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Aug. 16, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:39
August 16, 2013, Friday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Your guiding light.
There are times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, deceit, depression, pessimism, fatalism, it's all over ism, and even the good times.
El Rushbo on Friday.
Let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
And hang on a minute.
I'm reading the transcript of a soundbite I just got.
Yeah, have soundbite number 20 standing by.
I think this is instructive.
Telephone number Open Line Friday, final hour here, 800-282-2882.
If you want to send an email, address is lrushbow at EIBnet.com.
I mentioned a few moments ago that I looked up on Fox and I saw, wow, they're doing a doing a segment on Ashton Kutcher and his, by the way, Snardly, I got a note from a friend who explained why the Hollywood reporter had such trouble.
You know, this makes a lot of sense.
The Hollywood reporter is stunned that I was complimentary toward Ashton Kutcher, and they don't quite know what to do with it.
They wrote about it accurately, but they're just, you can read, they're just on the verge of snark, right?
Just, I mean, it wouldn't take, let me, one sentence, and they could have been full-fledged snark.
But they didn't.
They gave it a fair treatment.
And this note, I guess, is rushed, the problem is real simple.
You are a person of ideas, and they don't know that.
And they're not about ideas.
They are about personalities.
And boy, is that ever right.
And I think it explains the line of demarcation on a number of things.
The entire entertainment media is totally devoted to personalities.
It doesn't matter what they say.
It's just that they're stars.
And therefore, they idolize them.
They worship them.
And that's it.
Starts and ends with that.
But I am not into worshiping personality, cult or otherwise.
I'm a person of ideas.
And they don't know that.
Because they're not.
And theory being that one of the reasons that they don't understand me is they don't understand the idea that somebody's about ideas.
No matter who says them, if they're good, they're good.
And I thought it was an interesting point.
Anyway, Fox does this story.
Everybody is now replaying Anderson Kutcher or Ashton Kutcher's comments upon getting an award at the Teen Choice Awards on Sunday that I spent an hour analyzing and praising.
So now everybody is doing it.
That's called cutting edge.
And Cookie just sent me a soundbite from one of the libs talking about this on Fox.
The fill-in host of Greg Jarrett.
And he's speaking with former Clinton pollster Bernard Whitman.
They're discussing Ashton Kutcher's speech at the Teen Choice Awards.
The fill-in host Greg Jarrett said, one could argue that it is contrary to the entitlement mentality that is sometimes championed by liberals and Democrats, what Kuster was saying.
I think that Kutcher's speech was a powerful endorsement of personal responsibility, hard work, and the American dream.
And the idea that those values are somehow how conservatives have a lock on those values isn't just absurd, it's actually plain offensive.
And with respect to his definition of being sexy, sexy being smart, I totally agree.
And you know what's not smart is waging a war on science, which conservatives seem obsessed with doing, claiming that we're not responsible for climate change, believing that women can shut down pregnancies after rape, and thinking that gays can be cured.
None of that is smart.
They just can't help themselves.
They literally just can't help themselves.
Who brought any of that up?
Anyway, liberalism does not stand for personal responsibility.
Just the exact opposite.
Liberalism is about you don't have any personal responsibility.
You don't.
You're not responsible for what you do.
And they're defensive about this.
This is why I think they sent somebody out to try to claim ownership of what Kutcher said.
They're very, very troubled, in other words, that I, El Rushball, would be praising somebody they think they own.
Now, I want to get back to this political piece.
Remember, Newt Gingrich said that the reason the Republicans cannot defund Obamacare is because they don't have an alternative.
They don't have anything else to propose.
And there clearly is an alternative.
You say no.
Where does it say in the Constitution everybody's entitled to health care?
And where does it say that your neighbors have to pay for yours?
Why do we accept this premise?
The alternative is not accepting the Democrat Party premise.
The alternative is free market capitalism.
The alternative is getting the government out of it as much as possible.
Newt Newt used to think this way, by the way.
He did.
Don't look at me that way.
He did.
He used to think exactly this way.
Newt used to go on C-SPAN special order speeches for an hour talking this way.
Too much time in the beltway.
There is a clear alternative to government-run health care.
No government in the health care industry.
That's the alternative.
The idea we can't defund.
Let's go back.
Let's go back.
Was it 1994, Hillary Care?
I think the Republicans defeated Hillary Care, and they went on to win and keep control of the Congress for the first time in 40 years.
And they didn't have an alternative to Hillary Care, did they?
Newton and the boys didn't have an alternative other than no.
The objective in 1994 with Hillary Care was to stop it, was to defeat it.
And we did.
And we didn't have an alternative.
We didn't have our own version of government health care.
We just said no to it.
We just shut it down.
And the Republicans won the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, and they kept it for a long time.
To show you how things change, in 1993 and 1994, Newt is leading the effort to oppose Hillary care, make sure it doesn't happen.
Ten years later, 2005, 11 years later, Newt went on a speaking tour with Hillary, where he praised her and Hillary care to the skies.
Washington takes hold of people and rids them of their common sense.
It certainly destroys their conservative tendencies and orientation.
But I don't think we had an alternative.
We were just saying no way to government-run health care.
There was no way we were going to have single-payer.
There was no way the government was going to be in charge of where doctors could practice.
There was just no way.
Hillary had her little bus tour to promote health care.
We had people at every stop outnumbering the supporters.
There was no way.
But there wasn't an alternative.
And defeating Hillary care propelled the Republicans to great victories.
And you and I sit out here, we ask, why don't they remember that?
Which takes me to the politico piece.
I know it's the politico, but you have to understand, Beltway Republicans read this thing.
It's almost as big a Bible to them as it is to the Democrats.
Are you ready?
It's almost impossible to find an establishment Republican in town who's not downright morose about the 2013 that has been and is about to be.
Most dance around it in public, but they see this year as a disaster in the making, even if most elected Republicans don't know it or admit it.
Several influential Republicans told us at the Politico that the Republican Party is actually in a worse place right now than it was November 7th, the day after the last election.
And this is what these influential Republicans say is the reason why the party is in a worse place.
Okay, folks, are you ready?
Politico quoting influential Republicans, not by name here.
The reason the party's in trouble is it's hurting itself even more with the very voters they need to start winning back.
Hispanics, blacks, gays, women, and swing voters of all stripes.
The few Republicans who stood up and tried to move the party ahead in this direction were swatted into submission.
Speaker John Boehner on fiscal matters, Senator Marco Rubio on immigration are the poster boys for this.
Republicans are all flirting with a fall that could see influential party voices threatening to default on the debt or shut down the government and therefore ending all hopes of proving they are not insane when it comes to governance.
Now, Republicans read this stuff and they believe it.
Republicans are the source for this.
Well, if we believe the politico, we're sure.
Are you saying they might be making all this up?
Oh, I know it's Snerdley thinks they might be making it up because he doesn't think he doesn't know any Republicans.
I know.
Here's the, I know.
The Republican Party never had a majority of Hispanics and even had, remember this, even had Romney gotten 70% of the Hispanic vote in 2012, he is still lost.
We've never had the Hispanic vote.
We've never had the black vote.
We've never had the gay vote.
We have never had, well, we have had a majority of women over the course of the years, but we've never had the transgender vote.
And Romney cleaned up with swing voters in 2012.
Romney had a huge majority of independents.
So the Politico is in the middle of playing another trick on Republicans.
The Republican Party is in worse shape.
It's hurting itself even more with the very voters they need to start winning back.
Hispanics, blacks, gays, women, and swing voters.
Now, I don't want to be misunderstood.
I'd love to get those people, but I don't think you're going to do it by being Democrat-light.
That's not how you do it.
This is Snardley is just saying this whole thing is written by Democrat operatives.
Don't you know this is what Republican operatives believe?
I'll guarantee you the sources for this are Republican operatives.
The influential Republicans are the consultants.
The Republican consultants are the ones that are sourcing for this because they're the ones that believe this.
But we've never had a majority of Hispanics or even close.
We've never had a majority of blacks.
We've never had a majority of transgenders and gays.
And we've won.
This is hocus pocus.
What a trick.
The first big trick that the Democrats succeeded in pulling off was telling the Republicans that they got to get the independence.
So the Republican candidate every four years has a campaign aimed at only 20% of the electorate.
You know, the old saw that 40% of the voters are going to vote Democrat, 40% Republican, and that 20% independent.
That's where the election is won.
And all these consultants tell these Republican candidates, I'm the guy that can get you a majority of those Hispanic votes, and that's how you win.
And so candidates come up with campaigns aimed at 20% of the electorate, and they ignore their base.
The Republicans do.
They ignore their base and they lose.
And then the second trick is, you know why you lost?
It's because you didn't get gays.
You didn't get the Hispanics.
You've got to go amnesty.
You've got to go pro-choice.
And you've got to go gay marriage and all that.
Right.
That's the ticket.
Things the Republican Party has never done.
Outreach the Republican Party has never made is somehow the answer.
This is absurd.
It is patently absurd.
And yet this is what the Republicans, many of them actually do believe this stuff.
I mean, it kills me.
We're really supposed to believe that top Republicans would run to Jim Van DeHye and Mike Allen with this stuff.
They're the writers of this piece.
We're really supposed to leave it top Republican.
Yes, I do believe that certain Republican consultants would go to Politico with this.
I do believe that there are a lot of Republican consultants who think that the Republicans are so cowed and so down on the dumps that they believe this.
This is just another push.
The latest push to get the Republicans to sign on to amnesty.
How is it working out for Marco Rubio, by the way?
How is that working out for him?
Where is he in the presidential preference poll?
I guess, six?
Are they talking about primary people to talk about primary Rubio?
I hadn't heard that.
Well, this is interesting.
But Van der Hai and Helen, Alan, I mean, I know these guys.
They occasionally send me notes.
And if I happen to make the front page of the New York Times, Mike Allen sends me a congratulatory note.
Hey, way to go.
He does.
But these guys are to the left of Stalin.
And folks, I just know this.
I know that Van de Hai and Mike Allen, they could be great guys, but they're not interested in the Republicans winning.
The politico doesn't want the Republicans to win anything.
What kind of foolish Republican actually thinks that?
I got to take a brief time out.
I know it's Open Line Friday, so we're going to come back here and we're going to go back to the phones.
Don't go.
I'm going to get a cigar.
Okay, back to the phones.
Open Line Friday.
This is Alex in Pittsburgh.
Great to have you.
Thank you for waiting.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Thank you for taking my call.
I wanted to talk to you a little bit about my generation, the millennials, and kind of this defeatist attitude that seems to be almost infecting our whole generation.
I'm currently 24.
I opened my own small business a year ago.
But whenever I graduated from college, I was faced with kind of that same dilemma that a lot of people are, where my generation seems to think that you get a diploma, now you're going to get a job, which clearly isn't the purpose of business or anything.
But so I was kind of faced with this decision.
I had this great opportunity to open my own company, but at the same time, I was looking into all these different entitlements because you always hear all these things.
You can get this and you can get that.
So I actually took the time to sit down and weigh the risk between opening my own business and obviously the chance that it fails within the first year of spending pretty much all the money I had saved from working or going out and hunting down these entitlements and seeing what the difference, not only on the positive impact that would be lost on the community.
Now, wait a second.
Wait, wait, wasn't there a third option?
Unless I didn't hear everything.
And don't worry, we'll carry you over to the bottom of the hour break if we don't make it.
Your two options were welfare or started your own business?
No, I was kind of being facetious, but I mean, not necessarily welfare, but I was looking into that because my thought was: okay, you have two options.
You can work hard and contribute to the economy, or you can leech from the economy.
Okay, gotcha.
So, yeah, I kind of weighed those two options.
And what I found was, you know, assuming you get through for the food tension and the section 8 and everything, the lifestyle that I would have been able to live compared to the lifestyle that I did live, this was a year ago, was pretty comparable.
But the difference is, I actually have been working and going towards something.
So, yeah, I lived a low, you know, a low standard of life for that year, maybe.
But my hopes are that the work I put in now will pay off.
And I think that kind of sentiment's just completely lost in my generation.
For way too many, it is.
But it's not all their fault.
Many of them are told that they can't do anymore what you're trying.
Okay, back we are.
Rush Limbaugh on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
It's Open Line Friday.
And the telephone number if you want to be on the program in our last half hour is 800-282-2882.
I just got a note from a friend of mine who is taking an afternoon off and is watching the Little League World Series on ESPN.
And something happened that I'm sure is no big deal to a lot of people, but it's just got this guy bugged.
I wanted to share it with you And see what you think.
Second inning, already up three to nothing.
A kid from the Chinese Taipei team hits a two-run homer to right, puts his team up five to nothing.
As he's rounding the bases, the opposing team is Canada.
So you got Chinese Taipei.
This is not the Chikoms.
This is Taiwan.
Big difference.
So you got the Chinese Taipei team that are playing Canada.
The Chinese Taipei team up 3-zip.
Kid hits a two-run homer to right field, makes it 5-zip.
He's rounding the bases.
The second baseman for Canada gives him a high-five and a fist bump to congratulate him for blasting a home run against Canada's own pitcher and putting China in front of his own team 5-0.
He said, look, I understand sportsmanship, but why in the hell are you out there congratulating the opposition for crying out loud?
He says, Lou Gehrig used to be known as the guy who got knocked down more than any player in baseball history, and that's just the way it was.
Guy hits a home run, pitcher brushes the next guy off the plate.
Now, a guy, Homers, and the defensive players congratulate him as he trots around the bases.
There's sportsmanship, and then there's, well, I don't even know what to call it.
You know, I'm all for playing clean but hard.
And then everybody shakes hands when it's over.
during the game?
Do you have a problem with that, Snurdly?
Snurdly says, yeah, but it's the Canadians.
It's kind of like the French doing it.
Surrendering in the middle of the content.
Look, the progressives, the left, should be really happy about this.
Once they have completely killed football, they won't need to worry about baseball.
Just congratulate him right before surrendering.
I don't know.
I kind of agree with him.
I kind of agree.
It's taking all this stuff just a little bit.
But you know what?
When people watch this, I guarantee you, oh, oh, oh, did you see that?
What a great sport.
The second baseman for Canada realizes that that guy hitting the home run just did something really great, and he wanted to congratulate.
Oh, isn't that, I don't know, cute?
Isn't that sweet?
Isn't that nice?
There are no need for hatred out there.
These people aren't enemies.
It's really good that they can congratulate.
That's real sportsmanship.
I'll tell you, the last time I saw this, it was at Augusta during the Masters' turn.
It might have been this year.
And there was a playoff, and they're on a 10th hole.
And it's Adam Scott.
I think it's Adam Scott.
Whoever won the tournament.
I think it's Adam Scott.
And Angel Cabrera, who has won it before.
And Adam Scott hit a phenomenal second shot to the green on number 10.
And Angel Cabrera, who was across the fairway, looked at him and gave him a thumbs up.
And the announced crew went absolutely bananas.
Oh, did you see that?
That's the kind of camaraderie we need out here.
Angel Cabrera recognized that a great shot was made by his opponent.
Maybe a shot that'll win the tournament for his opponent and lose it for him, but he had the maturity and the guts to acknowledge the great shot.
And I have to admit, yeah, it was nice to see a seductive thing, but Nicholas would never do it.
And Tiger wouldn't do it.
They'd be trying to psych out the guy who just did a great shot as no big deal.
You think that's hot?
Watch this.
It's all about the competitive nature of things.
And there is a hearty criticism of the competitive nature.
It's considered to be mean, not nice, selfish, unfair, rude.
All of these things.
Anyhow, here's Steve in La Palma, California.
Open Line Friday rolling on.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Thank you.
Constitutionist dittos from Southern California, Rush.
Prostitution dittos, did you say?
Constitution is.
Constitution.
Oh, geez.
Okay.
That's my cochlear implant for you.
Constitutionist.
Okay.
I believe we conservatives are making a big tactical mistake by allowing ourselves to be called right-wingers.
You think about what we're doing.
Rush, when somebody asks you if you're on the left or the right, you ask left or right of what?
No, I know what you're talking about.
And I think you have a valid point.
We surrender this terminology to the left.
That's true.
I think we should start, we should seize the center, call ourselves constitutional centrist, and cast them out as far in the left wing as they belong.
This is positioning.
It's education.
Let me tell you something.
The second part of what you said, I heartily endorse and profoundly agree with.
And in fact, it's worked in the past.
But the Republican Party today just can't bring itself to call these people liberals.
They don't even call them progressives.
It's like they're afraid to be critical of them at all.
But it works.
But people do not like liberalism.
When they're told that that's what all this is, they will reject it.
Rush, you're talking about people rising up from nothing.
You were talking about that earlier in your show.
Yes.
Are you familiar with the story of Alexander Hamilton?
Well, some I'm familiar with some of Alexander Hamilton.
He was born as a bastard child of an illegitimate marriage.
His father left the family and he was seven.
He was dirt poor.
His mother died when he was 11.
His cousin who adopted him committed suicide two years later.
And look what that guy became.
So that's we make the case for illegitimacy.
Actually, the case is that he did not accept his part in life.
He worked himself out of it.
And I write about him a lot.
I think Alexander Hamilton is one of the true heroes of the founding of our republic.
There's no question about that.
Yes.
Anter-controversial figure in his own right.
Yes, but anyway, I really believe we should call ourselves constitutional centrists.
I have a question for you, too.
My mom is a big fan of yours.
She just turned 90.
Would you be willing to say hi to her?
Sure.
You mean on the phone?
Mom, pick up the phone.
She's objecting.
She doesn't want to do it.
She's.
Mom, come on.
I'm going to slurp some coffee here, folks.
Hi.
Hi, Mom.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Good.
This is Rush Limbaugh.
And I'm told that it's your birthday, or it's soon to be.
Yep.
Well, happy birthday.
Well, thank you.
It's very good to hear for a 90-year-old.
Well, my grandfather lived well past that, and its longevity is in parts of our family.
So you don't sound anywhere near 90 years old.
Well, I have a good family.
I've had a good life.
And listened to you for years.
My husband and I traveled a lot, and we always had you on the radio of our tow vehicle.
Well, of your tow vehicle.
Yeah, we had a trailer.
Yeah.
And we belonged to a travel club, the Airstream, and we just traveled a lot.
And it made, you know, when we were on a long run, it was so easy to listen to you and to watch the trees in the desert go by and all that sort of thing.
We had a wonderful time.
That is very nice.
I really appreciate it.
Did you ever stop at any state fairs?
Not state fairs.
We parked in a lot of fair grounds.
It was arranged by the club.
Right.
But I went to state fairs in Phoenix, Arizona when I was a kid.
They're fun, aren't they?
Oh, I love them.
And I remember the movie?
Which movie?
Well, the one with Janet Gaynor.
Oh!
You wouldn't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.
I do.
Absolutely do.
You do.
Because I'm a movie aficionado.
Okay, yeah.
Well, that's very nice of you.
I'm happy to be able to wish you a happy birthday and thank you for picking up the phone.
Your son said he was going to go get you, and I wasn't sure that you were there and be able to pick up the phone, so I'm glad that you did.
I was watering my tomatoes.
Wow.
Very nice.
Have a great rest of the day.
Overwhelmed me.
I'm so happy to talk to you.
I've listened to you for so long.
Well, aren't you?
I depend on you.
Wow.
To keep me straight.
I have a wonderful son.
I have two sons living with me now.
My husband passed away three years ago.
Yeah.
And my sons living here helped me so much.
They're two different personalities completely.
Really?
Yes.
And my son Stephen is the one who called you.
Yes.
And is your son Stephen in broadcasting?
Because he has that kind of voice.
He had a little program on the radio for the past three weeks, I guess it was.
Ah, I couldn't tell you.
But he gives talks at the tea party to do that we have down here, a 605-405 tea party.
Right.
Last night he gave a talk on oh.
It was Gouverneur Morris.
You know, somebody I had never heard of, and I like to read history.
And he told about him, and everybody was just agog because it was so different.
You know, then you never expected anybody to talk about Gouverneur Morris.
Do you know who he is?
No, I don't.
I'm not sure I understand.
Are you saying Governor Morris?
Gouverneur.
Gouverneur Morris.
Yes.
No, he's not a rodeo clown.
No, when they did all the work for the Constitution, they had to have the Bill of Rights, the preamble.
They had to have it all written down properly, you know.
And apparently, he had a beautiful hand.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Okay, I know what you mean now.
I do.
Yes, yes.
Well, what is your first name?
A book about arguing for the Constitution.
Right.
And he doesn't so much talk about his book as he does about the different people who were in history that you and I don't ordinarily talk about with other people about very important.
That's a good thing he's doing.
What is your first name?
Shirley.
Well, Shirley, it's great to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
Happy birthday.
Keep going to the tea party stuff.
And your sons are great.
I can tell.
Thanks very much.
We'll be back, folks.
Don't go away.
Okay, a couple things email-related.
People say, what do you keep playing with your iPhones for?
Folks, I'm running the beta of the new operating system that's coming up in September, iOS 7.
And in the notification center, there is a new feature called Next Destination.
And your phone learns if you have the settings on.
It learns where you go and how long you stay there and puts it all in a log.
And then after a while, it can be predictive as to where you are going and how long it's going to tell you to get there.
And it's working on one of them.
It's not working on the other.
And I'm trying to figure out why it isn't working on the one.
Pure and simple.
I'm trying to figure it out.
It may be just a bad installation of the beta.
Who knows?
Second thing is, I've got people emailing me about Punkin, my cat.
And I would not have been able to describe this or tell you about this any earlier than today without literally without losing it.
But we had to put Punkin to sleep a week ago.
She was 16 years old.
And the first cat that I'd ever had, and ended up being the best pet that I've ever had.
I'd always thought that cats were these aloof creatures that couldn't care less if you were around or not.
And to strangers and so forth, they might be.
But when a cat attaches to you, some might say, when a cat loves you, it's entirely different.
And this cat attached to me years ago and was everywhere I was.
This cat followed me around and just had a robust personality with me.
But she had kidney failure.
She's actually had it for 10 years, and she had built up an immunity to every antibiotic.
It stopped working.
And I guess two weeks ago, whatever you call it, dramatic acute kidney failure set in.
She stopped eating.
Because when the kidneys fail, somehow the vet said the body tells them that food is poison because it can't be dealt with by the kidney.
They stop eating.
And she was literally withering away before my eyes.
But she was, I mean, these animals, you know, they never give up.
Suicide is not in their makeup.
And it was one of the hardest things that I've last weekend was really sad and lonely.
And I wouldn't have been able to tell you about this on Monday without breaking up.
But a lot of people have been asking because I had mentioned that she was not well.
So I wanted to mention it to you.
And thank all of you for asking.
I appreciate it.
You all, those of you who have animals and lose them, you know what it's like.
That's it.
Have a great weekend.
We'll be back on Monday, revved up, do it all over again.
Okay, folks.
Thank you so much for being with us today.
A thrill and a delight and an honor, it really is.
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