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Feb. 28, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:11
February 28, 2014, Friday, Hour #2
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Greetings, my friends, and welcome to you.
This is the most listened to radio talk show in America.
And it is the most talked about.
Radio Talk Show and radio host in America.
And it's the end of the week Friday.
Let's hit it.
My from the Southern Command in Sunny South.
I always say this.
Oh good luck.
When I say it.
I intended to get the phone calls in the last hour.
In fact, I intended to take my first call right after the bottom of the hour break.
And then something happened.
A synapsis fired in the neurons, and I got off on something.
The Patty Murray dingy hairy stuff.
And that took me to the next commercial break, and I didn't get to call in.
So I'm going to promise we'll start the calls here in this hour early.
Always great to be with you.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
And the email address lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
Charlie Cook.
Charlie Cook of the famous Cook Report.
Been in the news lately.
Charlie Cook raised the possibility of Mrs. Clinton's physical appearance while aging and asking if it would be detrimental to her campaign should she run.
And that's and he di if I mean Charlie's considered dean of these political analysts and so forth.
It tends left, like everybody in Washington does.
I mean, for the most part establishment types.
But he's got a piece today, the Cook Report, and his piece today.
He's very worried that America may have lost its nerve.
Uh that days of melees have set in, much like in the latter years of the Carter administration in the 70s.
In this piece, he asks, what happens when the nation loses its bootstrap self-image.
And he cites some polling days.
And Paul Certainly analyzes other polling days.
And he says that 63% are confident that better days for their kids will materialize.
There are people that no matter what's happening, it's gonna get better.
And I can relate to it.
I I've told you many times I can't pinpoint when I can't tell you what the impetus is gonna be, what the tipping point's gonna be, but I too.
It's it's partially my my genuine overall optimism.
And my I folks, I really do uh this may sound loony, and I've uh I've thought this for ten years.
I really think the day's coming where we're gonna be shocked at people we call low information, people we think aren't paying much attention, people who aren't really that informed.
I I think at some point they're gonna have had enough of this.
Oh, 63% say it will not be.
Okay, then there's a typo.
63% are confident better days of take it back that 63% are not confident of better days for their kids.
And 53% say life will be worse for the next generation.
Okay, so Charlie doesn't agree with me.
I'm I'm missing, I misread this.
Well, no, I didn't misread it.
The typo.
But I I despite this, and it's look, it it's it's toothy.
It is a feeling.
I'm not gonna deny that, but it is, and there's faith.
I'm not gonna deny that.
I just think at some point, people are going to enough of this.
It it may obviously it's gonna require some kind of leadership to spur this.
It's not just it's just not going to happen on its own.
Although I even think that might, yeah, but it it's it would really be facilitated if there were an inspirational can-do leader that popped up.
Right now, people are peppered with nothing but pessimism.
And we've got a Democrat Party which wants people to think the better days are behind us, that this is it.
And vote, you know, bunker down with us, and we're gonna do the best for you that we can.
But the days of American exceptionalism are over, Chuck Hagel announcing military cuts.
We're not the dominant military power anymore.
It just isn't gonna be the case.
And yeah, the new normal is 9% unemployed.
The new normal is 92 million, 95 million not working.
I mean, people are bombarded with this every day.
And for 10 years I've been waiting for this.
Honest to God, I don't know how else to describe it.
For 10 years I've been waiting for this national awakening, and it's done nothing but worsen.
There is nothing close to a national awakening, and I will be the first to admit it.
Closest thing to it's Tea Party.
And to what extent the Tea Party is going to be successful politically in winning elections and having a majority of like-minded people in elective office, that's up for grabs.
We don't know that.
We know the Democrats are going to lose lots of seats, but we don't know what kind of Republicans are going to replace them.
If they're anti-Tea Party Republicans, then big whoop.
If they're pro-Republican establishment who just think it's what it is, the government's going to get bigger, stay big, we're just going to be in charge of it now, then big whoop.
I'll take it, getting rid of Democrats, but it could be better if Tea Party types, conservatives is what I mean, end up winning.
So, Charlie Cook, 63% are not confident of better days.
53% say life will be harder for the next generation.
And that's sadly probably true.
Well, but why get out of bed?
I'm talking about attitudinally.
I'm not talking about what's possible.
I'm talking about the national attitude that's been impacted.
We are a nation of sad sacks.
Look at, but but look at what the sad sacks are bombarded with every day.
I mean, normal food that they eat and drink can kill them.
Uh and for how many years have they been hearing this stuff?
I mean, they now for five years been hearing what a reprobate country we've always been.
What an unfair, unjust country, and how we've got to make things right and balance what's been wrong for 250 years and so forth.
It's a never-ending assault on people's sensibilities.
And let's add the way they're being educated.
And what they're being taught from the youngest ages about this country, which takes me to Sylwan.com.
Huge piece there.
This prints out to six pages.
Why you are wrong about communism.
Seven huge misconceptions about it and capitalism.
And the subhead is most of what Americans think they know about capitalism and communism is total nonsense.
And as I read through this, and I'm not, I can't read the whole thing to you, but we will link to it at rushlimbaugh.com.
And as you read through this, if you're going, if you take the time to do it, this could very easily be the kind of goblety goop that's being taught in college.
As the commentary around the recent deaths of Nelson Mandela, Amiri Baraka, and Pete Seeger made abundantly clear.
Most of what Americans think they know about capitalism and communism is nonsense.
This is not surprising given our country's history of red scares, designed to impress that anti-capitalism is tantamount to treason.
In 2014, though, we are too far removed from the Cold War era Threat of thermonuclear annihilation to continue without taking stock of the hype we've been made, despite Harry Allen's famous injunction to believe.
So here are seven bogus claims people make about communism and capitalism.
Would you like to hear these bogus claims?
Okay, here you go.
I'm just gonna give you the seven claims and get into some of them maybe.
Only communist economies rely on state violence.
That's just absolute BS.
Capitalist economies require state violence, too.
It's not just the commies.
Capitalist economies are based on free exchange.
That's bogus.
There's no free markets and capitalism, and it's the biggest lie that's ever been taught.
It's the biggest move.
Myth that there is.
There's no freedom and free markets.
There's no free markets in capitalism.
Number three, communism killed 110 million people for resisting dispossession.
This attacks the notion that if people in the Soviet Union didn't die because they wanted to get out of the country, they didn't die because of a totalitarian government that murdered them.
110 million, 75 million.
They didn't.
Communism doesn't kill.
That's another myth.
Another myth.
Capitalist governments don't commit human rights atrocities.
I don't know who but you see where this is headed.
Capitalist governments don't commit human rights.
That's a myth.
Capitalist governments violate human rights all the time, is the point here.
Why this country's been capitalist, and look at all the racism and look at all the sexism, and look at all the homophobia, and look at all the bigotry.
See communism is being advocated here.
The point is an advocacy piece, it's a slam on uh on capitalism.
Number five, 21st century American communism would resemble 20th century Soviet and Chinese horrors.
They said it's a myth.
If America became communist this century, it wouldn't look like anything.
Soviet Union.
It wouldn't look anything like the China, the ChICOMs killing people left and right.
It wouldn't look like there wouldn't be mass poverty.
The grocery stores wouldn't be empty.
If America went communist, it wouldn't look anything like any other communist nation ever.
Right?
Because the right people will be in charge.
For the first time ever, the right people would finally be in charge, and we'd have all the money we want.
I mean, Stalin and these guys, they were okay, but they just weren't the right people.
Miles ahead of his time.
Fidel, if it hadn't been for the blockade, who knows what kind of paradise Cuba could become.
I mean, they got the best healthcare system in the world, but imagine what else if we hadn't embargoed them.
So 21st century American communism, why we're the ones that could make it work, finally.
Number six, communism fosters uniformity.
That's a myth.
That's not true.
Communism doesn't make everybody the same.
Communism doesn't demand everybody the same.
Communism doesn't demand everybody to think alike.
That's a no, they didn't watch the openings.
Well, if you watch the opening ceremony of the Chinese, that was scary.
They open it, we even commented on it.
The opening ceremony of the Chinese Olympics was scary.
Other people thought it was really beautiful.
Synchronization conformity and choreography.
I thought it was scary.
But that's not the point.
He's saying here that communism doesn't make everybody behave and think and act the same.
It's another myth that these right wingers put out there.
And number seven, capitalism fosters individuality.
That's a bogus myth.
That's not true.
Capitalism doesn't do that.
Capitalism doesn't make people entrepreneurs or independent or individual or whatever.
Capitalism isn't what allows us to be different from each other.
It's in Salon.
It's by a guy named Jesse Myerson.
I don't know what else.
I don't have any information about where he teaches or if it's just a journalist or whatever.
My my but the point is, this didn't just happen.
This piece is the result, no doubt, of a lot of thinking over time.
It's look, it just probably what suffices for education today in college.
I think that's probably.
And that's why I say, you know, when you when you look at the national malaise and what people's attitudes are, you've got to look at how young kids have been taught what they've been taught.
That's again, folks, that's why I'm doing my children's books.
It's to counter this crap.
It's to try to do what you know what little we can do in that venue to counter some of this stuff that is being quote unquote taught or or prep propagandized.
I I can just tell you, when I was going to probably you too in school, there was no way.
There might have been there were uh people who have high hopes for Soviet communism.
But in school, it was never advocated.
We were never taught of the wonders and the potential and the beauty and the greatness that we could all achieve if we were communist.
Nobody ever went there.
And they even tackle that.
That's said to be a problem.
Because that led to all of these misconceptions about capitalism.
So anyway, I gotta take a break and we'll do that and we'll come back and get started with your phones as promised.
Do not go away.
Okay, this if I'd have known this, I might not have spent as much time on it.
Jesse Meyerson, the um author of this what's why you're wrong about communism, media coordinator for Occupy Wall Street.
Had I known that, I I probably would have had more fun laughing at this than um it's an absolute nut case.
Then it's Occupy Wall Street is a total Obama regime concoction.
And there's no doubt the kid believes it, and there's I still believe the stuff's being taught.
I still believe where did this kid get the idea of all this stuff?
And this stuff all has to be taught.
He recently had a piece in Rolling Stone that urged millennials to demand communism in America by ending and eliminating private property.
That's who the guy is.
Private property.
I guess he's never read the gulag archipelago.
Or any of that.
Anyway, it was it was, I think it was worth the time because you need to know this is the kind of stuff that if you have a young person, children, child, son, kid, whatever, this is the kind of stuff they're up against.
This is what they're being told.
This is how they're being influenced, shaped, flaked, and formed, if you will.
Here is Tony in Clearwater, Florida, as we start on the phones.
Great to have you.
Hello.
Thanks a lot, Rush.
I've been out of work four years, Rush.
This is the lowest labor participation rate in 40 years.
You want to get a job at McDonald's, Mickey D, you gotta go for two interviews.
It's like try to get a job at NASA or General Motors.
Then this vindictive menuscule little man, Barack Obama, playing Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and racism.
Let me tell you something, Barack.
It's not Fox News.
It's not Rush Limbaugh, and it's not racism, Barack.
It's you.
That's pretty good, Tony.
That is pretty good.
Did you did you say it takes two interviews to get a job at Mickey D's?
Did you say two interviews, Rush, to get a job at Nikki D's, man?
Like I say, it's by trying to get a job at NASA.
General motives.
It's like trying to get an internship.
That's how lousy it is out here.
Did you have you gone to Mickey D's try to get a job there?
Have you have you been interviewed there?
No, I haven't been interviewed.
I didn't go there.
Let me tell you why I didn't go there.
Gas is 350 a gallon.
I'm driving an old car.
I'm not going to be driving around in this miserable rat gut, rock gut uh economy, wasting my gas time and effort, knowing you're going to get no call back.
But I've heard it from other people.
Two interviews, eh?
Well, you know, I you might um be suffering misconception because the president says that the economy is is uh roaring back, coming back.
Well did you did you by the way, folks, speaking of which, now of course that's BS.
Did you hear they've revised fourth quarter GPT GDP down?
They reported initially is 3.2.
And now it's uh or three point for now it's 2.4, 2.8.
Revised it it's 33% less than what they originally said.
In fact, the first report every quarter of GDP is always wrong, and is weeks later revised down to where it's worse.
Sticking with the phones on open line Friday, this is Dan in Miami.
Great to have you, sir.
Thank you for waiting.
Hey, Rush, nice to be on.
You got me thinking the other day when you're talking about this proposal on raising the minimum wage, and I hire people, and I and I had worked for minimum wage when I got started uh about 40 years back.
And right now, when I hire people, there's so many unemployed that I can pick and choose the best of what's out there.
And if we go to minimum wage, um people are gonna do the same thing.
We're going to go for the best we can get and minimum wage first, and all the people that really do need to start out uh their lives with a job and stuff like that are gonna get cut out from being able to get a minimum wage.
Let's put it in a way when you anybody, when anybody says raising the minimum wage will create job loss unemployment.
How?
Okay, let's use a number.
Let's just let's make minimum wage, let's move it up from 750, whatever it is now to ten dollars.
There, folks, there are a lot of people who are not worth $10 an hour.
And they're gonna be fired.
Right.
It's just that simple.
Yep.
That's exactly what happens.
They're not worth $10.
Entry level, whatever, they're not worth it.
Right.
And what the left mistakenly assumes is that if some central authority comes along and mandates this wage that everybody's just gonna sit there and pay it.
Businesses can't afford to pay people what they're not going to get back in return in terms of productivity or talent or capability.
I agree.
You're right, because I've listened to you talk about it before.
We're all gonna have to raise the price of our services to cover that.
But what I'm saying is, as an employer who hires people, I'm gonna pick the best that's out there at minimum wage.
And the young people starting out are gonna get passed over.
Right, because it is it's in your case, it's buyer's market.
There's so much unemployment.
You have got so many people to choose from that you can take your time and find the absolute best for what you have to pay.
And and you know what?
I got a great crew because I hire people with 30 years' depth of experience, and um, I don't have to put up with I don't have a car or or any of the stuff.
The dating problems coming in late and all that stuff.
All my people are mature.
Let me ask you a question.
Seriously now.
I just reported that the government has revised the fourth quarter GDP down from I think 3.2 to 2.8%.
It's down, it's a significant drop.
What it if the fourth quarter economy didn't grow anywhere near like they said, what would happen to somebody who worked for you that got every assignment wrong and shows up, you know, let's say your job is nine to five and they show up at 9 30 every day.
What would happen to them?
They'd be canned.
They'd have to be canned, or you're just something.
But yet uh same thing.
If I decided to do this for you know, show shows noon to three.
You know what?
It's not noon to three.
It's whenever I get here till three.
So I'll show up at 1230, somebody says you have to be here at noon and say, no, no, it's whatever I want to get it.
The government can do whatever they want.
They can announce these numbers, they can be totally full of, you know, what lie about them.
You sick the IRS on political opponents, and nothing anybody can do.
Mandate what you have to pay somebody, and then when you uh if you can't find somebody worth what the minimum wage is, what are you gonna do?
You're gonna you're you you you can't just magically increase your labor cost from somewhere.
You have to find that money somewhere.
So You have to fire somebody else to hire somebody not as qualified just to keep the government off your back.
Well, I'm hearing now that uh services are being cut back in a lot of the places that we go to to eat or whatever, because they're struggling right now, and they're letting people go so they can afford uh the higher prices and things.
And so we're getting lousier service and uh it's uh just a trickle-down effect on purpose, I believe.
Exactly right.
Well, look, uh Dan, I appreciate that.
What business are you in?
Do you mind saying?
I run a print shop.
Print shop.
Cool.
Thanks much for the rush.
Go talking to you.
You bet.
The GDP number 3.2 was what the Gubman announced was the rate at which the economy grew in the fourth quarter, and today they revised it to 2.4.
So it's down almost eight-tenths of a point.
They made it up.
Same thing with the unemployment numbers.
Those always get revised worse.
It's always smoking mirrors.
Yeah, it was it was cold.
Yeah.
That that would explain how they got the economic growth number wrong.
That's a significant error.
3.2 to 2.4.
That's almost a full point they got it wrong by.
Um, by the way, I have a story.
Let me find it here.
It's uh it won't take me long to find it, because frankly, the stack today is not that big.
It's a bunch of restaurants who are now adding Obamacare surcharges.
And I have right here.
Gators Dockside is a restaurant chain, and they have begun charging a 1% Obamacare surcharge in an effort to help fund their employees' health insurance.
They're calling it the ACA surcharge on the who knows what ACA is, affordable care act.
Um, this is a Florida restaurant, and they're adding one percent.
So I've got a copy of a receipt from this place.
Somebody went in, had two iced teas, a chicken sandwich with rib sauce and fries, and a chili cheese dog with homemade coleslaw, no bread.
The total was 2115, and the tax was $1.49.
They added 20 cents as the Obamacare surcharge.
They added 20 cents and made the total 22.84.
So pre-tax, the bill was 2115 and there's a dollar forty-nine a tax, added 20 cents.
Total bill is 22.84 cents.
And they've got a sign, welcoming patrons at the door that say the costs associated with ACA compliance could ultimately close our doors.
Instead of raising prices on our products to generate the additional revenue needed to cover the costs of ACA compliance.
Certain Gator's dog side locations have implemented a 1% surcharge on all food and beverage purchases only.
ACA is Obamacare.
So what they're they're telling their customers, look, we're gonna add a 1% surcharge.
We're not gonna raise the cost.
We're not gonna raise the price of our chili cheese dog.
We're not gonna raise the price of iced tea or the chicken salad with rib sauce.
We're just gonna add a 1% surcharge and because we don't want to raise the price, and we don't want to have to fire our employees, and we want to stay in compliance with Obamacare, so it's gonna cost you an additional 1%.
According to Sandra Clark, the director of operations for Gator's Dockside, the fee will allow the restaurants to continue to employ many workers full-time.
Such employees would have otherwise been moved to part-time because of the Obamacare employer mandate that requires employers to provide health insurance to all those working 30 hours a week or more.
Sandra Clark estimates that they will bring in about $160,000 chain wide from this 1% surcharge, which will partially offset.
You ready for this?
Partially offset the half a million dollars.
The company estimates it will incur insuring all of its full-time workers throughout the chain.
This is Gator's dockside.
Obamacare has raised their costs a half a million dollars.
If they continue to offer health insurance to all our full-timers, they have added a 1% surcharge to defray the half million.
So they are estimating this 1% surcharge will bring in 160 grand, which will help them more easily afford the half a million.
Now you might say, well, why don't they raise it at 2%?
I bring in $320,000.
At some point, people are going to stop going.
And that's what they've made the decision here to just lop this off on Obama.
Hey, look, this is the government.
We're not raising the cost of the chili cheese dog.
We're not raising the cost of chicken sandwich.
We're just adding one percent to the bill so that our employees can stay employed and have health insurance.
And by the way, we thank you.
Our customers.
But it's their way of letting everybody know, hey, it's the regime.
Now Sandra Clark, I'm sure everybody at Gator's Dockside listens to this program.
Sandra.
Um you let us know if and when you hear from the IRS on this surcharge and what they tell you about it.
It's open line Friday where we do a caller jam as often as we can.
We'll stick with it to Athel, Massachusetts.
This is Michael.
Great to have you on the program.
Pronouncing that right?
It's athol.
Athol.
Okay, well, great.
I'm I'm glad you called, sir.
Thank you.
I'm just calling about Senator Harry Reid.
You know, it's funny that the only people who defend Obamacare are the people who don't have to have Obamacare.
Or who are subsidized by Obamacare, which Dingy Harry is.
That's a great point, sir.
Well, isn't everybody subsidized because they haven't built the back half of the website yet?
No, they're subsidized because they're members of Congress and the government, and it was too expensive for them.
I I'm not making it up.
Congressional staff complained that then some of these people make up to $150 or $60,000 here.
They claim they couldn't afford it.
And and Michael, I am not making a shred of this up.
I never do that anyway.
The regime, Obama promised them that they would get up to 75% of their costs subsidized by the uh Bureau of uh labor personnel or some such thing.
If they're not going to be subsidized by the by the exchanges, it's some it's some personnel bureaucracy in the government.
And it goes for members of Congress, too, who can make up to 175 grand.
They just the staff started, we can't afford them.
So they're getting 75% subsidy.
So it's those people or the people that don't have to have it who are your right singing its praises.
Right.
Right.
I mean, you got like that girl that was on Fox News this morning there.
And there's other cancer patients uh uh out there that say the same thing.
You know, if it's so great, how come not one person has signed up in the state of Oregon?
Well, that's that's in fact that's true.
They don't have any enrollment.
Not one state of Oregon.
And the thing I said earlier, you know, where are where's this endless parade of happy enrollees?
If the if if Denji Harry says these guys are making this all up, there aren't any failures, there ain't any problem.
These are lies.
These stories are untrue.
Right?
Well, where is this endless parade of happy citizens who have enrolled with Obamacare and their life is now hunky-dory.
Where is this list?
I think they've been looking for them since December, but they haven't found them yet.
Well, then they're gonna make them up since I brought it up.
They'll you know get a bunch of actors and they'll and they'll do this, since I no doubt uh brought up.
But what this is Michael, this ruling class versus country class.
Us is the country class.
We are the country class, and they are the ruling class.
And I have warned everybody about this year after year after year.
Members of Congress, usually Democrats, leftists, always devise two versions of their rules.
One version is for us.
Another version is for them.
Their version of the rules almost always exempts them from the rules that we have to obey.
And they do this quite openly.
Well, we're important.
Well, you know, we're the leaders.
Uh we have to be well.
We can't afford to get sick.
We are too needed every day.
We must have our benefits and what have you.
And they honestly do look at it that way.
That's why there are elite office of personnel management.
Jason, that is subsidizing congressional staff and many members of Congress.
Here's uh here's Rod in Minneapolis.
Hello, sir.
Wonderful to have you with us.
Hello.
Good morning, Rush.
Thank you for having me on.
You bet, sir.
I just wanted to uh share a little personal story of my son's going through.
He's in his fifth year of college.
He's working on a degree in the medical field.
He's uh been fortunate enough to have an athletic scholarship and worked his way through college.
He has loans, of course.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Yeah.
That's that's great.
That's fabulous.
Congratulations.
Yeah, I'm very proud of him.
You should be.
Uh yeah, I guess my point is uh he I didn't mean to stop you cold there.
I just you just shocked.
No, no, I appreciate that.
I went to college as well, and I understand what you're talking about very much.
Um my point is my son is uh is uh has a part-time job in the medical field, which he is trying to get into, or as he isn't going to school for.
I recently I found out he told me that instead of working anywhere between 30 and 35 hours a week, his employer is cutting him back to 25 hours a week because of the Obamacare law.
So my son is basically losing 25% of his part-time income while he's going to college full-time.
That's okay.
He's in med school.
He can treat himself for free if he gets sick.
Yeah, but we gotta get there first.
That's kind of the problem.
Yeah, I know.
The end result, you have to you have to get there first.
Then they just they just keep throwing obstacles in the way, don't they?
Yeah, he's uh really they really shook him up.
Here's a young man that that has very good grades, and he's uh applied to further his education after his first uh first five years have gone or finished here in the spring.
Well, was he was he unaware that this 30-hour part-time uh aspect of the law was he did he not know it existed?
Oh, you know it's you know, I knew it was there.
But the thing of it is is when you're 23 years old and trying to work your way through college to decrease the amount of student loans you come up with.
Now he's basically forced to go find another part-time job to try to make up for the hours that his were cut from his first part-time job.
Not to mention the fact that he doesn't have health care qualification.
He can't combine the two part-time jobs and qualify for health care anywhere.
Well, that's why his hours were cut, and he's really frustrated because he's a hardworking young man and trying to uh do what he can for himself.
This is happening.
I'm just wondering how many other parents are in this same boat.
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