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Oct. 7, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:42
October 7, 2013, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Greetings, my friends.
Welcome.
Great to have you here.
It is Broadcast Excellence Time, another full week of it, hosted by me, your guiding light, and America's Truth Detector, the Doctor of Democracy, and America's Real Anchorman.
All that combined into one harmless, lovable little fuzzball.
Hope you had a good weekend.
And we're off and running.
And as is the usual case, over the weekend, your host once again prominent in the mainstream media.
I was, of course, totally unaware because I took the – well, I don't spend a lot of time, folks, watching.
In fact, I don't watch news, particularly on the weekend.
So when I come in and in the right in the heat of show prep, Cookie sends me the audio soundbite roster transcript.
I get that about a quarter of 12 right before the program starts.
There's a couple things.
Saturday Night Live.
Did you happen to watch it, Snerdly, Miley Cyrus?
No interest, huh?
None whatsoever.
Let's see.
I didn't either.
But anyway, they did a skit.
They did a sketch about Hillary Clinton and her TV movie specials that have been canceled on NBC and CNN.
And here's a portion of the parody of the Fox News special that they did on Saturday Night Live.
Hillary Clinton, Cold, Mean Woman.
That was the title of the parody they said.
Well, in their parody, that was the movie that Fox did one.
That's what the title would be.
Hillary, what are we doing here?
Shouldn't be here.
Neither of us work at the White House anymore.
Shut up, Bill.
I can do whatever I want.
I'm above the law.
What are I even doing here?
I told you, I need to find and destroy the Benghazi files.
Rush Limbaugh is getting too close to the truth.
Of all the people, of all the people, Rush Limbaugh is getting too close to the truth.
Saturday Night Live.
Saturday Night Live, folks, the news that's coming in on the Obamacare rollout.
Some of the news from California, wait till you hear this.
I'll get to it in just a second.
Really soon.
But I want to, here's Bill Moyers, and this is from Moyers and Company on PBS on Friday night.
And this one is typical.
He said stuff like this before, but for some reason, I live rent-free in these people's heads.
The Tea Party minority, armed with huge sums of secret money from rich donors, sucks the last bit of soul from the grand old party of Abraham Lincoln.
They became delusional, then rabid, like this from the multi-millionaire fabulous Rush Limbaugh.
What we now have is the biggest tax increase in the history of the world.
Obamacare is just a massive tax increase.
That's all it is?
That's just a tiny sample of the lies and misinformation perpetrated by the right with the song and dance compliance of its richly paid mouthpieces.
Now, Moyers is not exactly a freeloader.
Poor guy out there.
Moyers has been given, I don't know how many millions, multiple millions over the years by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to put out his propaganda.
What is a fabulous?
Well, I mean, a multi-millionaire fabulist.
But it is a huge tax increase.
It's one of the largest tax increases we've ever had.
In the New York Times today, by the way, there's a piece.
It's in their opinionator section.
It's not really a news story, so it is somebody's opinion.
And the title, Rich People Just Care Less.
Yep.
Turning a blind eye, giving someone the cold shoulder, looking down on people, seeing right through them.
These metaphors for condescending or dismissive behavior are more than just descriptive.
They suggest to a surprisingly accurate extent the social distance between those with greater power and those with less, a distance that goes beyond the realm of interpersonal interactions and may exacerbate the soaring inequality in the United States.
Now, keep in mind, this soaring inequality has taken place under a euphoric, almost utopian Democrat administration.
The last, we're coming up in five years of this now.
We're almost at a five-year mark here on the Obama regime, and the gap between rich and poor is indeed wider than ever because the poor are getting poorer.
Everybody wants to talk about the rich getting richer.
The poor are getting poorer, and the middle class are getting poorer.
And that's one of the primary reasons.
I've got a great piece about what's happened in California.
We've talked about this on several previous occasions.
California is really two different parts of the country, abject poverty and obscene wealth.
The obscene wealth is in San Francisco, the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood.
And elsewhere in the state, it is abject poverty.
And a guy named Leo Klotkin has written a piece saying that California, Victor Davis Hansen's written about this extensively, by the way, at National Review online, but he says it's becoming almost medieval and feudal, F-E-U-D-A-L, the way California is ending up economically.
And it's run by Democrats.
And what that means is the gap between the rich and the poor in California is widening.
And that state has been run by Democrats for who knows how long.
And the rich in California are almost exclusively, not totally, of course, but the vast majority of the uber wealthy in San Francisco, even though this is a contradiction, even though many of them are entrepreneurial, they line up with the collectivist Democrat Party.
And they do so for the social reasons, to be able to say they have compassion, to be able to say they care about people, to be able to be progressive on social things like gay marriage and abortion and this kind of thing.
So the gap between rich and poor is widening because the poor are getting poor.
The rich are getting richer.
I mean, but that always happens.
The one thing about this country has always been that the rising characteristics of the middle class were paramount.
You could, I mean, people were striking out seeking their fortunes every day, every month, every year, every generation.
And that's changing.
And it's extremely upsetting.
So anyway, here we have on cue this piece in the New York Times, Rich People Just Care Less.
And I'm convinced that pieces like this are why otherwise conservative-oriented people in business identify with a collectivist socialist politics so that it will not be said of them that they don't care.
So it will not be said of them that they are indifferent.
In fact, this guy's Richard Daniel, Daniel Coleman.
Goleman is the guy, the author here.
I think it's a C or a G.
It looks like a G-O-L-E, M-A-N Goleman.
A growing body of research recently shows that people with the most social power pay scant attention to those with such little power, kind of like Obama and the bitter clingers.
But that's not what this guy has in mind.
This tuning out the socially powerful, paying scant attention to those with little power.
This tuning out has been observed, for instance, with strangers in a mere five-minute get-acquainted session, where the more powerful person shows fewer signals of paying attention, like nodding or laughing.
Do you believe that?
I'm not kidding you.
Folks, there's an attack on masculinity taking place in this country, and it has been for quite a while, and you see it manifest itself every day in this country.
And the month of October, it really manifests itself in a very prominent way.
But this all-out assault on achievement now, I mean, it is being fired with both barrels in the midst of economic downturn, in this effort to continually divide us.
So the readers of the New York Times are now learning that the powerful, when they meet somebody that's not powerful, ignores them and doesn't pay any attention to them and doesn't smile and doesn't basically is not polite to them.
As though this is something new, and it's something new here in 2013 and has hooks into certain aspects of America that are really, really bad that poor Barack Obama is trying to fix, but just can't quite do it.
Higher status people are also more likely to express disregard through facial expressions and are more likely to take over the conversation and interrupt or look past the other speaker.
As though this is somehow, you know, it used to be in America, did you know this?
That Warren Buffett would walk into the guy, the homeless guy, and sit to actually have a conversation with him.
And the homeless guy would crack jokes, and Warren Buffett would sit there and laugh and smile, pat him on the back, and give him a, you know, couple million bucks, say, have a nice day.
That's the way it used to be.
And then Bill Gates, and he's over in Africa and he's trying to keep people from getting AIDS and malaria, so he runs around and he sees these poor people.
He stops.
He has a nice conversation.
How you doing?
Oh, just fine.
They crack jokes.
Bill Gates laughs at them.
J.P. Morgan, did you know J.P. Morgan left his home each and every day?
Went outside.
He ran in.
He purposely sought out people with no power.
And he engaged them in conversation, asked them how they were.
And if they, whatever they said, he smiled, he laughed, he put his arm around them, he welcomed into his home.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And the Rockefellers, to this day, David Rockefeller, he'll run into a poor guy with no power and he'll invite him up to the house, say, what's going on?
How can I help you?
What are we doing?
And the guy will start talking to him, and Rockefeller will not look away and will act very, oh, yeah, this used to happen.
It just, I don't know what brought this on.
Romney, maybe it's talk radio that's causing all this incivility.
Oh, you're not aware of Buffett seeking out homeless people, giving them $2 million and asking them how they are and listening to what they say and smiling and laughing at their joke.
Oh, oh.
You know, don't you see it on the trains?
The rich get on the train and they mingle with the yes, they do.
The rich ride the trains.
How about a, you see the rich in the first-class section of the airplane?
They come back and they go back and talk to the people back in coach, how you doing?
Gina, I'm sorry I can't sit back here with you, but I love you.
If you've got any jokes, I'll be glad to listen to them.
And I won't act like I'm bored.
I won't ignite.
It used to happen all the time.
Didn't it?
And now something's happened, folks, that were just plain flat-out mean, particularly the rich.
They look at somebody and they say, you know what?
You're a powerless boob.
I don't have time for you.
Get the hell out of my face.
Apparently, this is common in America.
Of course, writes Mr. Goldman, in society, in any society, social power is relative.
Any of us may be higher or lower in a given interaction.
And the research shows the effect still prevails.
Though the more powerful pay less attention to us than we do to them, in other situations, we are relatively higher on the totem pole of status, and we too tend to pay less attention to those a rung or two down.
So it doesn't matter where you are.
A, there's always somebody who has more.
I don't care who you are.
But what this guy's saying is: no matter where you fall on the income ladder, say, the people that are lower than you, you treat them like dirt now.
And you used to not to.
When they would come up and speak to you, you'd stop what you were doing and smile and shake their hands and act engaging.
Basically, be polite.
Now everybody is rude.
A prerequisite to empathy is simply paying attention to the person in pain.
I'm not kidding.
I could go on with this.
This is about some research performed by a guy named Keltner, and his research found that the poor, compared to the wealthy, have keenly attuned interpersonal attention in all directions in general.
So not only do the rich treat other people rudely, impersonally, make them feel like dirt, the poor are attentive to everyone.
The poor are nice to everyone.
The poor are more attuned to how other people are feeling and want them to feel better than the rich ever are.
It's right here in the New York Times.
And the guy is dead serious about it.
What do you think about this as a new name for the Redskins?
How about the Washington Redbones?
And RG3 brings a boners up to the line of scrimmage, third and five.
When he retired in 2004, Bill Moyers said the Total Associated Press, I'm going out telling the story.
Now, this is nine years ago, and he's still there.
But he told the AP when he retired in 2004, I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time.
Bill Moyers, biggest story of our time.
And that is how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee.
We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans and a mainstream press interested in the bottom line.
Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent media whose interest is the American people.
Could this guy be more wrong?
I don't think he could be more wrong.
And this guy is one of the deans of journalism by reputation.
If there is any propaganda arm in media, it is the mainstream media, the Democrat, they're not even news people anymore.
They're just activists and hacks, liberals and Democrats who are disguised as journalists.
And they don't care about the bottom line.
They want to be independent of the bottom line.
They don't want any of those pressures.
No propaganda here.
By the way, you know, speaking of this guy Goldman in the New York Times, do you remember how the Obama campaign went out and found one of Romney's garbage men who complained that Romney never came out to talk to him?
I mean, this is something that the Democrats and the media use.
It's all part of this class envy stuff.
I just, I find it fascinating that while this income gap between the rich and the poor is growing during five years of what is supposed to be just the exact opposite, we have five years utopia here.
Five years, the poor are supposed to be getting rich.
The rich are supposed to be getting poor because Obama is going to take all their money from them.
And all the middle class and the poor are supposed to get even better off because all that money that used to be theirs, stolen by the rich, is going to be taken and given back to them.
And all that's happening is so many people, wait till you hear it in the next segment.
So many people got two choice, I mean, just ideal examples of people who voted for Obamacare and have found out what that means.
They voted for Obama, supported Obamacare, and they have found out what that means for their insurance premiums.
It is, it's just, it's tremendous.
Now, here's Barack Obama.
Now, in fairness, this is his answer on the Redskins thing.
He was asked this.
He did not call a press conference to make this a big issue.
He was asked the question.
But remember now, these are willing accomplices.
So I doubt that he was blindsided with the question.
It was Julie Pace, the AP White House correspondent.
And she asked him if he thought that maybe the Redskins ought to change their name.
I've got to say, if I were the owner of the team and I knew that there was a name of my team, even if it had a storied history that was offending a sizable group of people, I'd think about changing it.
Now, pale face Lanny Davis has been hired by Daniel Snyder, which is smart hire, by the way.
You know, pale face Lanny Davis used to work for Clinton.
He's out there defending Clinton on TV during the Lewinsky scandal.
And he launched both barrels yesterday.
Look, what is this widespread, sizable group of people that are offended?
We can't find them.
And there isn't a widespread.
What we have here at best is 10% of people who say that they're offended.
This is being totally driven by the media.
This is not being driven by fans.
It's not being driven by people in football.
It's totally driven by leftist activists in the media.
It's not even being driven by Native Americans.
But I have a couple other names that I would like to suggest because you know what's, they're not going to let go of this.
Dan Snyder says, I'm not changing the name, but some NFL owners are going to take him aside at the meetings in Washington tomorrow and start applying the pressure unofficially.
They don't stop this.
Once they get their hooks into something, they don't give it up.
How about the Washington Redliners?
And look at the marketing possibility.
They're going to draw a red line in the sand right there at the 50-yard line.
You cross them.
Kick your butt.
I like it.
And the redliners head to the line of scrimmage are G3.
Or how about the Washington Thinskins?
Because that's really in honor of the people who are upset about all this.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, doing what I was born to do.
And so are you.
I was born to host.
And you were born to listen.
This next story comes to us from the San Jose Mercury News.
And there are two people in this story about whom I would like to tell you.
Tom Washura.
He's a father of two.
He is an Obama supporter and was an Obamacare supporter.
And then Cindy Vinson is another.
Both Cindy Vinson and Tom Washura are big believers in Obamacare.
They vote independent, they say.
They are proud to say that they helped elect and re-elect Obama.
Now, folks, as I get into this, I want to mention to you that these are the kinds of people.
You know, when you talk about a tipping point, something going to happen that will change people's minds.
These are the kinds of people that we're talking about.
Now, by mentioning their names, they will build up a resistance and they will refuse to be moved by this, despite what they say.
But their names have been mentioned.
They're out there, whether I mention them or not.
But the fact that I've mentioned them is going to steal their resolve against what they are inclined to do now, which is abandon Obama.
But they won't do that since they've been named.
It would be too embarrassing.
But there are people like them all over the country.
This is happening all over the place.
This is why the Republicans are not losing the Obamacare fight.
They are not losing the defund Obamacare fight.
I don't care what anybody says.
They're not losing it.
Now, there's a I'm distracting myself here, but I've not lost my place.
Just hang with me here.
There is an upcoming event, October 17th or thereabouts, the debt limit fight.
It must be raised.
The debt limit ceiling must be raised.
And there is, there are arguments, strategic arguments over should the Obamacare defund and the debt limit ceiling increase be tied together or not.
And there are people making arguments on both sides.
And one argument is tie them together because we're winning the Obamacare fight.
We have the American people on our side on this.
And it boils.
You know what the main reason is?
There are two main reasons.
I think anyway.
I think the obvious main reason is the reality of what Obamacare is and what people are discovering as they log on to this website and as they find out what the costs are going to be, which is what this story is about.
But there's another aspect of this, and you might poo-poo this.
I would have been tempted to poo-poo it, but I'm trying to look at these things in a little bit different way now.
And it is, I think, I think Obama and the Democrats, in fact, are losing this because they are the ones who appear to be unwilling to compromise.
I kid you not.
I think they are losing this in part because they appear to be the ones, well, they are, who will not negotiate.
Now, the Republicans could still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.
I don't want to get premature, but as of now, in the minds of the American people, where Obamacare is concerned, most people are opposed to it anyway.
Most people, by the way, Obamacare offends a lot of people.
Why don't we just get rid of it?
Anyway, it is not the Republicans who are seen as unwilling to negotiate.
It's the Democrats.
Now, you might think that's not a big deal, but to the precious independents and moderates who want everybody to get along and want all the partisan bickering to end.
I mean, they're still there.
And for some reason, they, and the Democrats are letting everybody know that this is the case, but the way they're behaving, apologizing and all this.
Vast majority of people see Obama and the Democrats as unwilling to compromise.
Now, back to the San Jose Mercury piece.
This piece, by the way, has 2,312 comments.
A local is anything local anymore.
It's a local newspaper, local website, 2,300 comments, and the vast majority of which are anti-Obama.
Cindy Vinson and Tom Washura are big believers on the Affordable Care Act in Obamacare.
They vote independent.
They're proud to say that they helped elect and re-elect Obama.
Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, these are self-payers, they were floored last week when they opened their bills.
Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conformed all the requirements of Obamacare.
Cindy Vinson of San Jose will pay $1,800 more a year for her individual policy.
Tom Washura, Protola Valley, is facing an additional $10,000 per year for insurance for his family of four.
These people in this story admit being shocked.
They admit being disbelieving.
They thought their premiums are going to go down.
They bought it all.
They heard what Obama said.
They believe premiums are going to go down.
They believe the uninsured were going to be insured.
They thought costs were going down.
They can't believe what's happened.
Now, in California, there's more on them in a minute, but I'm going to give you some setup details here.
In California, almost 2 million people buy insurance on the open market.
They don't get it from their boss.
And this is according to officials with Covered California, which is running the exchange out there.
And many of these almost 2 million people are steaming mad.
Jonathan Wu, a co-founder of Value Penguin, a consumer finance website, said there's going to be a number of people surprised by their bills.
The upper middle class are the people who are essentially being asked to foot the bill for this, and that's true across the country.
Covered California spokesman Dana Howard maintained that in public presentations, the exchange has always made clear that there are going to be winners and losers under Obamacare.
Well, you might have made it plain during presentations at the exchange, but that was last week.
Most people who voted for Obama and who supported Obamacare think that their premiums are going down $2,500 a year, think that maybe they're getting it for free.
They don't think, they don't believe they're going to be winners and losers involving them.
To the extent that they think they're going to be winners and losers, they think it's the rich who are going to be the losers, but not them.
Now, most of the people we're talking about are middle class or upper middle class.
Dana Howard, the spokesman for Covered California, some people will see an increase who are already on the individual market purchasing insurance, but most people will not.
That's not true.
Even those who don't qualify for tax subsidies could see their rates drop because Obamacare does not allow insurers to charge people more if they have pre-existing conditions like diabetes and cancer.
And then they cite a woman who is having her premium drop because of pre-existing conditions, and that doesn't make any sense to anybody.
Why should somebody with a pre-existing condition premium drop?
I don't have a pre-existing condition.
My house isn't on fire, and I'm not asking for it.
Why should my premium go up and hers go down?
They're fit to be tied.
People with no pre-existing conditions like Cindy Vinson, who is a 60-year-old retired teacher, and Tom Washura, a 52-year-old self-employed engineer, are making up the difference.
They're paying the freight for this woman.
Her name is Marilyn Gray Range.
She's an artist, 64 years old in Danville.
She survived breast cancer.
She gets pre-existing coverage because these other two are paying increased premiums for it.
They had no idea.
Washora has this quote in the San Jose Mercury News.
I was laughing at Boehner until the mail came today.
I really don't like the Republican tactics, Tom Washura said, but at least now I understand why they're so ticked off about this.
When you take $10,000 out of my family's pocket every year, that's otherwise disposable income or retirement savings.
It's not going to be going into our local economy.
Hello.
Mr. Washura, who is 52, is just now learning, having signed up at the exchange, that his premium's up $10,000 in part to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
He said, of course, listen to this now.
Folks, I'm telling you this is happening all over the country.
This is a golden opportunity, but it has to be played right.
Cindy Vinson said, of course I want people to have health care.
I just didn't realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.
So the San Jose Mercury News has found two people.
One of them 60, the other 52.
One of them's premiums going up $1,800 a year.
Another one, $10,000 a year.
They voted for Obamacare.
They supported Obamacare.
They thought their premiums are going to come down.
They find out otherwise.
They now realize why Boehner and the Republicans are doing what they're doing.
And they now are realizing that they are going to have to personally pay for other people to have health care.
Now, I know what you're saying.
What took them so long to figure it out?
Doesn't matter at this point.
The fact is that they have.
They have now seen it.
Washura, Tom Washura, the 52-year-old $10,000 increase guy.
I'm not against Obamacare.
It's just the initial shock.
I'm holding out hope there will be a correction over a handful of years.
Now, Mr. Washura, there will be a correction over, what do you say, handful of years, but your premiums are not going to be coming down over the next handful of years.
Your premiums and Cindy Vinson's premium and everybody's premiums are only going to increase.
As will the fines, if you don't have insurance, continue to increase.
So, folks, this is another reason why the Republicans are winning this.
Now, the San Jose Mercury News does not portray these people as angry, just surprised.
They are independents, they claim, but they're very loyal to Obama, and they're very loyal to Obamacare.
They have learned that they misunderstood.
I don't know yet whether they have come to grips with the fact that they were lied to.
They may never admit that.
And they may never, ever become Republican.
But you don't need them to.
Now, this is happening all over the country.
The San Jose Mercury News just happens to be an outlet that has found a couple people who have discovered this.
But millions all over this country are learning this exact thing.
It's a little frustrating because everybody in this country has been warned what would happen.
And there's a part of me that's not that sympathetic.
You had a chance to know this.
But that would be the wrong attitude.
And I've got to take a little break here because I'm a little long.
So sit tight.
We'll be back and continue.
Don't go away.
Hi, welcome back.
Okay, so where are we here?
Just with these two people, Cindy Vinson and Tom Washura.
And I, folks, I understand I had to mention their names.
Their names are in the Mercury News.
But because I have mentioned their names, I'm fully aware that they're going to dig in and remain they can't afford now to publicly move off Obama or any of this.
They would be humiliated and punished by people in their neighborhoods.
Readership here, the San Jose Mercury News, hard lift.
These people are not plants.
They're not organizing for America plants.
They're not Obama website plants.
These are real people.
And what do they ended up doing?
They ended up voting against their own interests, which is what they've learned.
So the key would be, how do you turn people like this?
It's realistic to think they're going to become Republicans.
No.
I think it's unrealistic.
Maybe, could happen.
But at some point, something has to be done.
An effort has to be made to inform and let these people know that exactly what they're doing by supporting Obama and the Democrats is voting against their own economic interests.
They've discovered that now, these two have.
I didn't think I was going to be paying for everybody else's.
Now I understand why Boehner's so mad.
I didn't like Boehner at all.
I didn't like his tactics.
Now I understand why he's so mad.
Let me grab Rod here in Bloomfield, Michigan.
Hi, Rod.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Yeah, thanks, Rush.
I just had a quick comment.
I'd like to give some advice to Tom and Cindy.
I would invite them to drop their coverage, don't pay any premiums, pay the penalty, pay the IRS for the Obamacare penalty, and then, if and when they get sick, then pick up the coverage.
I think it'll be a financial solution for them.
Well, for a while, while the fines remain $95 a year.
So what you think they ought to do, they ought to cancel their insurance, pay the fine, which is $95 a person, and then when they get sick, then file for insurance?
Sure, why not?
And get it under the pre-existing condition clause, as it were.
Exactly.
They have to be taken into a only problem is that the high-risk pools are out of money.
They're not taking any more enrollees until they collect more premiums from people like Cindy Vinson and Tom Washura.
Cindy Vincent and Tom Washura are going to be paying the freight for the subsidies for many others because they have the money.
You see, this is how it works with Obamacare.
Take from those who have and give to those who don't.
Now, somehow, most Obama voters think that that doesn't include them.
It's what I mean when I say they have voted against their own economic interests.
Some people will do that because they're just ideologically rooted and it doesn't matter.
Others, when they learn that, could perhaps be persuaded to stop voting against their own economic interests.
But a lot of people who voted for Obama under this belief in Obamacare have done exactly what these two people did.
They've given us this, and they voted against their own economic interests, and they're just now discovering it.
Look, our last caller, Rod, his idea would work.
Bump out, pay the fine, wait until you get sick, and then buy the insurance.
They have to sell it to you now.
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