hundreds of thousands.
There are countless thousands of little Obamas all over this government.
And before him, there were thousands of little JFKs and little Teddy Kennedys.
And you you think take your favorite radical.
Nancy Pelosi needed Obama to be who she is.
Harry Reid needs Obama to be who he is.
These people are who they are because of who they are.
And they're going to be who they are regardless.
And they are going to use the power of government, whether Obama's the president, or whether it was Ted Kennedy or whether it was Bill Clinton.
Or whether it's George W. Bush, they're going to be who they are.
The thing for the American people to understand is that this is Washington governing against the will of the American people.
Now, challenge we face is that there are a lot of Americans who simply love it when these conservative groups take it on the chin.
There are a lot of Americans who love it when the IRS is dumping all over conservatives.
There are a lot of Americans who are applauding the IRS today.
Because the radicals on the left have spent 50 years ginning up hatred for us.
They have impugned our character, they've lied about the things we believe, they've lied about our racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia, but all that stuff has found its way into the mainstream.
So there are there are people here who are applauding all of this.
But what the the thing that's that's wrong here, the reason why that there's massive corruption is that liberals are in charge of everything.
Now I know some of you are saying, but Rush, didn't George Bush grow the government too?
Yeah.
Didn't didn't George Bush spend money and didn't the Republicans in Congress go along, didn't they?
Yep, yep.
I can't deny that.
Well, then Rush, what's the difference?
Oh, there's a big difference.
The Republicans are spending money trying to buy love.
The Republicans are coming up with Medicare Part B because they believe, because their consultants tell them that the country hates them because they're mean-spirited extremists.
So Republicans come up with this compassionate conservatism stuff, say, hey, we'll buy your vote too.
We love you.
We'll give you an entitlement.
Thinking that's it's, you know, Medicare Part B no different than trying to sign on to immigration or grant amnesty and get credit for it.
The Republicans are not growing the government to use it as a jackbooted thug on people.
They're using it to buy people's affections.
And that doesn't work and isn't working because the Democrats own that already.
The Democrats are growing government to use it on people.
The Democrats are growing government and want to be in charge of it precisely to do things like this IRS scandal, precisely to do things like fast and furious.
Precisely to be able to screw up totally in something like Benghazi and get away with it.
The Democrats want big government to excuse and provide a buffer for their mistakes, for their incompetence, or what have you.
Republican big government guys are kind of pathetic, if you ask me that.
They just even the Republican establishment, you know, these guys, the ruling class of Washington is what it is.
It's a click.
And to be in it, you've got to be a devout believer in big government.
You've got to be a devout believer in Washington.
You've got to be for gun control, and you've got to think the abortion people are nuts.
And you gotta think conservatives are a bunch of kook extremists.
And if you if you think all that, then you're Republican, you can be in the club.
And the purpose of big government from the Republican standpoint is simply they're so desperate to be loved by the people that aren't voting for them.
They would they're jealous.
I actually think...
Let's...
Can I give you an illustration?
Obama goes No, never.
I'm not even gonna go there.
I was gonna use a Hollywood example.
I'll just stick with the fact that the Republicans that support a new entitlement or growing the government, they're doing it to try to counter what they think people think of them.
The Republicans don't have any desire to freeze people out of here.
The Republicans never don't use the IRS to penalize liberal groups.
When has that ever happened?
It has never happened.
It never would.
Republicans don't think that.
Republicans are too busy trying to buy the love of those people.
Oh, you want to tax his info?
Fine, rubber stamp it, here it is.
Don't call me a racist tomorrow.
Republicans aren't trying to get in charge of big government to wield corrupt power over people.
But the liberals are.
And I'm not just saying so.
The evidence is right in front of your face, and it's been happening for five years.
It's just now surfacing.
There's a huge difference in the parties.
And this is where I take exception with people who say this is not Republicans versus Democrats.
It is, but it is also bigger than that.
It is the Washington ruling class against everybody else.
The Democrats happen to run the Washington ruling class, by the way.
Republican members are tag-alongs.
I got to take a quick timeout.
Sit tight.
We'll be back after this.
Don't go away.
Open line Friday.
Rush limbaugh having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have you.
I saw that Venezuela.
Honestly, with a toilet paper shortage.
They don't have any.
Well, that's my point.
I think send what's her name, uh Cheryl Crow down there.
She's the one that had the solution for this problem here.
No.
Nobody uses more than one square.
Myth Olimbaugh was a theory.
Yes, she was, Mr. New Castradi.
That's what you don't understand.
Yes, she was.
Use one square of toilet paper.
Venezuela, if they're out of toilet paper, folks, the the environmental wackos ought to be pointing to Venezuela and giving them awards.
This is how you save the environment.
Toilet paper, bad news.
Cheryl Crowe said use One square every time.
One square.
What if you have diarrhea?
One square.
Now they can't use any squares in Venezuela because they don't have any.
I would think that would make them environmentally pristine.
Everything else is nature.
The toilet paper isn't.
Now they don't have anything gummin up to works.
Lynette in Memphis says we start on the phones and open line Friday.
Hi.
Hi.
Um I was watching or listening.
Lynette, what well well, Lynette, hang on.
Are you on a speaker phone?
No, I'm on my um cell phone.
It's the only phone I have.
Okay, you're on your cell phone.
Okay, you sound like you got a couple.
No, it's it's just it's uh it sounds like you're in a barrel, like in an arrow.
But but I'll do my best to I'll do my best to hear you.
Get as close to the microphone on your phone as you can.
Okay.
Hold on, let me hit it off.
Hold on.
A little bit better.
Is that better?
That's better.
Okay.
Um I was listening mostly to the um the guys grilling the IRS guy today, and the first thing that popped into my head was, you know, it doesn't matter how this is all gonna come out.
I feel like the damage has been done to to me at least, because I'm like at the mentality where I'm not even gonna tell people.
You know, like I I quit hosting on Facebook.
I'm not telling people one way or the other how I feel about things, because I just don't want them in my business.
I don't care what it takes.
And I just wonder how many people are starting to feel this way because they're so intrusive in the government.
I think you're very wise to assume one of two things.
Either whatever you're saying is being monitored, or whoever is hearing what you say might pass it on.
I I think folks, you you might think this is a little radical, but I think she has a point.
Lynette in Memphis.
This IRS thing.
What what's the message?
The government's after us.
Conservatives have been put on notice here.
You think this is gonna stop?
This isn't going to stop.
They're just going to find new ways to do this.
You think all of us, oh gosh, we're so sorry.
We uh we really didn't mean to deny you your tax exemption.
The bottom line is they want to freeze us out of participation in the political and electoral process.
The primary objective of Barack Obama and all these people is the elimination of opposition.
The realities of this story, the what we've learned here, conservatives have been put on notice.
The federal government is after us.
A signal is being sent.
The federal government, this administration has been targeting every conservative group.
It weighs probably beyond what has happened here at the IRS.
You'd be wise to take this as a warning.
Mr. Limbaugh, this is outrageous.
I can't believe you're just out speaking like this and scaring people.
Mr. New Castradi, all I'm doing is observing.
What has happened here, folks, is no small thing.
What has happened here is not insignificant.
You and me, conservatives, have just seen how for the past three years we have been treated as enemies of the state.
The people at the IRS thought nothing of denying us our constitutional rights, Liberty, freedom, pursuit of happiness, political free speech, which is supposed to be untouchable by the U.S. Constitution.
This is this is no small thing here.
This is not just latest ordinary everyday scandal.
You're being sent a signal.
And Lynette in Memphis, she may not know exactly, but she's her instincts are right on the money.
We'll be back.
Don't go away.
Ladies and gentlemen, somebody at the IRS asked the Coalition for Life of Iowa.
They were applying for tax exempt status, Coalition for Life of Iowa.
The IRS demanded to know the content of their prayers.
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