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Dec. 5, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:43
December 5, 2013, Thursday, Hour #2
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Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
Rush Limbaugh.
And I am America's real anchor man, America's truth detector, and also the Doctor of Democracy.
Happily here, my friends, behind the golden EIB microphone.
Our telephone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800-282-288-2.
Email address, Lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
Okay.
Maybe the best way to do this is not get into all of these varying sound bites and comments.
I mean, heck, it's even happening on Fox.
Even on to Limbo taking on the Pope.
What is Limbaugh mean?
What are we going to have to do about Limbo?
I just want to play through what I said.
Because that's the one thing they aren't doing.
They are taking select excerpts out of context, claiming that I savagely attacked the Pope.
Who do I think I am?
And I want you to hear what I actually say.
Because frankly, folks, I think this is – it's well done.
I think it's very tasteful.
The whole subject was troubling to me because I have, over the years – If anybody who's listened to this program regularly knows what an admirer I am of the Catholic Church, and particularly Pope John Paul II.
I've I've been to the Vatican more than any place else outside this country in the world.
I am mesmerized by it.
I've taken tours of the place, private, public, that you can't believe.
I have known very many Catholics, priests.
I was invited by Cardinal O'Connor for breakfast at the rectory.
Not long.
I mean it was the first five years of the program to uh he he had heard and I was stridently pro-life on the radio.
There weren't too many of those, and he was very gracious and had me over and for breakfast and met his staff and him.
It was it was uh terrific.
And then that was actually the second time I'd met him.
The first time I'd met Cardinal O'Connor was aboard a yacht.
Not long after I got to New York.
This was really a great thing.
Not long after I'd got to New York.
Um remember this is 1988, 1989, and there is no cable news.
There is no blogosphere, there is no internet to speak of, and the only cable news network was CNN to go along with the networks and newspapers.
And I was it.
I was the only of my type, conservative national media, and I was proudly pro-life.
I was doing uh we did a funny bit trying to illustrate abortion in a way that might change people's minds about it.
It was quite controversial.
So forth.
But I was invited by some sponsors that called the Cruise for Life, and what it was was uh people raising money to support women in housing while they were pregnant who would give their babies up for adoption rather than head off to Planned Parenthood or something.
And that's where I met Wellington Mara the first time, who the owner of the New York Giants is actively involved, and Cardinal O'Connor was there.
Bowie the Grand Coon, a former commissioner of uh Major League Baseball was there.
It was a real who's who of a hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
And I was I was in awe the whole night.
I got to know some of those people quite well.
So, you know, I I have I I defend the cat.
I remember when when Act Up the uh militant gay rights people took over St. Patrick's Cathedral and were bombarding the place with condoms, I spoke out against it and made myself an enemy, made myself a target, these gay rights groups.
And I have done nothing but lawed the cat that the cap-that is why, frankly, what what I read translated what this Pope said so astounded me.
Was unlike anything I'd ever heard.
It didn't in fact it didn't even sound like anything Catholic to me.
It's It sounded like what you normally hear out of the American left or the Democrat Party any other days.
Anyway, this it runs about two minutes.
This is what I said, and this is what's caused the writers of the soap opera to have a fit and to start doing segments on cable shows about how I have stirred it up on the Pope.
Up until this, I have to tell you, I was admiring the man.
I thought he was going a little overboard on the common man touch.
And I thought there might have been a little bit of PR involved there.
But nevertheless, I was willing to cut him some slack.
I mean, if he wants to portray himself as still from the streets of where he came from and is not in anything special, not aristocratic, if he wants to eschew the physical trappings of the Vatican.
Okay, cool, fine.
But this that I came across last night, I mean it totally befuddled me.
If it weren't for capitalism, I don't know where the Catholic Church would be.
Now, as I mentioned before, I'm not Catholic.
I admire it profoundly, and I've been tempted a number of times to delve deeper into it.
But the Pope here has now gone beyond Catholicism here, and this is pure political.
And I want to share with you some of this stuff.
Pope Francis attacked unfettered capitalism as a new tyranny.
He beseeched global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality.
In a document on Tuesday, setting out a platform for his papacy and calling for a renewal of the Catholic Church.
In it, Pope Francis went further than previous comments criticizing the global economic system, attacking the idolatry of money.
I gotta be very careful.
I have been numerous times to the Vatican.
It wouldn't exist without tons of money.
But regardless what this is, somebody has either written this for him or gotten to him.
This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the Pope.
Unfettered capitalism that doesn't exist anywhere.
Unfettered capitalism is a liberal socialist phrase to describe the United States.
Unfettered, unregulated.
Now, one of the things that the uh cable experts are saying is the Pope never said unfettered capitalism.
Well, what I read, translating what he said did say it.
Now I didn't put any words in his mouth.
I was simply sharing with you reports of people who'd read a translation of the uh most recent papal document from which all of this comes.
And it read no different to what Elizabeth Warren might say.
And Elizabeth Warren is not the Catholic Church, and neither's Barack Obama.
And it's it it it sounded exactly like what they would say.
And I was really lamenting, I was hoping that the Catholic Church had not been taken over in a deep political sense by uh by the politicized left.
I know that the Catholic Church was an early signatory to the welfare state because they equated it with charity.
It was one of the brilliant techniques of FDR.
It was one of the one of the brilliant stratagems of the early welfare state advocates was to equate it with charity, which is not what it is.
The welfare state isn't charity.
The welfare state is the redistribution of income.
The welfare state is taking from producers and giving to nonproduce.
There's no charity in it at all.
But on the surface, it may look like it.
And uh and and many of the uh uh Catholic bishops ended up supporting the welfare state in a massive way and became known as supporters of the Democrat Party, all because it gave them an easy linkage to what appeared to be charity.
Now that probably attacked me for saying this too.
Fine, I don't care because none of this is made up.
But it it was folks, If it weren't for capitalism, there would not have been enough wealth for people to donate to the Catholic Church or any other religion.
Capitalism has raised and elevated more people out of poverty than any welfare program or welfare state or socialist country ever has.
It isn't even close.
Capitalism has elevated more people out of poverty and low income status than even domestic charities have done, and they do great work in this country.
Capitalism is what made the United States the world's really only and lone superpower.
And it's under assault like every tradition and institution that is part of America's greatness is under assault.
And I'm sorry, I just was doing what I do every day.
I get up and I look at the things that I cherish and I believe in under assault, under attack, and I come here and defend them.
Because it's every day.
Every day, two or three things are constantly under assault.
The nuclear family is the latest.
And that's actually not new, just in a pointed way, is it more focused?
But where I got this, if you must know, was from Reuters.
Everybody's out there saying the Pope never said unfettered capitalism.
Let me read to you from Reuters.
The headline was Pope Francis attacks unfettered capitalism.
And from the article, Pope Francis called Tuesday for renewal of the Roman Catholic Church and attacked unfettered capitalism as a new tyranny, urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality in the first major work he's written about or alone as pontiff.
Well, okay, so you got a left-wing news agency characterizing what the Pope said.
We did have several calls, by the way.
And my brother, who's the king of Twitter, by the way.
My brother says, I'm getting people tweeting me left and right saying that somebody mistranslated this on purpose.
The early reactors to this, when nobody was telling me the Pope didn't say what I was saying.
He was saying, that didn't happen till the next day when the writers of the Washington Soap Opera decided to target me again.
And then when that happens, then you rewrite what I say, or take it out of context.
But at the moment I said it, there wasn't one person who said he didn't say that, and you're making it what I got was wait a minute, Rush, that sounds like somebody's purposely mistranslated the Pope.
That was really devout Catholics were telling me this.
But here you have Reuters.
Pope Francis called Tuesday for renewal of Roman Catholic Church attacked unfettered capitalism as a new tyranny.
New tyranny is in quotes.
They're attributing new tyranny as actual words of Pope uttered.
Unfettered capitalism is Reuters' characterization.
Not mine.
There is no such thing as unfettered capitalism.
There might have been in Hong Kong before the Chicoms took it over.
If you ever been to Hong Kong, I mean that was unfettered, that was as unregulated, deregulated capitalism as I've ever seen.
And it worked, by the way.
It was amazing, but it but it worked.
But this urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality, that's all anybody's been doing since the beginning of time.
The idea that nobody's been fighting poverty, we've been running a war on poverty in this country since the 60s, and we're losing it.
Because we're not doing anything about it.
We're simply transferring income.
We're not teaching people how to elevate themselves.
We're not going about it the right way.
Urging global leaders to fight poverty and growing inequality.
Isn't that timely?
So the Pope comes out to the growing inequality, and a week later, here comes the President of the United States out there talking about income inequality, just a little too cute.
Now that there are two big so-called Catholic groups that are leading this attack on me and trying to get cable news to discuss this in the terms of the soap opera.
And they are both funded by George Soros.
One's called Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, the other is Catholics United.
And uh what?
There's a move on for me to apologize, I didn't even know that.
I didn't know that somebody was demanding I apologize.
I've got nothing to apologize for.
The United States has spent 15 trillion dollars fighting poverty.
I'm sorry, I'm not I'm not gonna sit here and just yawn when my country and others are accused, I don't care by who inattention and no compassion to the poor.
By the way, that 15 trillion is just in the last five decades.
So that's what I said.
You just heard it.
There's nothing in there that needs to be apologized for.
And the idea that the Pope can't be wrong about Capby may not even understand it.
But I am not going to sit here and simply stay moot or mute because of this, if that's exactly the plan.
Anyway, let me take a brief time out and we'll come back and continue.
Much more straight ahead here on the EIB network.
Do not go away.
There was one other thing, too, that the Pope said that I reacted.
That was uh the Pope uh was critical.
Trickle down economics.
Now come on, folks.
What is trickle down economics associated with?
Even low information voters know.
Trickle down economics equals Reagan equals what?
Hatred of the poor, rich get richer, uh, income inequal, all of that.
Nothing but lies.
Trickle down is supposedly a failure.
It doesn't work.
What the left wants everybody to believe trickle down is that the rich, many of whom are rich unfairly, will give their money away.
Knowing that they have more than they need and seeing their fellow citizens suffering, the rich will give that money away.
And you know it never happens, and therefore trickle down doesn't work.
That's not what trickle down is.
George Soros isn't giving his money away.
He's donating it to causes for which he expects a return, but he's not giving it away.
Call George Soros, say, you know what, I really need a million dollars.
He's got he wouldn't miss a million dollars.
He's got I don't know how many billions.
Call him up, ask him for a million.
It would change your life.
He won't give it to you.
Bill Gates won't give it to you.
Warren Buffett won't give it to you.
You gotta convince them to invest it.
They're not gonna give you a million dollars.
Nobody gives anybody money like that.
I take it back.
Some people do, actually.
You just never hear about it.
But most people don't do that.
So that definition of trickle down is is asinine.
You know what trickle down is?
Trickle down is how the economy works.
You take your car to a car wash.
You're paying the car wash to wash it.
The car wash as employees.
The money that you spend at the car wash trickles down to the last guy on the line that drives the car.
That's trickled down.
And it works.
And the more people spend, and the more commerce there is, the more trickle down.
What the left wants you to think is that when the rich get their money, they hoard it.
And they don't spend it.
Which is asinine.
When's the last time you saw a really rich person driving?
Uh what?
Four-cylinder turbocharged little lawnmower.
You don't see it.
You see them in Mercedes and Bentley's and Rolls-Royce's and whatever the hell else.
It's just they have these huge homes that there are people that work.
It's just the the you would you would not believe the landscaping budget of some of these evil rich people.
Trickle down is precisely what works.
And the more of it the better.
It is how people earn more money.
But the left has got this butchered, convoluted definition of it, that the rich either don't give their money away or they don't spend it because they don't want to share.
They've got theirs, but you're not gonna get yours.
And their more they got theirs by taking yours.
And that's the asinine cockamamy theory that they want everybody to believe.
And to hear the Pope regurgitate this, I can't tell you how disappointing that was.
The Pope is one of the most powerful men in the world, and we would expect to be one of the most informed men.
If it weren't for trickle down, the Catholic Church wouldn't have any donations.
Trickle down is it's a good it's a good thing.
It's exactly what happens, but the left has defined it in such a way that it's it's got a bad taste.
It's got it's got bad PR.
It's got a bad brand, bad image, trickle down.
Yeah, that doesn't work.
It does every time it's tried, just like abstinence, by the way.
Works every time it's tried.
And everybody who engages in commerce is engaging in trickle down.
There's nobody other than a welfare recipient who is only on the receiving end of trickle down.
I take a break.
By the way, one of these Catholic groups all over me supports abortion rights, and they call themselves a Catholic group.
I mean, it's all phony bunch of politicians.
And we are back, Rush Limbaugh, enjoying myself immensely, my friends, here, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
You know why?
Because I'm doing what I was born to do.
And I just I just love it.
You know, Nancy Pelosi believes in trickle down.
When you say that every dollar of unemployment benefits creates four dollars of economic growth, what are you talking about?
A, you're insane and you're you're wickedly stupid, but if she believes it, she's describing trickle down.
How else?
Uh doesn't the wealth of the Catholic Church trickle down to the flock.
I mean, what else can she possibly mean if she wants to run out try to convince people every dollar in unemployment benefits grows the economy by $2 or $4, whatever?
How else does it happen?
But they want you to believe that trickle down is tax cuts for the rich.
See, here's what they tell you, Dart, laugher and the boys meant.
We're gonna cut their taxes to the rich, and the rich are gonna get a lot more money, and then the rich, they're gonna go out and they're gonna spend it and they're gonna give people money and it and then if that doesn't happen, then tax cuts for the rich, that's horrible, that's rotten.
And of course the rich do.
In fact, there was a story in the midst of this Obama economic announcement, it was an AP story about how spending by the rich was way down, and what a negative impact that was having on the economy.
The rich do spend.
They do consume.
It's called conspicuous consuming.
In fact, there was so much of it going on at one time that the well-known senator from South Carolina, Ernest Hollings, actually said that too much consuming going on out there.
Remember, it wasn't all that long ago you remember all the left-wing complaints about our consumer society, and people were buying too much stuff, and there wasn't enough spirituality, like investment in global warming or telling you folks, you're you just got to ignore everything the Democrat Party says it's all political and it's all agenda-oriented, and it's all lies, or the vast majority of it is.
Anyway, that's what when the Pope starts parroting what you hear from your average ordinary leftist about trickle down, that was very upsetting.
And that's I don't know because the Pope is very powerful.
You know, Pope John Paul II, it wasn't just Reagan and Thatcher that brought down the Soviet Union.
Pope John Paul II was in there helping take down Poland.
Personal visits.
It's a great Pope.
And they're very powerful people.
They have profound influence.
Vicar of Christ.
And just my first thought was I didn't believe it.
But in case it was true, I had to try to set it straight.
Now I want to stay focused here on all of this.
There's a great story in the Washington Times.
In fact, I've got uh I've got three stories on this next theme, and that is the lack of unity on the left about Obama's latest strategy.
Democrat infighting erupts over we can have it all fantasy on entitlements.
The Democratic rift over entitlements deepened this week as a top party contender for governor in Pennsylvania came under fire from liberals after a think tank of which she is a co-chairman criticized economic populism messages of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and the New York City mayor, Bill DeBlasio.
Now this kind of got my attention because if you have Warren and De Blasio are too liberal for mainstream liberals.
I mean, that's that's a hoot.
Liberals demanded that gubernatorial candidate Alison Schwartz cut her ties with Third Way after two of its top officials wrote an op-ed criticizing Ms. Warren and Mr. DeBlasio by name, saying they are pushing a we can have it all fantasy.
The activist groups Democracy for America and Progressive Change Campaign Committee pounced, demanding that Ms. Schwartz, who's now a member of the House, relinquish her position as honorary co-chairman of Third Way.
Now, what is Third Way?
It's kind of one of these no labels groups.
You know, no labels is uh a bunch of Republican moderates who are mostly liberal who don't want to be called Republicans.
So they call themselves the no labels gang.
And they're better than everybody else, and they're more open-minded.
Kind of like the modern incardation of moderates, smarter, more discriminating, not partisan, not closed-minded, not bigoted, they're just generally a cut above.
No labels.
Third way is much the same on the left as a bunch of people that trying to position themselves as centrists, but they're disguised as leftists because being a leftist does not help them.
So it's it's just it's it's more fraud.
It's more camouflage, but even the the third-way types are getting ticked off at people like Elizabeth Warren because they're out there spreading fantasies.
And the fantasy is that the welfare state can make people rich.
It just isn't true.
Now here's the Hill.com version of the story.
Democrat infighting all the rage.
So what you have here is extreme liberals blasting moderate third way that are going after Warren's idea for Social Security.
Now, the thing about this, so the the the third-way people attack the extremists.
By the way, they're all extremists.
The third way are just ponies.
And the extremists are now fighting back at the third way types.
This is all happening on the Democrat side.
There's all kinds of infighting, but you're not hearing about it because I mean it is in thehill.com, and which is a leftist rag, and you've got the Washington Times.
Outside of that, it isn't anywhere.
Key factions of the Democrat Party, which have largely been unified through some trying times, are now turning on each other, it says here.
Amid the botched rollout of Obamacare and plummeting poll numbers, the simmering tensions within the party have intensified, become very public.
A flashpoint came this week when Third Way, A centrist Democrat think tank.
By name only, folks, don't forget that.
Published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal bashing Senator Elizabeth Warren and her allies for trying to lure the party over a populist cliff.
They took aim at her proposal to pay for an expansion of Social Security benefits by lifting the cap on payroll taxes.
Such taxes do not apply to incomes over 113 grand.
But Elizabeth Warren wanted all income subjected to Social Security tax.
FICA, like all income is subjected to Medicare tax.
And the third way types, see, this is a tax increase that would hit them.
This is a tax increase to take a lot of money out of their pocket.
So down there, I said, Well, for the hell with this, what do you mean making every bit of my income subject to Social Security taxation?
So attacking Elizabeth Warren for claiming this is panacea and that it's a way to save Social Security, they say it isn't.
But it all adds up to infighting of the Democrat Party.
This back and forth represented a rare display of intra-party bickering as much of the political media has focused on the Republican tug of war in the Tea Party and established Republicans.
Some contend the internecine fight on the left could continue into the 2016 Democrat presidential primary.
Groups such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee and the Democracy for America pounced on Alison Schwartz, an honorary co-chairman of Third Way, who is vying with a crowded field to win a Democrat nomination for governor of New York.
And then we have an actual release here from the Huffing and Puffington Post on this.
Elizabeth Warren and liberals hit back against Third Way after economic populist attack.
A Monday op-ed by the centrist think tank Third Way railing against economic populism has sparked a liberal counterattack with Senator Elizabeth Warren calling on big banks to disclose their financial contributions to think tanks and progressive groups calling on Alison Schwartz to drop her affiliation with the group.
I mean, so now you have on the left, you have a split on the idea that there is a utopia out there.
Well, not a split on the a split on how to get there, because the third-way types have run into a tax increase that they don't like because it there's no way to avoid it.
Now, everybody pays FICA taxes, and they don't want any more of this.
So this is it's fascinating to watch all this while the writers of the soap opera try to get you focused on how mean-spirited the Republicans are who oppose the minimum wage and are all for income inequality.
I gotta take another break as I just see the clock.
Anyway, we're on a roll here, folks, and I'm sure you are aware of it.
And you're gonna hang out for the rest of it.
It'll fly by, fast as three hours in media, be right back.
Don't go away.
Back to the phones we go.
And uh Mansfield, Ohio.
Jerry, I'm glad you waited.
You're next.
It's great to have you here.
Hi.
Hey, thanks, Rosh.
North Central Ohio's listening.
I appreciate what you do.
Thank you, sir.
Um, it's probably occurred to me when you're talking about the minimum wage strategy that's now happening.
As uh most of the young people are on minimum wage.
And I see that as being like they've allocated money to strategically to uh buy support, buy votes, support uh those people that support them.
And it seems like they're, since they're dipping in popularity with the youth, that uh it would be a good strategy play to uh increase their income so they could actually support and afford uh the Obamacare program.
I just wonder what your take was on that.
Well, it's an interesting thought.
Look, Obama is not going to do it that way.
You can't, no matter if everybody was in favor of raising the minimum wage.
You can't raise it enough for everybody, such at a level that they would be able to afford Obamacare.
That's not what he's gonna do.
The real question now, because look, I got two stories.
This Harvard poll that's come out that we talked about yesterday.
Fewer than one third of young, uninsured Americans say they are leaning toward enrolling in a health care plan under Obamacare.
Just 29% of uninsured, 18 to 29-year-olds say they will definitely or likely enroll.
29%.
That's a combination of 16 and 13.
Some of that 29% is ambivalent about it.
Sorry, that isn't gonna get it done.
That won't get it done, and I understand Obama's raise minimum wage, give these.
He won't do it that way.
He'll find a way to buy them off.
And I I have no uh doubt that Obama and his strategists are right now trying to come up with ideas, just like they have miniature bailout of the insurance companies to keep them on board during all this.
They'll conjure a way to buy these people, something to give them.
He's not interested in people having disposable income, particularly that that's too much economic and freedom and power.
There's a there's another take on this story.
Young invincibles spurn Obamacare.
Mounting opposition to Obamacare among young adults is creating a new crisis for the White House.
While the federal enrollment website, healthcare.gov, appears to be improving by the day.
What a crock.
What do you got?
29,000 people, it's improving?
Polls show the young invincibles key to making it work are becoming less likely to enroll.
There's polling data all over the place that the youths are not interested.
They're not interested because they don't like the invasion of privacy that they're encountering with security snafus, and I like what the NSA is doing, tracking their movements on their cell phones and monitoring their communication.
They really don't doubt me on this, folks.
The youths are really, of all the things going on in the country, they are more ticked off at Obama for the NSA than they are anything else.
And a close second is the economy.
They don't have jobs, and they have a lot of them are now discovering, by the way, that they were the marks.
A lot of them are discovering that they were the targets.
They were the ones that were going to be paying a lot in order to cover other people, and they're resisting it all.
The millennials, that's been the news of the week, is how the mill.
The millennials are, don't call it selfishness, Mr. Snurgley, but you might look at it that way.
No, they're discovering self-interest.
They're discovering here that they were being used.
They're discovering here that all of a sudden, rather than being the recipients of federal largest, they were going to be the source.
And they say, whoa, A, they don't have jobs.
B and so uh I guarantee you, as the regime looks at these polling numbers, the minimum wage, trust me, Jair, is not about increasing anybody's income because it doesn't do that.
That's not what it's even even the regime knows this.
This is just a political wedge.
Nobody gets rich on the minimum wage.
Nobody's gonna be able to afford it.
No matter if they raise it a buck or two or ten, it ain't gonna matter.
The millennials are not nearly as dumb, nor are they as slavishly devoted as Obama thought.
So I get what Obama and his people, they see these polling numbers, losing the millennials.
Okay, time to buy them back.
What can he that's what they're talking about right now?
What can we give them?
What can we buy them back with?
That's how Obama looks at the Federal Treasury.
It's his to spend to buy love, to buy support, to buy loyalty.
That's or or or to buy a change in Poll direction.
But actually coming up with a policy that would help people improve their standard of living, that's not what this regime is about.
The past five years are all the evidence that you need.
I will bet you that one of the things, I've been waiting for this, in fact.
Let's make a note.
This is what is this, December 5th.
Mark it down, somebody.
ICAL it does something up.
December 5th, 2013.
El Roshpo predicting that one of the ways Obama will try to buy the millennials back, get his poll numbers up, is to forgive student loans.
It's just sitting out there on a silver platter Just waiting for Obama to do it.
It's the Chicago way.
If they don't succeed in getting rid of you with a gun or a knife, they'll forgive your student loan.
They'll buy you back.
That's what's on tap, mark my word.
So quick question for you millennials who are now balking at uh at paying Obamacare premiums to cover other people.
Where's your compassion?
Keep hearing that the youth are compassionate and they want to care about people.
And here's your chance to prove it.
You know, go, you know, pay your higher premiums so that uh the sick and the elderly and the less fortunate get their health care.
I mean, that's the deal.
And you see that truth is that compassion is for words only.
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