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Jan. 17, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:52
January 17, 2014, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Did you happen to see the size of those flags behind Obama in National Security Agency speech?
Those flags are getting bigger and bigger and bigger every speech he makes.
And you know, that's what dictators do.
As our liberties and our freedoms shrink, the symbols get bigger and bigger and bigger.
It happens all over the third world.
You can see it.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
These dictator types and the pretend dictators, they just make the symbols bigger and bigger and bigger.
So transparent.
Hi, folks.
How are you?
You are listening to one of the top 10 most influential people in America, according to Forbes magazine, just out today.
I am in the top 10 most influential Americans.
Everybody on this list is from Hollywood.
Spielberg is number one.
Oprah is in there.
I guess, you have to say Oprah, I guess she does TV.
Is she still on TV?
Well, she's got that network, but is she on it?
All right, so we'll call Oprah TV.
And then Dr. Mehmet Oz is on there, and then I guess he's TV.
And Barbara Walters.
And the rest of it is Hollywood types.
And I, your host, in the top ten most influential people in America.
Greetings, my...
That's another reason why they hate me.
Have you...
If you look at this list and who's on it and where they're from, I'm the biggest crasher that they've ever seen.
And especially after 25 years of trying to change this, making a list the way these people look at, to me, it's a silly list.
They take this kind of stuff seriously and they look at it as a failed effort.
Anyway, it's Open Line Friday, folks, and that means that when we go to the phones, you get to talk about whatever you want.
It doesn't have to be the issues of the day.
It doesn't have to be what's in the news.
It doesn't have to be what everybody else is talking about.
It can be, but it can also be about whatever you want to talk about.
It doesn't have to be predicated on whether I'm interested in it or not, which is one of the rules that we have Monday through Thursday.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882 and the email address Elrushbo at EIBnet.com.
It's another busy broadcast day where if I wanted to, I'm in over half of the audio soundbites today.
I was discussed on Fox twice yesterday, once on the five with my assertion Obama's a dictator.
And then Megan Kelly picked up on my observation of just how mean Bruce Springsteen is being to Governor Christie in this whole bridge closure thing.
And she convened a debate about it, and they had a bunch of leftists on there.
And the leftists think I got no right to call anybody mean since that's what I'm known for being.
It's funny.
So we've got that coming up.
But I must, oh, the NSA speech that Obama gave today, I don't know if it's a favorite BS line, but it has to rank at the top.
Obama, in addressing whatever he was saying, by the way, it was Limbaugh Theorem on display.
He showed up today and said, I don't know what they're doing over there, but I'm going to get to the bottom of it, and I'm going to make sure that we don't spy on you as much.
I'm not sure what they've been doing, but I'm going to get to the bottom of it.
It was the Limbaugh Theorem on display, and he said throughout this evolution in surveillance technology, we benefited from both our Constitution and traditions of limited government.
Now, the reason there are joke fests about Obama being a dictator is because he's ignoring the Constitution, but yet here he is talking about his reverence for it.
And then, after speaking of his reverence for the Constitution, then he lauds our traditions of limited government, which he's also blowing to smithereens.
And that's it's this same thing that I mentioned yesterday: Obama showing up and talking about the tradition in America that if you work hard, you can make it in America.
That's always been the case, and that's what we continue to fight for today, which is absolute bunk.
It's becoming harder and harder and harder to work hard in America and have it pay off precisely because of what he's doing to the location of that hard work, i.e., the private sector.
So, it was, in fact, I have to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I, L. Rushboe, in the top 10 most influential Americans, in Forms magazine.
I'm losing track.
I'm trying to keep track, but I think I'm losing ground here.
Which scandal is Obama trying to distract us from now with this speech today on the NSA?
Because you know he doesn't think this is any big deal.
This is just an opportunity.
You know, a lot of young millennials are really worried about this.
And in the high-tech world, this is what really irritates them about Obama.
The rest of the stuff, they don't care.
But this, they just, these young tech bloggers that I read, they just can't believe that their guy would do this.
They just can't, that Bush, yeah.
And Republicans, yeah, but they just can't believe that Obama would be doing this.
They're really agitated by it.
Now, for me, it is clear that Obama is trying to use this as a means of changing the news narrative and distract us from all of the scandals.
And it's keeping track of the scandals that's becoming a bit of a challenge.
For example, is it the latest Benghazi information he wants us to forget?
Is it the abysmal Obamacare numbers?
And man, is that continuing to worsen?
They do not know how many people have actually paid.
They haven't the slightest idea.
They don't even know the number of people that have enrolled.
They can't tell you that.
The only thing that we apparently know with any kind of certainty is that four out of every five enrollees are getting subsidies.
But we don't know, at least they say they don't know how much money's been collected because they don't know how many people have actually paid.
In addition to not knowing how many people have signed up.
So you've got that scandal.
You've got Benghazi and Dianne Feinstein.
You know, you might think that Die-Fi, with that committee report, say, wait a minute, we knew about Benghazi the moment it was happening.
We knew that it wasn't the video, and we knew that it was Al-Qaeda.
You might think that Di-Fi is dumping on Hillary, and she's not.
She made a point.
She was dumping on the Department of State, not the Secretary of State.
She was pointing out flaws in the State Department, but not flaws in the Secretary of the State Department.
And she made that distinction.
Yeah, her name only came up once in all this.
Only one time.
In your world, it's a distinction without a difference.
In my world, it's a distinction without a difference.
In Diane Feinstein's world, it's a huge difference.
The State Department, Hillary got nothing to do with that.
She got nothing to do with what happened in Bengal.
She wasn't there.
Yeah, she was Secretary of State, but the fault lies with the people in the State Department who were there and the State Department people in Washington.
And they were talking.
Hillary wasn't involved.
She didn't know.
And I've seen a couple of news reports say that this has effectively killed Hillary, that the Die-Fi report.
A couple bloggers have said, well, this effectively ends Hillary's campaign.
I said, wait, what?
You can't be serious.
And then Die-Fi makes that important distinction.
What did you say?
I'm the only...
Oh.
Snerdly is saying to me that I'm downplaying the Forbes list.
Well, yeah, all these lists are silly.
I mean, look, how can you be honest?
Top 10 most influential list.
And I got nothing against this guy.
Believe me, I really Stan Lee, who writes cartoons, is on the list.
Okay?
Nothing against him.
Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Now, I don't watch teleport.
Maybe I'm missing.
Maybe they are influenced.
You know, I don't let my ego get lost in this stuff, Snerdley.
It is true to say, however, if you've got a list, Forbes did do the list.
And these people, they jockey to be on these lists.
They jockey to be on the richest list, and they jockey to be at the top.
Gates and Buffett actually lobby Forbes for the number one something.
When I grew up, when I was growing up, what I was always told was that it was the epitome of classlessness to talk about how much money you earned.
That's just the way I was raised.
And I'll tell you a little secret, folks.
When I first learned I was going to be on that top 100 Forbes financial list, I was really conflicted because of the way I've been raised.
Everybody in my view just don't talk about that.
You don't tell other people.
You don't brag.
You don't ask other people how much they adjust.
It's just something that you don't discuss.
Not if you have class, not if you have manners.
Well, but they called and wanted to know.
They had this number and they wanted me to confirm that they were right.
So that means I've got to.
So what I did was I called Teve Torbes, Which was the name that they gave him on Saturday Night Live.
I called Steve Forbes because he was the editor of the magazine.
And I said, Look, your reporter is calling me here and asking me if the number they have for me is right.
And I, because I liked Forbes, not the list, not the magazine, but I admired Steve.
And I knew Steve a little bit.
I'd been to dinner over at their magazine headquarters and so forth.
So I was literally seeking his advice, not as an editor of Forbes, which he was, but just, you know, a human being to human being, conservative to conservative.
And I asked him, what should I do here?
I mean, I'm not, you know, I don't want to diss your reporter, but I've been raised.
I think you should answer the question.
So his journalist hat was dominant in that conversation.
But I didn't.
I said, I'm sorry, I'm not going to confirm or deny it.
And I just, you know, you find out however you wish, and it's up to you whether you put me there.
I have never taken a step personally to be on that list or out of it or what have you.
Can't any of them.
They're going to write what they want to write.
So I've always looked at those lists as, you know, I know whether they're right or wrong.
So I now, this list is, by the way, it's published.
It's in Forbes, but the only paper that has referenced it so far is a UK Independent.
And if you read the text of the story, you will not see my name.
They only mention the top five in the story, but they've got pictures of everybody in the top ten.
And my picture comes up first.
People are going to think I'm number one because it says one of ten, and my picture comes up first.
That's a picture taken in Pittsburgh, Sideline Steelers.
I remember the picture.
It's a Getty picture.
But none mentioned the text of the story.
So it's Spielberg and an Oprah.
I don't have the list in front of me.
Spielberg, Oprah, Stanley is on it.
Dr. Oz, Barbara Walters, Ron Howard.
But it's movie people.
It's movie people.
I am the only one on the list, not in television or pictures of any.
Well, okay, here, this is the way to look at the list.
I think this is the right way to look.
If you look at that list and who's on it, it's people involved in pictures, television and movies.
I'm the only guy not involved in pictures.
So you can say that it is a list that the low information crowd goes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And somehow I'm on it.
That's crossover.
And I am the only person specifically, quote-unquote, politically oriented.
Now, the Hollywood people are all politically oriented, but in a disguised secondary way.
So, but still, I don't know how the criteria is.
I didn't read the story to find out what the criteria is.
But I just, I don't know.
I just, the fun part of it for me is that the people who take these things seriously are going to look at that, and they're just going to get ticked off like crazy.
Because they don't, they've done everything they can to make sure that I do not make lists like that.
Anyway, you think I've lost my place, but I haven't.
Snerdley wanted to get this list discussed.
So I was reacting to him.
But I'm telling you, Obama going out talking about this NSA scandal.
I guarantee you it is to distract people away from all these scandals.
You've got Obamacare.
You've got Benghazi.
What else?
The IRS and the Tea Party.
I mean, folks, it is incredible the number of scandals or the improprieties that are taking place from government down against and to the people.
It could be that it's disguised or an effort to disguise the economy in whole, which is also, I think you could actually call the economy one of Obama's biggest scandals of all.
We're into year six of this.
Even if Obama were trying to grow the economy, there's enough time gone by for an honest person to assess this is not working and change it.
And he's not done that.
And that's why I think the U.S. economy also ranks as an Obama scandal.
And we've got some audio soundbites about all this and what the president said, if you want to hear them.
I'm not crazy actually about hearing them again.
But it seems that Obama wants to give control over the NSA's phone data collection to a third party, but he doesn't know who.
Maybe a blue-ribbon panel will be appointed to figure out who is going to be in charge of vacuuming up all the phone data.
All right, folks, the Forbes list that I'm talking about is not the top 100 wealthiest celebrities list that you're thinking of.
I've had a bunch of people, wow, you moved ahead of Trump on the rich.
This is a new one.
This is the top 10 most influential celebrities list.
Not the top 100 or the top 40, the top 10.
And on it, I am called a personality.
The others are called celebrities.
It has nothing to do with money.
Zip Zero Nadi.
It's something to do with some outfit that ranks more than 6,000 people based on 46 attributes.
And that's how they get to the top 10 most influential.
And they don't spell any of that out, but it had nothing to do with money.
Yes, I know.
We're not going to let this go by today.
This is Open Line Friday, and it's also NFL Championship Game Friday.
And we're going to talk about these games in large way in honor to the late Ken Hutcherson, who passed away in December.
We always had him on the program to discuss the playoff games and the Super Bowl.
So we'll do that in his honor later today.
Plus, your phone calls all coming up.
Don't go away.
This is another piece of BS that Obama said today in his speech on the NSA.
Because he doesn't believe this.
In fact, he's thwarting this.
He said, our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power.
It depends upon the law to constrain those in power.
I'm telling you, this is Limbaugh Theorem back at it 100%.
He is the one who is lawless.
He is the one who is behaving outside the Constitution.
He's the one issuing executive orders.
He's the one changing Obamacare willy-nilly.
And he's the one in his party, by the way, which seeks to be judged on their good intentions and not their achievements.
We're not supposed to judge the welfare state on its failure.
We're not supposed to look at the 40-plus-year war on poverty, 50 now.
For example, the LBJ Great Society in large, at large, we're not supposed to look at 50 years of that and catalog the failure.
No, no, no, no, no.
We're supposed to count on the good intentions of the people responsible because they're good people.
At least they're trying.
These Republicans are just a bunch of meanies that don't care.
At least they're trying.
So, I mean, this is 180 degrees out of phase.
This is Obama describing exactly who he is not.
This is Obama praising behavior he never engages in.
Our system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power.
I'm sorry.
That is all the left has going for it.
That's all the left has to recommend it, is their good intentions.
They are abysmal failures.
They do not improve life.
They do not improve standards of living.
They do not improve the economy.
They don't fix roads or bridges or any of that.
Liberalism is destructive.
It tears things down.
It rips things apart all the while claiming to help ergo their good intentions.
Depends on the law to constrain those in power.
The law isn't constraining Obama, whatever he wants to do for the most part.
I mean, he hasn't engaged in everything he wants to do, but two weeks ago admitted it.
I've got a pen, I've got a phone.
And if Congress won't help me make this place more equal, I'm just going to do it on my own.
To hell with them.
I mean, it's literally BS.
It's no different than Obama praising the old work ethic, which he doesn't believe in either.
In fact, as I said yesterday, the work ethic is exactly one of those fundamental American traditions that he thinks has been bogus from the get-go.
And by the way, he could point to his own life as proof.
He has not worked hard.
Look where he's gotten.
And these people believe that there's a power structure that's been here ever since the founding, and they take care of themselves and they exploit everybody else.
And that's how they get rich.
They didn't work hard.
You didn't build that.
You didn't make that happen.
And that's what he really believes.
This is all so much.
That's why I'm not even going to play the sound bites him today.
I'm just, it's all BS.
Look at the size of those flags.
Do you see that?
Look at Fox.
Look at the size.
Every time Obama shows up, the flags, the symbols of freedom get bigger.
That's what dictators do.
Don't doubt me.
Well, our real freedoms and liberties shrink by the day.
Look at this.
This is a story from the Associated Press.
Just the headline: House passes bill requiring health care numbers.
What in the name of Sam Hill?
So we've got Obamacare.
And now we need a piece of legislation requiring the government to provide numbers.
House of Representatives on Thursday back to bill that would require the regime to report weekly on how many Americans have signed up for Obamacare as Republicans maintain an election year spotlight on the troubled law.
So see, Republicans' intentions, no, they're just suspicious.
The Republicans, they're just a bunch of mean.
They just want to tear things down.
Just want to criticize people.
They're never happy.
See how this works?
So you've got this monstrosity of a disaster.
We don't know how many people are signing up.
We don't know how many people actually have insurance.
We don't know how many people have paid.
We don't know what they've paid.
A number of people who think they've signed up can't prove it.
The insurance companies don't have any evidence they've signed up.
The only thing we know is that four out of five enrollees are getting subsidies.
And so the Republicans, we've got a 2,200-page piece of legislation that we need an addendum requiring the regime to provide numbers.
And then the AP looks at that and thinks it's the Republicans just electioneering in an election year.
And how are they doing that?
By keeping a spotlight on the regime's health care law.
See, the Republicans aren't supposed to.
We got healthcare, Obamacare, law of the land.
Republicans are supposed to go away, slink away back and cower in the corners.
And when they don't, the Republicans are mean and they're being partisan and they're just playing politics.
And all they're doing is just trying to keep a spotlight on health care.
And it may not be the best.
It may not be the best, but at least Obama's trying.
At least he's trying.
He's trying to get everybody health care.
He's trying to ensure the uninsured.
He's really trying.
He's really worried.
And these Republicans, why, look, they just want to point out to failures.
All there is a bunch of.
And that's how it is portrayed for low-information voters.
Honestly, folks, that's how low-information voters pick this stuff up.
That's how the Republican brand ends up being distorted.
Now, the vote in the House on this bill that required the regime to provide numbers, it passed 259 to 154.
33 Democrats voted with the Republicans in supporting the legislation.
So it makes it bipartisan.
So the Democrats, 33 of them, joined Republicans in wanting to see the numbers.
And the AP doesn't even mention that.
Nope.
This is just the Republicans maintaining an election year spotlight, trying to gain advantage, take advantage of people's pain and suffering.
Take advantage of the Democrats in Obama trying to help people.
Don't doubt me.
I'm telling you, this is how it gets portrayed, written about, talked about in news outlets at the low information crowd watches, and it's stuff like this.
That then becomes, man, those Republicans are just mean.
Man, they're just, all they do is argue.
All they do is, they never agree on anything.
It has never work with the Democrats.
They never do it.
This is exactly how that happens.
As I say, I've got Obama's sound bites in this thing.
I'm not going to play it, but I do want to play Michael Hayden.
Grab number 19.
It's on the Today Show Today.
And a co-host, Savannah Guthrie, spoke with former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden, a Pittsburgh guy, big Steelers fan.
And she asked him about Obama's plans for changes at the NSA.
She said, now we now know the broad outline, some of the changes the president's recommending today.
Do you think that this will significantly change the way the NSA does business?
Or is this largely window dressing in your mind?
It's a little bit more than window dressing with regard to who holds the data.
Frankly, no one will hold it as well in all dimensions of the word well than the National Security Agency.
So it's no surprise the president has putted that question to Congress.
With regard to querying the data, it appears the president will now demand that the NSA go to the FISA court before they ask the data a question.
Savannah, I was the director of NSA on September 11th.
It sends a message to the bureaucracy that we're trending back to the old ways of doing business.
I don't think anything is going to change.
Now, Hayden is saying that, okay, we're going to go back to pre-9-11 days where we were handcuffed.
I mean, that's what his point is.
I think this is all smoke and mirrors.
I don't think there's going to be fundamental change.
They're just sweeping up everything, texting and instant messages and phone calls.
They've got more data they can possibly extrapolate.
Here's the bottom line, folks.
They've been collecting this data for who knows how long.
Were they able to identify the Sonarov brothers in Boston?
No.
Have they been able to stop via the collection of this data any of the terrorist-oriented or criminal type behavior that they would be looking at?
Apparently not, because they didn't stop the Synarivs.
And look at what was known about the Senaravs after the event took place.
Look at how much we knew about them almost instantaneously.
So somebody had the data, but they may not have been able to put it together in time to stop it.
But the point, we're collecting all this data.
We're mining it.
They don't know what to do with it all.
It's got to be a monumental task, even for the most powerful supercomputers, because they still have to have algorithms or programs written to tell them how to sift through this stuff.
What to search for, what is the equivalent of raising a red flag.
But it doesn't appear that collecting all this data is stopping any terrorism, does it?
Well, it doesn't to me, unless there's something going on.
Now, they probably might not announce the things they've succeeded in stopping, but the terrorist activity at the Boston Marathon, that was pretty big, and they weren't able to stop it.
But I don't think they're going to stop collecting the data.
There's nobody that's going to really know whether they're stopping or not.
He's going to appoint a third party.
He doesn't even know who.
And he's all over the ballpark.
And when he was a candidate, he opposed everything that he's now doing with the NSA.
He'd go to the floor of the Senate or go on a campaign trail and he'd talk about how un-American this was.
And he's not going to stand by and watch these violations of privacy.
We became president, and they just continued and expanded.
So now, since there's a lot of attention paid to this, and Edward Snowden and all of us are going to get a big hour-long speech today, over 5,000 words, is intolerable.
I don't know how it happened.
I'm president, but I don't know how it happened.
I don't know anything.
I'm like you.
I don't see it or know about it till it's in the papers.
But I'm going to get to the bottom of it.
I'm going to print a third party that's going to be the recipient of all this data, and they're going to report to me, and blah, blah, blah.
And meanwhile, nothing is really fundamentally going to change.
My learned opinion.
It's out of control as it is.
This is a classic genie's out of the bottle circumstance, if there ever was one.
Oven line Friday.
We try to go to the phones in the first hour on Friday.
We never make it.
Well, not never, but seldom do we get to the calls first hour Monday through Thursday.
So Friday, we always try.
And we're going to pull it off here because we have Jeannie on the phone from Houston.
Hi, Jeannie.
I'm glad you called.
Hey, Rush.
What an honor to talk to you.
I'm so happy to be on the program.
Thank you very much.
I just wanted to call in after the call yesterday and let you know that I am a nurse and a doctor.
And I didn't become a nurse.
I mean, I didn't become a doctor by working as a nurse for 20 years.
And I wanted to shed a little light as to what that doctor's doing that they referred to yesterday that rams for an hour.
Let me set this up.
Sure.
It's probably 95% of people listening now heard that all yesterday, but there might be some people listening today that didn't hear this.
We had a guy call in the third hour of the program yesterday.
All your nose was bent out of shape at the unfairness in America and the inequality in America.
And he didn't, his basic point was that you've got all these nurses, and they're the ones doing all the work in the hospitals.
And doctors don't do diddly squat.
The doctors show up once a day.
They run around, play golf or whatever.
The nurses are doing everything.
And why don't, you know, the nurses ought to be the ones that are called doctors.
The nurses ought to be able to become doctors.
And nurses are doing all the work.
And the doctors aren't doing diddly squat.
And nurses aren't making what the doctor's making.
It really isn't fair.
And you want to know what I thought of it.
And so that led to paralegals getting, feeling like they're getting jipped.
And it became a discussion on how mean and unfair America is.
So now Jean from Houston, Jeannie is calling to weigh in on this.
You say, you're a doctor and a nurse.
You were a nurse first, but being the nurse did not lead you to becoming the MD.
No, there are two different ways to treat the patients.
The nurse is at the bedside, but as far as making patient care decisions, that's a little bit different.
So for instance, that doctor that maybe comes in in the nursing home for an hour a week, the rest of the time, you run your own practice, which is maybe 60 hours a week.
You have to see patients that are in the hospital or in the nursing home before or after your regular practice.
Your regular practice is running a small business.
Yeah, now see, this is, I made the point yesterday.
A lot of people do not see anything other than the end point of someone's success track.
So you see a doctor, and you see him once a day at the old folks' home, but you don't see what it took to get there.
And you don't see what he's doing the other hours of the day when he's not at the old folks' home.
And this is what Jeannie is trying to illustrate here.
Yes, so my undergraduate degree was a nurse.
In order for me to round for that one hour in the nursing home, I had to go back to school for eight more years.
I had to take out loans for $300,000.
Yeah, but isn't that unfair?
Because this guy's point was you already, you knew enough to be a doctor by doing a nurse, being a nurse all those hours.
That's what was unfair about it.
Well, Rush, no, because, you know, you can do something over and over again a thousand times, but as we know, that doesn't really necessarily increase your knowledge.
And at the end of the day, when somebody's sick, do they want to see a nurse or do they want to see a physician that's finished their training as a physician?
Well, it depends whether you're talking about a low information guy or you're talking about somebody else.
Well, I think most of your listeners would want to see a physician.
But there's a lot involved, and there is a lot of animosity, I think, between nurses and doctors.
But I did just want to inform your listeners that there's a lot more that goes on that they don't see that that doctor's doing.
And you've seen it from both sides.
Yes, sir.
You've been the nurse, and now you are a doctor.
I am.
You weren't promoted to doctor from nurse.
You had to go back to school.
That's okay.
See, to me, this makes perfect sense.
Total sense.
And I also, look at, I know, no.
Jeannie, thanks.
I got to take a break here, folks.
It's the clock.
All right, folks, I'll tell you what's going on out there.
Envy.
Envy and jealousy.
It's happening more and more.
And in social media, it's being said that's perfectly fine.
It's being excused.
Totally justifiable.
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