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Jan. 24, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:14
January 24, 2014, Friday, Hour #2
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Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
I'm Rush Limboy, and I'm having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have because I am doing what I was born to do.
Great to have you with us, folks.
It's Friday.
Let's hit it.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
And I promise, always try to get the phone calls on open line Friday in the first hour, and I blew that.
So I'm going to make up for it by getting the phone calls in the monologue segment of this hour.
That's how important you are to me.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282882.
It's a big career risk.
Nobody else in modern media does this.
Turning over the content of a program.
I take it back.
CNN does it every day.
They turn over the content at a whole network to rank amateurs.
What am I saying?
Well, it used to be a career risk that nobody else took.
You see what happens when they do it.
I got an email during the break.
And I've got our first call, somewhat related to this.
But I got an email.
Are you against the government building roads?
How else do you think it's going to happen?
Well, uh there's certain things to me that are self-evident that are common sense, but maybe they're not to others.
So let me spell it out.
I'm not against a government building roads.
That is a legitimate government function.
But I am very much against the government claiming that they're building the road is the reason somebody on the road is successful.
I'm deeply resentful.
I don't care where you find it in life of people trying to claim credit for the achievements of others.
That really rubs me raw.
But as far as legitimate government function, building screws, building building roads, bridges.
Perfectly acceptable and fine government function.
But see, I don't hear I don't hear Chuck Schumer talking ever about individualism, freedom, liberty, free enterprise, constitution.
When Chuck Schumer starts on his big government defense rant, it's at the expense of everything else.
Government must be primary, and it must be large at the expense of individualism, liberty, free enterprise, and especially the Constitution.
Now, redistributing wealth, that is not a legitimate government function.
Nationalizing industries and taking them over, that's for people like Hugo Chavez, but not us.
Destroying industries, targeting industries for destruction, picking and choosing winners and losers in the private sector, like Obama has been doing since his first day.
That's not legitimate.
Stealing, stealing over 50% of a person's income.
That's not a legitimate government function.
You add the top federal marginal rate to the top state marginal rate, and then you throw in property taxes, and then you add FICA, Social Security, and Medicare taxes, and there are a lot of Americans who are having the government confiscate over half of what they earn.
That's not a legitimate government function.
And if that's what government must do in order to be big and good, then you can leave me out.
Not necessary, and I would call your attention to Scott Walker in Wisconsin again.
Who, in a manner of two years, took a huge budget deficit and Turned it into a nearly one billion dollar surplus and instigated instituted a tax cut.
That is the proper use of government.
Do you think that it's a legitimate function of government to run up a national debt of $17 trillion?
And then let's add in the unfunded and underfunded.
Obligations such as pensions and social security and any number of other things.
and we're talking about $90 trillion that we've spent that we haven't produced.
Now, is that a legitimate government function?
So you want to stack all that up against building roads and bridges.
And that's how you want to defend big government was they build roads and bridges.
I'll concede that.
Fine, build all the roads you want.
Build all the bridges you want.
Legitimate.
But none of the other stuff is.
You libs, let me ask you a question.
You use toilet paper.
Or do you use leaves?
Government doesn't make toilet paper.
Private sector makes the toilet paper.
Procter and Gamble, Kimberly Clark.
Government doesn't run them.
You use toilet paper, Chuck U. Mr. President, do you use toilet paper?
Government doesn't make it.
Senator Schumer, do you like to eat?
I happen to know he does.
I've been to dinner with Chuck Hugh.
Chuck Hugh can pack it in, by the way.
He's one of these guys that doesn't gain weight.
He just can pack it in.
And you know what?
The private sector produces the food.
The government doesn't feed anybody.
Not until they take the food that's already been produced and give it away.
You uh you leftists, you like your clothes?
Private sector makes you clothes.
Government doesn't make your clothes.
Government makes roads, bridges, big whoop.
How about a car you drive?
Outside of General Motors, uh government doesn't make the car you drive.
How about the plane you ride in?
Now, if you're riding an Airbus, fine, you get what you pay for.
Made by the British and the French, a triumvert of government over there.
But you ride in an American-made plane, the government's not building it.
Right.
How about the gasoline?
Oh no, the government doesn't do that because you people hate it.
Even the electricity that you are powering your precious EVs with comes from coal.
Government hates coal.
Government hates gasoline.
Government hates oil, doesn't make any of it, doesn't produce any of it, doesn't distribute any of it, doesn't sell any of it, doesn't make it possible for you to have it, period.
Private sector does.
And by the way, you EV people, you wouldn't believe what's happening out in California.
That's a whole nother story.
A shortage of charging stations.
And the elites are hogging them.
But that's for another time.
Let me grab a quick call.
This is uh is Jenna in Pittsburgh still there?
You had her Jenny in Pittsburgh, I'm glad you waited, and you're up.
So great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi, great to be speaking with you, um, Mr. Limbaugh.
Uh, I just wanted to point out something you mentioned about um everybody knows about the Tea Partiers and um how they got started because of the president and um the actions he was taking.
And I don't think everyone knows because there are so many low information voters out there that just think they're a bunch of stupid racists that are just hate the president, and that's why they're doing everything.
Well, that's that's true.
I've I'm I I don't deny that.
What let me be clear.
This all started with Obama in the New Yorker magazine blaming me and Fox News Because Tea Party people don't like him.
And they don't like him because they listen to me.
And I was trying to say that the Tea Party people I don't care what other people think of them.
I was a Tea Party people are independent thinkers.
They came into existence because they were shocked and outraged at what they had seen.
There's no leader, there's no headquarters, and that that they're not they haven't been talked into this by anybody, and Obama's not going to be able to persuade them to change their minds on policy.
Now I don't deny that just like they've they've ginned up hatred of every Republican, they have ginned up hatred for the Tea Party among low information voters.
No question about that.
Rush, if I could add one more thing.
Um with the Tea Party, a call to action, not Tea Party, just any patriot out there who's independent minded.
Um the next time you're doing something that is positive and about someone's freedoms or what, um, just let someone know that yes, um, and on top of it all, you are a fellow patriot.
Um, and sort of like the old Spider-Man, he would sort of leave the notes about your family neighborhood Spider-Man, and he always sort of was on the bad end of um the PR.
Um, I just think it's important for people to understand, you know, you might know about your kind neighbor that takes care of you.
They're also um maybe not a Tea Party member, but um in that same mind frame.
And um, regardless of the media, maybe we can turn the tides of perspective on Tea Play.
It's the same old, it's it's the same old thing.
So let me see if I understand what you said.
Yeah.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Remember that I am deaf.
Just like the player for the Seattle Seahawks who wears a cochlear implant himself.
His name is Coleman, he's a linebacker.
At any rate, you want you a better listener.
Anytime a Tea Party person does something, you want them to tell everybody they did a good thing so that people see the good in the Tea Party.
I mean, not exactly, but to some respect, just don't be so in the closet, let people, you know, it's not a couple of things.
They're not no.
They're they're the Tea Party people are not in the closet.
Okay, but I think there are people that are maybe not Tea Party, but um like-minded that are.
I know I can be.
And what do you want them to do?
Just maybe speak up a little bit more.
On the on the common ground that I think Democrats, Republicans, independents all understand, which is um the opportunities that we had growing up.
Um we want to maintain them.
We don't want to burden our children with debt, and we don't appreciate being lied to by us.
You know, this is the you know, we're i no matter what we do, it always comes down to image and PR and the media, and what what what she's basically saying, I want you people in Tea Party do something that makes people like you and let them know how good you are instead of being hated.
And uh the Jenna, that's the wrong attitude.
That isn't going to change by virtue of policy.
That's the kind of thing that is an evolutionary change.
In the meantime, the attitude to have is not to change the minds of those people who are thinking incorrectly.
It's to defeat them.
It is to beat them.
Every election is to beat them, not make them like us.
That's how you become a rhino.
That's how you join the Republican establish this this business you you can't make them like you.
They don't want to.
Their dislike of you is not based in reason.
The fact that they don't like you is not rational.
They don't like you because they've been told lies about you that they want to believe.
They want to believe the lies they believe.
You can't change people's minds who are like that.
They want to hate the Tea Party.
They want to believe the Tea Party's racist sex is big and just like they want to believe that about Republicans.
I mean, look at me.
I am on the air 15 hours a week, disproving every hour what is said about me.
And it doesn't change any of their minds.
Because they don't want to stop hating.
They don't want to really know the truth.
And it's a mistake to waste time trying to persuade them.
The only thing to do is outnumber them and beat them.
No, I know what, I know what Jenna was saying, folks.
Jenna was saying that she just she just wants people to announce more often that they're conservative.
Especially when they do a good deed.
She wants people to be less afraid to say they're conservative.
The problem with that, and I I understand it uh emotionally.
The problem with if you have to tell somebody, which like a prostitute, I'm not a prostitute.
Oh, really?
Why are you denying it?
Nobody ever charged you of anything.
When you when you have to tell somebody what you are, and I know what she meant, but but you're also in in the in the same sense, you're you're denying the opposite.
When you have to deny something by your good actions, you're halfway to admitting it.
There is a, you know, Catherine and I watch, and I don't mind admitting this.
We watch Nashville.
Wednesday nights, I think it's 10 o'clock, because we watch it the next day on Apple TV.
And they have a fascinating plot line running right now about this very circumstance.
It's a country music show.
What was your first clue?
The title?
Nashville.
Yeah, it's uh there's a it it stars Hayden Panetier, or Panateer, as a young up and coming country uh tomato, whatever, and a seasoned veteran, established country female started played by Connie Britton, and it's a soap opera with a lot of unique written for the show music.
It's amazing these actors can actually sing.
I'm told I have I can't hear the music for I mean it all sounds the same to me.
So I have to ask Catherine, is that any good?
Do these people have good voices?
She says they do.
But anyway, the Hayden Panetteer character's name is Juliet Barnes.
And she comes from the wrong side of the tracks.
She's an absolute, she's trailer park, but she's trailer park with glitter.
Her mom was an addict and overdosed and died.
She's had to uh embarrassed by that and so forth.
At any rate, let me let me cut to the chase because I got time dwindling here.
She at this point in the story, she's having uh problems maintaining her relationship with her audience.
And there are even younger rivals on the tour that are vying to unseat her, like is the case in any business.
And walking into an arena two or three episodes ago, she was heckled by some religious zealot, and she walks up and says, there is not a God who would blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
There isn't a God who believes like you do.
There isn't a God, I forget the exact line, but it was what happened was a network like TMZ or something like it, then took what she said and made a looping video for YouTube and Twitter of this woman up close in this protester's face, saying there is no God, there is no God, there is no God, there is no God.
And as such, she is losing her audience.
Her fans are burning her records.
They are canceling her concert dates.
Her career is literally disintegrating.
It is falling apart on a lie.
She didn't say what's looped.
And what's put out on Twitter.
She said there is no God who would agree or defend what yours, but that's not what was reported.
All it's looped out there, the only public sees is her saying repeatedly, there is no God, there is no God.
And yet she's this supposedly God-fearing religious country artist.
And so the a lot of the plot line has been devoted to what can she do to save her career.
And it has been, I don't know whether the writers of this show know how good they've made this.
I don't I assume that they are intimately aware with things like this because they're writing it really well.
Now I've got to take a break here, but I'm it it for those of you who want to know why in the hell a Republicans just can't go out there and tell the truth and have people believe that.
Well, I'll continue, we get back.
And we're back.
El Rush Bow's serving humanity, executing a scientist duties flawlessly, zero mistakes.
Okay, I don't want to spend too much time in this, but basically, this comes up, it's almost it's predictable at some point, usually on an open line Friday, if I could synthesize the quote, what can the Republicans do to prove that they're not what the Democrats say they are?
And my answer to you is by virtue of response, nothing.
And I've lived it.
This is how I know.
You can't.
It's a waste of time to try.
Now, this TV show Nashville is illustrating this, whether by accident or by design.
And yeah, the show is making Christians look like kooks.
I don't care.
That's not my point.
What the what they're doing here is illustrating they've got this singer, this performer, who has a lie created about her.
They take words that she uttered, about 30% of a sentence, take it out of context.
What they have her saying is there is no God, there is no God, looped, a video loop.
Put it on TMZ, put it on Twitter, and her Christian audience feels betrayed and abandoning her.
And she's canceling concert dates, the tour managers, the uh arena managers are canceling radio stations are refusing to play her record, career's falling apart, and it's all based on a lie.
She didn't say what it looks as though she said.
Now, here's the interesting part.
One of her rivals, a young, up-and-coming young female country singer, is uh is approached by the Hayden Paneteer character and begs her, would you look, you were there, you know I didn't say this.
Would you call a press conference and just and tell them I didn't say this?
In other words, what so many of you want?
Just look, go on and tell them you didn't say it.
You didn't do it, it didn't happen.
The Republicans aren't racist, I just so this young girl goes out and does a great performance, and she is entirely believable.
And she said Juliet Barnes didn't say that.
And here is entirely what she did say, and it was in response to a heckler and blah, blah.
Didn't change a thing, is the point.
And that is real life.
It didn't change a thing.
Now, my point here, folks, even getting the truth out, doesn't change any.
Can I use, I hate doing this, but I'm gonna use myself as an example.
You remember the ill-fated time where word leaked out that I was part of a group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams.
Within 24 hours of that news hitting, there were quotes that started running in the St. Louis Post dispatch that then ended up all over everywhere that I had never uttered about slavery.
Totally made up by a Media Matters writer, totally made up.
It took a week of correcting the record, and even after the record was corrected, the people who knowingly reported that I said something I didn't say.
Well, we know he thinks it.
The truth didn't matter, is the point.
So I'm reacting here to young Jenna from Pittsburgh who said, can't the conservatives just say we're conservative?
The Tea Party's not what people think of them.
You're not going to change their minds.
The truth, sadly, you've heard the old phrase, and this phrase has many authors.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets out of bed.
Something like that.
You just can't do it.
The Tea Party, a Tea Party member, whoever, is not going to be able to change the mind of a low information voter who thinks whatever he or she thinks about the Tea Party.
That's not the way to do it.
It can't happen.
It won't happen.
It doesn't happen.
Now you've also heard, well, the truth will out.
Yeah, it will eventually, some point.
But by virtue of its own process and evolution.
The strategy for dealing with something like that has to be something other than trying to.
You can tell they're wrong.
They're wrong.
It's not true what they think.
They want to believe the lie, is the point.
These low information, they're already liberals to begin with.
These are not people who are apolitical and don't have any opinions, who are running around thinking all this evil stuff of Republicans are conservatives.
They're already trending liberal anyway, born that way, educated that way, what have you.
They don't want to believe anything than they uh than what they already do believe.
But Rush, but Rush, I can hear you.
I've heard people call you and say you changed their mind.
Yeah, but I didn't know it.
They happen to change their mind after what?
How many months, days, years listening to the program?
But it wasn't anything I specifically targeted.
I mean, that's an overall objective here is to persuade people.
Yeah, but not in it's it's not the same context.
My my only real point here is I get a little frustrated.
The question keeps coming, because there's nothing.
You're always on defense, folks, and you just you're never going to advance the ball when you're constantly defending yourself.
You just can't do it.
And by constantly shouting, no, I'm not what they say.
That's not true.
That's a lie.
You're on defense, and you just you can't change anything by doing that.
It just doesn't happen.
And you know what, you've seen it, probably had it happen to you in your in your own life in some venue, some way, shape, manner, or form.
I know it's frustrating to have people that you love and admire ripped to shreds and lied about, like they did Romney.
And you wanted Romney to do something about it.
You wanted Romney, come on, Mid, get out there and tell people you don't hate your dog.
Okay, envision it.
Romney calls press conference.
I am terribly defended.
They say I put my dog in a station wagon on a vacation up on there on the roof because I hate my dog.
I don't, I love my dog.
Hello, Richard Nixon.
Just doesn't work, folks.
You just can't deal with it that way.
You have to stay on offense and you have to start characterizing them.
Plus, incumbent in this in this process of reacting to it and defending it, you are cementing in other people's minds the idea that the accusers might be right.
The minute you go on defense, the minute you start whining about it, and even getting the truth out when people are lying to their teeth about you.
I've lived it.
It doesn't, it doesn't change things.
Other things do change people's minds, but not reacting immediately in the face of a lie and so forth.
I mean, they did a movie about this.
Mr. Smith goes to Washington.
Jimmy Stewart and so forth.
The examples are all over the uh the place.
Now you can take it to an extreme, too.
Bush, Rove, and these guys never responded at all.
Now, in their case, nobody was suggesting that they get out there and And uh say, hey, what they're saying about us isn't true.
That's not true.
I'm not.
But they never attacked their opponents and tried to characterize them.
That's how you do it.
But defending yourself or having somebody else do it, it just is it's not gonna work.
Never does.
Speaking of which, um, House Conservatives are plotting a takedown of the GOP leadership's amnesty plans.
Have you heard about this?
I mean, you know that the House leadership is aiming for amnesty, even though it shows up at 3% in polls asking people about the most important issues they think facing the country.
Amnesty, illegal immigration, it's not at the top.
And yet the House leadership is hellbent on doing it.
Well, we know why.
Chamber of Commerce, moneyed Republican donors want amnesty, they want the cheap labor.
Uh if you want the answer to most questions, follow the money.
Uh, in this case, that'll tell you why this is going on.
But the Tea Party and House Conservatives are plotting a takedown.
They are not sitting by idly just letting this happen.
They have a strategy that is oriented toward defeating the House leadership.
It's classic.
I take a break, and I got more of your phone calls coming up.
So sit tight, my friends.
We roll right on right after this.
Don't.
Back to the phones, Indianapolis.
This is Dan.
Great to have you, sir, and the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks for taking my call.
I was just wondering if the Tea Party is so strong, what the hell happened to us in 2012?
Stayed home.
Yeah, but four million of you didn't.
And I want, I would like to see Sarah Palin get out and start campaigning early and get this ball rolling and get her ahead of the ticket.
So I think she is.
I think she had a Christmas book.
She's making TV appearances.
She's staying visible.
Um got to time it right.
You don't want to wear out your welcome before it actually begins.
But now the Tea Party, let me go back to what you said.
If the Tea Party is so powerful, what happened in 2012?
Who said you know, it's a it's amazing what people hear.
And I'm constantly learned from this.
Do not misunderstand.
Earlier in the program, I simply detailed what happened in the 20 turn 2010 midterms.
And we all know the Tea Party came into existence, and we know why, outraged over all the spending and all of the debt and Obamacare, and people who had never before been involved in the political process, other than voting, even then, organized.
And they started going to town hall meetings.
And the Democrats were petrified.
Nobody knew who they were.
Uh there was no headquarters, there was no leader.
There was nobody to demonize.
Who were these people?
In the 2010 midterms resulted in the Democrat Party with a major landslide defeat.
I mean, it was huge.
So you point that out, and I guess some people hear me say how powerful the Tea Party is when I had not said that at all.
So the inference was the Tea Party is so powerful, and they're well, if they're so powerful in 2010, what happened in 2012?
Well, I'll tell you, they didn't show up.
And I'll take you back down memory lane.
All of the pre-presidential polls for 2012 that showed Obama up five, six, this can't be.
And they and they kept comparing the 2008 turnout.
In fact, that's what they used to project the 2012 turnout.
And I said, Well, what why not the 2010 turnout?
Why don't you take that?
And the pollsters said, because a midterm turnout's far different than a presidential turnout.
We can't.
And I thought that was bogus, but they were right.
They're two different turnouts.
In 2010, the Republican vote was a total anti-Obama vote.
There wasn't a Republican on the ballot to screw it up.
On 2012, there was.
In 2012, you had the same Tea Party people, and they were just as angry about Obama and Obamacare, but they were not satisfied with what they saw from their party in terms of standing up to it and defeating it.
So they stayed home.
Four million Republicans that voted in 2008 stayed home in 2012.
Now you can uh interview them and ask why.
Fairly easy to to figure this out.
They didn't show up.
There was.
In fact, the the the pro-vote sentiment simply wasn't there.
And the anti-Obama sentiment that sent them to the polls in 2010 was not powerful enough to override the anger they felt at the party for not having a decent opponent against Obama in 2012, so they stayed home.
It doesn't mean that 2010 was an aberration, and it doesn't mean that the Tea Party isn't powerful.
It just means that they're pretty specific about things.
And all you need to know, if you're worried about the Tea Party having lost its power, and by the way, there's been news stories, there have been news stories like that for the last three years.
Tea Party gone.
There ain't any Tea Party anymore.
We don't have to worry about Tea.
Why do people like Chuck Schumer keep demonizing him?
They're scared to death of them.
The Democrat Party's scared to death of them.
They remember 2010.
The Republicans, this is another big mist.
The Republicans never once tried to take advantage of what happened in 2010.
The Republicans just one of the most amazing things, there was an instant coalition waiting to be created.
And the Republicans made no move on it because they were conservative, and it just wasn't desired.
Another young American patriot on the phone.
Hi, McKenzie.
Great to have you with us.
Hello.
Hi, Mr. Lindbaugh.
Hi.
I'm really excited to be on the show today.
Well, I am excited you got through too.
I just you sound so filled with energy.
Well, thank you.
I just wanted to say I loved your book.
I thought it was really creative.
Well, I appreciate that.
You you just you're thrilling me to death here.
Because it it was exactly for that purpose that it was written.
And and I to keep getting feedback from people like you in your age group is just I can't, I cannot tell you how excited it makes me feel.
Well, I I thought it was well, I love history, and I thought it was so interesting to read about the pilgrims.
And I know most kids didn't know that um the pilgrims actually wrote on the speed well, and at least before they wrote on the Mayflower.
Um well uh I'm not sure I heard you.
Um they wrote on the wall, did she say?
They wrote on the speed well.
Oh, the speed well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nobody knew about the speed well.
This there was a set there was a second until a couple of years ago.
Yeah, there was a second ship that it couldn't that they couldn't use.
Uh and and the May the Mayflower was one they ended up Oh, the speed well, right?
It's it's my hearing, folks.
I'm sorry.
It's it's not it's not your fault, Mackenzie.
Yeah, there's little things like there were some adults that didn't know that either.
Yeah.
Well, also I had a question.
Um, Francis Billington in the book, was he real?
Francis Billington.
Oh, yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
Oh, that's really amazing.
Because I I liked I when I heard at first I didn't think he was real because he was just um a naughty boy, and I thought that was just a character to spice in the book.
But no, no, no.
We didn't do that.
Everybody named, everybody named had an absolutely historical role.
Mackenzie, hang on, do not go away.
Gotta take a break, folks.
Back after this.
Francis Billington was one of two sons of John Billington.
And yeah, Francis Billington, a legitimate real character.
We didn't we didn't we did not make him up, Michelle, nor did we make up the speed well.
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