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June 19, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:46
June 19, 2013, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hello, folks, and welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Program here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Middle of the week Wednesday.
It's a thrill and a delight to have you with us.
It is also a day of really profound heartbreak for those of us who knew the author Vince Flynn, who passed away this morning at 1.50 a.m. Central Time at a hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Prostate cancer that was discovered too late.
I'm numb sitting here today in a state of shock about this.
But what I want to try to do in recounting the Vince Flynn that we all knew is to be as upbeat and optimistic as I can because he was.
I first became aware of Vince reading his novels.
His hero is Mitch Rapp.
Those of you who have read his novels should know something.
Mitch Rapp is Vince Flynn.
Vince Flynn was a real man, the real deal.
One of the bravest, most courageous guys that I have ever met.
And he was a guy.
He was a man's man.
I remember picking up his first novel that I'd read, couldn't put it down, told you about it on the radio while I was in the process of reading it when I'd finished it.
And within a couple of hours, I received an email from him.
He had gone to the trouble to try to find out how to reach me and did and sent me an email thanking me profusely and basically starting out an email relationship.
And he'd stayed in touch.
I read every book that came out.
He would thank me each time I mentioned it.
He suggested often, we need to get together.
I'd love to meet you.
We need to sit around and talk about some things.
I said, yeah, we'll do that.
And it finally happened.
I was out in Los Angeles visiting the set of the Fox series 24.
And I walked in, and Vince was there with all the writers and producers who had been hired as a consultant for the remaining few episodes of that season.
And he was just beaming.
He was just excited as he could be.
He was excited to be there.
He was excited to be on the writing staff, the consultancy staff at 24.
And he just came up and smiled and shook my hand and told me how great it was to meet me.
And we became fast friends after that.
Every spring at my home, we have what's called the spring fling.
A bunch of us get together for a long weekend of golf and dinner and wine and cigars.
And the wives are there.
And it's just that it's a terrific, it's a great three to four day weekend.
And Vince would show up every time we had the spring fling.
And he'd show up with presents for everybody.
I'm wearing one of those presents now.
I wear it all the time, a watch he gave me, a Panera Luminor watch.
And he gave it to me.
He said, it's the best watch go.
And he told me about the people that made it.
He told me that they were friends of his, the finest watch.
You won't find one better than this.
And he just stood there and watched while I put it on, smiling.
Then he'd make a beeline for the humidor, grab his cigar, and he'd grab his wife Lisa, and they'd head to the beach and walk the beach.
Get back, and we'd all sit around and have adult beverages before dinner, sit outside on the deck chewing the fat.
He would regale us with inside scoop that he had learned in the process of researching his books.
Mitch Rapp, his hero's a CIA agent.
I asked him once, How many Mitch Rapps are there in the CIA?
If you haven't read any Vince books, Vince Flynn books, you really should start for no other reason than they're great.
And if you want to know who Vince was, Vince is Mitch Rapp in so many ways.
And I said, How many of these guys do we have in the CIA around the world?
He said about 50, 50 or 60.
These guys are supermen.
But he was, you know, they say about people that never had a bad word to say about anybody.
Well, outside of political discussions, but among the people that we knew in our friendship circle, never anything but complimentary things.
And if ever anybody in our group ended up being criticized for something or about something, he was the first to come in and defend them.
He was selfless.
For a man as successful as he was, he had absolutely no pretentiousness about him.
He had no ego.
And I remember when he told us all that the cancer had been discovered, and it was scary for us and for him because what had alerted him that something was wrong was pain.
And there isn't, from what I've been told anyway, now some there might be some doctors that disagree, but from what I've been told and what Vince told us, that there usually isn't any pain associated with prostate cancer.
That if you have prostate cancer and there's pain, that means that the cancer is spread elsewhere.
And that was what had happened in Vince's case.
But he immediately began a regimen prescribed by his doctors and his own research to try to deal with it.
And each and every time that he would be asked about it, he was nothing but optimistic.
One of the reasons everybody's so shocked is that there wasn't an instance of complaint.
About the only indication that we had recently was we all got an email that essentially said an email from Vince that essentially said that laid out his condition, how he was doing, and it was the first indication that things were deteriorating.
And it was, the message was, I'm worn out answering the question, how am I doing?
So the email was explanatory, and there was an unstated but an understood message in it.
Let this be the answer whenever you're asking.
Because at that point, and this was just a few months ago, it wasn't that long ago.
But the acts of kindness that he engaged in for everybody Were legion.
If somebody was sick and needed to see somebody at the Mayo Clinic, he could do it and made it happen.
If somebody's child was having trouble in school and needed to find a place to get in in Minnesota, he could find a place and did.
If you were ever in town unannounced for whatever reason and wanted to see him, he'd stop what he was doing and spend the day with you.
He just was one of these unique people that was entirely engaging every time you're with him.
There wasn't a moment when people said anything negative about him.
And I don't know very many people like that.
So last night I got home late.
Catherine, I got home late, and I got an email from George Brett, a text saying that Vince had been taken to the intensive care unit, local hospital, because he couldn't breathe.
And that they were doing tests to find out whether it was the result of the hormone treatment medication or whether it was the cancer.
And that they would have an answer for us by Thursday and let us know.
And then arrived this morning.
And shortly after getting a half hour after I got here, I received a notification that Vince had died.
And ever since, I've just been sitting here sort of in a state of shock and numb again because, well, there were people in our group that were planning on going to Minnesota next month, spend a weekend with Vince and his wife, Lisa, and their kids.
It has come as a shock.
And again, it's because Vince didn't complain.
He didn't seek sympathy.
He was nothing but optimistic.
I'm going to beat this.
He was really courageous, folks.
He was bravery personified during all of this.
47 years old.
Kids.
His wife, they've just, his father died of this disease, and young as well.
And I just watched a, there's a local W, I think it's WCCO TV Minnesota.
One of the CBS News reports, they'd done an interview with Vince not long ago about his disease and its status, and how he was doing.
And he was saying, oh, yeah, I just talked to the doctor, and I'm going to live to be a ripe old man.
We've got this.
We're beating this.
We got this disease on the road.
That's just the way he was about it.
It was the way he was about life.
And he was engaged and he was opinionated and he was informed.
He was a thoughtful, thinking, considerate, caring, real man.
A brave, brave guy.
Went out of his way to do anything he could for anybody.
Didn't expect anything in return.
Didn't want anything in return.
And there are a lot of people who are going to miss him terribly.
Everybody that knew him is going to miss him terribly.
And I had to mention this to you out of all of our love for Vince and our respect for him and his meaning to all of us in our lives, what he added to it, to them.
So if you haven't familiarized yourself with Vince and his work, there's 17 Vince Flynn novels, and the vast majority of them have reached the top of the New York Times bestseller list and for a reason.
He's just a great guy, folks.
He was just the kind of person you wish everybody in your neighborhood was.
The kind of person that you wish everybody in positions of power was.
The kind of guy that you wish the President of the United States was.
It's the kind of guy you wish your preacher was, the kind of guy, whoever, I mean, it would just, if every person in a neighborhood was like Vince Flynn, you'd live in the greatest place in the country.
And those of us who were fortunate enough to count him as a friend are able to say that with absolute truth and pride.
He was just a wonderful man.
We'll take a brief time out.
We'll come back and get started with all the rest of the program.
By the way, we're going to have Senator Ted Cruz here at the top of the next hour as a number of people want to weigh in now on the Gang of Eight immigration bill.
And the CBO report has come out on this bill.
And the way it's being interpreted is laughable.
I mean, the idea that it's going to grow the economy, it's an almost exact replay of Obamacare, particularly in the way the whole thing is being scored.
So we'll take a brief break.
And again, thank you for indulging me on our loss, Vince Flynn, and extending prayers to him, his wife, Lisa, and their kids and his entire family.
We'll be back after this.
Ladies, if you would indulge me for one more remembrance of our great friend Vince Flynn, it wasn't just a spring fling that took place in my fashionable oceanside residence, but every autumn, a different group of guys would show up, Sans wives, and Guy's golf weekend.
Vince was the one crossover.
Vince was the one guy in both groups that showed up in both groups.
I mean, there were two separate groups, but Vince was the crossover.
He showed up at both.
And I really can't emphasize, and it's a subject that comes up on this program and has since its inception.
The concept of character and integrity, and he was those things personified.
He was incorruptible.
He was the finest character, a man of such integrity, and it was inspiring.
Vince was an infectious personality and an infectious man.
And one of these people that you wanted to emulate in everything, the way he lived, the way he looked at things, the way he respected other people.
I remember the last golf group, the fall golf group, one of the most recent ones we've had, sent the invitations out.
And he's, I don't know.
I'm in the middle of these treatments, and I just don't, I don't think I can play.
He said, it doesn't matter.
We can be just, come on and bring your clubs and go out with us.
And if you can swing a club on a couple of holes, do it.
But we'd love to have you.
So he came, and he brought his clubs, and he got out a couple of days, played two or three holes.
But the thing about Vince, one of the reasons I'm shocked, he never looked sick in the midst of this.
Not up until recently, of course, but he never, ever, when he would tell you the latest status and details, what was going on, you'd look at it as they can't possibly be.
I mean, he was a strapping guy.
He was the epitome.
You take any of your Hollywood action heroes, the jut jaw, the strong cut jaw, the fit, physique, torso.
He was it, even in the midst of all of his treatments and so forth.
Other than what he told you, you would never know it.
He was just a great guy.
He's one of these people that I wish everybody could have gotten to know.
But you can, in your own way, by familiarizing yourself with his books and with his character, Mitch Rapp.
Now, we often ask him, are you writing about yourself?
And he never wanted to talk about himself never.
It was always about the character and always about the story and always about other people.
But trust me, if you read the books or have read them, you'll discover quite a lot about who Vince Flynn was.
Senate immigration bill to aid economy, Congressional Budget Office says.
However, folks, the Congressional Budget Office also says it's going to do just the opposite.
The Congressional Budget Office report on the Gang of Eight bill reveals, to me anyway, something that's inarguably obvious.
And that is it is a disaster.
And Mr. Snerdley, we've been talking all week about what might happen in the House and what might be going on in the House.
There are a lot of people that have these theories, and they sound plausible, that the fix is in in the house.
That they'll pass a bill that looks really good, but that bill won't survive conference with the Senate bill.
And I don't know how this thing, based on what this CBO report says about it, and I'll detail it when we come back from the break at the bottom of the, I don't know how this thing passes the Senate.
I mean, it could, and that stranger things can happen or have happened.
We live in weird times.
But man, some of this is just, it's the Obamacare budgeting tricks and everything just rewritten and plugged into this bill.
So sit tight, folks.
We'll be back.
And we'll continue all the rest of today's program in honor of Vincent Flynn.
Hi, how are you, Rush Limbaugh?
Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
By the way, also today, folks, we have a massive, massive new 2-inch by 2 sweepstakes kicking in the next three days.
And it's an honor of the second birthday.
This is our little tea company's second birthday.
And we're doing this in conjunction with that and Independence Day, which is coming up soon.
So stand by for the details of that.
Now, let's look at the CBO report on the gang of eight immigration.
Yeah, I'll get to Obama in Germany.
There were two things he did in Germany.
He had a press conference with Merkel, and he had a speech, the Brandenburg Gate.
Now, if you remember 2008, Obama went over to Germany, and he requested at that time to speak at the Brandenburg Gate.
And the Germans, whatever, were under a lot of pressure, because back then Obama was the Messiah, and he had just been, well, I forget where.
He was making a tour of Europe on his messianic pilgrimage.
As part of his campaign, he requested to speak at the Brandenburg Gate, and the Germans said, no, you're not yet of that stature.
So he got as close to the Brandenburg Gate as possible.
He had 200,000 people that showed up.
German beer was flowing.
And the God Echo in Obama's speech, you remember that?
I mean, it was just all over the place.
You know how many people showed up today?
6,000.
200,000 in 2008, 6,000 today.
That's quite a drop.
And you want to hear something humorous.
Apparently, I haven't heard it yet, because frankly, I've had other things on my mind today, but I've heard that Obama in his speech, not the presser with Merkel, but in his speech, it kind of fizzled at the end.
Chris Matthews offered a reason why.
The setting sun made it difficult for Obama to see the teleprompter.
He couldn't see the text.
So it was the sun's fault that Obama's now.
This teleprompter business, I've never, well, I have used them on my TV show, and I'm really uncomfortable with them.
I mean, they're confining.
You end up relying on the darn thing.
They eliminate spontaneity.
I just, I'm not comfortable with these things.
The only time I use one is when I have to have something just fit, like the morning update.
I use a prompter for it because it's got to come in at 90 seconds, and I can't end up at living in tangents and so forth.
And I can't edit video, so I've got to do it all in one take.
But that's the only time I use a prompter because I know what I'm talking about.
If you know what you're talking about, you don't need notes even.
You don't even need it.
Maybe just an outline to jog your memory, and then you go.
But Obama, if you've noticed, he's lost without that prompter.
And I know why.
I know why he's always on prompter.
And that is to make sure he doesn't slip up and portray what he really thinks and what his plans really are.
It's so Obama stays confined in the way that he has been marketed and presented.
And he participates in that, of course, and the way they manage, because it's all about the Limbaugh theorem.
It's all about Obama appearing detached, unattached.
It's all about Obama disguising what his real intentions are.
With no prompter and no discipline, he might actually let it slip what his real plans are.
And that would be devastating.
The fact of the matter is that most liberals cannot be honest with you about what they really hope happens or what they really want to happen or what they really intend to do.
Because if they ever, really were, if that ever happens, and it has, they don't win much.
They're resoundingly defeated, particularly in national So that's the primary reason for the prompter is to keep Obama on message and disciplined so that he doesn't wander off and give up the game.
But we've got soundbites on all this, and we'll get to that.
But this gang of eight immigration, we've got Senator Cruz coming up here at the top of the hour.
And the controversy on this continues to ratchet up as the pressure is being brought to bear by Dingy Harry to get this thing signed and sent over to the House.
So the latest thing that's happened is a CBO report has been issued on its costs, benefit analysis, the impact on the deficit and so forth.
And the first report I have, I want to share with you from Reuters.
And the headline, Senate Immigration Bill to Aid Economy, Budget Office says.
Now, I'm telling you, folks, this is just factually impossible, but I'll share it with you.
They started by writing a White House-backed bill to overhaul the U.S. immigration system, got a boost on Tuesday when the Congressional Budget Office concluded that immigration reform would cut federal budget deficits and boost the U.S. economy.
By the way, just like the CBO said Obamacare was going to cut the deficit and lower the cost of health care.
But once the bill was passed, see, the CBO can only score what they're given.
And one of the tricks that's being employed here, as you know and I know, that whatever number of illegal immigrants are at some point going to end up on welfare.
Now, the Gang of Eight bill prohibits newly quote-unquote legalized on the pathway to citizenship illegals from accessing Obamacare benefits or any other federal welfare benefits.
However, they are not exempt from state welfare benefits.
So they will end up as a net expense increase.
They will be, the newly arrived illegals, ask the people in California, even now.
That's what Prop 87, 187 was all about.
Even the children of illegals now get health care benefits, any number of welfare benefits at the state level.
So even if they're denied federal welfare benefit, it does not mean they're not going to end up on welfare rolls.
They will.
Well, one of the tricks that they have employed here in the Gang of Eight bill is that eventually all these people will have access to federal benefits, but in this bill, not for 10 years.
So, whatever economic benefit is said to derive from their being legalized is not being offset by any cost because there aren't any costs for 10 years.
It's like Obamacare.
The way they scored Obamacare to keep it under a trillion dollars a year was to do this.
They said it's a 10-year bill.
And remember, the magic number on Obamacare was a trillion dollars because the Iraq war cost around $900 billion, they said.
And the selling point for Obamacare was: hey, we're just going to replace the Iraq war costs with Obamacare.
And we're going to end the war.
We're going to end up helping people.
And they're going to cost an additional dime for what we're spending now.
So that figure of $1 trillion or less than a trillion had to be kept.
And the way they did it, the taxes for Obamacare begin immediately upon signage, and that's already happened, as you know.
But the benefits to Obamacare don't fully kick in for three years.
So there are three additional years of taxes before any costs, before any expenses.
If so, what you had in Obamacare, you had 10 years of tax increases, but only seven years of benefits.
And they were able with that trick to tell us that the cost would be under a trillion dollars.
Now, of course, that's out the window.
Now, the cost, the CBO says the cost of Obamacare up to $2 trillion now.
I think it's $1.8.
Just what Obamacare is two years old?
In just two years, the cost is almost doubled from the original estimate.
Well, hello.
Identical thing here is going to happen, the Gang of Eight Immigration Bill.
According to the CBO, the Senate bill would boost economic output and significantly reduce federal budget deficits over the next 20 years.
Jeff Sessions, a Republican senator from Alabama, attacked these findings, saying they failed to take into account longer-term costs related to the $11 million becoming legal residents and eventually qualifying for Medicaid, food stamps, and cash welfare.
And that's true.
In other words, the CBO says that legalizing all of these people will not add to the deficit as long as you pretend they're not going to get any government benefits.
But once you realize they're going to get government benefits, then there is no reduction of the deficit.
Now, this business of aiding the economy, there's something happening here with this that is highly offensive to me.
The CBO and the proponents are trying to suggest that an influx of anywhere from 11, and by the way, wait till you hear after the break, wait till you hear the real number of illegals we're talking about here.
And it isn't 11 million, it's 46 million.
If you project not very far into the future, but what we're being told is that all of these new people are going to be really attractive employees and they're going to be hired and they're going to start working and their output is going to be great and the American economy is going to just explode in growth.
Now that assertion is an insult to our intelligence because you know and I know that these people are going to be paid as little as the people who hire them can get away with paying them.
The amount of money they're going to be paid is going to practically mandate they end up on welfare in order to be able to subsist.
They're not going to be able to create economic growth.
There isn't going to be enough total compensation.
They may not make enough money to be able to provide for themselves.
That's one of the reasons the corporatists, if I may use that term, that's the term for the cronyism, the crony capitalism that's taking place here.
And that is the association of major big business with government to the benefit of government and business at the same time, to the detriment of others, because these are purely unskilled, low-educated, and thus very low-wage people that are going to be comprising this workforce.
And the idea that the American economy is somehow going to blossom and grow with the influx of that kind of labor force, that's an insult to our intelligence.
But they're figuring the low-information voters are going to eat this right up.
It's a government agency that says CBO.
Now, there are other elements of the CBO report that just blow all of what I just told you that's in the Reuters story to smithereens, and I will share those when we get back.
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Now, let's, and again, a reminder that Senator Cruz coming up here at the top of the hour who wants to weigh in on the Gang of Eight immigration bill.
Let's look at some of the other aspects of the CBO report.
We just heard from Reuters that it's going to be magic.
It's going to cause economic growth.
It's going to reduce the deficit.
And those assertions are in the report, but so is this.
The Congressional Budget Office projects 16 million new immigrants will be added by 2033 on top of the current law projected flow of 22 million.
Furthermore, 8 million illegals will be granted permanent status.
We're talking a total here of 46 million legal immigrants as a result of the bill, including a doubling of guest workers to 1.6 million in a single year.
So 16 million new immigrants, that's on top of the number that are already being discussed as 11 or 12.
16 million new immigrants by 2033.
And by the way, once this happens, that number is going to skyrocket because these border security amendments just went down in flames yesterday.
There is no added border security.
So we're going to grant, if this happens, we're going to grant pathway to citizenship, guest workers, whatever, whatever, it's going to be a magnet for others.
So the CBO says 16 million new immigrants added by 2033 on top of the current law projected flow of 22 million.
And that 8 million illegals will be granted permanent status, total of 46 million legal immigrants by 2033.
But Rush, but Rush, what's wrong?
You sound like you're anti-immigration.
We're a nation of immigrants.
Folks, can I think there isn't a country in the world that isn't a nation of immigrants?
That's no great thing.
We're not talking here about the great days of Ellis Island and people escaping the tyranny of Europe, the so-called magic days of immigration.
Nobody I know is anti-immigration.
Nobody I know is anti-Hispanic.
Everybody I know knows that's what this is not about.
Now, the bill's sponsors say that this, what, 46 million new immigrants are going to be ready to work, they're going to be qualified, high class, so forth and so on.
It's not the case.
These new arrivals, nothing against them.
Facts are facts.
That's the one that you can't.
You can massage a political opinion.
You can do anything.
You can't honestly and with integrity change facts.
And the fact is that these new workers are going to be less skilled and have lower wages than the labor force under current law.
There's a whole different visa requirement for the super educated.
That's the kind of immigration we really need to be focused on increasing.
But the Democrat Party needs a permanent underclass, folks, as people in this country elevate themselves economically and become less dependent on government.
Ladies and gentlemen, a very simple question.
If the influx of millions of new immigrants is going to really grow the economy, then why aren't the current illegal residents living in the shadows growing the economy?
Well, they're going to come out of the shadows.
It's going to depress wages.
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