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Oct. 9, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:47
October 9, 2013, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 24-7 Podcast.
So Bo Snardley walks into my in my compound here with the broadcast facility.
Oh, I guess about an hour ago.
And he's he's somewhat stuttering, trying to pay me a compliment.
He says, How did you I mean, well, I know you know, but how did you how did you so what are you talking about?
How did you know we were winning this?
He had just seen the AP story with Obama's approval rating at 37%.
Grab soundbite number two.
Barack Obama's approval rating at 37%.
That fact is in an AP story.
Would you like to hear the headline of that AP story?
I have it right here, my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
GOP gets the blame in shutdown.
And then if you read the story, you find out that as an incidental item, the President of the United States approval number is at 37%.
This is before that insulting juvenile, petulant, spoiled, rotten little kid press conference room yesterday, about which there was not one question asked about Obamacare in its rollout.
Not one question in that presser yesterday.
We have also learned that the Park Service and Obama okayed a pro-amnesty immigration reform rally on the National Mall that is closed to everybody else, including World War II vets.
Nancy Pelosi and a number of Democrats who are, I think, time locked.
The Democrats are in a time warp.
They a bunch of them went over there and got arrested as though this is still the 1960s.
John Lewis got arrested.
Charlie Rangel got aler got arrested as though some badge of honor to get arrested.
These people they're totally tone deaf.
The president's at 37%.
The shutdown is is is going on.
Now we learn that five military families were insulted profoundly with the way the deaths of their service member relatives were treated.
Uh folks, it is it is obvious that this administration is acting purposely to inconvenience and to harm people it considers its political enemies.
Why in the world, in the middle of this, when you're losing, why call that press conference yesterday and why go out there and keep I'm willing to negotiate and all this sort of thing.
Why do that on the on the same day that you are permitting, I mean, you talk about a thumb in the eye.
You talk being literally almost being spat upon to allow the the closed because of the shutdown national mall to open up for a pro-amnesty, immigration rally.
The people allowed in there were illegal.
They were not American citizens.
Meanwhile, outside the fences, not permitted in American citizens, World War II vets in their families, not allowed to go to the World War II memorial.
And the Democrats in the media and the president somehow think that this is adding up to their benefit.
Here's Pelosi yesterday, grab sound by 13.
Poor broadcast engineers all over the ballpark trying to keep up with me on these sound bites.
This is Pelosi yesterday on the National Mall during a rally in favor of amnesty, comprehensive immigration reform.
I want to join my colleague uh uh who mentioned uh thanked the president for enabling us to gather here and also thank the president that the veterans were able to gather at World War II Memorial.
They weren't.
They weren't.
It was shut down.
They were not able to.
The rollout of Obamacare continues to be an absolute disaster.
Even the Washington Post and CBS News are now writing and broadcasting what a debacle the rollout of Obamacare is and that website.
There are I've got a I've got an open letter that a 26-year-old female grad student from uh University of Michigan wrote.
I grass student, I don't know if grad or not, about how Obamacare has destroyed her future and the future of everybody her age.
And folks, uh meanwhile, if you are a conservative media guy inside the beltway, you're convinced that uh Obama's winning everything.
If you're a conservative media guy inside the beltway and you're subjected to that narrative uh each and every day, you think the Republicans are really getting shellacked.
You think they're taking it on the on the chin.
You think, as John Pedoritz writes in the New York Post today, Republicans are committing suicide.
It's the exact opposite.
It's the exact opposite of what's happening outside the beltway.
And I want to go back, ladies and gentlemen.
I want to go back to March 13th of 2006.
This is from our all-time top five favorite audio sound bites.
Wolf Blitzer.
Barely able to contain himself.
March 13, 2006, CNN.
The Situation Room, his show.
Unable to contain himself.
George W. Bush's approval rating has just hit 36%.
It's 4 p.m. here in Washington.
You're getting the first look right now at our brand new poll.
The president's job approval rating has taken a downward turn again, falling to only 36%.
This represents his lowest rating ever in the CNN USA Today, Gallup.
The president's poll numbers are pretty bad, pretty awful right now.
Rock bottom as far as the CNN USA Today Gallup.
The president's a rock problem, and his new low point in the polls is his approval and policies now are at new lows.
The president's job approval number in this new CNN USA Today Gallup, rock bottom, the lowest it's ever been.
It's 5 p.m. here in Washington, where President Bush takes a beating in our latest poll.
His approval rating at a low ad.
Our latest CNN USA Today Gallup poll, just out in the past hour, shows the president at an all-time low.
His job approval rating at a new low.
That's rock bottom as far as our poll is concerned.
It's 7 p.m. here in Washington.
The war in Iraq comes home to roost for President Bush.
Our latest poll numbers showing his approval rating at a new low.
Also, President Bush hits a new low in the polls.
Now back to our lead story.
President Bush's approval rating now at an all-time low.
As we noted, a new CNN USA Today Gallup poll shows his job approval rating at a new low.
President Bush's approval rating at a new low, 36%.
None of those repeated.
All of that was said in a three-hour stretch.
Wolf Blitzer on March 13, 2006, when Bush's approval number hit 36% today.
Barack Obama's approval number is at 37%.
And they are not talking about it.
The AP story in which that poll result is announced has the following headline.
GOP gets the blame in shutdown.
They have a poll that shows that 71% of the American people are blaming the Republicans for the shutdown.
In the same poll, 50% are blaming the Democrats for something.
But the media says, look at this, a 20% spread.
Boy, the Republicans are really taking it on the chin for the government shutdown.
But the poll does not say people are upset with the shutdown.
But that's not the point.
The point is, once again, there is no media.
There is no news.
This is the Democrat Party with activists disguised as journalists.
37% approval for the Messiah.
Barack Hussein Obama.
Mm-mm.
And it's not some outlier poll.
And you have to, you have to read over halfway down into that story to learn that.
And I haven't seen it anywhere else.
It's been an AP, but have you seen anybody else pick that up?
It's just, it's just uh it's classic.
Ladies and gentlemen, I tell I had an idea yesterday.
That press conference that Obama did.
It was juvenile.
It was something that a spoiled rotten kid would do.
It was petulant.
It certainly was not presidential.
He called that press conference for one reason to use the words, hostage, bomb thrower, and extremist for an hour.
That's why he did the presser.
So I told Cookie, I said, Will you put together a montage?
I want excerpts of Obama at the Gaffy Gabby Giffords event where he criticized this kind of behavior and where he urged everybody to stop this kind of talk, juxtaposed with what he himself said yesterday.
And I want you to listen to it.
This is Barack Obama and our montage, Obama at the uh tribute, the shooting victims, January 8, 2011, in Tucson and yesterday.
At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized.
Extortion, insane, catastrophic, chaos.
We are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than the.
You have some ideological extremist Republicans.
It's important for us to pause for a moment.
We're not going to pay a ransom.
You don't pay a ransom, demand a ransom.
And make sure that we're talking with each other in a way that heals.
You do not hold people hostage.
Not in a way that wounds.
Ransom taking or hostage taking.
Usher in more civility in our public discourse.
Burn down the plant or your office.
Only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face the challenges of our nation.
I'm going to burn down your house.
Not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness.
Tea Party Republicans flirted with the idea of default.
A nuclear bomb.
We should do everything we can do to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations.
You're just a deadbeat.
Thank you.
So you tell me, folks, who is this guy?
Is he the guy in Tucson or is he the guy from yesterday?
And he may be both, but who he was yesterday is who he really is.
He showed up yesterday mad.
He showed up yesterday, ticked off, and he let everybody know at who he was mad and why.
But it was in no way intended to promote agreement, negotiation, compromise.
All of that talk in Tucson was just a bunch of empty words.
And I if you if you go to the if you go to the foreign press, you will uh you will find uh accurate reports of what this press conference was and how embarrassing it was, and how churlish and childish and how infantile it was.
Seth Mandel Commentary Magazine Obama stumbles despite friendly presses.
I say, not one question, folks.
Not one question about the rollout of Obamacare and the absolute disaster that it is.
Not one question.
Now, in fairness, the media today, as I say, the Washington Post CBS are all talking about what a disaster it is.
But there wasn't one question yesterday.
Because the media is there to protect Obama.
Nile Gardner, UK Telegraph, Barack Obama's sinking leadership.
Half of Americans believe the founding fathers would see the USA today as a U.S. Today as a failure.
The other half just want their free birth control and their food stamps and their phones.
Uh just want Santa Claus.
And there's another Nile Gardner piece.
President Obama throws a tantrum at press conference, compares his opponents to hostage takers, and deadbeats.
Was an embarrassing set of hand-picked questions from a largely subservient liberal-dominated media.
United States facing the prospect of a default overwhelmingly because of Obama's big spending, and that's the point.
Folks, this man has added six trillion dollars to the national debt in five years.
Not even five years, six trillion dollars.
And he dares go to the microphones of that press conference yesterday and complain and assert that raising the debt limit does not raise the debt.
The reason we have to raise the debt limit is him and his party and the irresponsible spending that has taken place, which is burying this country and the future for many young people.
The shutdown has been prompted by the imposition of a hugely unpopular health care reform.
The American people don't want Obamacare.
It has been forced on the American people despite the fact that Democrats no longer control the House.
This is a president who is incapable of taking responsibility for his own actions, who refuses to listen to any criticism of his policies, and is more willing to negotiate with a state sponsor of terrorism in Tehran than to sit down with Republicans in Congress.
We are where we are because of Barack Obama and the Democrat Party.
And with a 37% approval rating, don't kid yourself.
More Americans than you would believe understand that.
And I'm going to tell you, folks, you those those of you Republican and conservative media types instead of the beltway, you do not understand.
You do not understand the reaction out here when we see the National Mall shut down to World War II vets and American citizens and opened up in a shutdown to advocates for amnesty.
You do not understand the reaction outside where you live.
You do not understand what is happening with people as they learn what is happening to them as they enroll or try to in Obamacare.
And you do not understand what is happening and what people are finding out and how they're reacting when they learn about the mistreatment of uniformed military personnel killed in action and their families who are being denied benefits and proper respect.
Trips home, proper burials, all of this being denied purposely by the regime because of the shutdown when it need not happen at all.
And everybody out here knows it's happening because of cheap, childish, immature partisan politics of the president of the United States and his party.
Who I just know I got to take a quick break.
By the way, I am Rush Limbaugh.
Welcome, folks.
It's the EIB network and the Limbaugh Institute, our telephone number, if you want to be on the program today.
I forgot to intro the show.
Such a sense of urgency we have here each day.
800-282-2882.
not go away.
I just want to share with you, we let you hear Wolf Blitzer and the way he dealt with Bush approval number hitting 36%.
I want to go back to March 10th of 2006.
When Bush's approval number was at 37%, exactly what Obama's is today in the same poll.
And this is Ron Fournier writing for the AP, March 10th, 2006.
More and more people, particularly Republicans, disapprove of President Bush's performance, question his character, and no longer consider him a strong leader against terrorism, according to an AP poll documenting one of the bleakest points of his presidency.
That's how AP reported Bush at 37% back in 2006.
And that was after three years, maybe even six years, if you want to really add them all.
Six, let's just say three, and the Iraq war started.
That was after three years of a daily relentless pounding of Bush by the drive by media.
Daily characterizations of Bush as an idiot, as incompetent, as irresponsible, as stupid as a buffoon.
We were heading into a recession.
It took them three years to get Bush down to 37%.
And when they got to 37%, they celebrated.
Here's more from Ron Fournier back on March 10th of 2006.
The poll suggests that most Americans wonder whether Bush is up to the job.
The survey conducted Monday through Wednesday of a thousand people found that just 37% approve of his overall performance.
That's the lowest of his presidency.
Republican Party leader said the survey explains why Republican lawmakers are rushing to distance themselves from Bush on a range of issues.
Port security, immigration, spending, warrantless eavesdropping in trade, for example.
Those were the issues.
That the Republican Party, it was said by AP was running away from George W. Bush on.
Port security, immigration, spending, warrantless eavesdropping, which can't even hold a candle to what Obama has been doing on any of those issues.
And then Fournier said, personally, far fewer Americans consider Bush likable, honest, strong, and dependable than they did just after his reelection campaign.
The headline was Bush's approval rating falls to new low.
Obama's at 37% today in an AP poll, and the headline is GOP blamed for shutdown.
It's journalistic malpractice.
Except it's not because it's not journalism.
It's not what we're even talking about here.
Have my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair, Rush Limbaugh doing what I was born to do.
From the NBC website, first look.
It is NBC News's version of a early morning summary at the news.
supposedly the news, NBC's version of what's happening, what has happened, what's important.
And there are many paragraph items there, and here is one, about four or five into it.
Another tough health care story for the White House, another day, another story about how the White House was warned for weeks, if not months, that healthcare.gov had flaws.
This one comes courtesy of the Washington Post, quote, major insurers, state health care officials, and Democrat allies repeatedly warned the regime in recent months that the new federal health insurance exchange had significant problems, according to people familiar with the conversations.
Despite those warnings, despite intense criticism from Republicans, the White House proceeded with the October 1st launch.
The White House continues to claim that all of its website problems are simply traffic related, but there are clearly plenty of people who think that it's more than that, that it was designed poorly.
What does this mean?
It means that the regime knew that healthcare.gov wasn't ready.
They knew it couldn't handle a load.
It also knew that its structure was flawed.
Even if it could handle the load, it was not right.
They went ahead and did it anyway, because it doesn't matter.
I've gotten blue in the face, and I know if you're a twenty-four-year-old frightened woman, this is going to scare you, but fact of the matter is Obama himself doesn't care about details like this.
He doesn't care what it ends up costing people.
All that matters is what he will say about it and what will be reported about what he says, and therefore what you will be told to believe.
The reality, he doesn't care.
He really doesn't.
And he hasn't for a long time, because Obamacare is not about improved health care or cheaper Insurance or better treatment or insuring the uninsured, and it never has been about that.
It's about statism.
It's about expanding the government.
It's about control over the population.
It is about everything but health care.
And that purpose has been served.
It's the law, so now it doesn't matter whether it works.
These are little details that will flesh out as it unrolls.
It didn't matter whether it was ready.
It didn't matter whether all the promises made were kept.
That is irrelevant.
Selling it, getting it passed and signed into law was all that mattered.
Ditto the sequester, did owe anything else.
The president hasn't told the truth about much, and yesterday in his press conference he continued the whoppers yesterday.
Folks, I I can't let go of this.
He talked yesterday in his press conference about the default and how it's gonna happen.
We're not going to default.
We take in more.
I mean, sufficiently more money every month via tax revenue than we are required to pay to service the debt.
That's about 18 billion dollars.
And we take in 250 billion.
We're nowhere near a default, even if we don't raise the debt ceiling.
And he knows it.
But it doesn't matter.
The truth is not what matters.
What matters is what he can make you think, along with his media friends of the Republicans.
That's all that matters.
When it comes to Obamacare, what it is in reality is irrelevant.
The fact that it doesn't work doesn't matter.
It's the law now.
It's an achievement.
It's an accomplishment the Democrats have sought for 50 years.
Doesn't work.
Even the media is onto it.
Washington Examiner, Obamacare Still Broken, website says try back in a few days.
Over a week after Obamacare kicked in, the healthcare.gov computer system still blocking insurance applicants due to major glitches in traffic, prompting a live chat room host on the government's website to suggest that it would be best just wait a few days.
Secrets, that's the name of the column here, attempted to again on Wednesday to enter the system, but within two minutes a red line crossed the computer screen reading, important, your account couldn't be created at this time.
The system is unavailable.
Another story from something called the Federalist.
Obamacare rollout, a case study in government ineptitude.
And let me just read you three pull quotes from this story.
The first one.gov SNAFU illustrates the core incompetency of the federal government because of how it's structured and because of who it attracts, it is simply incapable of doing much of anything that the private sector can do.
If the private sector's motto is faster, better, cheaper, then the federal governments would have to be slower, worse, and crazy expensive.
Second pull quote.
So what gives?
How is it that the president who gave us an unquestionably brilliant campaign tech team couldn't deliver the goods for a simple government-run website that lists health care plans?
It's pretty simple, one federal information technology contractor said.
The government's not exactly hiring the best of the best to manage and develop these projects.
It's not like they're bringing in people from Facebook or Google.
The private sector gets the best.
Government gets the rest.
Another little quote.
Another major problem goes beyond the tech talent itself to the people who manage the developers.
One common complaint I heard was unclear yet constantly changing contract requirements.
I can't tell you, this is a quote, I can't tell you how many times I'd be 90% done with one requested task only to have it changed at the last minute to something completely different, the contractor told me.
Most of the time I never had the chance to go back and finish the last ten percent.
It is an utter disaster.
The weekly standard, Obamacare Marketplace, personal data can be used for law enforcement and audit activities.
Obamacare has not so hidden provisions that allow them to give all of your health information to the police and the IRS any time they want.
And all your emails to Obamacare about private matters.
Those will be shared by the government as well.
Jacksonville, Illinois Journal Courier News, growing concerns about identity theft and fraud have led the Illinois Department of Insurance to issue a public warning.
Just as the new health insurance exchanges enter their implementation phase.
Concern focuses on those charged with assisting Illinois with enrollment in the new exchange, the so-called navigators.
Navigators are going to have access to people's personally identifiable information, the information necessary for identity theft.
It's an utter disaster.
CBS News is piled on now.
Washington Post is piled on NBC.
I mean, at least they're reporting it.
They're not condemning it, they're just reporting and they're concerned.
They're worried.
See, these are the true believers.
The Obama media people actually believe this was designed to work.
They actually think it's going to be the best thing going.
They actually think it's going to lower cost.
They actually think it's going to ensure the 30 million uninsured.
They actually believe all the crap that they're told.
Because they're good people.
They have big hearts.
And they have good intentions.
And they have lots of compassion.
And they believe all this tripe.
And they believe the government does it better than anybody else.
They believe the government should.
So here comes a smooth talker like Obama promising the moon.
They eat it up.
And then when it doesn't happen, they're genuinely worried.
They don't want their guy to look bad.
They don't want Obama to look bad.
They don't want the Democrat Party to look bad.
This is not the way it was supposed to be.
And they're like anybody else.
They go to any website, private sector, and it works.
Amazon, iTunes, you name it, they go there, it works.
This doesn't.
This just doesn't work.
Ashley Dion is a 26-year-old Michigan university student.
She sent a letter.
Who does she send this to?
This letter to Dennis Prager, my old buddy from Los Angeles.
She said, My name is Ashley Dion.
I'm a 26-year-old recent graduate from Michigan.
The phony Obamacare signup poster boy made me want to send a message about how Obamacare is really affecting people.
I graduated from the University of Michigan 2009.
In my state, that used to mean something.
But even with a bachelor's degree, I was told I was too educated and wouldn't stay.
I watched as kids with GEDs and high school diplomas took the low-paying jobs for which I applied.
I went back to school.
I got a second degree.
Finally found work at a gymnasium.
I worked nights.
I only get 32 hours a week for $8 an hour online.
I am unable to find a second job at this time.
I have asthma, ulcers, mild cerebral palsy.
Obamacare takes my monthly rate from $75 a month for full coverage on my young adult plan to $31 a month after $6,000 in deductibles.
What Ashley Dion is describing here is what happened to her when she left the nest.
Because all kids eventually become 27 years old.
And at that point they're no longer covered by mom and dad.
And they are finding that with Obamacare, they're going broke.
And this woman wrote Prager a note about liberals claimed, she writes, that this law would help the poor.
Well, I am the poor.
I'm the working poor.
And I can't afford to support myself, let alone older generations and people not willing to work at all.
And then she writes, Obamacare has raped my future.
It'll keep me and people my age from having a future at all.
This is the real face of Obamacare, and it isn't pretty.
In a statement to the website campus reform, she clarified her reason for writing the letter.
She said, I wanted to get my message about Obamacare out because I'm being directly and negatively affected by it.
And I know it's not just me.
Obamacare is going to make my life more difficult.
It will hurt people more than it'll help.
2009 graduate, University of Michigan, 2012 graduate, Baker College.
She can't afford it.
She can't find work that pays more than eight bucks an hour and 32 hours a week.
The New America.
I don't know if she voted for Obama or not.
It doesn't say.
It sounds like she was predisposed to uh knowing what this was all about, but maybe didn't realize how bad it was.
But I'm just guessing.
I don't know who she voted for.
Probably shouldn't speculate.
Let's take a timeout.
We'll be back and continue after this.
Okay, folks, uh, we um uh we're gonna head to the phones.
By the way, Andrea Mitchell was taken to town yesterday and still may not know how badly she was, I don't know, embarrassed or humiliated by a Republican congressman from uh Wisconsin, Sean Duffy.
Now, normally, since it happened on MSNBC, we wouldn't air it, because I have a ban when anything can happen there.
But uh this this is worth an exception.
Yep.
So we're gonna get to that.
But let's let's grab a phone call or two here before we uh get too deeply into this.
This is Joe in Paramus, New Jersey.
Great to have you here.
Joe, how are you, buddy?
I'm fine, thank you.
Um thank you for taking the call.
It was great to hear you speaking on behalf of the working poor right before the commercial.
I think that's the first time I've ever heard you do that.
I hope you continue.
Um my main topic is the government shutdown.
The president is going to win this.
You have a lot of power and influence.
So does Ted Cruz, so does Roger Ailes.
But you guys are shouting into an echo chamber, and it's a very small echo chamber.
So please keep up what you're doing, keep the government down, keep attacking the president.
It's gonna backfire on you in ways you can't imagine.
Joe, can I ask you a question?
Um, I guess.
Well, I won't if you have if you're not.
No, no, you go right ahead.
Do you ever get embarrassed?
Um, only when people hear me listening to you.
Really?
Yeah, really I would I would think that you'd be embarrassed thinking what you think.
And I just wondered if, in the first place, the working poor are championed on this program every day and have been for 25-plus years.
Secondly, Obama's not acting like a winner here, Joe.
He's acting like a petulant, offended, spoiled, rotten little kid.
I remember during the sequester, right up to the sequester and when it kicked in, we were told that the people were going to turn against the Republican Party on this.
It's going to be a disaster.
You Republicans just keep going.
Until it turned out that it didn't happen.
And from the polling data I see, Joe, even...
Even the lowest of the low information voters out there realize that the problem isn't the debt limit, it's the debt.
And that debt, fully one-third of the national debt is owned by one man.
Barack Obama.
I started out as the working poor, Joe.
I mean, I was the I was I epitomized it.
And I I supported myself constantly, and the working poor are the people on this program we champion.
Each and every Day.
But this guy, folks, did you hear the list of people that he lumped me in with?
He gets his news from left wing websites.
And it's just it's an example of the of the partisan divide.
Well we have here is a guy who does not independently think.
Classic low information voter, classic, smug and overconfident, and condescending.
All the while being as wrong about everything as he can be.
But thinks he has all the answers.
Keep hanging in out there.
And uh Ted Cruz and I, Roger Ailes, and the rest of the conspirators will keep shouting in this echo chamber.
Because it matters, Joe, and it works.
I want you to listen to a quote from Harry Reid in 2006.
Seven years ago, Harry Reid said they should explain this.
Maybe they can convince the public that they're right.
I doubt it, because most Americans know that increasing debt is the last thing we should be doing.
After all, I repeat, the baby boomers are about to retire.
Under the circumstances, any credible economist would tell you we should be reducing debt, not increasing it.
Democrats will not be making arguments to support this legalization, which will weaken our country, weaken our country.
2006, and he was joined by Obama, opposing raising the debt limit.
It was irresponsible because of the retiring baby boomers.
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