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Feb. 27, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:41
February 27, 2014, Thursday, Hour #2
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Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
Rush Limbaugh trying to stay sane, trying to stay well adjusted, trying to stay grounded, trying to stay rooted, just like all of you are.
And folks, I promise you I will.
I am going to be the last person to cave.
I can't...
I can't ever imagine myself caving.
I just not like I see I see people on our side just falling by the wayside.
And it's not just people on our side.
I just say people everywhere.
Despite polling data.
I mean, this is the most confounding thing.
Look at it here.
We got a new poll from New York Times CBS.
Dire news for the Democrats.
Obama's job approval is back down to 41%, a five-point drop.
This ties is lowest ever rating in this category, this poll.
Public esteem for the president's party is down to 42%.
That level hasn't been seen since 2010.
You guessed it, since the last midterms that we had.
Planned parenthoods are going to dump 16 million dollars into the midterm races.
I mean, there's a most Americans disappointed in the Obama presidency, a poll says.
Well, again, you know that the anomaly here didn't print the source, but it's big.
It's not some fly-by-night website here.
Amid continued pessimism about the economy, the direction of country, 59% of Americans say.
They are disappointed with Obama's presidency, including 37%, very disappointed.
40% are satisfied.
The vast majority of the dissatisfied are Republicans and independents, but it is growing.
And more specifically, the president gets low marks for his handling of both foreign policy and the economy.
And by a wide margin, more people continue to think the country is off on the wrong track, 63% rather than headed in the right direction.
No matter where you look, there's opposition to this.
But there's no action behind it.
Wherever you look, the president is held in disfavor.
Presidential approval, policy by policy, universal opposition.
And yet there's no pushback to any of it.
There's abject fear of pushing back.
It's what this is one of the most it is, is one of the most amazing things.
We've got people caving left and right.
No desire to stop this fight back against it, despite the polling data.
I held a story from yesterday.
It's it's uh in in the yesterday stack.
Daniel Horowitz wrote a piece that's something I've been saying since 2010.
The sum total of his piece was.
Yeah, the 2010 midterms.
You had this massive landslide defeat for the Democrats.
They lost over 760 seats nationwide.
It was huge.
Tea Party.
And you know, full the Republicans were the sole beneficiaries of this.
And it was about the debt, and it was about Obamacare.
And Mr. Horwitz says, can you imagine what would have happened if the Republican Party, the Tea Party, these forces had unified?
Can you imagine the powerful coalition and force opposing the Democrat Party that can you imagine what it would be instead?
The Tea Party was ostracized by the Republicans and Democrats.
The Republicans wanted no part of the Tea Party, and Republican establishment types started doing everything they could to de-emphasize to beat, uh humiliate and whatever, and basically render irrelevant the Tea Party.
You imagine what would have happened.
That was my point.
Here you have this massive majority of people opposing Obamacare.
It's a built-in constituency.
Just waving to be connected with politically, Made to order for the Republican Party, something they opposed anyway, Obamacare.
Or did they?
That remained a big question.
And now we're in the same circumstance here.
I have predicted that this is going to be a huge landslide defeat for the Democrats again.
But that doesn't mean much if there isn't any opposition.
There isn't any pushback.
Okay, the Democrats lose, and we know that they think they're going to.
If you look at the retirements.
John Dingle, although that seat said to stay on the family with his wife Debbie.
But anyway, he's getting out of here.
He doesn't want to be part of minority.
Neither does Waxman, neither does George Miller, a bunch of them saying, so long we're out of here.
No fun.
They don't think they're going to win.
In fact, they probably think they're going to lose big.
So they don't have no desire to be there.
On the one hand, you've got that, then you've got the Republicans are once again are going to be the beneficiaries of this.
But that doesn't mean much unless there is an actual agenda that is rooted in the in in the opposition that is rooted in opposing Obama and the Democrats.
It really, when you look at it that way, it can make you cry.
The opportunity that has been squandered a number of times, not just 2010.
There have been any number of other occasions where had the Tea Party been embraced by the Republic, it was a natural coalition.
It was a natural mix.
Now we're in a circumstance where no matter where you go in the country, except in little enclaves of Democrats, everything happening is universally opposed.
We are genuinely being governed by a smaller and smaller minority, which somehow is able to bully everybody in the majority into shutting up.
They're able to bully people into not only shutting up, but caving.
It seems like every day or every week we get another example of somebody on the Republican side giving up the fight.
And whenever a Republican stands up and wants to carry the fight, the forces of opposition to that descend and try to destroy that guy.
Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, two names that come to mind.
Rand Paul.
I mean, it's just amazing to me.
So you've got most Americans disappointed in Obama's presidency.
Opposing Obamacare.
Won't know part of it.
There's another little blurb here.
This one-line story, it's so small, I wonder where I put it.
Something 6% of people support.
Here it is.
New York Times, CBS polls, 6% say Obamacare is working well and should be kept in places is.
6%.
6%.
In terms of the will of the people, in terms of public opinion, in terms of what the people of this country want, what's happening isn't it.
I've never seen this before.
And I mean I have never seen circumstance where two of the three bodies of government lay down and allow themselves to literally be trampled and have their power taken from.
I've never seen this kind of docile, lackadaisical, uncaring attitude about this.
And I just I'm here to assure you, don't care what happens, I am never going to be in that group.
I can't foresee a circumstance.
I literally cannot foresee the day where I come to this program behind this microphone and begin speaking to you in a manner that would indicate I have given up what I believe.
I just can't see it.
I don't understand how others can do it.
But it's happening, it's undeniable.
A genuinely small minority of People are bullying their way through the Constitution, the culture.
And they are bending and shaping public opinion in their way.
I know media this.
I'm not going to listen like a broken record overnight.
We all know the reasons why, but it shouldn't be this easy.
Yet it is.
Quick call.
Jonathan San Clemente, California.
It's great to have you on the program, sir.
Welcome.
Rush.
Great to talk to you.
Yeah.
Bible-loving cigar smoking Missouri-born rush baby dittoes.
Hubbahubba.
What kind of cigar?
Uh, you know, Padron Maduro 3000.
I love that.
Those are excellent.
A lot of people love the padrones.
They're out of Nicaragua.
Yeah.
And they love them.
A lot of people absolutely love them.
Good choice.
That's a great cigar.
Hey, I am what is going on?
You know, I know I'm on the left coast, but I'm being told that, you know, global warming is caused by man, that you know, that raising the minimum wage is gonna create jobs.
And now we got the president's daughter's perfect role model, Beyoncé, telling us that I guess her husband Monica Lewinsky'd all over her, but that doesn't make any sense.
Last time I checked sex education, shouldn't it have been Bill Clinton?
Bill Clinton on Monica Lewinsky?
Yeah, yeah, I thought the same thing.
When I heard the Beyoncé lyric the first time, so what is this Monica Lewinsky all over her?
I I mean Lewinsky didn't do anything.
I would imagine she had the education to know, you know, the anatomy and what goes on, but uh now we're being told that it's from the female.
I I'm just I'm I'm kind of blown away.
I'll tell you what it is if you really want to know the truth.
I mean, I the the truth is that Clinton is protected, he's loved and adored by Beyonce and Jay-Z and these people, and Lewinsky is perfectly fine to make fun of.
That's right.
She is a if I were the feminist movement.
Look, this woman's life has pretty much been destroyed, mocked, laughed at, and made fun of by who?
The hero of the Democrat Party.
Yep.
And they tell us we've got a war on win.
Here's here's what he's calling about Grab Sunbite 6A.
This is Beyonce Carter has a music video.
She's in a limo.
It the title is Partition.
She wants the driver to close the partition in the limo.
She's singing about going to a club with her husband, the well-known Sean Corter, uh, also known as Jay-Z.
And they don't make it to the club before things get steamy.
This is just six seconds.
Here we go.
He popped on my buttons and he ripped my blouse.
He might not cut a whiskey doll on my gown.
Monica Lewinsky.
And the point is, what do you Monica Lewinsky?
Bill Clinton all over my game.
Great role model.
That's your point, right?
That's exactly right.
He built Clinton all over my game.
Well.
Hey, real quick.
Yeah.
I just wanted to thank you for Rush Revere and the and the Brave Pilgrims.
I uh put it on for my son.
We got the audio version and uh listened to it in the car with him, and he clapped after the prologue.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Oh, I love hearing old and just loved it.
So thank you for doing that.
We have history in our family.
We love America, and and it's just it's been a great tool to give him some history lessons.
Jonathan, thank you.
You made my day.
I'm so we're so excited about the next one coming.
You know, I've dare I say it, the second one's even better.
And that's not to diminish the first one.
The second one, Rush Revere.
And the first Patriots is even better.
If your kid loved liberty in the first book, gonna love liberty even more in the second book.
I mean, it's just you know, you do get better as you do things, and the second one's better, and the first one, nothing slouchy about it.
And it's its release date's close now, March the 11th.
This is what, the 27th?
So we're just 12 days away here.
To the release of the second book.
And yeah, it's coming pretty soon because there were always gonna be two books, folks.
In fact, there were always gonna be three.
In fact, there were always gonna it i but I don't want to go too far.
But this is a mission.
This is a mission.
Uh and to hear the guy in San Clemente say his eight-year-old applauded after hearing me read the prologue in the in the audio version.
You don't know how that makes me feel.
That is that is direct hit success.
That's target rich success.
So I appreciate that.
And the second book is you can pre-order it now if you want to.
Uh at all the usual places, Barnes and Noble and Amazon iBooks slash iTunes.
Gotta take a break.
Um we've got a young man from Detroit I want to get to next on the phones.
Again, something I held over from yesterday.
I just received an email that I want to react.
It's a good email.
Chastised me for being an old fuddy duty over this Beyoncé thing, uh, Monica Lewinsky all over her gown.
She says, Rush, you know, this uh sex in music and kids.
It's been around since before we were around what are getting so upset.
I know that.
You know, that's that that's exactly here's the difference.
Here is the difference.
And I'm gonna reach around, pat myself on the back.
I had a fear, and I warned everybody that because of the way the whole Clinton thing ended up, that rather than any of that being seen as shameful, it was going to end up being a badge of honor, and that kind of behavior by a president was going to be seen as cool someday.
The difference is, yeah, we've always had kids titillated by stuff like that.
That's not new.
What is new is we don't have any adults setting standards in positions of influential leadership.
We used to have adults, we used to have people who set standards, moral standards and cultural standards, legal standards.
They were better than we were.
They they gave us something to aspire to.
They were people that we described as having dignity and character.
That's all gone now.
Particularly at the other levels of the Democrat Party, there isn't any of that kind of of decency, dignity, character, morality.
They have promoted this kind of of I don't want to call it indecency because it's not new.
Kids being titillated by what's in music.
The emailer is exactly right.
The difference is that there should be, and in not that long ago, Clinton would have been shamed by this.
Any uh w would not have been wouldn't have wanted to show his face anyway.
And now it's a badge of honor, is the point.
This is that is what's new here.
The bottom feeders of the entertainment industry were never invited to presidential inaugurations.
The bottom feeders of the entertainment were never used as fundraisers for presidents of the United States.
They were ignored.
There was always, they were always there, and they were always who they were, and they always did what they did.
The bottom feeders have now become the standard.
That's what's different.
Anyway, here is Sean in Detroit.
Says here, you're 30.
Is that right?
Okay, great.
Welcome to the program, Sean.
Thank you for taking my call.
You bet.
How can I help?
My my wife and I have been married for three years.
I met her on January 12th of all days.
No kidding.
Well, I did.
That's how I knew she was the one.
How about that?
Um she's had insurance uh all of her life through her family and everything, but I have not.
And we've been talking about Obamacare.
And many are telling me that I should follow the law, that you need insurance, that you're not gonna stay infallible forever, and all of this other stuff.
And it's not that I don't want insurance.
I do.
But I've heard so much from you, so many other stories from so many other people that the last thing I really want to do is sign up and give my name and financials and everything else to Obamacare and not and the insurance doesn't even work half the time for most people anyway.
So I'm kind of in a stickler with the the new due date coming up as to what exactly to do to buy or not to buy.
Well, let me see if I can help.
And uh people like you and all of us.
The IRS issued a press release uh statement the other day, warning everybody that they were coming.
They were called Obamacare health care tax tips, and what they were were warnings to the American people, informing them that they must obtain qualifying health insurance as defined by the federal government, or face a shared responsibility payment, i.e.
a tax, beginning when you file your return next year.
Shared responsibility payment refers to the Obamacare individual mandate tax.
This is where you can choose to not buy insurance but instead pay a penalty.
And for a couple three years, the penalty is gonna be less than the price of insurance.
But after that you're stuck no matter what you do.
Now when you get a hand on, I gotta take a break.
I need you to hang on because I'm gonna tell you what this really means.
This is jack booted thugs making themselves known to you now.
I wonder if Joe Biden thought this morning that he almost became president.
Eric Holder was hospitalized with chest pains.
Did you know that?
So Eric called the attorney general chest pains.
I wonder if if Biden was, oh wow, I wonder if I need to be sworn in.
Well, you know, Joe.
Hey, Chuck, stand up.
Oh, God bless him.
God bless me.
Oh, Chuck can't walk, he's in a wheelchair.
Oh, come on.
Well, let's stand up for Chuck.
Well, looking right at Chuck.
Stand up, Chuck.
Back to Sean here in Detroit.
Um basically, Sean, the uh the IRS is letting everybody know that they're gonna be monitoring them, and the the the Obamacare law requires you to have insurance or pay a fine.
And and if you don't buy insurance, you have been warned that they're gonna collect a tax on you via your tax return.
They will ref just take it out of your refund if you get a refund.
If you don't get a refund, right now there's no mechanism for them to take any money from you.
There's one thing you might want to plan your tax structure so you don't get a refund.
But here are the details.
Four tax facts about the health care law for individuals, and the IRS says your 2014 tax return.
This this year means next April, April 15 when you file, will ask you if you have insurance coverage or qualified for an exemption.
If not, you will owe a shared responsibility payment when you file in 2015.
And here's the payment structure.
Here's the size of your fine.
It is the greater of these two possibilities.
One, one percent of your household income that is above the tax return filing threshold for your filing status, such as married joint, whatever.
Or your family's flat dollar amount, $95 per adult, 47 dollars fifty cents per child, limited to a maximum of two hundred and eighty-five dollars.
So you will either be you'll your fine will be the greater of one percent of your household income or two hundred and eighty-five dollars.
So if you make ten million dollars, for example, and you don't have health insurance, you will owe one percent of ten million dollars as your fine.
If you earn a hundred thousand and don't have health insurance, you will owe one percent as a fine.
So that's what you're facing, Sean.
I haven't paying more than five thousand dollars since I started working a year.
So I I sometimes don't even have to f file federal returns because I'm not at that bracket.
I think the number is 7200 or something like that.
So I don't even make enough money some years to even pay taxes because I just work with the what about your wife?
Uh she stays she's I take care of her through the little bit of money that I make.
She babysit sometimes and things like that.
Well, it doesn't work.
You guys don't make enough money to file a tax return?
Correct.
At least in the last couple of years, yes.
Because if we go to school full time and there's no way that you can afford you you you would qualify for a subsidy for health insurance, more than likely.
Meaning you would qualify for your neighbors buying your policy for you.
But I don't want to do that, though.
But you're gonna have to.
I mean, the law is you're gonna have to.
You're gonna have to go to healthcare.gov or your state exchange, and you're gonna have to have insurance.
And you have to go find out what it costs and whether you qualify for a subsidy, and at that point you make a decision to buy it or pay the fine.
And what the IRS is basically saying here is we don't care who you are, we are going to find you.
And we're gonna assume you're guilty from the get-go.
Guess I gotta go to healthcare.gov.
Maybe Medicaid will help me out.
I don't know.
Well uh.
If you if you really don't file a tax return, there is no way for the IRS to track you.
Right.
So then you're left with you.
You don't have health insurance right now?
Correct.
Okay.
Well, what happens?
What's your plan if you need medical treatment?
I don't have one, I suppose to be honest with you.
If I fell down the steps and needed to go to the hospital tonight, then I guess I would go to the hospital.
Okay, so that would be that.
You're an ER baby.
You would head right to the emergency room.
Well, I mean, if I if I needed ER, you know, if I fell down the steps and broke my leg or something like that.
That's what you're waiting for.
If you get a cold, you're not going to the doctor.
If you get the flu for a couple weeks, you're not going to do it.
You're only going to go to the doctor, i.e., the hospital if you have an emergency, right?
Right.
Because you don't have insurance.
You've got no way to pay for it.
So if if that's the case, if you're not accessing the health care system, and if you don't file a tax return, I don't know how they're gonna find you.
I don't know how they're gonna track you.
Well, I I'm gonna be graduating next year.
I'm gonna be a school age teacher, probably elementary or middle school, and at that point I will be able to do that.
Oh, well, why didn't you say so?
I thought you were I So you are going the next.
Well, it's it's January, it's April in 2015.
It is the next, it's this year, 2014, when you file next April that all this goes into effect.
Okay.
So you are free and clear this year if all you're gonna make is what did you say $7200?
Probably less than that.
Less than that.
Uh I only gross I only grossed like five thousand or so last year, even a little bit less than that.
You know, it's been I I have earned seventy-two hundred dollars a year as a uh.
And I but I don't remember if I had to file a tax return then or not.
I really I don't know.
I'm I'm I'll admit to you that I don't know what the the floor is on whether you have to file a return or not.
It's just every time I every time I try and go to Obamacare, I either accidentally go to the two FIT site or rush Lima.com and I can't get off it, and I just read that and enjoy it instead of having to go to the website.
Well, I just don't blame you.
I'd much rather go to two of my t dot com or rushlinbaugh.com than healthcare.gov too.
I haven't gone to healthcare.gov.
I'm getting nowhere near it.
I'm holding out as long as I can.
That's that's what I'm that's I don't have health insurance now.
I'll tell you, I am ticked off that I have to have health.
I what?
You think I'm giving away?
I have I have I have I've never hidden this fact.
I am self-insured.
I'm self-insured.
I am on a health care role.
I am on a policy, but I staff is just nervous as they can be in there, thinking I have just made a target of myself.
Do you think what have I been for 25 years?
Well, my everybody is gonna nobody's gonna get away with not paying anything other than oh, friends of Obama.
I mean, it this is like anything else.
There are gonna be people that don't qualify for subsidies that get them.
It's it's this is such a mess.
But look at his his point is he doesn't want to do it.
He doesn't want to go to healthcare.gov.
I mean, I didn't need to spend this much.
He doesn't want to mess with this.
But that's out the window now.
He doesn't have that freedom anymore.
He doesn't, and nor does anybody else.
You the the law of the land is you have to have Obamacare.
And what about the low information people?
Right.
I am if I'm telling you, yes, the IRS is about collecting money and they don't know low information from high information.
And if, you know, Anastas Mikoyan, low information voter, files his tax return and doesn't have health key, he's gonna get fined.
Damn straight.
And Obama's gonna make sure of it.
It's a it's a it's a money collection agency.
Damn straight they're gonna they're gonna find everybody they can't.
It's gonna be too late.
By the time they find out, Obama's long gone.
That's why all this is being delayed.
Snerdlies asked, Well, what's a low information Obama voter gonna do when he finds out he's getting shafted?
It's too late.
That's why all this is being delayed another three years.
Employer, all this being delayed beyond 2015 and 2016.
So it doesn't all these Obama acolytes who think he's great as things that sliced bread, at some point they are gonna realize they've been screwed, but it's gonna be too late by design.
Nothing they can do about it.
Here's Hillary.
You gotta look at this.
Is uh last night, Carl Gables.
Hillary was down at university in Miami, and I guess it was uh I don't know, fundraiser of some kind, just a personal appearance, but during the QA of whatever this was, Hillary got a question about Obamacare, and this is this is the the nub of of what she said.
Ultimately, having access to health insurance, not connected to employment, subsidized as it is under the Affordable Care Act, liberates you to choose what you want to do in your life.
You don't have to take a job, as so many people in my generation did just to have health insurance.
Now I'm telling you, this is unconscionable, it is irresponsible, it's an abject lie, and this is pr you talk about not motivating people and not inspiring people.
This is exactly what I meant when I said we used to have people with dignity and character that at least stood for something, and at least tried to make people improve themselves and end up being better than what they could be.
We used to have people in leadership positions who wanted to inspire people.
And now look at what the standard ordinary procedure Democrat Party is.
Don't worry about working.
That's that's job luck.
What we've done is liberate you from having to work at a job you hate just to get health insurance.
We're gonna see to it that you get all the health insurance you want, and you don't have to have a job.
Unlike me and Bill, who the only re we had to go do things we didn't want to do just to get health insurance.
Well, that was penal-like, and that is crock.
That is an absolute giant slice of BS.
It is utter irresponsibility for these people to say these kinds of things.
And yet this has become standard operating procedure.
This is Democrat Party policy.
That the best thing they're doing, they're enabling you to not have to work in order to get health insurance.
They're they're essentially condemning people to lives of mediocrity.
No achievement, failure.
You don't have to do anything.
You don't want.
And we're going to give you health insurance.
This is we cannot remain the United States of America with irresponsible crap leadership like this.
By the way, in this IRS press release, this warning that went out.
As confirmed by previous IRS testimony to the tax writing House and uh House Committee of Ways and Means, quote, taxpayers will file their tax returns, reporting their health insurance coverage, and or making a payment.
You will report it.
It is going to be on the form, 1040 EZ, 1040, whatever form, screw you for it's gonna be there.
You will report.
You will file, and you will report your health insurance coverage.
And people mock you when you tell them that we are losing our freedoms.
Here's Kathy in McLean, Virginia.
Hi, glad you called.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Kathy, are you there?
And I will say, even though I have not met you, I consider the next best thing to meeting you was to have met Mr. Snerdley last September in Washington.
It was a thrill.
And Mr. Snerdley said that I could ask you a quick question before I get to my point.
And that question is are there going to be Rush Revere and Liberty plush toys and a companion board game?
You never know.
Hmm.
You never know.
I I uh uh I can't, you know, it's it that's that's actually a longer answer than I than I want to spend time on here, but the ultimate answer is probably yeah, but I we gotta be very careful with parceling stuff like that out.
Uh as if you stop and think about why.
Um but anyway, that's not why you call.
What was it?
It is not.
No, I'm calling on the topic of bullying and shutting people up.
You know, bullying is right out of the old civility playbook book.
It's just meant to shut people up.
And along those lines, today is the last day that people can comment on these proposed IRS regulations that are going to effectively silence 501c4 groups, which are largely the so-called Tea Party groups.
I know you've talked about this before, Rush, but I just want people to be reminded that this is the last day comments, and now I think over a hundred and twenty-two thousand.
The last time I looked on the IRS website, there's a very good website that I have no affiliation with.
But if people want to go there and read more about this issue, and they have a link right to the IRS comment page.
Would you like me to give that website?
No.
Okay.
No.
No, go ahead.
People can do their research on that.
No, go go ahead.
Go ahead.
I just if it then everybody's gonna want to give websites if I do, but go ahead and go ahead since since we called you go ahead.
Yeah, go ahead.
What is protect C4, and it's the number four, free speech dot com.
Protect C4 free speech.com.
Yes, protect C4FreeSpeech dot com.
It's a very informative website about what this is all about.
You know, for the first time, the IRS is trying to classify as political activity things like holding candidate debates or distributing voter education materials, even mentioning the name of a candidate thirty days before a primary election, or sixty days prior to a general election.
And if any group does this kind of thing, they could have their tax exempt status revoked.
It is outrageous.
Rush, there was an El FOIA Freedom of Information Act request filed last December with the Treasury Department asking if there'd been any communication with the White House or other groups in the writing of these IRS rules.
By law, the government had to respond to that FOIA request within thirty days, which is in January.
And do you know when they responded in January, they said, Oh well, we can't have the documents available until April.
So take that, America.
This is just disgusting.
Not surprising.
Well, Kathy, great talking to you.
Thanks very much.
I got a time.
I gotta run.
Folks, sit tight, we'll be back.
We got much more after this.
Folks, we gotta take a brief time out here to the top of the hour, and we will be back.
We've got lots to do here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, including squeeze in some more of your telephone calls.
So I want to get Bill Donna here from the Catholic League schooling Chris Cuomo on what happened in Arizona, what that law was about.
So we'll get to that right off the bat.
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