Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hiya, folks.
How are you?
Greetings to you.
Music lovers, thrill seekers, low-information voters.
Those of you who are may not know who you are.
The rest of you do.
It's Friday.
Let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
No, I mean, I think in most cases, a low-information voter doesn't know that he's a low-information voter.
Most people do not willingly.
I mean, not the people we're talking about.
I mean, there's some people who don't care, and they'll admit to you.
I don't care about any of that.
But the people we're talking about, low-information voters, they're not going to raise their hands and say, yep, that's me.
Everybody thinks they're smarter than everybody else.
They're not going to admit that.
Anyway, Open Line Friday, it's all yours when we go to the phones today.
Whatever you want to talk about is what we talk about on Friday.
That's not the case on Thursday or Monday through Thursday.
Have to talk about what I'm interested in because I don't want to be bored.
I came dangerously close on three occasions yesterday to being bored.
Well, no, there were three callers yesterday that just I went, oh, but I ratcheted up my professionalism and I hung in there.
But see, Friday doesn't matter.
I mean, you can bring up anything and ask anything, you can mention anything.
No, I took more than three calls.
I took a lot of calls yesterday.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address, ilrushboateibnet.com.
How would you like to be trolling around Twitter and read that you just lost $2 million that you didn't know you had a chance to earn?
San Francisco Fortiner starting cornerback Terrell Brown has voided a $2 million escalator in his contract after he chose not to participate in the team's voluntary offseason program.
These are called OTAs and by league rule and player union agreement, they're voluntary, but that's in quotes.
The coaches expect you there.
But it's voluntary.
And this guy didn't show up.
It's the offseason.
The Fortiners were in the playoffs late in the season, a long season.
So he took advantage of the time here to cram in some personal time.
And he's trolling around Twitter on Thursday and learned that because he didn't show up at the offseason practices, he lost $2 million.
He had a contract clause that paid him a $2 million bonus if he showed up.
He's reading Twitter and he finds out he didn't know it was in the contract.
So he fired his agent, a guy by the name of Brian Overstreet.
Brown had been due to earn $2.95 million in salary for this season.
And he was supposed to get $2 million as a bonus for showing up in the offseason workouts.
And he said, had he known about the $2 million, he would have done things different.
How do you not know that?
I mean, if you had $2 million coming, I mean, when you sign your contract, you get the details of it.
I mean, the agent might forget to remind you, but for crying out loud, how in the world did you not know that $2 million is coming your way if you do this or do that or whatever?
This has got to be.
No, but no, I don't think they read the contract.
And when they sign the contract, they're told what the deal is before they sign it.
And the agent's looking, you show up for off-season workouts, that's $2 million.
Then your salary is to this million, and in the end of the year, your total is going to be X.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
You'd remember that you got to show up the off-season workouts if $2 million was tied to it.
I would think you'd remember it.
But this may be a low-information guy.
Folks, I got so scared yesterday.
You know, my little cat, Pumpkin, 16 years old, got pumpkin in 1997.
She's an Abyssinian.
And for most of Punkkin's life, I think the breeder that we got pumpkin from bred the cats for potential show.
And there might have been some inbreeding for purity's sake.
I've done a lot of reading about Abyssinians as a.
Oh, I'm having a metal block, not species, but as a anyway, Pumpkins always had urinary tract problems, kidney infections, or her kidneys produce, as it's been explained to me, crystals that clog up her urinary tract and make her think she's got to go to the bathroom when she doesn't.
And you can see that when it happens.
So she's constantly getting medicine for it and frequent trips to the vet for her whole life.
But we'd reached a point a month ago where every antibiotic that had been given to her in pill form, she had built up a resistance to, and none of them worked.
So we had to send her to the vet for a three-week stay in the cat hospital.
And we took as much of the hammock that she sleeps in and food balls and took that stuff over there.
And she had to get a shot twice a day, had to get an injection of antibiotic twice a day at the cat hospital.
And the vet wanted to monitor her every day.
That's why we couldn't do it at home.
And it did some other things too.
And, you know, at 16 years old, two injections a day.
So I've been sort of apprehensive about Pumpkins.
So we picked Pumpkin up on Tuesday and brought her home.
And she was, she'd been fine.
She actually a little mad, as she always is, thinking that I abandoned her.
I did.
I went by to see her one time.
People, why don't you go by to see her more?
I said, wouldn't it be cruel?
I said, animal, in a cat hospital.
You show up and then leave.
I mean, that would lead to abandonment issues with the cat.
We humans, we always transfer our own humanity to animals.
And so we think that they feel and react in ways like we do.
And I don't, you know, people showed up to see me in the hospital and left.
I'd just assume they not show up.
So anyway, yesterday I'm sitting on the couch and Pumpkin's right next to me.
And I just gotten home and I'm just settling in to do some reading on the iPad.
She's sitting on her blanket right next to me on the sofa.
And out of the corner of my eye, I think she's going to get up and jump off and go running around somewhere.
And out of the corner of my eye, that's what I thought happened.
She fell off.
She literally fell off, just rolled off.
And when, you know, I see this out of the corner of my eye.
I didn't know until later she actually rolled off.
So I didn't see her moving after that.
So, oh my gosh.
Leaned forward and she splayed out on the floor in the weirdest position.
And I, their heads underneath the sofa.
And then she started crying like crazy.
I mean, I've never heard this kind of meowing crying.
So I bolted up out of there and I went up over there and I picked her up.
And I didn't know what had happened because we give her, she gets blood pressure medicine every day at 3 o'clock.
So I said, oh, no, 16 years old.
You know the thoughts that go through your head.
So she was scared to death.
Her eyes were dilated and she's continuing to cry.
So I picked her up and I held her for a while.
She stopped crying immediately.
And then I, I didn't know, she was paralyzed.
I don't know.
I've never seen her fall off of anything.
This never happened.
So I put her down on the floor and she wouldn't move, but she could stand up.
So I said, oh, geez, what?
You know, you have all those sad thoughts that start going through your mind.
So I put her back down on the sofa.
And I remembered that she gets her blood pressure medicine at 3 o'clock.
She's got high blood pressure.
16-year-old cat.
I mean, she's two years beyond her life expectancy for this breed, the Abyssinians.
They usually, at 14, that's the upper edge.
And she's on, well, what you'd say, borrowed time.
Anyway, after about a half hour, totally normalized, started getting the same old pumpkin, jumping off the couch and running around and get a drink of water and so forth.
So I figure what happened, she either fell asleep.
And by the way, when she got back up on the couch herself, she sat as far away from the edge.
So I figure she either fell asleep and just rolled off, or else blood pressure medicine, she lost consciousness.
I had no idea what it was.
So we're going to monitor it today when she has to get the blood pressure medicine.
Boy, it was just scary.
I just love this little cat.
And this little cat, you know, we've got these three giant sheep dogs.
And they're just intrigued as they can be with this little peanut animal.
They don't know what it is, but they know it's some kind of an animal.
And Pumpkin doesn't care.
She thinks they're idiots.
Brutish, dirty, filthy idiots.
You can just see it in her face.
But she was perfectly fine.
So I just, I chalked it up.
I'm hoping the blood pressure medicine just lowered her blood pressure too much.
But you're not 16.
You just, it's a, I don't know.
I had forgotten she was that old when I took her to the vet for this three-week stay.
I said, what is she now?
10, 12?
Oh, no, no.
We're treating her since 1997.
Oh, my God, 16 years old.
And ever since then, I've become hyper attentive to everything she does.
So I don't, you know, I don't let her walk upstairs anymore.
I carry her.
Time to go to bed.
I pick her up and carry her up the steps.
I drop her right at her food bowl and her water bowl.
He even licked me in the face after this whole thing yesterday.
So that was that was cool.
Anyway, we've got a load for an open line Friday program.
We've got a loaded program.
I've got a story here.
The eight least expensive places to live in the United States.
And number five is my hometown.
Number five is Cape Girardo, Missouri.
Now, what do they say about it?
Cape Girardo, Jackson Jackson's suburb.
Unemployment in Cape Girardo, Jackson, Missouri, Illinois metro area.
Metro.
It's just 5.9%.
The average prices paid by consumers for the mix of goods and services consumed in the area are about 17% below the national average.
The overall cost of living in the Cape Girardo, Jackson, Missouri area, 92% of the national average.
The median home cost there, 76% of the national average, and the property tax is well below.
Oh, boy, is it?
You know, I'd love to give you some numbers on that, but I'd be ashamed.
I mean, property tax here in Florida compared to what it is in Missouri, it's dollars to pennies.
Anyway, the TV station in Oakland, KTVU Eyeball News 2, has reportedly fired three of its staffers over the gaffe, publishing those fake Asian names of the flight crew, pilot Sum Ting Wong, flight engineer Holy Fuch,
co-pilot we too low.
They fired three people.
Three producers were let go by the station last Saturday.
The names were Sum Ting Wong, We Too Low, Holy Fuk, and Bang Ding Ow.
I think about that head.
I still can't believe somebody had to put that in the prompter.
Somebody had to approve it being in the prompter, and then the anchorette had to read it.
They had to go through three or four people unnoticed.
I was reading Phil Mushnick today in the New York Post.
He was writing about this, and he said there's the joke about anchors and teleprompters.
You could write, a producer could write their own obituary, an anchor's obituary, and they'd read it.
Hi, I'm such and such.
TV2 eyeball news.
I'm dead.
You could put that in there and they'd read it.
Standing joke.
Let's see.
Government shutdown.
We talked yesterday about Mike Lee, Senator Mike Lee, and his efforts to repeal or defund large parts of Obamacare as part of the continuing resolution.
Folks, the Republican establishment, the GOP, RNC, is not interested in this at all.
Quite the contrary.
I mean, we've got Republican party leaders actually advocating for the total implementation of Obamacare now.
Under the theory, look, it's law.
You can't stop it.
And if you shut down the government, the Republicans are going to get blamed again, just like 1995.
It's a lose-lose proposition.
Just go ahead and let the law be implemented and watch it implode and kill the Democrats that way.
And I don't intellectually understand that.
A, the 1995 budget battle is a great story by Daniel Mitchell, National Review Online, posted all the way back in February of 2011.
And it prints out four or five pages on your printer, but it is a great detailed story of how the 1995 budget shutdown really did not hurt the Republican Party.
And in fact, I mean, not prove it, not, it wasn't a death blow.
And in fact, not only did it not really do that much damage to the party, it was a good thing for the country, the 1995 budget battle and the aftermath.
It's a fascinating piece.
I'll link to it at rushlimbaugh.com so you can get an advanced read of it.
Why Republicans Can't Back Down.
This was written, again, back in 2011 about another continuing resolution fight all the way back then, when it was thought there might be a government shutdown.
Anyway, there's that.
IRS employee union says, we don't want Obamacare.
I mean, it's the most unpopular federal program ever.
And the Republican Party is choosing not to align themselves with the majority of the American people.
It just boggles the mind.
Open Line Friday.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network, try to take more calls on Friday.
Try.
It's always an objective.
We'll have more on this as the program unfolds, but here you have one of the most popular pieces of legislation ever.
Every day, another group comes out in opposition to it.
Today, it's the IRS Employees Union.
We don't want Obamacare.
A vast majority of Americans do not want Obamacare.
The Republican Party has a golden opportunity to align themselves with the majority of the American people, not just Republicans, independents.
I mean, every demographic is represented in this mass of people that don't want this.
But the Republican Party has made the decision to side with Washington.
Well, you know, it's law now.
We can't stop it.
Well, I'm sorry, but the Defense of Marriage Act was the law.
And Obama and the Democrats said, you know what?
We're not going to defend it anymore.
We're not going to litigate it.
We're not going to enforce it.
And that was a Democrat law.
Our immigration laws are the law, and they don't enforce those.
If our current immigration law simply was enforced, we wouldn't need to be doing anything.
There's all kinds of examples.
Reagan's Medicare Catastrophic Act, 1988, it was the law.
Democrats had no problems overturning that once Rostankowski got beat up by a bunch of ladies in a blue-haired bloody Mary gang one afternoon.
Where would Scott Walker be if he'd been afraid of a government shutdown in Wisconsin?
I don't understand.
Well, I do understand it.
Open Line Friday, Rush Limbaugh serving humanity simply by showing up.
We have some new health food news today.
How many of you out there believe in fresh fruits and vegetables?
I mean, that's the way to go.
That's healthy.
That's calorically responsible.
That'll promote long life.
You might never die.
It's simply the best thing to do.
Well, according to the Today Show Today, as the number of people sickened by a parasite that causes intestinal illness rose to 285, Dr. Nancy Snyderman offered this simple yet important advice on the Today Show Today: wash your hands and wash your produce.
How pathetic have we become where we have to have a television show remind people to wash their hands and their produce.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating an outbreak of the cyclospora infection, which has affected people in nine states, New Jersey to Texas.
Ten people reportedly been hospitalized because of the parasite.
I mean, it causes bad diarrhea, whatever is going on.
Just be aware, folks, and make sure you wash your hands and wash the produce.
Silda Spitzer said she's going to divorce client number nine after the election in November.
She says it's just too tough.
It's just too hard.
She just can't do it anymore.
Gloria Borger said she's got an exclusive that Huma did not talk to Hillary before Huma went out in the joint presser with Wiener.
That Huma was on her own.
The fallout from this, the Wiener-Huma thing, is not good for either of them.
It's taking on a new life of its own.
And we'll get to that.
I want to stay focused on this Obamacare business because it's really illustrative, indicative of things.
It's eye-opening and it's puzzling as well.
Now, you know what Obamacare is: it's the nationalization of one-sixth of the U.S. economy.
But it's far more than that.
It essentially allows the federal government to dictate control over whatever aspect of life they want.
Because virtually every aspect of life is going to have ramifications on health care costs.
So if, for example, the government decides that obesity is a leading cause of increased health costs, then they can, under this law, start mandating behaviors and diets and any number of things by you if you are to get health care down the line for whatever ails you.
They can dictate any behavior they want because all behavior will be linked to health care costs at some point in somebody's life.
It is a breathtaking amassing of power.
In addition to that, it destroys private sector businesses.
What Obamacare is effectively doing is transforming the 40-hour work week to a 30-hour work week.
How does that help the middle class?
Obama's out giving speeches, telling everybody that he's now focusing once again for the 19th time on jobs.
And he's focusing on the economy because all these scandals have just been nothing but distractions, phony distractions.
And he's going to focus once again.
He's going to get this because Washington hasn't cared enough.
Washington hasn't paid enough attention.
Well, as this health care law is implemented, companies have been downsizing their staffs, or they have been converting full-time employees to part-time so that they do not have to pay them health care benefits, at least the first couple, three years of the law.
How's that helping the middle class?
We've already lost 9 million jobs since Obama assumed office in January of 2009.
9 million jobs have just vanished.
They no longer exist.
They're not waiting to be filled because they don't exist any longer, which makes the unemployment rate of 7.6% a little misleading.
If the same number of jobs were available today as when Obama took office, that 7.6% unemployment rate will be closer to 11%, even today, while they claim the economy is recovering and rebounding.
But when you wipe 9 million jobs away from the universe of jobs, then of course the percentage of people out of work is going to be expressed as a much lower number.
So jobs are being lost.
Full-time jobs are being converted to part-time jobs.
None of this is helping people.
None of this is helping people grow their lifestyles, get raises, find jobs that pay more money.
That's just one of the reasons Obamacare should be repealed.
It guts the 40-hour workweek.
The 40-hour workweek is one of the defining characteristics of the American middle class.
Obamacare defines full-time employment now as 30 hours per week.
And it does that quite by law.
I mean, if 30 hours a week, you got to be covered.
Over 30 hours a week, you have to be covered.
Less, you don't.
Guess what employers are doing?
The president says he cares about the middle class, but his legacy is to take full-time work and turn it into part-time work.
He says he's going to build the economy from the middle out while he rips 25% of the hours and pay out of the middle class.
How can this happen?
Well, it can't.
He's, yeah, he thinks he's setting a floor with this.
These people are so whacked out.
He thinks he's setting a floor with this.
He's setting a ceiling with the 30-hour work week and the 50 employees that have business that have to abide by Obamacare.
If they got 49, they don't.
Every incentive in this bill is for employers to get rid of people, convert them to part-time, or fire them.
That's the incentive if the businesses are to stay open.
Regarding that, I will not lose my place here.
This is a great time to share with you a little story here from the UK Telegraph.
There's some clown over there named Matthew Hancock, and he's in the government.
He's in the British government.
He is a cabinet minister of business and skills.
He is the business and skills minister.
And he said that companies have a social duty to employ young British workers rather than seek profit.
Employers ought to be prepared to invest in training British staff rather than simply looking for pure profit.
Asked whether he believes that a company should train British workers at the risk of a little bit of profit rather than employing foreigners.
And yes, I do.
I think the government has a responsibility too.
We have a responsibility to support that training.
Well, yeah, he's in the UK, but how many people like this live and work in the Obama regime?
The purpose of a business is to provide employment.
The purpose of a business is to provide health care.
The purpose of a business is to make charitable donations to the community.
The purpose of a business is to create a wing for children at the local hospital.
How's a business supposed to do this if it doesn't make a profit?
So here you have in the UK the business and skills minister out there opining against profits saying, that's bad if a company focuses on that.
A company needs to focus on training workers.
No, the workers get trained before they get there.
Sure, there's some on-the-job training that's called internships or it's called entry-level minimum wage.
But at the business is not where everybody learns how to do what they're doing.
Some people that you hire have to already know.
And hopefully, some of them that you hire are the best that you can get.
But this is liberal thinking at its best.
The purpose of a business is to hire people.
The purpose of a business is to have jobs.
The purpose of a business is to provide health care.
And any business that seeks profit is to be suspected.
Any business, how else is it going to stay in business?
How else is it going to continue to operate?
How is it going to keep the doors open?
Why the Republican Party doesn't see all of this as an opportunity to advance itself in contrast?
Here you have Obamacare, which the vast majority of people, and it's growing, don't want it, oppose it.
And even now, labor unions, remember the AFL-CIO and the SEIU, might not two major unions send Pelosi and Reed letters saying, don't you dare implement this?
Is hurting our workforce?
They went along with this for whatever stupid, dumb reasons, thinking that they were going to be on the inside.
And they find out that their union members are going to get the shaft here when it comes to health care benefits and wages and everything else.
Because the incentive for every business is to let people go, fire them, or employ them for fewer hours, convert them to part-time.
That's the incentive in Obamacare.
How hard is that to oppose?
How hard is that to contrast?
Does the Republican Party come out against all that?
Why would you take such a universally unpopular piece of legislation if you're the opposition party and sign on to it?
Forget conservative versus liberal for a minute.
The Republican Party is still the Republican Party.
Theoretically, they still want to beat the Democrats.
Where is that?
Where is the pushback?
The Republicans have a built-in automatic way to align themselves with people of all demographics, of all age groups, all institutions, all races, religions, creeds, ages, you name it, because they all make up the group of people that oppose it.
And this is not a passive opposition.
This is visceral.
People that oppose this bill actively oppose it.
There's no ho-hum.
Yeah, you know, I don't care, but I don't really like that.
I mean, it is an active, committed opposition to this piece of legislation.
And the Republican thinking at the highest levels is: it's the law of the land.
We can't stop it.
Go ahead and let it be implemented, and it'll implode.
Well, no other entitlement has.
This is the same kind of thinking that I remember hearing back in 1992.
Rush, go ahead and let Clinton win.
Let those Democrats win, Rush, and the people will see how bad these Democrats are.
They'll see what damage they do, and that'll be the end of them.
Hadn't worked yet.
So let Obamacare go ahead and fully implement, and it'll implode, and we'll be there to pick up the pieces.
Well, you better get your opposition to it stated front and center.
You Republicans better let people know that you oppose this.
Otherwise, if you come across as liking this, helping this, supporting this, and it does implode, you're not going to be around to pick up the pieces.
You're going to get blamed by your own voters.
That's what I don't understand.
This is, this ought to be the holy grail should be the end of Obamacare.
Want to turn more part-time work into full-time work?
End Obamacare.
You want to increase your take-home pay?
End Obamacare.
You want your health care costs to get cheaper?
End Obamacare.
You want to increase jobs and growth and grow the U.S. economy?
End Obamacare.
Slogan after slogan after slogan, rights themselves.
None of this is a negative.
None of this is, I mean, it's a positive.
It's the best thing anybody could do to get the economy going.
Stop Obamacare.
Quick timeout.
And we come back, and I'm going to use self-discipline here.
And I'm going to go to the phones when we get back.
So sit tight, my friends.
Snirdly, if you've got a bunch of placeholders over there, get rid of them and get some real calls.
We'll be back after this.
Don't go away.
El Rushball and Open Line Friday.
I just got a note from a great guy, Louis Gomert, member of Congress in Texas.
And Louis said, as always, you're right.
But then there was a but and Louis said, Obamacare will implode.
Socialism always implodes, which is true.
How long did it take the Soviet Union to implode?
60, 70 years.
It will.
Socialism never has worked.
It will always implode.
But Obamacare is not going to implode next year.
It's not going to implode in time for the 2016 presidential election.
It's designed to actually look kind of cool the first couple, three years.
Fines are cheaper than health insurance policies.
It's going to be onerous.
It's not going to be, it's not going to convert itself from an anti to a supported position overnight.
It's going to implode.
But I mean, you've got to run out of their people's money for you.
I mean, to sit around and wait for implosion is a policy.
Ah!
Bob in Long Beach.
Great to have you on the program.
Open Line Friday.
Hello, sir.
Hello, Rush.
I hear you talking, and I hear a lot of people talking about defunding Obamacare.
And I don't think that's going to work because Obama has the bank, he has the Treasury Department, he has the collection agency, he has the checkbook and he has the money.
And whether or not the House appropriates the money or not, he's going to get it wherever he damn well pleases, and he's going to fund it.
The whole idea of defunding, it's a joke to me.
You're assuming he's going to play by the rules.
Big mistake, in my opinion.
He's got all the money in the world.
Republicans playing by the rules is a big mistake, you said.
Well, yeah, assuming that Obama will play by the rules.
Oh, assuming Obama's going to play by the rules.
It's a big mistake.
Oh, he's got the bank.
I get it.
I get it.
So the Republicans, they repeal the funding.
And I don't care.
I'm just going to get Ben Bernanke to write me a check.
Sadly, folks, the man has a point.
And the first hour of Open Line Friday now in the can.
Look, it would not be automatically easy for Obama to just spend money that had been repealed, not the amounts that we're talking about.
I know he doesn't care what the law is, but it wouldn't just be a snap of his fingers.