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Jan. 29, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:34
January 29, 2014, Wednesday, Hour #2
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Time Text
That's okay.
Don't sweat it.
I don't need to call.
I don't care that the caller dropped off.
I'm going to answer today.
We had a caller up there and wanted to ask me if I think the country can survive the next three years of whatever Obama intends.
And the caller hung up.
But I'm going to answer the question.
It's a great question.
And I know that it's something that's on a lot of people's minds.
As we get back to it, here at the EIB network, Rush Limbaugh, serving humanity simply by being here.
It's all I have to do.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address, lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
All right.
Here is the soundbite that I referenced a couple times in the previous hour.
And this is, look, it's hard to pick a single moment from that speech last night that made me want to jump off the couch because there were a lot of them.
Because it was, I don't even know how to describe that.
That was so, it was 180 degrees out of phase.
It was the most incredible thing.
It was a speech designed to tell the lowest.
I'll tell you what it was.
Best way to illustrate this.
You remember back in the period of time, 2007, 2000, maybe 2006, when the economy is roaring here.
We're at 5% unemployment, real 5% unemployment.
There isn't any economic crisis.
We've come out of two recessions in 2001 and after the World Trade Center, 9-11.
And we're doing it.
And the media is just trying as hard as they can to convince people we're on the verge of a recession, depression, because they're trying to get rid of Bush and they're trying to taint Republicans so that whoever the Democrat nominee for president is will win.
They're trying to tell everybody the war in Iraq is being lost and it's immoral, it's unjust.
You remember all of that.
And I had a call from a guy who said, you know, I'm confused.
I keep hearing about a bad economy.
I'm doing great.
I mean, everything's fine.
I guess other people in my town aren't doing well.
And he felt guilty about it.
And that was the exact point.
You keep pounding people with how bad things are, but if they're not bad for you, you're then going to assume they're bad for other people that you don't know in places that you aren't alive or living or visiting.
And so they tug on your guilt strings and they make you feel guilty for succeeding and doing well in the midst of so much onsetting misery when there wasn't any.
And what Obama was doing last night was targeted right to the low information crowd.
I mean, he was trying to tell everybody, don't believe what you hear.
This economy has come back.
After five years, we are roaring.
We got jobs being created left and right.
People are getting health care left and right.
People going to college left and right.
It's never been better.
And of course, that's just as far away from the truth as you can get.
But it was aimed at low information people so that their conclusion, well, God, I may not be doing well yet, but my day's coming because it's really rocking out there.
And it was all of you, the creation of a false image and everything goes into that.
The president trying to take credit for something that hasn't happened, things that haven't happened based on his policies.
I mean, it's just, it's psycho-something.
But here are four reactions among the informed voter set.
You'd be amazed at the number of people on the Democrat side who were flat out disappointed and worried and panicked over that speech last night.
Ron Fournier, National Journal, Obama is a diminished leader.
Is this all there is?
This speech was the small borse stuff he rejected in 2008.
And that's exactly right.
Obama tried to sound Reagan-esque in his own way.
And you know, he can't pull that off.
But it's like when he mouths this age-old American tradition, you work hard and it'll pay off.
You keep your pulse and your finger to the grindstone.
You keep pounding it, you keep working hard, and that's how you get ahead.
Of course, he doesn't believe that.
He thinks that's a false promise.
He thinks the people who get ahead in this country do not do it via hard work.
That's his beef.
He thinks the people who do all the hard work aren't getting anywhere.
They're just getting shafted.
But he didn't say that.
That speech last night, and I'm going to have a lot of people probably disagree with me on this, but that speech last night to me was an indication that Obama and the Democrats know, again, that they cannot be honest and sell it.
They have to sound like people they are not.
They have to sound like they believe things that they do not believe.
They have to sound like they are traditional Americans in many ways, because if that's why Fournier, small borrowers, this is the stuff you rejected in 2008, and that's damn right.
Everything he claimed was working last night was what he has ripped and criticized and impugned for five years.
And then he said, Obama may not have the skill, the will, nor the time to fix inequality, mobility, and the economy.
Not only that, Mr. Fournier, there isn't anybody in government who can do that.
Except if they get out of the way.
But there isn't a government policy that will solve inequality.
There isn't a government plan, philosophy, or policy.
There would be a philosophy, actually, but there's not a policy that will fix mobility.
And government fixing the economy, the only way that happens is when government removes itself from as much of the economy as it can.
But these people still think that if you got the right liberal mad scientist in there tinkering with the dials and the potentiometers and the gauges and stuff, that they can fine-tune it into a well-oiled machine because the overriding belief is that you can't.
The overriding belief is you are incapable and incompetent and they have to do it for you.
And now, Fournier, Obama may not have the skills.
It's dawning on him.
Folks, they've had a free run at it for five years.
They've had a Republican Party basically standing aside.
For the first two years, they had a Republican Party that couldn't stop anything.
They didn't have the votes.
And then after the 2010 midterms, when the Tea Party won big, the Republicans didn't want to be associated with that, so they still didn't oppose Obama.
And they're still not opposing Obama.
They're trying to help him get amnesty passed.
They've had a free run at it.
And they have done a lot of damage.
Don't misunderstand.
My head is not in the sand here.
They have done a lot of damage that's going to take a lot of time to reverse.
But The true believers, wherever you find the media, elsewhere, academia, Hollywood, they expected the job to be done with no opposition.
With, I mean, just Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, the Republican Party's laying down.
They think that so much else should be done now.
All the money should be taken away for the rich by now.
The maximum tax rate ought to be in the 70s by now.
And there ought to be some Wall Street people in jail, by God.
And there ought to be some bankers in jail.
And Gitmo should be closed.
And we shouldn't have a soldier anywhere on foreign soil.
And after all that, Obama should be king.
The people of this country should be so happy and so grateful that they want him to be king.
And of course, that's not the reality.
Associated Press.
Liberals in Massachusetts thought Obama did little to resurrect the passionate enthusiasm.
I would get more excited if I believed those things would happen.
There was very little real applause and few smiles.
Now, I don't know what they were looking at.
I'll tell you, what was that?
say that slower okay well i still don't care who the group was if they weren't You didn't see when Obama started talking about women, did you see all these Democrat women standing up and high-fiving each other?
And I thought, man, what a disconnect.
And for a bunch of a tripe, for a bunch of 77 cents every dollar, women could do.
I mean, I just, we don't get it.
It doesn't compute for us, but we are not single.
Women hate men.
It's tough to put ourselves in those bras shoes.
But nevertheless, I saw a lot of smiles.
In fact, I saw smiles, folks, that if it were Halloween, it would scare kids.
I mean, I saw some really, oh, I'm not going to mention names.
There's nothing in it for me to mention names.
I mean, I would love to.
I would love to.
It was the Star Wars bar scene.
And that's part of the disconnect, by the way.
Not only are those people not like, they don't even look like us anymore.
A lot of them.
It's just, I've never felt more estranged.
Don't want to put words in your mouth, but I wouldn't be surprised if you feel much the same way.
Now, here's the Boston Globe, Boston Globe editorial, basically apologizing for Obama's speech.
Scaled back to the diminished expectations of the moment.
See, these libs, these socialists, what have you, who think they're responsible for putting Obama into office, they had great expectations.
They thought a whole lot more would have been accomplished by now in dismantling and getting rid of the opposition, dismantling and getting rid of Wall Street, the banks, the rich, Fox News and all that.
And they're let down, folks.
And the Boston Globe says that that speech scaled back to the diminished expectations of the moment, meaning nothing grandiose, No long-term vision, nothing in that speech that is going to help Obama go down as great.
I've heard a number of Democrats say that, too.
Washington Post editorial.
We were told to look out for the pen and the phone.
They had a tone that was relatively non-confrontational and proposals for executive action that don't live up to the hype.
So the Washington Post was let down.
They're upset that Obama's not going to do more as a dictator would.
People on the left, I've watched the Luntz Focus Group on Fox on Megan Kelly's show.
And a few of those people in the Luntz group said that the president didn't have sufficient enthusiasm.
Now, I didn't see that.
I saw a lot of enthusiasm, but I thought it was contrived.
But see, this is what's fascinating to me.
I think that those people in the Luntz focus group who were complaining they didn't see sufficient enthusiasm, I think they were original Obama supporters.
And that's why they let down.
That's why they didn't see sufficient enthusiasm.
I think there's a whole big group of true believer Obama voters who are disappointed, let down, depressed because they had all of these massive expectations that they really thought were going to happen, and Obama hasn't had any opposition.
And again, you have to add one other thing to this mix.
They really believe the government can do everything and better than anybody else.
And they just can't live with the fact they are beside themselves that Obamacare is a disaster.
You've got to remember, these are true believers.
They really believe the government is the end-all of everything, the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Government's the final authority.
Government does everything better than anybody because government's going to be fair and government's not going to discriminate, especially when it's run by liberals.
And here is this abject, total embarrassment failure, Obamacare.
And that bugs them.
Because the left, the true believers, despite how badly they've screwed this country up, what they're learning is that their policies do not create utopia.
What they're learning is things are worse.
They're unhappy.
They're unhappier than.
I mean, you remember go back to election night.
Those people were just on Cloud 9.
They were ecstatic.
It was the happiest moment of their lives.
And now they're all just deflated.
And that's what you're seeing in a lot of the post-speech review.
Dana Milbank, Washington Post, vague proposals.
He spoke as if congressional participation was optional.
Implicit acknowledgement, his once grand ambitions are over, you see, folks.
And now he's just poking around the edges.
Talking about creating jobs and putting people back to work.
That's nothing.
That's not big.
That's not grandiose.
Where is the takeover of the country?
Where is Wall Street big shots in jail?
Where is amnesty?
Where is nationwide sanctioned gay marriage?
Where is the legalization of marijuana?
These are the things they had high hopes for.
And more.
Nana Milbank says, Obama speaks of concrete proposals to speed up growth.
And then the first item cited was Michelle's Anti-Obesity Initiative.
And that's another.
We haven't opened that door yet, but that's another thing that's got something to let down.
John King, CNN national correspondent.
Amazing how quickly Democrats ran from Obama, and they are.
So many Democrats.
Practically every Democrat up for re-election in the Senate is running so fast from Obama, you can't keep track of them.
I will detail this as the program unfolds.
I've got this sound, but I still want you to hear.
Got to take a break.
More phone calls coming up.
And can we survive the next three years?
Short answer, yes, of course.
Then don't doubt me.
Back after this.
Newport, Michigan.
And Sarah, great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi.
How are you?
I'm good.
How are you?
Never better.
Never better.
Well, I'm 18 years old, and I've been listening to your show like forever.
You are 18?
Yes.
No.
Yeah.
No.
Yeah.
You sound like 25.
Whoa.
Maybe even 30.
I'm talking attitudinally here, Sarah.
Whoa, thank you.
Yeah, I'm not talking about your voice, although that's probably in the mix, too.
18, you sound so composed.
You sound so confident.
This is great.
I'm excited.
You sound relaxed, too.
That's great.
Well, it's great to have you here.
Well, it's great to be here.
I've always wanted to call.
Always.
Anyways, I wanted to thank you because you speak the truth and not like all the other stupid news people.
Well, I appreciate you thinking that.
Yeah.
Because, I don't know, they drive me crazy.
It drives a lot of people crazy.
That's what drove me crazy about last night.
Yeah.
You know, I have a definite view of limited government, but I don't want to be disconnected from it.
I don't want to feel estranged from it.
I don't like this ruling class, country-class stuff, but it's true.
It exists.
And that speech last night, this whole, it's not just the speech.
I really can't recall.
I'm 63.
You're 18.
I can't recall a time where I've felt more distant, further away from the people leading the country than I do today.
And I don't like it.
Yeah, I don't like it either.
Don't trust them.
Don't think they care what we're interested in or want.
Question whether or not they understand what's best for the country versus what's best for them.
All these things go back and forth, and it's just, I don't like having even the thoughts.
But I'm flattered that you like the program.
Well, yeah, I've been listening to it like forever.
My mom listens to it.
My dad listens to it.
My grandpa did.
Sounds like you're a lifer then.
I am, definitely.
Well, what?
18.
Are you still in high school?
Are you out?
I'm out.
And what are your plans?
Go to college.
Any particular one?
Community.
Yeah.
Well, have you found what your life's dream is?
Do you know what you want to do?
No, I have not found what my life.
Well, you will.
You will.
And hang in.
Just be patient.
will reveal itself when that happens.
Devote yourself to it.
All right, here we go.
This is the, I think I teased this in the last half hour and I didn't get to it.
This is the one that almost made me come out of the couch.
In the coming months, let's see where else we can make progress together.
Let's make this a year of action.
That's what most Americans want.
For all of us in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, their aspirations.
And what I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all.
The notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead in America.
Now, let me first translate this.
In the upcoming months, let's see where else we can make progress together.
This is after a series of lies about the great economic recovery and the burgeoning job market and the overwhelming uptick in America's economic activity all over the world.
Let's make this a year of action.
And the answer was, no, no, no.
No, no, no.
You've done enough.
That's what most Americans want for us all in this chamber to focus on their lives, their hopes, and their aspirations.
Well, only if you're going to actually pay attention after you focus.
But we don't want you doing things for us.
We don't want you assuming we can't do it.
We don't want you anymore tinkering, tampering, overturning whatever it is that we do.
In a sense, we want to be left alone.
We've had five years of this oppressive intervention at every walk, every moment of our lives.
Just dial it back.
You don't know our aspirations.
And when we tell you you don't listen, we don't want you to do anything on climate change except open the Keystone Pipeline.
We don't want you to force us to buy cars we don't want.
We don't want you to preach to us about a hoax that is not real, global warming.
We don't want to open the borders and have an inflow of illegal immigrants because you need campaign contributions or because you need new registered voters.
We want to secure the borders.
We want to protect the country.
We want to make sure that whoever immigrates actually assimilates into the American culture.
We don't want a balkanized country.
And what I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or religion or region or party, young, old, rich or poor, you're trying to divide everybody on that basis.
He's got women versus men, blacks versus whites, rich versus poor, religious versus agnostics.
It's just, the whole country is roiled because this is an administration which pits group of people, groups of people against each other.
Class warfare, class envy, demonize achievement, demonized success, which he denied last night, but he does it.
And here again, the notion if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.
He doesn't believe that, but he knows you do, and that's why he platitudes it.
But he doesn't believe it.
He thinks, folks, don't doubt me on this.
I know this is a, you think this is a really strange thing to say.
Most people cannot possibly imagine a president that doesn't believe that.
That's as American as anything else is.
But I am telling you, and he's not alone, the vast majority of leftists believe that hard work is a sucker's play.
And they will say, well, look at the middle class.
They've been working for 30 years and haven't been gaining any ground.
They've been working hard.
Look at our union buddies.
They work and work and working.
Who's getting the money?
The Wall Street fat cats.
In their view.
Now, while he says in the speech, we don't demonize achievement, he does.
Every day, for five years, he has been impugning achievement, accusing the rich of not sharing, accusing the rich of stealing from the poor, accusing the rich of no compassion.
And that's why he's going to raise their taxes because they're not going to give their money away as he thinks is proper unless they're forced to.
He really believes that you don't get ahead by hard work.
He thinks that is a trick that has been played on Americans since the beginning of the founding.
He thinks the game's rigged and that only a select few get ahead and stay ahead and their kids.
And those people then guard it and make sure nobody else can get in the gate.
That's what he believes.
That is fundamental.
That's community organizer 101.
That's why Sololinsky was Sololinsky, is that belief that the game's rigged.
The successful are winners of life's lottery.
They haven't worked hard for it.
It's just when he stands up.
We do not want Congress and the president working together on our behalf.
We see what happens.
Obamacare, you name it.
It's one disaster after another.
Here, Jesse in Orlando, Florida.
Hi, Jess.
Glad you called.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
I wanted to make a point.
I think the whole story with the Ranger gives us some insight into Obama's worldview.
Sure.
Every time he has military guys up there, he doesn't really celebrate their heroism or doesn't tell us that the guy killed all these bad guys or saved his mate or anything.
He puts them up there because the guy is a victim.
And that's what he's celebrating.
Let me play devil's advocate with you.
Let's see how steadfastly you can maintain your case here.
All right.
So your point is that he's just parading him up to show the evils and what can happen to people who join the military.
And he's not proud of it.
And furthermore, when he talks about this man's recovery and so forth, he's not praising the military.
He's not praising any.
He's praising maybe the guy, maybe the Ranger.
But his whole point here is to say, look at this poor guy.
Look what we did to this poor guy.
And look what we caused to happen to this poor man.
And look what this poor man had to do to survive what we as Americans sent him off to do.
Instead of saying what you would prefer him say is, this man is a hero because of X. Saved whatever number of lives, killed so many enemy, served so many deployments or what have you.
Your point is that he never cites the achievements of these guys.
He only points to the pain they've suffered.
Well, correct.
And I wouldn't say he's, you know, in this point, demagoguing the military, but I think I don't think he's capable of praising the achievements.
All I think he sees is victims.
And that's why this guy was brought up there.
And you would never see him bring up a guy who wasn't injured, who did all these heroic things.
He only sees victims.
Well, that's true.
But what about this?
Another devil's advocate question.
Maybe Obama had him up there as a testament to perseverance and overcoming obstacles, severe injuries, left for dead, found face down in a stream of water, was barely breathing when found, was not thought capable of living, and yet here he is with us tonight because the man is great and strength of character is profound,
and he worked hard and he overcame obstacles and he is with us tonight.
I mean, I could see how you could think that, but I just, again, I think that he's subtly trying to tell Americans that, you know, your success is out of your hands.
And again, we are paraded victims in front of us.
We're not paraded folks that have achieved great things because they've achieved great things.
An example of this would be television shows on TV nowadays, they're always about the boss coming and learning from the little people.
You know, it's not the little people learning from the boss how to stay.
What is that show?
Undercover boss.
Undercover boss.
Oh, yeah.
And so the boss is this detached, distant sick who doesn't know diddly squat until he actually does the work.
And then he learns from the underlings how to really do the work because he's incompetent and known.
He shouldn't even be in the job, right?
Right.
Well, all society tells us that success is out of your hands.
And what happened to the great days where you can make anything for yourself if you work hard and are smart, etc.
That's what he said last night.
He said it over and over again.
You don't believe him.
That's right.
You can't tell people that anymore because if you say that and then you have unfortune, it's your fault.
Right?
If you aren't successful, it's your fault.
Okay, so just trying to follow you here.
So if Obama says all you got to do is go, you work hard and you devote yourself to it and you put in the extra hours and you work hard and you make it, that pays off in America.
But if it doesn't pay off, if you do everything, you work hard, you don't slack off, you invest every bit of ambition you've got.
And if you fail, then it's what, your fault?
Well, you can't tell people that these days.
And this is not related to the military guy, but the whole attitude of, you know, your destiny is in your hands to a degree, it's been taken out of our politics and out of our society.
Well, now, I know that Obama wants as many people as possible to think that their destiny is in his hands.
But back to the, you know, you have a point, folks, Jesse here has a point.
You have to be old enough to be able to remember.
But not that long ago, in real terms, military heroes, Audie Murphy was one.
It's a great example.
Audi Murphy used to be celebrated for all of the enemy soldiers he killed or captured while saving American lives.
That used to be part of any ceremony that honored an American military hero.
Audi Murphy was not alone, but he's maybe best example in terms of name recognition that you could use.
So Jesse has a bit of a point.
But don't you think on this that Obama deserves the benefit of the doubt that he really wanted to honor Remsburg's stick-to-itiveness and his will to live and his ability, his drive, his whatever to overcome these injuries and near death and come back and continue to improve?
I think the heroism should have been part of the narrative and it was excluded.
So by heroism, you think some of his achievements should have been mentioned, not just the fact that he was found face down in a river.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Did he bring up the guys that got Osama bin Laden in one of his previous Day of the Union address?
I don't think so.
I think the only people we've ever seen.
Well, but you can't.
You make those guys targets if you do that.
You bring those guys up to the House chamber, and here's the team, SEAL Team Six, that captured and killed Osama bin Laden.
They are targets for the rest of their lives.
Those guys are never made public unless one of them leaks.
All right.
Well, in the past, he brought up a gay soldier, and that was part of the, again, the narrative.
They didn't honor the soldier for their achievement.
They honored the soldier because the birth of the fight.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Of course, we know.
Point taken.
Exactly what.
We know what that's about.
That's sadly true.
Well, I know, I know.
There were so many heroes last night up there sitting next to Muchel.
Never seen that many.
And one of them, by the way, there was a hero.
There's a woman up there last night that found a job.
That's why she was there.
She found a job.
She's a woman.
And that's why she was there because, as you know, this country has a war on women.
But this woman overcame that war.
She found a job.
So she was up there sitting next to Muchel.
All right, I'm going to tell you what I think now.
Now, just to summarize, our previous caller, Jesse, basically was saying that Obama had Ranger Remsburg sitting next to Muchel last night.
He was a hero for overcoming something terrible that happened to him.
Not for being a military hero, but for enduring, for overcoming something in parentheses, something America made him do.
End parentheses.
That was Jesse's point.
I'll tell you what it was.
I think Ranger Remsburg was there To send a message.
The message was, look what my predecessor did to this country.
Look what George Bush is responsible for.
Look at all the horror that I have to clean up.
And look at the struggle that we're all in.
still trying to fix the mess.
And if you want to have a military hero sitting next to Muchel, there's a really popular movie now that has been made from a really popular book called Lone Survivor.
And it's also about a SEAL team in Afghanistan.
This is an Army Ranger, Rimsburg, SEAL team.
And Marcus Luttrell is the lone survivor of his unit.
It's a fascinating story.
They're on a mission in Afghanistan and they are spotted by some, of all things, goat herders.
And they struggle, okay, what do we take these guys prisoners or do we let them go?
And they knew if they let them go, that the goat herders would tell the Taliban, and they let them go.
And the goat herders told the Taliban, and the Taliban came and wiped out every SEAL in the unit except for Marcus Luttrell.
He survived.
That's a heroic story.
Military heroism.
And Marcus Luttrell wasn't injured.
I mean, not to the extent that Ranger Rimsburg was.
So Jesse may have had a point, but I do think there's a subtle message here.
Look what this country was before I became president.
So I'm checking the email, and a lot of people asking me, well, what did you think of the Republican response?
And I, oh, you talk about a no-win.
I'll try it, though.
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