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Jan. 21, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:35
January 21, 2014, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Time Text
You gotta be kidding me.
You actually have somebody on a phone that thinks that.
All right.
Well, that ought to be lively.
Yeah, we'll get to it at some point.
We got other things to do before we get to the phones, but we're gonna get to the phones ill quickly.
Promise you.
Welcome back, folks.
Great to have you.
It's the EIB network and the Rush Limbaugh program, the most listened to and the most talked about, the most emulated and copied, but never equaled radio talk show in America.
The phone number, if you want to try to get through here is 800 28-2288 to the email address L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Well Brett Baer at Fox News tweeted that he's heard the same thing.
Wealthy Republican donors are starting to give up on Chris Christie for 2016.
F. Chuck Todd at NBC News has tweeted the same thing.
Some GOP donors think Christie's 2016 hopes are done.
Today Christie gave his inaugural address to commence his second term as governor of New Jersey.
And among the things he said, we must shun partisanship.
We must take action on behalf of the people.
We cannot fall victim to the attitude of Washington, D.C. The attitude that says, I am always right and you are always wrong.
The attitude that puts everyone into a box that they are not permitted to leave.
The attitude that puts political victories ahead of policy agreements.
The belief that compromise is a dirty word.
Oh, my God.
I did this.
Um...
you So apparently here we're trying to salvage Republican donors here with this kind of uh bipartisanship talk.
You know, uh people, it's it's not just Governor Christie.
There, there are a lot of uh rhinos and Republican establishment types and consultants who say that we can't have this attitude.
I'm always right and you're always wrong.
What if it's true?
What if we are right?
We supposed to forget it because it's not fair, or it's not right, or it's not kosher to be Are we supposed to let the people that are wrong win some now and then just to be fair about it?
Just so we can say we're getting along.
He said that attitude puts everyone into a box that are not permitted to leave.
What do you mean not permitted to leave?
People can leave whatever box they go into anytime they want.
The attitude that puts political victories ahead of policy agreements.
I defy anybody to separate political from policy.
There isn't one, for example, Obama policy that's not political.
And it's that that creates the argument.
And of course they think the same thing of us.
I just...
This this this talk emanates from the belief that people hate us because we are inflexible and we're not uh cooperative.
We don't compromise.
And so Governor Christie obviously still thinks that there is ground to be gained in speaking this way.
Now let me give you an example of how the Democrats are heeding Governor Christie's call for bipartisanship.
I have it right here.
Breaking news from ABC's New Jersey affiliate.
Ready for the headline?
New Jersey Democrats form joint panel to probe Christie scandals.
There you go.
There's your vaunted bipartisanship.
New Jersey Democrats form joint panel.
So you got a panel of one Democrat versus another Democrat, a bunch of Democrats on one side, a bunch of Democrats on the other.
So you got a joint panel of Democrats to probe the Christie scandal.
And that's their definition of bipartisan.
The breaking news story from the local ABC Affiliate is originally from the AP.
New Jersey Democrats formed joint panel to probe Christie scandal.
So the AP provided that line for the New Jersey ABC affiliate.
And from the article, it says New Jersey Democrats are merging legislative committees to investigate allegations that members of Republican Governor Christie's administration abuse their government power.
The committee will be made up of eight Democrats and four Republicans.
And there we've got our bipartisanship.
So we've got a Democrat-led panel looking into the Christie scandals, and that's their definition of bipartisanship.
And compromise and working together and uh all of that.
Eight Democrats and four Republicans.
And that is bipartisanship.
Permitted.
That's good bipartisanship.
So the Republicans, even if they're unified, can't stop anything here.
And this is here.
This kind of dovetails with what I was talking about in the first hour.
This next son by Governor Christie and his inaugural speech.
You see, as we saw in December regarding the DREAM Act, we can put the future of our state ahead of the partisans who would rather demonize than compromise.
As your governor, I will always be willing to listen, as long as that listening ends in decisive action for the people who are counting on us to do our job.
Now it's here again, I'm this some of you might think this is nitpicking, but this gets right to what I was talking about.
I, for one, am not waiting with baited breath for people in government to do their job every day.
I'm hoping that every day is a snow day and they don't show up.
We have enough law.
We don't need any new law.
And certainly not on the massive scale that we're getting it.
But but this presumes that people, and they do exist, folks, this is the problem.
This presumes that there are people waiting with bated breath to see what the next decree from the government from the state is.
Because it comes with the final authority.
And the state will tell you that you're illegal.
The state will tell you that you're a racist or an extremist or whatever.
whatever the law happens to be rooted in.
Partisans who would rather demonize than compromise.
How about partisans who would rather stand for individual freedom and liberty rather than compromise over how much of it we're going to lose.
And that I don't think that's an extreme position to take at all.
Government does not expand liberty.
Not here.
Government does not expand freedom.
Government chips away at it.
By definition.
You couple that with so many people thinking that whatever comes from the government is the final authority.
There's no questioning it.
And it's how you end up with so many uncurious, unquestioning, accepting, blind accepting people.
Who think that anybody who opposes whatever's coming out of government, some sort of ramble rouser and creating problems for everybody else.
Here's Gloria Borger this afternoon, this CNN special coverage of Governor Christie's inauguration.
After he finished, Jake Tamper spoke with the chief political analyst, Gloria Borger about Christie.
And Tamper said, Gloria, there was a uh there was a Pew poll out yesterday suggesting Governor Christie's unfavorable ratings among Democrats and independents have doubled.
That is poll numbers in general are taking a dip.
How much trouble, Gloria, do you Think Governor Christie's in in the long term.
If you look at these poll numbers that are coming out today, you can see where his problem is.
Those independent voters, you just put this up on the screen, 58% do not believe him.
And it's the governor who was talking about trust today.
And in a matchup against Hillary Clinton, I know this is early, Jay, very early, but what was impressive was that he had been kind of neck and neck with her, and this latest Quinnipiact poll shows that he is now lagging eight points behind her, and it's those independent voters that have deserted him at least for now.
Oh no, my ladies and gentlemen, there's absolutely horrible news for the GOP establishment because they are convinced that you can only win elections with uh the independence.
They ought to look at Romney.
Romney cleaned up with independence in 2012 and lost sizably.
But depending on where you look, we're going back and forth on the importance of independence anyway, depending on the story, depending on the day, they're either the most important group or they're not important anymore.
But for the media's purposes here, the independents remained a coin of the realm, and Governor Christie is losing them.
In uh this is Quinnipiac, and he's down eight points.
There was another poll last week he lost.
He was, it was, I think it was Gallup.
What if there were two polls that showed Christie leading Hillary by a couple of points?
And those two polls, Christie was the only Republican beating Hillary, and that's why the establishment was all in.
And then this Bridge Gate thing happened, and Christie had plummeted, he lost 13 points.
He was now 11 points behind Hillary in the same two polls.
And Gloria Borger is saying it's because the bottom has fallen out of the independence.
The independence, they just don't like it when you close their lanes on the bridge.
They just don't.
You start closing the independence bridge lanes, and they're gonna take it out on you.
Yeah, I have to admit, I was a little curious about something here.
We played the Gloria Borger sound, but she said that in their precious polling and the Quinnipiac polling that Governor Christie's losing independence.
Now he's not losing independence, folks.
In fact, most polls show that Governor Christie is holding steady with independence.
Who he's losing is.
Who do you think?
No, not he's losing Republicans.
January 2013, Christie's favorability with independence was 37%.
And here in January 2014, favorability with independence is identical.
37%.
This according to the Pew Research Center, USA Today poll, out today.
So yet he's down is if his approval numbers are down.
He's not down with independence.
He's not losing the independence.
Apparently, the independents don't care if they're if their lanes get closed.
From Fort Lee to the George Washington Bridge.
In fact, his disapproval rating with independence is up a little bit.
True, but the approval rating is the same.
But his disapproval with Republicans is up seven percent.
So that's that's probably the bulk, at least according to Pew in USA Today.
He's losing Republicans.
Why would that be?
Why would he be losing Republicans?
Establishment rhino-type Republicans in New Jersey.
Why wouldn't that be?
I guess they're wildebeests and they just don't want to run to help him.
By the way, speaking of polling data, before we go back to the phones here, the Independent Journal Review is reporting that this mayor in Toronto, Rob Ford.
The uh uh the guy that what would he the uh smoked crack one night at a party said he got drunk and he smoked crack and didn't know it.
And he hung in there.
They wanted to get rid of this guy, they tried to get rid of this guy, they made fun of this guy, they laughed at this guy, they were all over this guy to quit.
And his approval numbers are back up to 47% in Toronto.
And his approval numbers are higher than Obama's.
The smack the crack smoking mayor of Toronto's approval numbers are higher than Obama's.
And it says here that the reason why is his response to the December ice storm seems to have thawed his approval rating.
It seems the people of Toronto are very happy with the way the mayor dealt with the ice storm up there.
And so they didn't care that he was smoking crack while getting drunk one night.
The fact that he dealt with the ice storm and kept everything moving, great guy, as far as we're concerned.
Now, Obama's favorability in the investors business.com tip poll is down to 38%.
That's down five points since uh 43% November.
And 38.
That's he's nine points behind the crack smoking mayor of Toronto.
So I guess voters will reward crack smoking more than chum gang members.
Who knows?
All right, where are we starting?
Mary in Glenburn, Maine.
It's great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Greetings from the great state of Maine.
Thank you.
Great to have you here.
I promised to say hi to my husband Philip, who is hopefully still listening on this lunch break.
I have two points to talk about today, which back up what you said earlier about the difference between America and Europe.
Yeah.
The first was during my time working for Lufthansa German Airlines as a stewardess.
I was stationed in Frankfurt, but I had been visiting a friend of mine, Heidi in Austria.
As I got ready to leave for a flight one day, she looked at me and said, You're such a risk taker.
Now I don't consider myself a risk taker, but before I could say anything, she continued and said, It's in your nature as an American, part of the American spirit to be risk takers.
Your ancestors got on the boats and left Europe to face the unknown in America.
My ancestors stayed here.
They weren't willing to give up what they had here.
So I thought that is now, Mary, what were you doing that Heidi at Luftanja thought constituted a risk?
Just getting on the plane each day to go to work.
That for her was risk taking.
What did she do?
Oh, she was a nurse at the time.
So she thought it was a risk getting on an airplane every day.
Yes.
And that that was something distinctly American that she wouldn't have done.
In the American spirit.
Right.
And so then she equated that to ancient Europeans.
Interesting.
Now, the second point goes along with unnecessary regulations and laws.
It happened some years later when I was a young mom living over there.
My three-year-old daughter got injured on the playground, and her grandmother, Oma, had been pushing her on the swing.
She got down and actually got hit in the mouth by the wooden swing.
Her tooth was...
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Who who got hit in the mouth?
The grandmother?
My daughter.
Your daughter got hit the boat.
Okay.
But Oma was so adamant that I not take her to the emergency room to seek medical help because the law at the time over there was such that the grown-up uh watching the child would have been held accountable and prosecuted under the law.
Even if it was an accident, which it clearly.
You gotta be kidding.
So that a three a three-year-old gets hit in the mouth by a swing in the playground, and and your grandmother says, Don't don't take her to ER because I'm gonna get in trouble as negligent.
So I had to get her calm down and send her home, and of course I sought medical attention under the crappy medical care that they have over there, but my daughter's tooth was saved, and she had braces for a while, and you know, she's there she needed.
Did you indeed have to face questioning from the authorities and producer papers and all that kind of stuff?
No, I did not.
I I I knew the doctor quite well.
He knew our family and oh, okay.
But can you imagine the kind of fear that's instilled by unknown?
Oh, totally laws.
Oh, uh absolutely.
I don't mean to make light of that.
Absolutely totally.
Uh and and the the total unwillingness to challenge it, just to just just to acquiesce to it, take the path of least resistance, no matter what it is.
Yeah, there's a movie that I saw called Lives of Others, not the lives of others, lives of others, and it was about the Stasi.
In East Germany during the Cold War, and about the surveillance and all of the other tactics that the state used to spy on people and to keep them in line, and about how people were basically afraid to leave their apartments every day.
The only place they felt comfortable speaking to each other was to go to the bathroom.
They thought somehow the bathroom was safe, wasn't bugged or something.
Just a profound...
Uh experience.
Lives of others.
And we'll be back, folks.
Sit tight.
And we are back.
Grab audio soundbite number 27.
This is uh we're gonna close the loop here.
We had Gloria Borger after Governor Christie's speech, saying, Well, I don't know, Wolf, he's in big trouble out there.
Massive, massive defections among the independents.
Uh just really not good.
And we've heard now that uh the Democrats, in their own uh brand of bipartisanship, have impaneled a committee to investigate Christie's transgressions.
Eight Democrats, four Republicans.
So when Gloria Borger finished and reported all this, Wolf Blitzer, CNN decided to close the loop.
Now you might be what what are you wasting our time with Wolf Blitzer?
Because this is instructive.
I mean, keep in mind who Wolf Blitzer is, you know, where he works and his worldview, and this will tell you a lot.
I think it will help him.
Uh I think it was a powerful speech, and he delivered the proper tone.
It would have been a really amazing speech if he didn't have these clouds of these current scandals in New Jersey hovering over him that would have been a nice step in the direction, potentially toward a 2016 presidential run.
He's got a lot of problems right now, but I think on the whole, it was a very strong speech, a powerful speech that will help him.
Now uh so in in Wolf Blitzer's view, all that talk about not blaming Democrats and and then compromising and uh not telling people they're wrong and and working together and man, that's just that that that that is the order of the day.
And if if Governor Christian had this bridge thing hanging over his head, that'd be a great, great speech would be launching him to who knows what kind of heights.
And see, that's the point.
These are the kind of people that Governor Christie's gonna win over with a speech.
Liberal Democrat members of the media.
Is this what the Republican establishment wants?
Is Wolf Blitzer the key to the White House for the Republican Party?
I bet it is.
I will bet that you've got some people a Republican establishment thinking, maybe some of you, because I'll tell you what, I've gotten enough phone calls over the years from people who are only going to be convinced that we're turning the tables and winning if the media starts liking us, and that the media starts being fair in their reporting of us.
And if the media starts actually being behind us and supporting us and endorsing us.
And I bet there's some Republican establishment types.
I mean, that's what the whole thing is uh is about, really, in terms of uh amnesty and uh not really repealing Obamacare and gay marriage, and all we're gonna go out and get and so this is precisely, I think what the Republican establishment thinks they've got to do.
When they start winning over people like Wolf Blitzer, that's when they think they're on the right track.
And of course, on election day 2016, you got Hillary Clinton and Chris Christie.
Who do you think Wolf's gonna vote for?
That's right.
There's no question about it.
Here's Don in Portage, Michigan.
It's great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Oh, Rush, thanks for taking my call.
You bet, sir.
Uh the subject I want to talk about was uh the the preamble in the Constitution is we've got uh a situation where this starts right out that says that uh we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and they're endowed by their creator, and everything's based on that.
The value of the of the person, uh what what are those rules, the foundation for the rules of law, and uh public schools have taught in my time, which was fifty years ago in school, and uh even in our our daughters and their grandchildren's time that they would teach that there's an overwhelming tendency in the universe for things to come into order by themselves,
and therefore uh there's no value to life.
Uh uh some people may be more evolved than others.
They that would give them their value, and uh there's just no basis for this.
So it's actually the preamble to the declaration, but it uh read in a constitution, but you're right.
It's it's still a it's a uh it's a powerful statement.
I mean, this is this is one of the fundamental reasons why the United States became what it became.
It is this acknowledgement that we are all endowed by our creator, that would be God, with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, that that is how we are born, that that is where our freedom and liberty and human or humanity, I should say it comes from God, not from government.
It comes from God, not from law.
It was huge.
It was profound.
And that alone, I mean, you'll you'll hear Democrats cite that with supposed reverence, but that's a big threat to them.
And a lot of other people who want to they want as many people to believe as possible.
A there isn't a God, and B, if there is, he doesn't care about us.
The job's too big.
And really, our freedoms come from government and elected officials who care about us.
And that's who's really looking out for us.
You can't count on God for anything.
And uh, and then this whole notion that we're all born with certain inalienable rights are all created equal.
Well, they'll tell you right away that's flawed because some we're not equal, and then it's their job to make us equal.
So God screwed up, or the founders screwed up, or somebody screwed up, and that's what Obama's whole take now is.
His whole pitch is this level of inequality and unfairness out there, and it's his job to change that.
And it isn't his job.
It's not his right.
It's not his business.
And precisely because of what not, we're all different.
It's it's it's a it it's it's huge.
That leads right into any any explanation of American exceptionalism has to include the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.
And again, American exceptionalism does not mean superior or better.
It means why we the why we are the exception to the way most human beings have lived and have been uh governed.
Jerry and Tombaugh, Texas.
You're next.
Uh great to have you here, sir.
Hello.
Hi, it's uh it's a woman.
I'm G. E. R. I. Oh, I'm sorry, you're right.
Oh, that's okay.
Hi, Russ.
It's so nice to talk to you.
I would like to know what an independent is, what your explanation of an independent is.
I think it's someone who doesn't know what they believe and will go whichever way the wind blows.
I don't think that's what an independent is.
I I think that's what they want you to think an independent is, and I think that's what the media wants you to think an independent is.
An independent uh in the modern era is a better person than a partisan conservative.
An independent is open-minded.
An independent is not rigid, and is not an ideologue, it is not a bigot, is not a racist, and and an independent decides things issue by issue, person by person, is studied, is intelligent, is focused, is sensitive, is comp and what an independent really is either a Republican or Democrat afraid to say so.
Which means they don't know what they believe.
No, they know what they believe.
No, no, they know what they believe.
They're just afraid to say so.
They don't want controversy.
They don't want anybody, they don't want any belly aching or complaining to them once they tell people what they think.
And independent, plus they're very sophisticated.
They know that they know that the media has elevated them.
Look at what the media has been telling us for 30 years, Jerry, the independents are going to determine the outcome of every election.
How the independent Well, those independents know that.
I mean, they know that's what's so they run around there proudly to call themselves independents because they want people to think they that the election turns on them.
And so they'll show up at town halls and act like they don't have any opinion on anything.
And if that's open minded.
And sorry, if you don't have an opinion on anything, you are worthless in the political arena.
I mean, that's how I feel anyway.
I can't.
Exactly.
So you're sitting there and they go to these town hall meetings and they they act like uh they're open to whatever, and that they're studying things diligently.
And after all of this study and immersion in the issues and 30,000 hours of C-span and whatever, they come to their conclusion and they are right, because they are the precious independents.
They're alternately called moderates or independents, but I think in our highly charged political atmosphere of the day, the actual number of people who do not have a guiding ideological principle behind them is not anywhere near a majority of people.
Now they that's not to say that that everybody that has an opinion about something is right or wrong, but the idea that there are that many people running around who don't care uh or or who have not formed, I just refuse to accept that it's that large a number.
I I could never ever vote Democrat, ever, no matter what.
Thank you, Rush.
Well, uh we then you you obviously couldn't be an independent, right?
Because they'll vote they'll vote both ways, either way, on whatever basis they think is best after all of their study.
Now, in you know, you asked this question.
I could have gone about this an entirely different way.
I could have pretended that I'm a Republican, and I could have said to myself, okay, I've got this question.
What do I think of it?
I could have sat here and I could have lauded them, and I could have praised them to the heel, and I could have said they are the future of the country.
Getting to the independents, persuading them, convincing them that I'm right.
And I could have played to them, I could have sucked up to them, and people, boy, this rush guy, you know, he's really smart.
I mean, this rush guy, he's got an opportunity here, he's expanding his audience, and I didn't do that, did I?
I just fired both what I think about independence.
I think I really uh I don't mean it to be insulting, although I'm sure those of you who think you are independents are going to take it as being insulted.
But that's not the intention.
I just I um I'm just I'm just suspicious of people who are reluctant to proclaim themselves, issue by issue by issue, don't care what it is.
Obamacare, somebody says, oh, I don't know.
I'm still studying.
Studying what?
How can you how can you anybody still be open-minded about that?
Who is, by the way?
Remember now, independents are really informed.
I mean, they're more informed than the rest of us.
They really care.
They study that's all they do, by the way.
They don't have jobs, they're just independents.
I mean, they're just they're they're they're the I mean, they're the wheel.
They're the spoke that everything that makes our political system go.
And then what they really are is closet partisans.
And and I tell you, the the the I think one of the, as I've said before, one of the biggest, most successful political tricks in the world that the Democrats have succeeded in running against the Republicans, is convincing them that you do not win any election, particularly a presidential election, unless you win a majority of independents.
What does that do?
The independents, by definition, are 20% of the voting population, because this is the theory.
40% are partisan Democrat, 40% are partisan Republican, and nothing you can do is going to change it.
They're going to vote.
And so Republican consultants tell their candidates, I'm the guy that can get you a majority, that 20%.
Because the independents are always the undecided, by the way.
And the undecided, they're a cut above, too.
Oh, yet the undecided, they're much more open-minded.
They're much less partisan, and they're much more open to expansive ideas rather than these close-minded partisans of both sides.
And so the end result is, folks, that Republican consultants end up crafting campaigns aimed at 20% of the voting population.
Because there's a big assumption that they're going to get their base.
They're going to get all 40% of their base.
Well, you go back and look at 2012, Romney versus Obama.
And you go look and find how many independents, what Romney's margin of victory was with independents.
It was profound.
It was huge.
Off the top of my head, I think Romney won independence by 13 points, and he lost big, right?
Now, how did that happen?
Because the Republican consultants tell their candidates you've got to win the independence.
And how do you win the independence?
Talk just like Governor Christie did speech today.
That's how you get the independence.
Now one thing, there is a relatively new phenomenon going on regarding independence, and I was remiss in not pointing...
What happened to the secondhand smoke guy?
Ah, geez, it.
Oh, that was going to be fun.
The second hand smoke guy hung up.
Well, there was some guy on the phone that was going to complain to me.
Some I guess he wanted to argue with me about, I suppose he said secondhand smoke doesn't kill.
And he was of the belief that it does.
And I was so looking forward to that.
And the guy vominosed.
Anyway, there are a lot of independents today.
I don't know how many, but there are a lot of best way to put this, a lot of ticked-off Republicans who've left the party and are now registering as independents.
And and they are just they're Republicans, they're just ticked off at the establishment.
So they're not registering.
This is their way of registering disagreement and protest.
They have no desire to be identified with the current Republican established.
So they're re-registering as independents.
Okay, Rusty in Waterford, Michigan.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello, how are you doing today?
Megados from a lot of people.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
Um first I want to say I I uh picked up your your book after Thanksgiving, and uh I'm a big Vince Flynn uh fan, and I absolutely love the book.
I thought it was uh very entertaining read.
I've got uh my kids trying to reading it, and uh I'm just very impressed that you were able to pull that together.
It's uh thank you.
Thank you for wonderful talk about risk takers.
It just occurred to me when I was listening to that Wolf Blitzer uh sound bite that you played a few minutes ago.
Um I I've listened to your show a long time.
I've never been an independent, I've always made up my mind.
I I think I came out of my the birth canal as a conservative, so I don't understand the independent mentality, and I'm having a hard time understanding the liberal mentality now because of that quote.
I've always thought that the liberal mindset was completely devious.
That you know they're they're they're smart as enough, that's why they're able to win.
But that Wolf Blitzer quote got me thinking.
Are they do they think they're being sincere and open-minded and bipartisan?
So that's a good question.
What he's asking me is, did Wolf Blitzer really mean what he said about Christie's speech?
Be it really great?
Or is he just trying to deceive everybody?
That's a great question, but I don't have time to answer it right now.
I'll do that in a monologue segment the next hour.
Now the short answer to the question is, yeah, Wolf Blitzer was being honest in his assessment of the Christie speech.
But what that means is what I shall interpret for you.
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