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May 27, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:37
May 27, 2013, Monday, Hour #2
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Yeah, yeah, I'm here just looking for the Hillary bites that I told you I was gonna use last hour that I didn't get to, which is typical.
Yeah, but what's amazing is I found them.
Normally when I tell you I'm gonna use them and I don't, I lose them, but I found them here.
So it's a good harbinger for the rest of the day.
Anyway, folks, happy to have you here, Rush Limbaugh, half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair while meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
Great to have you on the program.
My phone number is 800-282-2882, the email address L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Ladies and gentlemen, just to illustrate our open-mindedness and fairness here, which are our hallmarks.
Open-mindedness, fairness, a burning desire to get things right.
Believe me, there's nothing in it for me to be wrong.
I uh uh I mean to lie about something.
Just to further something I believe.
That's phony, it's not doesn't accomplish anything.
I I don't make things up, lie, purposely get things wrong.
Other side does that.
I do not.
Because there's nothing in it.
There's no nothing to be gained by it, not long term, not substantively gained by it.
So sometimes I step back and take a deep breath.
And try to remember and catalog all of the things our government is doing right.
For example, in Boston.
The terror attack on the marathon.
Let's try to keep in mind not forget what our government did right.
Always looking for silver linings here.
The welfare program worked as one would hope, because it helped the alleged terrorists get on their feet and feel deep gratitude to American taxpayers.
Wait, nope, sorry, didn't do that.
They didn't apparently have any appreciation for their welfare payments they received.
The immigration law.
I mean, let's be honest, the immigration law successfully helped these alleged jihadists assimilate into the great American family.
Eh no, that actually didn't happen.
That's not entirely accurate.
They became citizens, but that didn't matter.
They actually ended up not assimilating.
Well, one thing's for sure.
When the older brother traveled abroad and the Russian government repeatedly warned us that he was a dangerous guy, our homeland security officials, they ran with that information and what?
It was ignored.
Oh.
Okay, strike that.
Okay.
Um to schools, our schools, universities.
Engage these two men.
Inspired them to appreciate the opportunities in this country, inspired them to appreciate the greatness, the uniqueness of our constitution and free markets.
And no, that didn't happen either.
Well, how about this?
We can all agree.
We can all agree, folks, that strict gun laws and laws against bombs in public places kept the public safe.
I better think that that didn't happen either.
I'm trying, I'm trying to find silver linings.
I'm trying to look at the successful things the government's done.
Well, there's this.
While uh while Boston was in the martial law type lockdown, the feds found the suspect.
Uh no.
Sorry.
My memory is that the city was taken off lockdown and the smoker left his house and found the suspect in his boat.
Let me you know I I'm trying here to um catagogue, catalog and and remember the things the government did well and does right so we can properly uh appreciate.
Let me get back to you on what President Obama's celebrating regarding the Boston terror attack.
Because he said he and Biden are out there there talking about all the wonderful things that uh did right.
I tried to keep an open mind about it.
I went through the list of it.
Did you hear?
I actually turned on television last night.
Well, Catherine said, Do you want to watch Greta?
What was I gonna say?
No, I don't want to watch this.
Sure, come on, come on down, I'll turn on the TV.
She had just gotten out of the steam and I said, sure.
So we watched Greta, and I did not know about Tamerlin's wife.
I didn't know about the fact that he beat her and called her names and abused her, that she was a convert to uh to Islam.
New York Daily News, college roommates of Tamerlin Sanaev's widow described him as a brutish, manipulative boyfriend who often hurled insults and more at the woman who would eventually bear his child.
Three of Catherine Russell's pals at Suffolk University watched as she was terrorized by the dead bombing suspect after they began their on and off courtship in 2000.
Well, he wasn't dead when he that's horribly written.
She wasn't terrorized by dead bombing, so she was terrorized by the pre-dead bombing suspect.
Angry and controlling, Sanaev called Russell a slut and a prostitute and was known to throw furniture or other objects at her.
During fits of rage, these unnamed roommates said, we have a new normal for courtship now?
So, And Russell, who's now 24, wasn't the only one he abused.
In 2009, the aspiring Olympic boxer was busted for slapping around a different girlfriend.
Those charges were dropped.
His dark side wasn't obvious at first.
Russell's roommates said that when the pair first hooked up, Sanaev often partied with him, but they noticed a change in him.
Around 2008 or 2009, when he stopped smoking and drinking and became committed to Islam.
Imagine that.
He was smoking and drinking and yucking it up and have a good time.
And then he stopped smoking and drinking, became committed to Islam, and started beating his girlfriend and wife.
The mosque, Tamerlin attended in Cambridge, even gives instructions on how to beat women properly.
Yes, ladies.
To not show bruises and within the bounds of propriety.
There are proper ways to discipline your wife.
The proper ways of asserting controlled.
The mosque gives these instructions.
By the way, Tamerlin Sanaev, the dead terrorist has a nickname now.
Some people online are referring to him as Speed Bump.
Just passing on what's out there.
Making no judgments about it, just passing on what's out there.
Democrat National Committee on Monday used last week's bombings to build the party's list of email addresses.
Did you hear about this?
A page on the DNC's website asks visitors to sign a petition thanking Boston's first responders for all you did last week and for all you do every day.
That page asks for visitors' names, email addresses, and zip codes.
And those who fill out the form immediately get an email from The DNC chair babe, Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz.
So if if if you go to the website and sign a petition thanking the first responders, you are hit up for money.
Well, not yet, but you are you are warned that the hit up for money is uh is coming.
Now the Democrats brushed off this criticism.
They said it was unfortunate that Republicans would stoop so low as to criticize the DNC for using the bombings for email acquisition efforts.
So the DNC does it, the Republicans call them on it, and if the Republicans' problem, because they're stooping so low to criticize, not falsely accuse.
The DNC is not mad that the Republicans are making it up or falsely accusing, they are mad at the Republicans for the criticism itself.
So low information.
Imagine this being reported out there at low information websites.
The Democrats are asking low information people to sign a petition thanking the first responders they end up on fundraising email website pages and the Republicans point this out.
Republicans.
Republicans end up being the creeps.
Oh, uh, ladies and gentlemen, uh, in a move that would capitalize on provisions, this is the associated press.
In a move that would capitalize on provisions under President Obama's health care law, but could cost the federal government millions of dollars.
Washington state lawmakers have found a creative way to pass a large chunk of their health care expenses back to Washington.
And analysts say that other states are likely to do the same thing.
The plan threatens to affect the federal budget and the pocketbooks of some part-time workers because it would push a group of employees out of their current health care plans and into an exchange developed under Obamacare.
So the shock here, again, is that the AP is reporting this.
It's just like yesterday.
I don't know if you remembered the politico actually reported that amnesty, that the gang of eight immigration bill, they didn't even call it amnesty.
The gang of eight immigration bill will be a bonanza for the Democrats at the ballot box.
They actually reported it.
Now you and I know it, and we've been talking about it.
We've been asking Rubio and everybody, why in the world would you agree to a piece of legislation that creates nine million minimum new Democrat voters?
Why would you do that?
It's not going to do that.
These are conservatives in waiting.
These are we we get to them and believe in free markets.
Well, but but they they they don't.
Why else the Democrats want to do this?
If these people are Republicans and waiting, the Democrats aren't going to legalize them.
If these Hispanics, these illegal citizens, illegal aliens are Republicans and waiting or are conservatives and waiting, the Democrats wouldn't be interested in giving them amnesty.
The Democrats wouldn't be interested in granting them citizenship.
The Democrats are salivating over this, and we are agreeing to this.
We're going along with this.
And the politico has a piece yesterday pointing this out.
Why?
Well, I'll tell you why.
I'll tell you why again.
The Democrats defeating Obama's gun control bill in the Senate was an earthquake for Obama.
He was livid about that.
I think he probably still is.
The Democrats were supposed to pass Obama's gun control bill.
It was supposed to die in the House, where the Republicans run the show.
The whole purpose of that bill was written so that the Republicans would never vote for it.
That's the truth of the matter.
That gun control bill was never intended to become law.
That was a campaign issue.
And the plan was the Democrats pass it, it sails to the Senate, then it goes to the House, where those mean Republicans who want people to have as many guns as possible, assault rifles and whatever to shoot anybody they want.
That's what the Republicans want.
They were supposed to kill it, and then Obama, who wants to win the House of the Democrats in 2014 would have a campaign issue, claiming the Republicans don't care about kids.
Republicans don't care about people.
They're perfectly fine.
People get shot.
They love it.
The more guns the better.
That was going to be the campaign tactic, but it blew up because the Democrats voted it down.
And Obama was ticked.
And so I think to avoid the same thing happening on this gang of eight immigration bill in the Senate, the worst thing in the world would be if this thing died in the Senate.
This is another one.
It's supposed to sail through the Senate.
And it's the Republicans who are supposed to stop it.
So that Obama and the Democrats campaigning in 2014 can say the Republicans hate Hispanics and all that, attending BS.
Republicans hate Hispanics, Republicans racists, Republicans don't like new citizens, whatever.
But because the gun control bill lost in the Senate, I think Politico was sending a story out warning these you guys like Baucus and other Democrats.
You guys had better get your minds right after their gun control bill and not make the same mistake.
So Politico publishes their story, and Democrats are supposed to see it and say, man, I can't vote against that.
I mean, this thing is an answer for my party.
If I vote against this, there so there must be a relatively significant number of Democrats in the Senate who might not vote for this.
I'm just guessing at this.
I know it sounds unreasonable and believable.
Why would Politico publish the storyline?
I mean, that that that story without some other hidden backstory explaining it would torpedo the Democrat effort.
This this because this amnesty bill is not everybody's saying it has nothing to do with politics.
The people out there selling it, the Chuck Schumers and everybody out there selling the McCain's.
We need to bring these people out of the shadows.
There are 11 million great citizens out there, citizens waiting, wonderful people.
It's unfair they have to live in the shadows.
There's nothing political about it.
But with the political story out there, that this thing passing and being signed into law.
I mean, it the story said that effectively the Republican Party will cease to exist for a generation, 25, 30 years.
The Republican Party will cease to exist if this gang of eight immigration bill becomes law.
Why publish that?
Why give up the game when everybody involved is trying to hide that?
Well, it must be.
There's got to be a reason for it.
Politico's not trying to help the Republicans here.
They certainly aren't interested in that.
So it tells me there must be hard as it is to believe some Democrat reluctance to go along with this amnesty bill in the Senate.
Be right back to it.
No, no, I did not lose my train of thought.
I'm going to get back to the Washington state.
Double cross of Obamacare.
What they're doing, folks, to avoid the uh the transfer expenses, the federal government's trying to get all the states to spend on Obamacare.
The state of Washington's come up of the way to avoid that.
And it's uh it's fascinating.
And but it what it's gonna mean is that there the state of Washington is gonna be converting more of its employees to part-timers so that they don't qualify and they're gonna send them to federal exchanges.
That's what the upshot of it is.
Here is Lynn in Pittsburgh, and I'm glad you called.
It's great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi there, Rush.
So good to talk to you.
Thank you very much for everything you do for it.
I was wondering if you saw the uh PDF program last night on Frontline called uh I believe it was referred to as your retirement gamble.
Was this I did not see it.
What was it about sort of boo-boo 401k?
Okay, let me play a little game with you, Lynn.
I didn't see it, okay?
You believe me?
Not lying to you.
Okay.
I didn't see it.
I'm gonna tell you what it was about.
You tell me if I'm right.
Okay.
The purpose or the theme of the frontline show on 401ks is how they're really not working out the way the government intended, and the government is being shortchanged.
The government is losing money on 401ks.
It's unfair, and there's a system, there's a plan whereby the government will be able to recoup some of the money they have lost on 401ks.
It's uh it it's gone way beyond what they ever originally intended.
People are uh shorting the government way too much by uh taking a lot of money off the top of their salaries and and donating that or contributing that to 401k, tax-free, costing the government a lot of money, and and it's it's unfair, and there are there are ways now the government's gonna get that money back.
Is it something like that?
Well, that wasn't entirely their plan.
It was more like the government takes needs to take a good look at this because the 401k business puts a lot of fees on and charges that you poor stupid people must have just figured you were gonna get this money without somebody charging to take care of it.
Oh, so the people that administer the investment portfolio that the 401k is invested in charging citizens.
Yeah, the fees are so much that whatever's been put away is being eaten up by evil Wall Street people.
Right.
So the only thing you can really do now if you are prudent is to invest in index funds.
That that's the only way to go.
And the government really needs to start looking into this where people my age are gonna eat dog food rather than retire.
Right.
Well, the what I told you is not wrong.
They're gonna end up canceling 401ks.
Okay, so I looked it up, and what Frontline did last night was impugnable the entire concept and structure of the 401k.
They teased it this way.
Retirement is big business in America, but is the system costing workers and retirees more than what they're getting?
And it proceeded to talk about how 401ks are a ripoff because the money that you deposit, you contribute to your 401k has to be managed by somebody, and they're charging outrageous fees and commissions, eating up ever larger amounts of your 401k.
And so what should you do?
Let the government handle it for you.
Buy government securities, buy savings bonds, buy treasury bonds and bills.
Uh and uh and and stick with the indexes and let the government do that for you.
Now, what I I was wrong about my wild guess of what the show is about, but I do know that there is a plan afoot to eliminate the 401k altogether.
What the the plan is, well, it was, I don't know uh how it's incrementally changed, but the plan was to buy your 401k and give you exactly what it was worth a couple of months or a month before the market crash in 2008.
By everybody's 401k at whatever it was worth before the crash, and then every year give you one to two, maybe three percent interest on it, and that's it.
And the reason is that it's costing the government too much money.
Your contributions are tax-free.
You get to donate percentage of your income to your 401k before any of your income is taxed.
So it lowers the amount of your income that's actually taxed.
That means the government is losing money.
Yes, it's so true.
The government is losing money.
So some babe at New York University or the new school or whatever has got a plan that I just outlined, and it's very popular in Congress may happen, but frontline was pushing index funds, which are complicated, but they're supposed to cost less, and they give evil Wall Street bankers less profit.
So the evil Wall Street bankers were the target focus of how you are being ripped off by the free market.
You're being ripped off by capitalists on Wall Street.
The government can handle it for you much better.
Here's Michael in Westfield, New York as we head back to the phones.
Great to have you, sir.
Welcome.
Hey, Rush.
Uh man, I tell you it's great to talk to you.
I've been I'm a senior in college and uh I've been a Rush 24-7 member since uh my junior year in high school.
Wow.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
I really appreciate that.
Oh, well, it's it's been great listening to you all these years.
Um so uh I want uh to get to my question.
Uh right now I'm a senior in college and uh a project for one of my communications courses, uh the course is called Rhetoric and Criticism, and the project for the class, I chose to analyze the reasons of success for uh why your show has been successful,
the reasons how you know how you approach the show, what makes your show unique and why it draws such a a large audience, and I chose and I wanted to do your show because not only because I like it, but because uh people um in my age range tend to tend to dismiss you.
So I wanted uh I wanted to give you an opportunity to kind of uh address college students because I'll be using this in my presentation next week.
Why do they dismiss me?
I well, I think it has to do um with uh with a lot of the reasons of why your show is successful.
I think one of the most uh effective things you do is you get people laughing at Democrats, and uh satire is uh the most effective and they don't like that.
That's called mean spiritedness.
Satire and satire and uh and and biting humor aimed at Democrats is mean spirited and is it's racist, sex is bigot and homophobic, right?
Right, and and then they d they form opinions about you without even uh listening to you or or given uh your uh stance as anything.
Exactly.
The only people, by the way, the only people who do not like this program are those who've never listened to it.
Everybody who listens to it is hooked on it.
Nobody's ever listened to it loves it.
Well, this is a great idea for a project.
So what what are some of the things that you have on your own deduced that defy the reasons why this program is successful?
Well, um the the main the main sources are you know my my listening for years and uh Zef Chaffetz's uh great book about you.
And um you know, it it's uh the f one of the first reasons is, you know, even now still, but more so when your show first came out on the air, there was a huge conservative media vacuum and uh the repeal of the fairness doctrine allowed you,
you know, not only allowed you on the air, but it opened up the airwaves, and I so timing played a part of it, but I mean the other one of the other main things is you brought um top forty high energy radio to politics, which was very unique.
And uh, you know, your show is upbeat and uh you're uh you're a happy warrior.
And uh I think that's something that's unique to politics, and uh you know used with satire, that's not something that's uh Democrats are used to having to face.
Excuse me.
You're exactly right on everything that you've assessed.
Top forty energy, uh even program elements.
Uh nobody ever heard when I w when I first started using music in a talk show, you you you should uh heard the objections to the wizards of smart in the business.
When I told them I didn't want to do guests, you can't do a talk show without a guest.
Yes, I can.
I don't why should I get the same roster guests that's on every other show selling the same book?
What do they care about that my show's success?
I I decided I wanted to be the reason people would listen to radio.
I wanted to find out if I could be the reason.
And if I couldn't, then I'd quit, do something else.
I didn't want to have to invest in a bunch of people who don't care about my success.
Such as authors and TV stars.
They don't they go from show to show to show.
They don't care which show's popular, just want to be on which one is and and get whatever they're doing out there, sell their book or whatever, and I said, why should I depend on those people to be good every day or entertaining in order to attract an audience for me?
So I I just blew up the whole formula for the way a talk show should be done.
But Let me give you a scoop, because you you um you you wanted to know if there's something I should or you should address specifically.
I'll give you a scoop that that even the brightest minds who have tried to analyze this program and figure it out and explain it, have never hit upon.
And they've never been curious to look at, and they've never understood the importance of, and that is the business model of this program.
Because with all the stuff that you have pointed out, the format stuff, the top 40 energy, the conservative vacuum, all of that's true, but without this program being a commercial financial success, none of that would happen.
And so when we started this program in 1988, we were we were being penalized by by two things.
A, we were new and nobody ever heard of me.
And so the only advertising we were able to get was what is called you writing this down or recording it?
Yeah, like I'm a 24-7 member, so I'll just download the podcast.
All right, so we were getting advertising that is uh referred to in the business as CPM, cost per thousand.
It was simply advertisers.
They didn't even know they were buying this program.
Agencies would package this program with others to get a total audience, and they'd take these advertisers, and it could be minicy mufflers, it could be any stock standard American advertiser, and all they were interested in was how many people were going to hear the message, how many people were gonna hear the brand name.
There was no concern in that kind of advertising for results.
It was just cost per thousand.
How how little can they pay to reach the most people?
And that's and when we started, that was it because we had no audience when we started, we couldn't demonstrate it.
So we had to piggyback on others.
And once it was discovered, which didn't take long that I was conservative, that automatically meant controversial, whether it was or wasn't.
It just meant that, which then meant that certain companies did not want their commercials in my programs.
So we started out with two strikes against us.
A conservatism meant controversial, which meant advertisers didn't want to be anywhere near it, and small audience, we weren't able to charge a whole lot.
And if that didn't change, then this program wouldn't survive.
So what we decided to do, what I decided to do, was change this whole cost per thousand structure to something called results oriented.
I knew that I was gonna have to demonstrate to advertisers immediately that their advertising on this program worked.
And I knew that it would work if we could find the advertisers, because I had done it in Sacramento.
So the I guess the best illustration that I can give of this is Snapple.
I'd never heard of Snapple until I got to New York.
And I last thing I thought it was was an iced tea when I heard the brand name.
The broadcast engineer one day, who is the same broadcast engineer than as today, was in his studio in this broadcast engineer studio complex, and he was pouring a bottle of this stuff over a cup with cracked ice in it.
It was a hot as heck day in New York.
And I said, What is that?
He said, Snapple.
It was like raspberry flavored, and I tasted it.
I said, whoa.
That was it was delicious.
Mine now is better, by the way, but it was the time it was the best I ever tasted.
So I immediately made them the official beverage of the EIB network.
I started giving away Snapple commercials.
And lo and behold, it didn't take long, and the Snapple guys called, so who who is this?
What was there was activity in Snapple that had never happened for.
They at the time they were a three-state business.
And the short version of this story is after a couple of years they were in 50 states, and there were people all over the country wanting to be Snapple distributors, and they became a sponsor, and eventually the three guys that owned Snapple sold it for two billion dollars to Quaker Oaks, who then proceeded to ruin it.
But the Snapple story was the was the thing that that illustrated that advertising on this program got results.
Now, why did that happen?
I mean, that's a key to that too.
And I got to take a break here, but you hang on and I'll explain to you why that happened and how it happened.
And this the but the whole the whole business structure of this program with the way we do it with our affiliates, uh there are a number of things that we did first that had not been done in talk radio.
Some of them I can't mention, but the business side of this and the business model, uh, Michael, is what nobody's really looked at.
And so you have a little bit of a scoop here.
Let me take a brief time out and I'll come back and explain something very key to all of that stuff I just explained working after this.
Okay, we're back with Michael in Westfield, New York, a college senior writing a paper for a project on why this program is successful.
Let me uh before I continue with what I was telling you, I want to give you the answer I give everybody when they ask me, well, what do you what was your purpose?
What are you doing?
What what what is your objective?
Because this is true.
And I've said this from the beginning, this is not an exclusive, but I guarantee you your professor hasn't heard it, and your fellow students haven't heard it.
Right.
The reason I am here is to attract and then hold the largest audience possible so that I can then charge confiscatory advertising rates.
Period.
This is a business, period.
This is not a political party.
This is not a political think tank.
This is not uh uh a part of any conservative cause or this this is a business, and it has business requirements for success that are unique to it, i.e.
radio.
And if those aren't met, then all the rest of that content stuff is academic.
However, and by the way, what I just told you is gonna irritate the hell out of them because the way they're gonna interpret it.
You mean he just did it for the money?
He just did it for the money when I knew it.
He don't believe anything.
No, because the next part of this is how in the world is results-oriented advertising work.
I come here and I say this is the best widget on the face of the earth, folks.
You need it, you should have it.
Why does that work?
It is because I have been fortunate enough, this is why I thank this audience, Michael, as often as I do.
I have built a a bond of loyalty that's almost familial with the people in this audience.
They who listen regularly trust what I tell them.
They know that I don't lie to them.
They know that I don't make things up.
They know that when I tell them what I believe that I'm being honest with them, that I don't say outrageous things just to provoke people.
And so they believe me.
So when I tell them that my iced tea is the best ice, they believe it.
When I tell them that life lock is the best, when I tell them that that tax resolution serves whatever is they they know that I'm telling them the truth.
And therefore, there's a credibility and a believability that makes that advertising work.
And if that doesn't happen, you can have all the people in the world spending money with you, and you can charge them all you want.
But if the audience does not respect, appreciate, trust the host, it's all gonna fail.
So what this all boils down to is honesty, integrity, respect for the audience's intelligence, and treating them that way.
Now, there it's there are a lot of elements here, and to me they're all instinctive.
So to tell you about, you know, well, well, you gotta think about doing a lot of things right over.
No, it just it it it's it's so instinctive to me that uh it it just happened.
Now, I've made mistakes.
Uh I have gone off the path, but because the audience trusts me, they've they've stuck here.
You know, I've given them.
How many opportunities have I given the audience to wave goodbyes?
I don't know.
But that they they hang in and they and it it's it's getting larger.
And but the largest audience, hold it for as long as I can charge confiscatory advertising rates is simply my way of explaining this is a business.
And what are the business requirements?
Now, the content is crucial.
I'm not trying to say it isn't.
It's gotta be.
This is a lot of competition.
This program has got to have something others don't.
It's gotta have something or a whole lot of stuff others don't, in order to stand out.
Right.
But I've chosen I'm not gonna go pornographic, I'm not gonna go obscene, I'm not gonna go profane to do it.
It's it's this program's gotten harder to do.
I take it seriously.
The you know, meeting and surpassing all audience expectations everything, dead serious.
I mean that from the bottom of my heart.
I go home at night when I think I'm not having a good show, and I fret and worry about it for hours.
Until the next day when I have a chance to come in and fix it.
Now, I have to take a timeout here.
I'm sure you have questions.
So you think of them, and if you don't, that's okay.
But if you do, we'll be back and I'll ask you what they are.
We'll be back in just a second.
Don't go.
And a brief timeout at the top of the hour.
There is lots more Senate Democrats face wrath for opposing Obama's gun bill.
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