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Dec. 17, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
31:45
December 17, 2013, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Greetings, my friends.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence and Broadcasting Network, and the distinguished and prestigious Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, the email address L Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
I'm debating here whether to spend a lot of time on this NS, well, not a lot of time, but get into a little depth here on the NSA ruling.
I guess I will.
I've got your uh telephone calls to um share and get to today in this hour as well.
Uh and some other little ins interesting items.
Do you remember that the guy in Sedalia at the state fair who um the clown who wore the Obama face, the media drummed to death.
Inspired by Time Magazine's well-known list, Sedalia, Missouri now has its own person of the year award.
And the competition isn't even close.
There's seven nominees, but the man who brought national attention a Missouri State Fair is running away with more than half the votes.
Tuffy Gessling, known as Tuffy the Clown, the rodeo clown who wore a mask of Obama at the Missouri State Fair, asking those in the crowd if they wanted to see the president gord by a bull is going to be the man of the year for 2013 in Sedalia, Missouri.
These little things out there, ladies and gentlemen, where you see people rising up in their own way.
In opposition to the daily media, soap opera status quo, narrative, what have you.
How many of you, I don't know how many of you heard about this?
The CEO of ATT, a man by the name of Randall Stevenson, said the other day that the model for cell phone purchasing has got to change.
That the major carriers can no longer continue to subsidize the purchase of cell phones because the market has become too saturated, and they just can't any longer continue the practice.
Do you know what the practice is?
You know what subsidies for telephones, cell phones are snurdy.
Explain it to me.
See if you do actually know what it is.
Mm-hmm.
Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No.
That's close.
The subsidy is, let's say an iPhone, um, because that's what I know.
A top-line iPhone.
If you go out and buy one unlocked, not tied to a carrier, state of the art, will run you about 900 bucks.
If you go get the same phone locked to ATT, you can get it for 199.
ATT says that they are subsidizing the remaining price that they're not charging you.
So they charge you 199 plus your two-year contract.
And they claim that they are subsidizing everybody's purchase of a phone.
And they can't continue this.
Well, what's the flaw in this?
This is economics 101, by the way.
That's the reason I'm talking about this, not because it's cell phones.
I'm talking about this because it's economics 101.
There is no subsidy here.
You're paying for every bit of that phone, and then some.
ATT is not spending or no cell care.
I don't mean to harp on ATT, it's just their CEO who said it.
But you've got a phone that costs, let's say 700 bucks, and your price is 199 plus you promise to use it for two years on that carrier.
So you sign a two-year contract.
You've got to stay on that phone, otherwise there's a penalty.
You got to stay with that carrier, otherwise there is a penalty.
And the the price Of the contract is whatever your monthly service is plus whatever they add on.
They're not subsidizing anything.
They're extending you a loan, in essence, and they're getting every dollar of it back, and then some.
They're the wanted to make it look like the cell phone carriers, the cell company can no longer afford to pay part of the purchase price.
But they're not.
It's this classic econ 101.
Now they may not like the model, but it isn't a subsidy.
And nobody ever says this.
The fact that it's a subsidy is allowed to stand.
But this is not a subsidy, not like there are subsidies in the Obamacare market, whereas somebody else is paying for your health care.
That's not what this is.
If you go buy a cell phone for 200 bucks, that normally, if you bought it without a contract, without a carrier would cost you 700, you're still spending 700 on that phone, plus whatever usage you're charged.
They build the price back in.
They're just loaning you the money up front to buy the phone.
T Mobile's being honest about it.
The others are hiding behind the term subsidy.
But it's still interesting to me because to what are they going to do to replace it then?
If they if they say they can't continue the subsidies, they're not subsidies.
They're loans.
So if they don't want to loan customers anymore, if they don't want to front the money for people to buy phones, they've got to change the model somehow.
Which may not be all bad.
Maybe you go out and buy the phone at full price and go out and make the best deal you can with a carrier and do it by the month, by the year.
Get a bunch of different SIM cards for different carriers and do it however you wish.
I just I just, you know, econ 101 and the way people get persuaded, convinced into believing things which aren't the case, uh, particularly when they're made to believe they're being given something when they're not.
That's classic.
And it's it's really so much of the welfare system.
All every all these people think they're getting freebies, whether it's health insurance or food stamps, and somebody is always paying for it.
And in most cases, the recipients themselves are paying far more than they think.
But they think they're getting charity.
And then a political party benefits from this.
Washington Post today, Chris Silizza.
Meet the haters.
We're talking about the voters who've had it with all Washington politicians.
President Obama, Congressional Republicans, Congressional Democrats.
Despite their distaste for, well, everyone, when push comes to shove, these voters are lining up squarely behind Republican candidates for Congress.
So in the Washington Post today, in a piece by our old buddy Chris Siliza, the vast majority of Republican voters are haters.
If you don't like what's going on in Washington, if your solution is to vote Republican, you're a hater.
Remember the woman who called here two weeks ago in the midst of the polling data showing Obama plummeting, and by the way, speaking of that, I think it's the latest Fox News poll.
Obama has sunk to his lowest approval rating ever, and the highest disapproval rating in the Fox News poll.
And the Fox News poll uh pretty much in place with every other poll.
It is, it never shows a disproportionate disapproval for Obama.
They're they're right in there with all the other polls.
But on this one, Obama has reached an all-time low.
And in fact, in the Washington Post ABC poll, it's also bad.
In that poll, the Republicans have pulled even with Obama on trust.
And the drive-bys can't believe it.
So here comes our old buddy Chris Silizza, characterizing all opposition to Washington as hate.
And if you happen to vote Republican because of your opposition to Washington, you are a hater.
And that's what his piece is about.
Haters are gonna hate, but they plan to vote Republican.
It's encouraging news for a Republican Party eyeing midterm elections now only about 11 months away.
Why?
Because it suggests the image problems the party's congressional members have experienced do not translate to a death knell at the ballot box.
72% of voters who disapprove of the job Obama, Congressional Democrats, Congressional Republicans doing say they would vote for the GOP candidate for House in their district if the election were held today, according to a new Washington Post ABC News poll released today.
Just 14% of people say they would vote for Democrats.
So riding to the rescue here, the drive-by is a claiming that all of that opposition to Washington signifies one thing.
Hate.
The new findings come as Republicans have erased the generic house ballot advantage the Democrats built in the wake of the government shutdown.
See, this is so much a part of the cliche.
Or the daily narrative of the soap opera.
Okay, so we have a government shutdown.
So the media just assumes that everybody hates that.
And since the Republicans were blamed for it, then it's assumed that everybody hates the Republicans.
Because everybody hates a government shutdown.
Because nobody wants the government shutdown, because everybody loves the government, and most people realize they can't get through the day without their government being up and running and working for them.
And when the Republicans come along and shut down the government, well, that's when Democrats really score big.
And they had polling data to show it.
At the government shutdown, the generic ballot had the Democrats winning.
Generic ballot is when the pollster goes out and says, next election you're going to vote for Republican or Democrat.
No names attached.
That's why it's called generic.
And the Democrats always win the generic ballot.
Except when they don't.
And when they don't, it causes an earthquake in Washington.
And this has caused an earthquake.
Just a couple of months ago, the Democrats were winning big in the congressional ballot right after the government shutdown.
So everything the Democrats and media believe was borne out by their poll.
That is, every American loves the government.
Can't get through the day without the government.
When the government gets shut down, people get depressed and scared and panicked and afraid to leave home.
And then they blame the Republicans for it, and then the Democrats and the media celebrate.
Mission accomplished.
But two months later, the Republicans are cleaning the Democrats' clock in the generic ballot.
I mean, Charlie Cook, the dean of political analysts, says he has never seen this gigantic shift in the generic ballot in such a short period of time.
Never.
He has never seen anything like it.
So how do they explain it?
What could cause such a massive reversal in just two short months?
And the obvious conclusion is hate.
Hate of government.
Hate of Washington.
Hate of Democrats.
And the fact that the Republicans are leading in the generic ballot, meaning more people prefer Republicans at this point in time when the poll is taken, it must mean that hate is alive and well.
As Siliza says here, so just who are the haters?
And why do their votes matter so much?
Well, he writes here that the haters lean heavily Republican.
34% identify as Republican, another 38% are independents who lean Republicans, so they're leaning toward hating.
And just 13% are independents with no lean, and just 10% are Democrats.
So 23% don't hate.
They love.
71% in this poll oppose Obamacare.
71%!
Thank you.
Still amazes me, the Republican Party cannot find linkage to that 71%.
I'm seeing such a lost opportunity here.
I I'm stunned.
71%.
ABC News Washington Post poll oppose Obamacare.
And the Republicans just passed a budget that basically locks in the spending for Obamacare because they're afraid being tired and feathered with another government shutdown next month.
Folks, there's 71% of voters opposing Obamacare.
That's 71% of a universe of people that the Republican Party could forge a relationship with, a political voting relationship.
And they haven't, outside of three or four Republicans, made one effort to do it.
Which leads to an obvious conclusion.
Maybe the Republicans don't really dislike Obamacare that much.
Or maybe it's just too hard.
Maybe it just be too much work, and maybe because the president's race is African American, that means that if we do anything to capitalize in this opposition, they're gonna call us haters.
Again today.
Well, then they'll call you racist.
They do that all the day anyway, all the time anyway.
The haters matter, writes Mr. Silliza.
Because they constitute a significant and growing share of the electorate due to sunken approval ratings for both Obama and congressional ratings, Republicans, and together they make up 34% of all voters.
A month before the 2010 GOP midterm wave election that swept the Democrats out of power, the haters constituted 28% of the electorate.
Today the haters make up 34%.
That's why they're quaking in their boots in fear of the haters in Washington.
But this is the first time I can recall where opposition to the status quo is said to be rooted in hate.
Now, I know that the Democrats say conservatives are made of the people hate this and hate that.
But this term is now being used to identify an entire voting block.
71% opposed to Obamacare, the haters.
The vast majority opposed what's going on in Washington, the haters.
What do you think the purpose is here?
All right.
Demonize the opposition like they did with Romney, but in addition, it's also, this is a warning being sent to the Republicans.
Don't you, don't you align with these people?
Don't you try to capture these people?
Do not join forces with these people because then we'll call you haters, too.
And they're very confident that the Republicans don't want to be called haters, and they don't want to be called racists, and they don't want to be blamed for the government, shouldn't I say that's what this is.
This is a full head-on frontal assault on the genuine and real substantive opposition to Obamacare and Obama and Washington by calling it nothing but a bunch of haters.
Who are the haters in the Bush years, by the way?
How did the haters in the now that was some real hate?
That was hate.
But that's what it was.
They're worried.
This generic ballot business, I'm telling you,'s got them skunked, and that 34% level of uh opposition to Democrats and generic ballot, that that called the haters, it's it was 28% before the 2010 minute.
They are scared to death, and that's why they're demonizing everybody.
Now don't misunderstand, folks.
Just because the Democrats are scared to death doesn't mean they act like Republicans when they're scared.
The Republicans, when they're scared, cower in the corners.
And they they shield into the please don't hit me.
Don't hit me again.
Please that's like battered wife syndrome.
When the Democrats get scared to death, they get ticked off.
When the Democrats get scared to death, they double down.
They go on offense.
They take no prisoners.
The fright motivates them because they don't like it.
They don't they were extremists in 1994, exactly right.
They don't like things going against them, and they make people pay for going against them.
Even average voters are made to pay by going against them.
They don't cower.
They're not free.
And the Republicans, here's the sad thing.
All of this ballot stuff, the generic ballot increase in the favor to Republicans, they haven't done one thing to earn it.
There aren't any Republicans out there coalescing support.
All of this Republican advantage in the generic ballot and all this stuff that's got these people upset is strictly like it was in 2010, anti-Obama.
It's anti-Washington, it's anti-Democrat.
The Republicans are doing nothing to engender it or cause it.
They too are acting afraid of it.
It's go figure.
Here's Angela in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.
Hi, Angela.
I'm glad you waited.
It's great to have you on the program.
Hi, Rush.
Mega Megadiddos here from Western North Carolina.
How are you today?
Great.
Thank you very much.
Listen, um, I thought you would find this interesting.
My son, who's a seventh grader, has read your your wonderful Rush Revere and the Baby Pilgrim.
Seventh grader is what he is thirteen.
Thirteen, right there in the targeted age group.
Yes.
At the upper end of your targeted age, I must say.
Right.
His teacher is allowing him to use his reading of Rush Revere towards his SRC points requirement.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Are you kidding?
No.
Isn't that exciting?
The teacher is allowing this book to count.
This book is going to count.
Now, mind you, it took a special email from me to ask, and she did want to review the book, which she had in his backpack that day.
And um we were just thrilled that she did not um poo-poo it, so to speak, and she is allowing him.
You know, it's a little bit complicated.
Uh, you know, each child tests at the beginning of the year, and they uh are given a lexile level.
And so, and then this most public schools, that is.
Um, and and then they have to meet a certain point requirement as part of their language arts.
Right, it's kind of like the concussion baseline test in the NFL.
I don't think so.
But at any rate, um, she was kind enough to let him um use hit this reading of of your book and uh it count towards his point value towards his grades.
But that was often that is uh I'm sorry, that is incredible.
That is uh something I would expect the opposite to happen there.
Well, I did too.
Um now, y you know, I'm not sure if she knows who you are.
You uh you know, she's a young teacher.
Yeah.
Um but she knows who you are now because she's had your book in her hand.
Um but uh I think there's nothing in that book that would offend anybody.
Oh, absolutely not.
Zero.
Now that book is nothing but the truth of the founding.
There's nothing political in that book whatsoever.
No.
My son, uh, like I said, he's thirteen, he's a great reader.
His lexile level is around 1500, So your book's a little below his lexile level, but he still read it and he still loved it.
And um that's something I wanted your parents out there to know.
Um, you know, they may just have to ask their teacher uh for you know their child to keep it.
Well let me ask this, since since he's got a a superior reading level and and uh obviously his his comprehension's thus gonna be very high.
Um how d how will being allowed to count this book help him?
Well, he has uh he's assigned a certain number of points he has to get every grading period.
Right.
So, you know, it's sometimes it's difficult to ask your child to read a book that's not going to count towards those points.
You know, they're busy, they're doing sports activities, you know, they're running here and there.
So um, you know, for a parent to, you know, uh you know, push a book that's not gonna count for points at school, that's sometimes a lot to ask of your child.
So um these points will will count and uh we'll go to his overall uh language arts grade.
Oh, this is just stupendous.
This is great, and uh credit to your teacher there.
I th this is uh it may be I don't know the makeup of that part of North Carolina where you are and where the school district is, but this could be an act of bravery on her part.
I think so too.
But um thank you for all you do.
I commend you for getting up every day and doing what you do so well.
I'm grateful and and thankful for you.
Well, I appreciate you saying that.
Uh, it's not an effort to get up.
Well, sometimes it's an effort to get up, but once I'm up, it's not an effort.
I uh very lucky in doing what I was born to do, love to do it, and I wish everybody could discover that.
It makes everything all that much more fun and uh still challenging, but still easier.
Now I'll tell you what I want to do.
You I I I want to um you probably don't have an audio version of the book, and I want to send you the audio version.
About four and a half hours, it's four C D's really?
Yeah, I want to send that out.
And and uh maybe throwing a couple other things here.
Uh what is what is your uh what is your son's name?
Your first name.
My son's name is Jack.
Jeff.
J E F F F A G K. Jack.
Jack.
Okay.
Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna send Jack a uh a signed copy of of the book.
That's awesome.
And so great.
I'm tempted to offer to send a signed copy to teacher, but that might be going a bit too far.
Go for it, Rush.
Well, uh I I tell you what, when when Mr. Snerdley is talking to you here off the air, would you give him her first name off the air?
I will.
So that was I don't want to put her name on the radio, don't want to make her a target here.
No.
And uh so we'll do that, and hopefully, I can't guarantee it.
We'll try to get it out this week.
That would be awesome.
Well, Angela, you you're you're you're part of the group of people making my day here today.
I can't thank you enough.
I'm glad you got trying to raise rush babies here in Western North Carolina.
Well, you're doing it.
You're you're you're doing it a great, great job, and I'm I'm flattered that you're there.
Uh thank you so much for all you do.
Do not hang up, Mr. Snerdley.
We'll get to you here in just a minute.
We'll be right back, folks.
Sit tight.
Speaking of he stuah, ladies and gentlemen, do you know what yesterday was?
There's no way you'll I mean, I have to tell you.
Yesterday was the 240th anniversary of the first tea party, where the columnists disguised as Indians, threw all of that tea into Boston Harbor.
I wonder if Rush Revere will ever visit that time and place.
Hmm.
I wonder if that would ever happen.
Rush Revere and Liberty back to the Boston Tea Party.
Hmm.
You know, Rush Revere was one of the Tea Party Indians.
You didn't know that, did you?
Interesting.
Back to the phones, Jerry Glendale, West Virginia.
Welcome to the EIB network, sir.
Delight to have you with us.
Hello.
And it's a delight to speak with you, Rush, and I would like to wish you, your Family and all your staff.
A very, very merry Christmas.
Thank you, sir, very much.
And the same to you.
Thank you.
Early in your uh first monologue, you talked about Leonardo DiCaprio speaking about how he despised capitalism and compared this new movie to uh Ruthless Thugs.
Uh raping the nation.
Yeah, the Wolf of Wall Street.
He said, this characterizes, this typifies what's wrong with America and why our economy went sound because of people like this guy that I played.
Well, the funny part about the whole thing with Leonardo is he doesn't realize that the uh sugar daddy of the left is the whole story of Wall Street.
The uh George Soros is the wolf.
Well, that's true as far as it goes.
And you're right that DiCaprio doesn't know.
And just put a period there.
Global warming, DiCaprio doesn't know.
Al Gore DiCaprio doesn't know.
Capitalism, DiCaprio doesn't know.
That doesn't matter about what you're talking about.
I mean, hell, folks.
Half of these people on Wall Street prop up the Democrat Party, if not more than half of them.
They're the true corporatists.
And by the way, corporatist is just a new word for fascist.
And all fascism is is the alignment of business and government.
And it basically happens when business decides to throw in with a government in a protection scheme.
You throw in with a sympathetic president who protects him and uses him and makes sure that the industry is not attacked or assaulted or regulated out of existence by government, but the competitors are.
And you've got corporatism, and that's what we've got here.
We've got full-fledged corporatism, and it's it's all these guys are Democrats, these CEOs.
This idea that that big money Wall Street is all Republicans.
It's not true.
And it hasn't been true for a long time.
DiCaprio doesn't know.
Period.
He doesn't know that.
There's a there's a willful uh ignorance among these kinds of people.
And I I don't mean to be harping on DiCaprio, but I mean if he's gonna enter the fray here, then he's gonna be commented on.
I was minding my own business.
And all of a sudden I hear DiCaprio criticizing capitalism because he played a movie role.
Big, okay, well, fine.
Gonna react to it.
Jerry, I appreciate Michael Long Island.
Great to have you with us on the EIB network.
Hi.
Um I'm really concerned now about my my hatred about the government, apparently.
The media, they needed to know why Al Qaeda attacked us, why they hated us.
There had to be a reason why.
But they have no interest in knowing why us conservators, Republicans, constitutional.
You know, that is a fascinating point.
By golly, by gosh, I love that point.
So Al Qaeda hits us on 9-11, and the left starts ringing their hands, and they have a seminar at the State Department.
Why do they hate us?
Oh my god, why they hate us.
Here comes a tea party, and anybody opposed to what's happening to Washington, it's called hate.
And it's supposed to be relegated to demonization because it's hate.
There's no interest to find out why.
They're hated.
So they really are bothered by being disliked by a bunch of terrorists.
But they're not bothered by being opposed by Americans.
That is a that is a that's that's a point.
You know, if I was a thief, I would have stolen that as my own.
And I may yet tomorrow.
Michael, and just pretend that I never heard it from you.
No, you never know.
Somebody's telling me I did make that point before Michael made it, that I just forgotten.
So it is mine.
I knew it.
We have skate out of here, folks.
That's it for another exciting and busy broadcast day.
And we'll be back in 21 hours.
Thank you ever so much for being with us.
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