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Jan. 16, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:16
January 16, 2014, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24 7 Podcast.
And here we are already at Thursday.
Can you believe it, folks?
Can you believe it?
Man, it's just zipping right by.
How are you, my good friends?
Great to have you here.
It's Rush Lindbaugh.
It is the Excellence and Broadcasting Network.
It is the most listened to radio talk show in the country.
And continues to be the most talked about radio talk show in the country.
It's a delight to have you here.
The telephone number, if you want to be on the program is the 80082-2882 in the email address, El Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Did you know, folks, that if you work hard, you can get ahead.
Did you know that?
I vaguely remember hearing some nutcases say that, but I didn't believe it.
But yeah, I just was watching the president.
There's a there's a thing going on at the White House uh called the College Costs Summit.
And uh President Obama's there along with the First Lady Muchell.
Do you by the way?
Saturday night at the White House, Big Gala, 50th birthday party for Mushell.
Guests, I've never heard of this at this kind of thing.
Guests are being told to eat dinner before arriving.
Because this is a party not paid for by the taxpayers.
The Obamas are springing for this, and they're not serving any food.
They're not spending their own money.
It's a state dinner, or if it's something official, they can go hog wild and spend everybody else's money and throw a big bash.
But there's no way, this is in the this is in the New York Daily News.
There is no way that they can fudge this.
It's our birthday present.
Nothing state official about it.
And as such, they have to pay for it personally, and they've sent out invitations.
They made no bones about it.
Eat before you show up.
Well, I think alcohol probably have some e-cigarettes uh uh uh rolling around.
Who knows what they're gonna have.
But but the but whoever heard of this?
Eat before you cut 50th birthday party, first lady, don't expect any food when you show up here because we're tight wads.
Since we have to pay for this ourselves, you don't get squat, is essentially what that means.
Anyway, that's just a brief divorce.
Well, I'm not gonna comment on uh Michelle did speak earlier, and in fact, we've got a sound.
You want to hear what she says.
She's at the summit, the college costs uh summit.
Now, before I play the soundbite, do you know where Michelle Obama is from?
She's from Chicago.
Her parents upper middle class.
Her father was in the transit authority, some such thing.
I mean, I they they were not hurting in the uh Michelle Robinson household.
They were far from hurting.
Uh Michelle's brother is a big-time college basketball coach.
She ended up with a $350,000 a year no show job at a hospital.
But listen to her.
Now, again, this is a summit.
This is this is uh college costs summit.
And Obama did say, he said it, I heard him say it.
He said, if you work hard, you can get ahead in this country.
That that's been the promise from the first days of this country.
If you work hard, you can get ahead.
I've heard him say that a lot, actually.
He said that I don't know multiple times every year of his administration.
Whether he's been talking about the economy or now college costs, he also said that we do not strive for equal outcomes.
We strive for equal opportunity.
And he said that the uh the only way to become anything in this college, the real only way is to get a degree.
Now the purpose of the summit is that college costs, tuition costs, are out of control.
And so, as usual, there's a summit between Obama and Michelle and some college presidents, and probably Thomas Lupe Friedman of the New York Times, and they're having a summit.
And the way it works with these people, they will have their summit today.
They will gather around and talk about the problem, and they will praise each other for the sensitivity and the compassion and the understanding they have.
And then the summit will end, and they will consider the problem dealt with.
Since they spoke about it, it will have been addressed.
And that pretty much sums up how Obama has tackled everything.
That is spiraling out of control, such as the economy.
How many job summits have there been?
How many economic summits have there been?
How many economic plans?
How many programs, pieces of legislation, like the stimulus?
We're into the sixth year.
And the president is talking about this as though he's not even in office yet.
We have an economy spiraling downward into near invisibility.
And the president is telling people that if you work hard, you can get ahead.
That is his, and the fact is, that's not the case as much as it used to be.
That's one of the reasons why 92 million Americans are not working.
They haven't found work, and B, the work they have found has not been a root to anything.
Because the quality of work is declining, because the economy is in the tank.
And because of Obamacare, hours are being reduced, so that new jobs, the vast majority, are part-time.
Which is not how you build a career.
Which is not how you get ahead.
If you're only going to be paid to work 29 hours a week, where is the working hard in that?
But here's what Michelle said.
She's from Chicago.
She has come from an affluent...
Her father worked for the Chicago Water Department.
Her father had a patronage job for Mayor Daly.
Her father was a precinct captain for Mayor Daley.
They were not hurting.
There was no economic strife in the Michelle Robinson house.
Yes.
And here she is talking about how out of out of place that she felt.
She was talking about the struggle and the frustration of being a minority, a first generation college student, she talked about herself.
What is that?
What is a what is a first generation?
Is that just a okay?
That's what that is.
You're the first kid in your family to go to college.
That's what first generation.
Right, the first generation, you may be not necessarily the first person, but the first generation of family, like her brother and her, and she was the first.
Or her brother were the first of their families generations to go to college.
Right.
So she was a she was a first generation college student, struggling and frustrated at Princeton.
And is what she said about it.
I was a little overwhelmed and a little isolated.
But then I had an opportunity to participate in a three-week on-campus orientation program that helped me get a feel for the rhythm Of college life.
And once school started, I discovered the campus cultural center, the third world center, where I found students and staff who came from families and communities that were similar to my own.
Third world center.
That's where she found comfort from the struggle and the frustration.
The third world center.
Her father worked for the Chicago Water Department.
They're from Chicago, not Kenya.
Be back after this, folks.
No go.
By the way, folks, didn't the New York Times, yes, they did.
Because I shared it with you.
January 4th, the New York Times had a piece about how working hard and climbing the success ladder can make you sick.
Remember that?
We heralded that story.
We talked about it quite a bit here, with the usual degree of incredulity.
I mean, it was obviously a story written to accommodate the horrible economy that we've got in this country.
Nobody can find meaningful work.
There aren't any careers to be had except for the I mean, there's always going to be entrepreneurs.
There's always going to be a percentage of population that's going to triumph no matter what.
And that's always been the case.
But having an economic life, uh, an economy that allows for upward mobility for the vast majority of members of the middle class has always been part of the capitalist orientation of this country, and that's what's being destroyed.
Entrepreneurs and people that overcome the uniquely talented, they're always going to be there.
And they're always going to triumph no matter what obstacles.
They're not the problem.
And even Obama policies uh, while they are damaged by them, these are people that creatively find ways around them.
Uh but the upward mobility of the middle class has always been one of the things that has set this country apart.
That's what's gone.
I mean, Obama on Tuesday, when he was out, what was he?
He was talking about what was it on Tuesday?
It was talking about uh.
Oh, when he said that he would he would uh start using executive orders if he had to to make things equal.
There's still too much inequality in this country, and he's not gonna wait for Congress anymore.
So he said he got a phone, and that means he can call his community organizer buddies at Acorn and the like and start raising hell.
And he's got a pen, meaning he can sign executive orders, a hell of Congress and the Constitution.
And he said then, if you work hard, you get a hit.
That's been the American promise.
The American dream.
You work hard, you get he just mouthed that off.
That's part of the illusion of Barack Obama trying to make people think that he is a traditional American.
And he's not.
He's a transformational American.
He doesn't like American tradition.
He doesn't believe if you can work hard.
That's his problem.
That's Barack Obama and the left are are uh a group of people that think that the game is rigged because of capitalism, the rich have all the money, and they're never gonna share it, and no matter how hard you work, you don't get anywhere except the shaft.
That's what he really believes.
But he knows that most Americans do not want a country led by somebody who thinks like that.
Most Americans instinctively think their president holds the same values they do.
That is what's so difficult about educating people about Obama and and and other leftists like him, is that most people assume that presidents have the same value structure that they do.
And this one doesn't.
This one doesn't believe that working hard will get you there because he thinks the game's rigged.
He think it's unfair, it's immoral, it's unjust, and the richer in charge of everything.
And he wants to be one of the rich someday.
And in socialism, that's how the rich get rich, but get powerful first.
Don't work hard, just get powerful.
Don't work hard, don't study a lot, don't spend a lot of time on things, just get power, and that allows you to take money.
And that's how socialists get rich off Of power, not hard work.
Obama does not believe that.
I'm telling you.
That's why he mouths it all the time.
He thinks that's what you want to hear.
And as long as you think your president believes in that standard, American value, hard work is the ticket.
Hard work is how you get where you as long as you think that's what he believes, you're cool with whatever he does.
If you knew that he's just mouthing that, he's just uttering the syllables, and he does utter the syllables.
When he talks about this, it's it's exactly the same word for word every time he talks about it.
If you search your memory banks on this, you'll know I'm right.
You've heard him talk about this.
So one of his ways here of transforming is getting rid of this illusion.
Hard work isn't how you get anywhere.
That's a big myth that the white European rich power structure has made people believe, but it isn't true.
Most people get the shaft.
Most people get screwed.
So we are here specifically to equalize outcomes.
That's exactly what he wants to do, and that's what the purpose of the redistribution of wealth is all about.
So anyway, in this circumstance, we've got a declining economy, and look at this Gallup, more Americans are worse off financially than a year ago.
And that has been true every year in this poll.
Every year.
And the number is increasing.
More Americans worse off financially than a year ago.
This year the number's 42%.
That's stunning.
But it's been the day, it's been the it's been the result every year.
The numbers changed, but more Americans every year, more and more Americans are worse off financially.
So the New York Times on January 4th, in a bid to help Obama runs a story, runs a column.
You know what?
Hard work, this intense success track can make you sick, can lead to all kinds of stress and injury and illness, psychosomatic disorders.
It's really not all it's cracked up to be.
And a piece like that is meant to cushion the blow of the reality that our economy stinks.
Well, it's designed to get people.
You know what?
Okay, so I'm not succeeding, but that may be good.
You know what?
That may be good because I read the other day that success equals getting sick.
I don't want to get sick.
That's the purpose of a story like that.
It's like Arod.
Have you heard of A-Rod's latest?
A Rod opened a gym in Mexico City, the physical fitness gym.
And he spoke for about a minute, and he said, you know what?
He didn't use the word suspension, but he he implied that not playing next year is actually going to be a good thing.
Yeah.
You know what?
I've been doing this for 20 years.
I haven't had a summer off, I haven't had a break.
This is really going to be timed well.
This is exactly what the doctor ordered.
Really, is that why you've spent more money than you have on lawyers trying to defeat this suspension.
So it's a frustrating thing to me to hear this man who doesn't believe it utter these syllables.
You work hard, you get a he doesn't believe it.
In fact, not believing that forms one of the pillars of his foundation.
The fact that that isn't possible in his view, that it's one of the biggest lies capitalism has ever put forth.
It's one of the biggest lies.
People in power have used to subdue the population.
This myth that if you work hard, you can get ahead.
In Obama's world, that is nothing more than exploitation.
You go out and tell People work hard, really just bust your butt, and you'll get ahead.
And that's nothing more than a trick employed by the rich to get cheap labor.
This is how they look at it, folks.
Please do not doubt me.
In Obama's world, everybody in capitalism, everybody's a victim.
In Obama's world, everybody's stupid.
Everybody's getting played every day by the rich, by the successful, by the powerful.
And now here's Michelle Obama from Chicago, first generation college student, goes to Princeton.
They got a great affirmative action program there.
I mean, and she felt so out of place.
And she didn't get into the rhythm of college until she found the third world center.
Her thesis, by the way, was Princeton educated blacks and the black community.
And how Princeton made it miserable for black people.
You know what?
Some of the things the left really worried about in America right now.
I kid you not, we had a little fun talking about the French president, Francois Holland, who is uh in the in the middle of a love triangle.
The mother of his children lives with him.
No, doesn't live with.
He's living with his mistress.
And the French president is beginning to ditch liberal economic policies.
This is a guy kind of like de Blasio.
He came into office and he was singing all these wonderful stories about all the great socialism he was going to do.
And he was going to soak it to the rich, and he was going to finally turn France into this great socialist utopia it was always meant to be.
And since his election, about all he's done is tax increases.
That's the extent of it.
He's raised taxes as a means fixing France's finances.
But the French economy isn't growing.
It isn't working.
The tax increases on the rich aren't making the middle class richer, and they aren't ramping up the French economy.
And so the French president, Francois Hollande, is beginning to ditch his liberal economic policies.
And the left in this country is upset about that, and they're upset about his love triangle.
Well, And I've got it coming up in the audio summit.
You'll hear it.
They are.
Yeah, because they say it's giving socialism a bad name.
Or it could, it could give socialism a bad name.
I kid you not, you will hear the sound.
I think, let me check real quick.
Now, I'll get to it in a minute.
It's too much to go through here.
But I think they go ask Sally Quinn about it as the official Washington hostess.
I know I've got a Sally Quinn soundbite.
I think that's what it's about.
If not, find out soon enough.
In um, in addition to that, was reading a blog today.
You know, the uh the fact that North Carolina Senator Kay Hagen was nowhere to be found when Obama went to North Carolina.
That that was that's the kind of thing that you might not get moved by it, but in in the in the inner, the deepest, darkest recesses of the liberal Democrat mind.
That kind of thing is one of the greatest indicators of presidential trouble that you can find when a Democrat senator up for re-election refuses a ride on Air Force One, refuses the joint exit down the stairs from Air Force One with the president, and then does not show up at the president's town hall, whatever it was.
Yeah, $700 million.
She didn't want to be anywhere near it.
And uh this is uh the kind of thing that that the deep bowels of the Democrat Party incident, this is not good.
Polling data is one thing, but that's real world.
And when uh one of our rising stars, Senator Retz doesn't want to show up.
And then, in addition to that, I suppose they're reading his blog, a Democrat Super PAC is going to be running ads against Obamacare.
And they are highlighting a Democrat woman from Arizona, a Congresswoman named Ann Kirkpatrick.
They're highlighting her criticism early on of Obamacare as a means of giving her credibility.
So Democrat Pack is prepared to start running ads against Obamacare.
And then I don't know how this, yes, I do know how this is possible.
Washington Free Beacon.
Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services.
Okay.
Gary Cohen, an official there, admitted to Representative Greg Harper, Republican Mississippi.
No one knows how many people have actually paid for Obamacare coverage.
This was said during a congressional hearing on Obamacare.
Now let me repeat this.
Gary Cohen, who is an official at the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, And Admitted to Republican Congressman Greg Harper, Republican Mississippi.
No one knows how many people have actually paid for Obamacare coverage.
Nobody knows.
You say, how's this even possible?
Well, who did the website?
In three years, they couldn't even get it up and running.
And by the way, there's another story today by another security firm advising people don't go anywhere near healthcare.gov if you value your privacy.
Because there isn't any.
There is no protection.
What an absolute so you have a Democrat senator refusing.
She had to get her hair done instead to appear with Obama when he went to her state.
You got a Democrat pack running anti-Obamacare ads.
And now a guy from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Service, I have no idea how many people have actually paid for Obamacare coverage.
Now you know by now that Obamacare was to be paid for early on by young people making a mad dash to sign up in a great patriotic fervor.
Yeah, that's what the regime thought.
That's what all these loony tunes that did such patriotism.
These young people eager to serve their country, eager for public service, eager to help their fellow men.
We're going to just make a mad dash to the nearest website and sign up for health care and pay whatever it costs.
And that was going to define their good patriot.
Now they don't know the number of enrollees.
They don't know who's signed up and who hasn't.
They don't know who's got insurance and who doesn't.
And they don't know who's paid for it.
I mean, this is...
And somewhere in the stack today, I have a story.
Some blogger is convinced that the Republicans are not serious, even now, about getting rid of this.
That will surface as the program unfolds.
And before we go to the phones here, one more thing.
The drive-by media think they have done it.
They have destroyed Christie.
Now, you may be seeing polling data that shows in New Jersey, Christie's more popular right now than he was before Bridgegate.
Not so fast, folks.
F. Chuck Todd.
Here, grab the sound bite.
Grab number four.
F. Chuck Todd on the Today Show today.
A co-host of Anna Guthrie.
Said, hey, Chuck, I want to look at the matchup.
This is where you see the most profound impact when you look at how Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie match up a month ago versus today.
What do we have, Chuck?
A month ago, it was basically a dead even race.
And that was his best asset.
The idea that he's the one Republican that can stop the big front runner on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton.
Now it's a 13-point leafer.
all of a sudden Chris Christie is polling no better than any other generic Republican candidate.
And because he already had problems with conservatives, if he doesn't have electability on his side, this is how this bridge mess has had a real impact on history.
And they've done it.
In their minds, they've done it.
This was the objective to hell with these polls that show Christie more popular in New Jersey, or maybe even more popular all over the country.
That doesn't matter.
The reason they went after Christie is because he was leading Hillary by two points, so it's statistical tie, margin of error, in two different polls.
He was leading Hillary in a presumptive presidential race.
And after a week, maybe ten days of the drive-bys, relentlessly hammering Christie on Bridgegate.
They think they've done it now.
They've taken him from a dead heat to down 13 versus Hillary.
They think they've done it, folks.
They think they have destroyed the only Republican who had even a slight chance of defeating Hillary.
That's what that sound bite means.
F. Chuck could barely contain his happiness there, his joy.
But let's continue, because Savannah Guthrie said, look, Time magazine's putting its new issue out this morning, and the cover, can anyone stop Hillary?
See, they think they've done it, folks.
Time magazines cover, can anyone stop Hillary?
And then she says, F. Chuck, what do you think of the Benghazi report, the Benghazi issue in general?
What it does to her potential candidacy.
We know what Republicans want it to do.
They want Benghazi to do to Hillary Clinton, what this bridge mess is doing to Chris Christie right now.
They want to have Benghazi undermine what was a fairly good four-year term for her as Secretary of State.
When you look at this cover and you ask that question and you say, it's the same thing that happened eight years ago.
Can anyone stop her?
Yes, her.
It's the Clintons.
It's them.
It is not necessarily any candidate, anything.
It's how they handle issues like this.
It's how they handle Benghazi.
If she ever looks like she's not being forthcoming or truthful, then all of a sudden all of her old problems show up.
So see, uh Benghazi's not going to hurt her.
Uh, because she's old.
What difference does it make now?
She's been around for so long, people accept that the Clintons are liars, and all they do now is just examine how well are they lying.
And if they're lying okay, we're all for them.
But if their lies are a little shaky and embarrass us, then they might have problems.
Well, that's what that means.
They uh they want to have Benghazi undermine uh what was fairly good four-term for her.
Now, when you look at this cover and you ask that question, and you say, it's the same thing that happened eight years ago.
Can anyone stop her?
Yeah, it's the Clintons.
It's not necessarily any candidate, anything.
It's how they handle issues like this, meaning how well do they lie?
And if they keep lying like we know the Clintons can lie, then nobody can stop her.
So to them, it's not that the Clintons are incompetent or do dangerous bad things or end up involved in policy to get Americans killed.
No, no, no, that has nothing to do with it.
How do they handle the aftermath of that?
They handle it well, they lie well, like Hillary said.
What difference is it making now?
Then there's no stopping her.
But if they look a little shaky when they're lying, if uh if they don't end up being as good as they used to be when they lied, then that's when they will lose.
That's what they believe.
So F. Chuck Todd basically admitting we know the Clintons lie to you, and we know that they lie to us, but we love them because they are us, just like Obama's us.
We went to the same schools, we're the same age.
Uh, and we just marvel.
You know, they made it.
They just the best.
And we love them.
And if they keep doing things and make us love them, then nothing stopping them.
And that's how it is, folks.
Back after this.
I know what you're saying.
You you heard F. Chuck Tut say, what do you four year term for Hillary, a good four-year term?
And you're sitting there, and you're saying, good four year term, Egypt, Arab Spring, the Russian reset, the loss of much of Central and South America to communism, and you're thinking they say she's had a good four-year term.
Folks, I'm trying.
Look, that is not how Hillary or or her husband, but let's talk Hillary.
That's not how she's judged.
The media it how to put this.
It's not hard.
I don't I don't mean it's hard to understand.
That's a challenge for me to explain it.
Nothing's real.
It's nothing is about substance with these people.
In judging Hillary, it's not whether she did a good job as Secretary of State.
It's how does she look when it's all over?
Is her reputation intact?
Does it can we make the case that she did a good job?
Is it can we credibly say that?
All that matters is the spin.
Will the spin have credibility?
I guess is what I'm saying.
That's how they judge the Clintons.
Will the way we spin it to make them look good work?
And if it'll work, then it's a good four-year term.
If they don't think they can credibly spin incompetence into a good four-year term, then they'll say she's in trouble.
And what F. Chuck Todd was telling you was I don't care what you think of what happened in those four years, we can make them look good.
Ergo, she had a successful four-year term.
But wait, four Americans die doesn't matter.
If nobody's worried about that, and if nobody's gonna hold her responsible, then it's no big deal.
It's all about media.
It's all about spin.
It's all about buzz.
It's all about PR.
It isn't about reality.
And one of the things that makes that work is the low information voter is totally informed by PR and buzz and spin.
That's what they believe to be true.
The low information voter will hear four Americans died in Benghazi.
But then if the media is not upset about it, and there's not a whole lot of hearings, and if there isn't any must not be a big deal.
This country, if anything, is is prisoner now to crisis management PR and spin and buzz.
And that's the true test of media power.
And that's all F. Chuck Todd was saying.
Good four-year term is defined by we can spin it, that she was great Secretary of State, and nobody's laughing at us.
Well, except us, but we don't count as far as they're concerned.
And I think if the same thing they look at Obama.
Okay, the economy's in a tank for five years.
But he's out there saying if you really work hard, you can get ahead.
That's what we want to restore.
Well, that's easy to spin.
I mean, that everybody believes that, right?
If the president believes that, then eventually things are going to get fixed.
Everything's fine.
Just gonna take a little longer.
That that's that bothers me more than media bias.
I mean, the media biases is it is what it is, and it's been that way forever.
What bothers me is I'm mayor of Rioville, and the media, which is supposed to be the newest of the day, the media is responsible for creating every day an artificial reality that is indeed artificial, and yet it's rooted, this artificiality is what is real to the low information voter.
And that's the real dangerous thing to me, is that people who think they know things, not only are they dead wrong, they don't know they're being lied to, the things they know are not right, but you'll never convince them of that.
You know, I meant to take a call in these last two segments, but gee, folks, I've been even impressing myself here.
That's why I didn't stop.
We had a woman on hold who wanted to ask me about my point that entrepreneurs, no matter what the economic circumstances, some entrepreneurs that are always going to triumph, and she had a question for me about that.
She hung up.
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