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Sept. 30, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:47
September 30, 2013, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome to what the Democrat Party is considering its opening move in the 2014 campaign.
Government shutdown that looms in front of all of us.
It's the latest, and it is the next Democrat Party campaign move.
It is felt and it's being covered by the media totally in historical ways.
It is not being adapted to anything really happening.
If I were to tell you, by the way, greetings, hi, how are you, Rush Limbaugh, EIB Network?
Great to have you, telephone number 800 two eight two two eight eight two.
If I were to tell you that I don't even know what really is happening here, I probably would be more honest than not.
I've been doing this for 25 years.
We've been through government shutdowns countless times, and this one is just like all the other ones.
It is being covered, it is being reported, it is being discussed totally within the paradigm of a horse race, totally within the framework of how this is going to destroy the Republican Party, the merits absent.
The reasons for this may be happening absent.
The human impact, the impact on real people of this disastrous piece of legislation, absent.
Nobody talking about it.
I mean in the media.
All this is, and frankly, I'm bored with it, folks.
I've I don't know about you, but I'm sick and tired of everywhere you turn in the media having as the top-level analysis how this is going to destroy the Republicans, how it's going to be a great boon to Obama and the Democrats.
And that's all that matters, in fact, to the meat.
The substance of this, you know, the exchange is open for business tomorrow.
It's going to be an absolute disaster.
Nobody cares.
Not a matter of concern.
I mean, even in some so-called conservative journals of opinion, Obama's no more than a CEO.
It's just a CEO and when it doesn't go right at implementation, he'll take whatever steps necessary to get it right.
There's no practical application in reporting of this story.
Of what any of it really means and what any of it is really all about.
So the thing that you can do with this is to is to just discuss it within the same framework that the media presents at each and every day.
CNN's got their countdown clock.
Now, what is it, 11 hours and 51 minutes and 25 seconds to the government shut as though disaster awaits.
As though the end of the world is on the cusp.
And who will compromise and who will blink and who won't?
And who are we going to blame?
The fact is that everybody involved on the left wants the government shutdown because this is the opening salvo of the Democrat campaign for 2014.
The Republicans, now what happened over the weekend in terms of the substance here, what happened is that the House approved, the House Republicans approved a measure, well, the whole House, because it passed.
They approved a measure early yesterday morning that will fund the government through December 15th.
It will delay the implementation of Obamacare for one year.
It includes an amendment to repeal the medical device tax, a separate provision to pay military members in the event of a shutdown.
It passed easily, putting the continuing resolution to keep the government running past Monday back in the Senate's court.
Now this contains in it one of the debates that's been going on within the Republican Party should there be a delay or should we move full-fledged to defund.
And the House did not vote or take the route to defund.
They went the route to delay for one year, including the individual mandate, because the employer mandate has been delayed by Obama.
Um, And it is felt that if these mandates can be delayed and stopped, that the guts of Obamacare will have been ripped out of it.
And indeed, the individual mandate that requires everybody to have insurance starting with the exchanges opening tomorrow.
If that were to be delayed, there are a lot of people not happy with that.
Well, if you're gonna do that, go for the whole ball of wax.
Go for defunding this whole thing.
Now, Ted Cruz was on Meet the Depress yesterday with David Gregory.
And once again, I thought he made mincemeat at Gregory, just as I thought he made mincemeat of Senator Turbin on the Senate floor during his filibuster.
And uh Mike grab those sound bites.
I told Mike we're gonna start number one, but uh since I've mentioned this, I may as well start with them, and then I've got to find them.
Yeah, 13 through what?
13 through 15, it looks like 13, 14, and 15.
Yeah, so keep those standing by.
Now, the Hill.com, as government shutdown looms, Cruz calls Democrats absolutist.
And here's their story.
The Republican leading the fight to defund Obamacare, called the Democrats absolutist yesterday for refusing to budge as a government shutdown looms.
Now, I have to tell you the Democrats want this.
The Democrats want it because they are confident that the Republicans are going to get blamed.
You might, you might have uh have forgotten this, but I haven't.
Bill Clinton.
He's out there saying Republicans are desperate for America to fail.
They've been obsessed with that ever since June the 16th of 2009 when some guy on the radio said he hoped Obama failed.
Anyway, we'll get to that too.
But Clinton, Clinton is telling Obama not to negotiate with the Republicans.
Do not do it now.
Obama's negotiating with Syrians or wants to.
He's negotiating with Iranians or wants to.
He's negotiating with the Taliban, and they say that's perfectly normal.
Obama says I got nothing to fear from those guys, but I am not talking to Boehner.
People on our side want a big deal made about that.
I don't think it's I don't think it's going to change one person's mind in the low information crowd.
I don't think I don't think any history of government shutdowns, oh, there's been 17 of them, and you know this and it's not gonna matter.
The here and now is where the impact of this is going to be made predominantly on low information.
But I could have a room full of low information voters in here.
I could have them totally captivated, I could own them.
I could have me the only thing they listen to, and I can give them the history of government shutdowns, how nothing bad happens, how sometimes something good happens, wouldn't change their mind.
The history of this is is a weak vehicle for persuasion.
Given where we are, given where the news media is, and given where the low information crowd goes to trust whatever it hears, the history of this stuff, just like American history is being rewritten, so it was recent.
History.
Clinton, he's out there telling Obama not to negotiate with the Republicans.
He's telling Obama go ahead and force a government shutdown.
Clinton's case, you know what happened to him during his government shutdown in 19?
That's where he met Lewinsky.
She delivered pizza in a thong during a government shutdown.
Clinton loves government shutdowns.
So he can get a dream again and live vicariously.
Not that somebody's gonna show up that way with Obama.
Uh but I mean, if without a government shutdown, Clinton, the big creep would have never met Monica Lewinsky.
She did deliver a pizza.
I'm telling you, during that government shutdown in 1990, she's an intern, brought it in there.
Um if it hadn't been for the government shutdown in 1995, Clinton wouldn't have had those budget surpluses and welfare reform forced on him, which he now loves to brag about.
I mean, I could give you the history of government shutdowns, and I could tell you as we've been trying to since nine uh long time about the 1995 shutdown and how it Did not hurt the Republican Party.
The thing that's that's on the table now is will the Republicans hold for this position or will they cave?
The Senate not going to be back until two o'clock this afternoon.
Dingy Harrison, I'm not talking to these guys.
I don't care.
The Democrats want this.
The Democrats want the shutdowns.
Everybody's eyes are on the Republicans.
Boehner, will they cave or will they hang tough?
And will there be a shutdown?
Because the conventional wisdom inside Washington is the Republicans are scared to death of one.
Oh God, it's the end of the party.
It's the end of it's the end of their careers.
Oh God, they're going to be hated again and despised because the Santa Claus crowds are going to hate them because they think the government shutdown means that the North Pole's been closed.
And Rudolph and Dancer and Donner and Pratt are what it can't fly, and then nobody can get anything.
Oh my God, it's horrible.
None of that's true.
None of it is true.
The welfare state does not shut down.
In a government shutdown.
Anyway, Cruz's point was that it's a Democrats are being absolutist.
He said this yesterday on Meet the Press.
He said it it's the Democrats who've taken an absolutist position.
I'd I'd like to repeal every word of the law.
But that that that uh that wasn't even my position, even in this fight.
My position to fight has been we should defund it.
But even now, what the House has done is a step removed from defunding.
It's delaying it.
That's the essence of compromise.
Cruz says the original move out there was to defund it and totally block it.
Now the Democrats are faced with the Republicans, okay, we'll just delay it.
And Cruz says that's compromise.
The Republicans are showing they can compromise.
It's the Democrats are absolutists and won't.
Let's go to the audio sound bites.
Cruz talking to David Gregory yesterday, question.
And there are not protests in the streets arguing to do away with this the way that you would like.
Again, 56% in one poll this week.
New York Times said let's uphold the law.
So I'm focusing on your goal and results.
Where have you moved anything, Senator?
Obamacare isn't working.
Every day that's becoming more clear.
There's a reason the unions are jumping ship.
One union after another is saying, let me out.
There's a reason why James Hoffer, the president of the Teamsters, said that he was writing on behalf of millions of working men and women, and he used millions, not hundreds, not thousands, and he said Obamacare was destroying their health care.
Destroying is his word.
Now, Gregory jumped in here at this point and interrupted because he was just personally offended that Ted Cruz was even there.
I asked you a specific question based on the facts on the ground.
You've made all these arguments.
My goodness, you went and spoke for 21 hours to make these arguments.
You haven't moved anyone.
Look, the American people overwhelmingly reject Obamacare.
They understand it's not working.
The only people who aren't listening to the argument are the career politicians in Washington, is Harry Reid who wants to use brute political force.
And the great thing about the Constitution is that it creates a system of checks and balances, and each branch has the ability to check another.
And here's the last sound bite we have from this little meeting.
You've raised money on this, you've taken to the floor for 21 hours.
You haven't moved anything legislatively.
Do you concede that point?
I don't remotely.
And David, I recognize that the Washington establishment hasn't been convinced by the arguments because the Washington establishment has been exempted from some of the harms.
Members of Congress, how can you possibly justify to the American people that members of Congress are exempted from the law, aren't put on the exchanges.
Now, what Gregory was getting at there is to Cruz again, look, you wanted this groundswell.
You wanted the American people to rise up in mass and let Washington know they didn't want any part of it.
And and Gregory was saying to Cruz, that didn't happen.
You spoke for 21 hours.
You were all over the media everywhere.
You had all kinds of people helping.
You couldn't create this groundswell.
So why should anybody listen to you?
Why should anybody pay attention to you?
You're representing a losing cause.
Then he cited that New York Times poll, which is the first poll I've seen on this, by the way.
I had never heard of this until until Gregory cited it, which uh which was something about the uh the the 56% New York Times say let's uphold the law.
I'd not seen that before.
That's the first poll I've seen, where a majority say, let's keep it as is.
The uh fact of the matter is that phones have been melting in Washington.
Faxes, emails, what have you have been pouring in.
Members of Congress have just taken the phone off the hook.
There's been a willfully planned effort to ignore this uprising or this outcry or this massive show of opposition, because it does exist.
It exists in poll after poll after poll.
It exists in all of the jobs being lost.
Anyway, that was the uh that was the exchange, and I wanted to add to it that Cruz is trying to make the point that the Republicans are compromising.
Because they started out full defund, and now it's just delay everything for a year.
Let's take a brief time out.
We'll continue much more on the EIB network.
There's a lot of news out there besides the shutdown and uh what is going to happen when the media, again, of course, just can't wait for it.
They're just so excited because this is nothing more than the opening salvo of the 2014 Democrat campaign.
Be right back, folks.
Just got urgent news from the Washington Post.
I have this urgent news right here, my formerly nicotine stained fingers, because I just printed it out.
Urgent, breaking news from the Washington Post.
You will no longer be able to watch the baby panda at the zoo online if the government shuts down.
Right there it is.
The headline right there.
There's a picture of the panda.
I'm showing it there.
Urgent News.
Washington Post, next thing you know, we're gonna hear that they're gonna close the sleigh ride concession, Jellystone National Park.
And you uh I know there's no snow yet, but there will be soon, and there won't be any sleigh rides.
They're gonna be a repeat.
Can't watch the panda video.
So what do we conclude?
Republicans hate animals.
And Republicans hate the zoo.
And they don't want young kids to be able to watch nature.
Next we'll hear that the school lunch program is being cut, shut down because of this.
Just a repeat, it's a rehash of everything that's happened and been said before.
The AP story on this is journalistic malpractice.
Let me see if I even bothered to print that out.
I think I've yep.
The AP story on this is, and you got to figure now.
I don't know how many people read newspapers, but I know that a lot of people get their news online now at places like Yahoo or Twitter or whatever, and people get their news from AP.
Much as you might wish it weren't so.
AP is published in over four or five thousand different places every day.
And it's basically a press release from the Democrat Party on this whole thing.
And they've got, they have a story.
It's by a guy named Andrew Taylor, and it starts out with the government teetering on the brink of partial shutdown.
Congressional Republicans vowed Sunday to keep using an otherwise routine federal funding bill to try to attack the president's health care law.
So the opening line, teetering on the brink.
We're almost ready to go over the cliff.
Do you know that?
We're almost ready.
This whole government is about to just be brought up short because these Republicans, this story goes on to say that Republicans don't want people to have health care.
That they dislike the president so much that they don't want people to have health care.
And the Republicans don't know what to do To fight back against any of this.
It's just flat out journalistic malpractice.
There is no pretense.
There is not even there's not even an objective pretense here to uh uh portray the Republican position on this anywhere near accurately.
It is a multiple hundred-word hit piece.
You won't read the kind of stuff from the AP about the Iranians or the Syrians that you read about the Republicans in the Associated Press or anywhere in the uh drive-by media.
It really is an outrage, but it's going to be seen.
Countless impressions all over the place.
Anyway, I more on this, but I've got to take a brief time out.
You sit tight, coming right back.
Don't go away.
This aforementioned associated press piece doesn't even mention Obama other than to refer to it as the President's health care bill.
But they do go to Chris Van Holland, who's a Democrat from Maryland and he's in the Democrat leadership in the House.
And they go to him and they want to know what he thinks of what the Republicans are doing.
They go to a lot of Democrats in the AP story to find out what they think of what the Republicans are doing.
And Chris Van Holland says, now I understand that this quote is going to be seen all over Twitter.
Yahoo news wherever these people go to get their news.
He said, you're going to shut down the government if you can't prevent millions of Americans from getting affordable hair care.
That's his characterization of what the House Republican vote on Sunday is.
He's expressing incredulity.
He's asking a question.
He's talking to the reporters.
You're going to shut down the government if you can't prevent millions of Americans from getting affordable care.
So his position is what he's what he's he's not even implying it.
What he's stating is that the Republicans do not want you to get health care.
The Republicans do not want you to get affordable health care.
That's what Obamacare is, which is not true, of course, but Republicans don't want you to have that.
And they don't want you to get affordable health care so badly they're going to shut down the government to prevent you from getting affordable health care.
This is just a this is that is a smear.
And it is in the private sector, it would be actionable.
It is utterly false.
It is irresponsibly false, and it is dangerously misleading.
And it's that kind of statement, which are all too common from Democrats that really does create the partisan divide in this country.
With this massively corrupt characterization of the Republican position.
Yeah, the Republicans don't want you to have health care that you can afford.
And they don't want you to have health care so much they're willing to shut down the government.
And the AP just goes right on, don't challenge it, doesn't uh accept, doesn't just accepts it and then builds on it.
In the APAP piece, the Republicans are also attacked for holding up the continuing resolution.
Now the the AP calls the continuing resolution, otherwise routine federal funding bill.
It isn't.
There's nothing routine about a continuing resolution.
A continuing resolution in its normal existence is used during budget impasses.
We haven't had a budget in four years because the Democrat Party has sought to hide from people their true policy intentions.
We have been doing continuing resolution after continuing resolution.
The only way to cut spending is...
therefore, is via the continuing resolution.
There has not been a budget.
This is in violation of the constitutional law and other statutory law.
Four years, no budget.
AP talks about the continuing resolution as a routine federal funding bill.
And then they castigate the Republicans for wanting to cut spending and resorting to this as though it's somehow sinister that they're doing this in a routine and normal procedure to fund the federal government.
And of course, keeping the federal government funded, why there's nothing more important, ladies and gentlemen.
Nothing.
Not your life, not the life of your kids.
The only important thing is keeping the federal government funded and those damn Republicans.
They want to cut the budget.
They want to delay Obamacare.
If they could, they would defend it.
And at the end of the day, what they really want is for you not to have health care.
I mean, that's the news of the day.
As the Democrats start keeping score and covering this shutdown in the in the context of a horse race.
So you get this idiot Van Hollins and the GOP want people to be prevented from getting affordable health care so much that they're trying to delay the individual mandate for a year.
That's that's the theory espoused.
The Republicans are trying to delay the individual mandate.
The individual mandate, don't you understand, is a wonderful thing.
It's a beautiful thing.
This federal law, which is unconstitutional, I don't care what John Roberts said, that mandates that you buy health insurance.
The Republican, the proof that the Republicans don't want you to have health care is because they are trying to delay the federal requirement that you go buy it.
This is as out of phase, cockamami grotesquely wrong as anything could be.
They are trying to delay the individual mandate because of a number of reasons.
A, it is constitutional.
The federal government cannot tell you what to buy, when to buy, nor can they determine the price.
But all of that is happening.
The objective here is the vast majority of American people do not want Obamacare.
This is a vehicle for delaying a central aspect of it.
If people do not, if people are not forced to buy health care, just as the employer now is not required to provide it, then a lot of the guts...
Not all, but a lot of the guts of Obamacare gets scooped out.
This is what I mean when I say that the coverage of this kind of I shouldn't say this, because it's not actually true.
It bores me, but it doesn't bore me.
It infuriates me.
The boring aspect is it's the same thing.
It's just a replay.
It's so damn predictable.
There isn't any attempt by anybody in the media anywhere to get to the truth of what is actually happening here and why it matters.
None, nowhere.
All that's taking place is the structuring of events in such a way as to protect the Washington establishment.
So the Republicans are attacked for holding up the continuing resolution.
That's the only way to get any spending cuts when you don't have a budget.
And there must be spending cuts.
We cannot go on.
The Democrats refuse to put up a budget, no budget for four years.
The AP in this story never mentions that the Republicans are asking for the individual mandate to be delayed because the AP knows That idea is very popular with the country.
Instead, they are characterizing the individual mandate as the most beautiful, wonderful gift the government could give its citizens.
Because it's going to require them to have affordable health care.
Oh, by the way, the Obamacare website has just today, and very quietly deleted references to free health care.
The Obamacare website has now deleted its reference to free health care.
The weekly standard has it.
Even as President Obama and his regime are making a last-minute push to encourage enrollment in Obamacare at the exchanges starting tomorrow.
A quiet change was made on the healthcare.gov website regarding those who will still not be able to afford coverage after the program kicks in.
From at least June 26th to as recently as September 15th, under the topic, where can I get free or low-cost care in my community?
The following statement did appear.
If you can't afford any health plan, you can get free or low-cost health and dental care at a nearby community health center.
And then they have screen grabs showing what it looked like at the health.gov website.
However, sometime between September 16th and September 23rd, the reference to free was dropped.
The title of the topic was changed as well.
And it now reads, where can I get low cost care in my community?
And then there's a screen grab of that.
And they have eliminated the word free.
So up until the moment of truth, they were content to lie to whoever it is that would venture to this website to get answers on health care.
And there was an option for free.
All summer up until September 16th.
Now it's gone.
It's not a new page.
I just eliminated the word free.
Okay.
And the, as I say, the weekly weekly standard caught this.
So anyway, mainstream media, they're just all too happy to focus on the shutdown aspects of this, because it gives them the opportunity yet again to avoid talking about Obamacare.
And they don't want to talk about Obamacare because there isn't anything about it that is a plus.
I gotta take a quick time out.
We'll get to your phone calls when we get back.
Don't go away.
The truth of the matter is, and somebody on our side, besides me, had better start saying so.
If Harry Reid refuses to talk with Boehner, if Harry Reid refuses to take this, the CR, the Republicans passed on early Sunday morning, which delays the mandate, personal mandate, for a year, and...
It eliminates the tax on medical devices.
Even the Democrats don't want that.
I think what did I see?
That issue alone has 79 votes in the Senate, getting rid of the medical device tax, and then exempting the media or the military from any of these onerous things.
If if Harry Reid is the one who refuses to take that up, then it's Harry Reed who is shut down the government, not the Republicans.
That's the way this needs to be positioned.
That's the way this needs to be discussed.
That it's Harry Reed and the Democrats in the Senate who will be shutting down.
I mean, if the Republicans want to go that, if they want to play the blame game on the government shutdown, if they want to get a position staked out on it, that's what they would say.
Or it would be it would be a a think it it'd be it'd be a good thing for them to throw it back at them.
And I think the Republicans made a good move.
Don't misunderstand, I like what they did, but the now the pressure's on to hang in.
The worst thing that could happen now is if the Republicans back off of this.
That would be not just for the substance, but for the future, a whole lot of other reasons.
Now they've they've done this, it's time to hang with it now.
There's nothing really To lose here.
And in terms of can it get worse or what have you?
I don't even like looking at it in that way, but this to me is a win-win if they hang in.
They've got a majority of the American people with them on this, whether they know it or not.
Okay, to the phones as promised.
We're going to start Bloomington, Illinois.
Hi, Dave, great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Good morning.
Okay, we're going to have to put John Ho because we've got a horrible cell connection.
And uh that's how you sound.
So pull off or whatever.
We'll we'll come back to you here in just a second.
Uh let's see.
Latham, New York and Tom, you're next.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Thank you.
Hi.
I uh uh I suspect that the Senate is going to uh reject the House offer, the current House offer.
And that means the House is gonna have to come up with another offer.
And I I think that the House needs to stop playing backcourt basketball and put the ball in the forecourt and make the Democrats play defense.
And one way to do that might be to send the funding back as it is, but with an attachment that says, okay, we'll go ahead with Obamacare as you want it, but no exemptions.
Nobody gets an exemption.
Everybody has to play on the same uh playing field.
That's only fair.
Fairness is the Democrats uh uh offer.
And then the Democrats, if they reject that, are going to have to explain to the American people why they're willing to shut down the government in order to keep the exemptions for their favorite groups.
Well, I know you think it would be that way on paper.
And in common sense terms, you it it it should be, but it's not going to eventuate that way.
In the media, there there is no reversing of fortunes here.
There's no way in the media the Democrats are gonna be on their heels.
There is no way in the media the Democrats are not gonna have the uh the edge.
Now, let me your idea is intriguing to me.
Go ahead and and and send another one back which gets rid of the exemptions.
No Congress or member of staff gets a subsidy, is basically what you say.
Or unions or anyone else.
Right.
Okay, now what is your ultimate objective with that?
I'm serious, and I'm not there's no trick here.
Well what is your what do you hope is the end result of that?
Well, what it's gonna happen is they're gonna have to they're going to be negotiating or or discussing the debt limits and spending.
I think what the Republicans should do, assuming the uh the Democrats accept the offer and don't shut the government down.
They say, okay, we'll go ahead with that.
No exemptions.
When they start negotiating the debt limit and the spending limits, the Republic Republicans should be able to say, look it.
We gave you Obamacare, it's gonna cost whatever it's gonna cost.
Let's say it's five hundred billion dollars.
There will be no appreciation.
That you that you can't the Democrats are never going to act or react in a way that that you would.
That, okay, there's a good faith effort, the Republicans show me a good faith effort, so I'm gonna appreciate that, and I'm gonna they're not gonna act that way.
But don't you think that the uh that it's not the Democrats that the Republicans are talking to by doing this, it's the people of the country.
And then when they come to this to negotiating spending and debt limits, they'll be able to be able to say, look at Obama we gave you Obamacare, it's gonna cost four hundred billion dollars.
We've got to cut four hundred billion dollars elsewhere.
That means we've got to take another fifty billion out of food stamps, we've got to take another uh And I think you've just lost 70 percent of the country.
Well, perhaps, but the Republicans need a win, and they ain't getting any right now.
Well, okay.
What are the Republicans going to need to get a win in practical, real terms?
They need to put the Democrats on the defensive and give them an offer that they cannot refuse.
No, but they're gonna have to do something.
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong.
But if I want to if I want to roll up my sleeves and comment on this uh in the pure unbridled legislative sense and get rid of all the politics, the Republicans are gonna have to propose something that's gonna get some Democrat votes, are they not?
Perhaps.
Well, otherwise they don't have the votes to get anything done to avoid other i if to avoid a shutdown and to achieve they're gonna have to propose something that some Democrats will break away from Harry Reed on and vote for.
I don't know what it is.
Don't get don't misunderstand.
I don't have I don't have that answer.
But if you're gonna start playing this back and forth with them, I gotta take a break.
Sit tight, my just I'm just out of busy broadcast moments at the moment.
Sit tight.
Okay, about this.
Our last caller might have been on this other.
You offer you pre well, I'm not gonna be able to squeeze this in in the remaining seconds, but in offering something to you force Democrat votes to join you, peel away from Harry Reid.
The thing to attack is all of these members of Congress getting their subsidy.
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