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March 13, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:27
March 13, 2014, Thursday, Hour #2
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Time Text
Yeah.
One o'clock cigar time.
Yes, sir, Bob.
Greetings and welcome to the one and only Rush Limbaugh program.
Here we are, folks.
Great to be with you.
Really is a thrill and an honor.
I look forward to it every day.
Great to have you.
Televote number if you want to be on the program.
800-282-2882, the email address LRushbaugh at EIBnet.com.
Once again, thank you to everybody who is running out picking up Rush Revere and the First Patriots.
You know what else is happening?
If you look at the Amazon chart, Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims is climbing.
We're number one.
Now last night, I didn't check today.
Last night, number one and number five on the Amazon chart, Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims had fallen off the chart.
Naturally, it really came out in October.
But now with Rush Revere and the First Patriots, people are finding the first book at the same time.
You know, Amazon is a very convenient place.
You just go there if you have an account, you buy it, gets delivered the next day, or a couple days if you want free shipping.
It's up to you, however you wish it.
Good prices there.
Barnes and Noble, the same thing.
Books a million, any number of places.
But people are finding it.
It's great.
We got, we got, we found, we found a Facebook post.
Dean, Coco II, Coco Jr. up at the website found it.
I don't have it in front of me and I didn't print it out and I can't look at the computer screen because so but I'm going to paraphrase it.
A mother in Puerto Rico referred to these books as the next Harry Potter books for kids that they just love them.
They just, you know, she called me the next J.K. Rowling.
Yes.
So we're trying to track down who this woman is in Puerto Rico.
We assigned Coco Jr. to this.
And that's, that is a huge, I mean, that's, that's a huge, that's a huge compliment.
But I just, I can't tell you how I wish there were a way to say thank you that's more so than more impactful than just saying it.
But to have the first book now climbing up the chart along, we're going to be, if things hold up, we'll be both books on the New York Times list at the same time.
And the, you know, the old saw about sequels.
Sequels never do as well as originals, that old saw.
We just, you know, we just knock down all of these supposed bits of conventional wisdom.
And it wouldn't be possible if it weren't for all of you.
So here's the number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, the email address, lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
In this segment, I want to demonstrate yet again that you should not doubt me when I am predictive of what liberal Democrats are going to do.
I know them.
I know them like every square inch of my glorious naked body.
I know what they're going to do before they do it.
I just know them.
Take you back March 6th, one week ago on this program.
Me.
Obama doesn't think that the United States is any different than any other nation.
And if Putin wants Ukraine, then it's not for us to stop him.
But he knows that he's president, and he knows that some Americans believe that the U.S. should have and should play the role of outpost for freedom and defender of liberty.
So he'll go through the motions of drawing the red line and trying to intimidate these other world.
You better not do that or else you've got to deal with me.
Of course, then nobody ever has to deal with him.
But the point was that all of this bluster and these warnings to Putin, you better leave him alone.
You better not do it.
You have us to deal with.
They're just warnings.
He's just saying, because he really doesn't care.
It really doesn't matter.
He doesn't think we have any moral authority to stop Putin.
Who are we?
I mean, if Putin wants Crimea and we don't, who are we to say no?
If the Iranians want a nuclear bomb and we've got some, who are we to say no?
That's how he looks at it.
That's how a lot of young people look at it.
This is how a lot of young people are taught to look at it.
We're no different.
We're no better.
This business about the United States defending freedom around the world.
That's bunk.
Who gives us the right to even say that freedom is the way to go?
Some people are taught that, look at old Soviet Union when the Berlin Wall fell, Soviet communism was defeated.
Some people are just not cut out for freedom.
It was said about the Russian people when they had freedom.
They had been enslaved for so long that they really, they had to relearn self-reliance.
They had to relearn providing for themselves.
They had been conditioned like any living organism.
You've heard about these stories that tour groups go out on the ocean and you watch dolphins or whatever being fed.
And it doesn't take long.
The dolphins will stop trying to feed themselves.
They just wait for the American shipping boat to arrive.
Well, human beings are no different.
And after 75 years of being conditioned to being taken care of in whatever state, whatever condition, if the provider goes away and you haven't been raised to take care of yourself and it doesn't kick in, then there's going to be some confusion.
And there was.
So we dispatched all, I remember Paul Weyrich was one.
We dispatched all kinds of people to go over and help Yeltsin to implement the concepts of freedom.
There were a lot of really great Americans that went over to help this, but the left had plenty of people.
Hey, see, freedom's not for everybody, which is an outright denial of the preamble of our own Declaration of Independence.
It's an outright rejection of our whole existence.
And it's taught, and there are a bunch of people, hey, you know, freedom's not freedom.
Who says freedom's the best anyway?
With freedom and capitalism, look at all the unfairness that you have, and look at all the inequality that you have.
And that manifests itself.
If Putin wants Crimea, let him have it.
Like Mario Cuomo said of Saddam Hussein, hey, you know the way to deal with this?
Give him a couple of islands and he'll go away.
But the whole idea of the United States as the outpost, the bastion, the beacon of freedom is rejected by many on the left for a host of reasons.
A, they look at freedom as being imposed on people, and I do not think you can impose freedom.
That's contradictory to me.
Freedom is not an imposition.
Freedom is a grant.
Freedom is the nature of our creation.
And that is in the preamble of our own Declaration of Independence.
Well, I know that's, you know, that's the thing.
That stuff's 400 years old.
The Constitution's 400 years old anyway, and it's outdated, it's outmoded, and we've got to get with the current.
We got to get with the now.
That Constitution, that's 400 years old.
It doesn't mean anything anymore.
Yes, she did.
Let me find it.
It was, it was, I've gone past this, Sheila Jackson Lee.
In fact, as soon as I find this, let's see what it is.
Okay, Grab, let's start it.
Yeah, let's start at Cut Five.
Let's do Sheila Jackson Lee, and let's do some Sheila Jackson Lee greatest hits.
She is a member of Congress from Houston.
And this is what she said late yesterday afternoon on the floor of the House.
Maybe I should offer a good thanks to the distinguished members of the majority, the Republicans, my chairman, and others, for giving us an opportunity to have a deliberative constitutional discussion that reinforces the sanctity of this nation and how well it is that we have lasted some 400 years operating under a Constitution that clearly defines what is constitutional and what is not.
No, it doesn't.
If it clearly defined it, then you people wouldn't be trying to go outside it all, and you wouldn't be running to the Supreme Court every time you wanted to get something named unconstitutional.
If it clearly, 400 years, we petitioned for our independence in 1776.
That's when the Declaration was signed, July 4th.
Then we had to fight the Revolutionary War.
And it wasn't until after that that we got the Constitution.
Constitution didn't happen until later in the 1700s.
And she's got it happening way back 400 years ago.
I mean, let's continue with our flashbacks.
Sheila Jackson Lee, December 12th, 2013, again on the floor of the House.
Call us back, Mr. Boehner.
Call us back, Mr. Boehner.
Let us vote to provide for unemployment insurance for working men and women.
Call us back, Mr. Speaker.
Let us provide for unemployment insurance for working men and women.
Now you're thinking, surely she has to know.
Yeah, it's just what that is, it's just syllables that they utter.
Working men and women is just syllables that they utter in their never-ending quest to make working men and women think they're looking out for them.
So we need unemployment compensation for working men and women.
We need welfare benefit for working men and women.
We need health care for working men.
Whatever we need, it's for working men and women.
And working men and women are who?
Members of unions.
That's what the working man means in Democrat Party lingo.
You may have a job, but if you're not in a union, you're not a working man.
You're white collar, your management, you are evil incarnate.
The working man is blue-collar union member.
February 13th of last year, again on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Yesterday was the official birthday of President Lincoln, February 12th.
And although it was a tragic time in our history, I can assure you that it showed the greatest promise of America when people could come together and do something great.
I stand here as a freed slave because this Congress came together.
So at some point in her life, somebody owned her.
She was a slave, we presume, in Texas, in Houston.
And then the Congress came together and freed her from slavery.
Well, how else are we going to interpret that?
Since she's standing there as a freed slave because Congress came together.
July 15th, 2010, again on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Today we have two Vietnams side by side, North and South, exchanging and working.
We may not agree with all that North Vietnam is doing, but they are living in peace.
Side by side, North and South.
Yeah, if you're looking at them sideways.
Remember now, we don't know, but this is the woman that they're showing her the Mars rover, and she asked him, she says, at NASA headquarters, which happens to be in Houston, and the Mars rover on one of the monitors, and she asked him, is it going to go over and visit where the astronauts planted the flag?
And of course, that happened on the moon and not on Mars.
And of course, that was kind of like when Gore asked him, who is that?
And it was George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
Oh, whoa, oh, no, George Washington.
Oh, yes, oh, yeah.
Ms. Lee, the astronauts planted a flag on the moon.
This is Mars.
Oh, yes, yes, yes, if yes.
Well, are they still going to go visit the flag?
And finally, January 29th of this year, Sheila Jackson Lee and other Democrats held a press conference to announce the creation of the Congressional Full Employment Caucus.
I believe this caucus will put us on the right path, and we'll give President Obama a number of executive orders that he can sign with pride and strength.
In fact, I think that should be our number one agenda.
Let's write up these executive orders, draft them, of course, and ask the president to stand with us on full employment.
Well, folks, we are dealing here with a moron.
I know there's no other – I was trying to be judicious here.
We'll give President Obama a number of executive orders that he can sign with pride and strength.
I guess he's really going to grip the pen tightly.
In fact, I think that should be our number one agenda.
Let's write up these executive orders, draft them, of course.
What does write them up mean?
Draft them.
Draft them.
You have to use the big word.
We're not going to write them.
We're going to draft them.
And we're going to send these executive orders over to the president.
She's a member of the House.
Now, we'll get back.
I'm going to come back to some phone calls, but I'll get back to what I started with here.
And that is, I warned you, Obama was huffing and puffing, but isn't going to do a thing.
Vis-a-vis Putin and Ukraine and Crimea.
We have another young reader on the phone.
And by the way, I've just had a couple of emails, but I should address this.
We are not stacking the deck here, folks.
We have never done it.
We do not plant phone calls.
The only thing that will happen is that if we have somebody on hold I really want to talk to, we don't get to them, we'll ask for their number to call them back the next day.
And there are certain other indications of that, certain instances where we will ask to call back if we don't have enough time to finish with somebody.
But we never.
There's no friend of mine that gets in here.
There's no, nothing gets stacked.
So, we have Megan here from Greenville, Ohio, and she just called and she happened to get through, and Snerdley answered and put her up.
And here she is.
Hi, Megan.
Great to have you.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you.
I'm so excited to talk to you.
Well, no more than I'm excited to talk to you because I know you're going to talk about the book.
Yes, I'm so excited about your book.
I love your book, and I'm so excited because the second one's supposed to come today.
Oh, yeah.
Where did you get the second one?
Did you order it?
Amazon.
Amazon.
Okay, cool.
So you got Amazon, and it's going to arrive today.
Have you finished the first one?
You probably have, but yes, I'm so excited because I did it for a little bit of my homeschool schooling history.
Well, what did you like about it?
I like how it's more like a story instead of just the facts of history.
Yeah.
Because then you actually get into it, and it's a story.
You know what I like about it?
And naturally, I would say this because I wrote it, but you know what I like about it, Megan?
What?
Actually, take you to the events.
You're there while they happen.
You're not told about them while we actually transport you there.
If you use your imagination, you're there with Liberty and Revere and the other students.
And while these things are happening, you're on the boat on the Mayflower.
You're at Plymouth College.
You're there.
To me, it puts the reader right in the event as it happens.
And I've always thought that is A, entertaining, B, fascinating, and therefore, it's easier to learn it.
Yeah, it's so fun because you do feel like you're there with Rush Revere watching all this happen.
Yeah, you are.
I'm so happy to hear that you're excited for the second one.
How long did it take you to read the first one?
Not very long.
I can't remember.
Did you take the pop quiz that I put at the end of the book?
Did you?
Probably half of it.
Why only half of it, Megan?
Now you've got to tell me the truth.
Was it boring?
Did you know the answers?
Or was it not challenging enough?
Why did you only do half of it?
Because I was too excited when I saw that there was a second one coming out.
I started bugging mom to buy it.
Okay.
All right.
Well, did your mom get you the audio version of the book?
No, she just got the normal hardback copy.
Well, there's nothing wrong with that.
But I'll tell you what, I'd like to send you the audio version.
Read by me.
Even though you've read it, this is an entirely new way to experience it.
And it's a bunch of CDs.
And if you started and didn't stop, it would take you about four and a half hours, maybe five hours.
So you don't have to listen to it all at once.
But whenever you're in the car, you can have your mom pop it in and listen to the car wherever you want to.
So if you'll hang on, Mr. Snerdley will get your address and I'll send you that so that you'll get the audio.
Maybe we can get it out today.
I can't guarantee that, but we'll get it out soon.
And it'll come in very close to the time you get the second book.
Thank you.
Well, you are more than welcome.
It is I who thank you.
Have you told other kids about the book?
No, but I wish you'd make it into a cartoon so my little nephew could watch it.
Make it into a cartoon.
You mean like animate it?
Yeah, like a movie.
Like a movie, an animated movie.
Hmm.
Hmm.
You know, interesting thought, Megan.
We've bandied that about.
You never know.
You know, we're just in the beginning phase of all this.
I mean, this is just the second book coming out.
So who knows what will happen down the road?
I appreciate your feedback.
I'm glad.
I'm very glad you like the book and don't hang up the phone.
You notice how well-spoken all of these kids are that call here to talk about the book.
Megan was really, did you know, I mean, you know how fast she recovered when I asked her about the pop quiz and she'd only taken half of it?
She recovered.
Oh, I was so excited for the second book.
That's why I didn't finish the pop quiz.
But she had a very good point.
And, you know, I've not mentioned this.
I assume too much when I talk about this.
But these books, when the Mayflower lands, you're there.
The story is not told from a classroom.
What these books do is take you to, like the second book, the primary event in it is the Boston Tea Party.
You're there.
These people, Rush Revere, these people are there throwing tea in into the harbor.
They're there.
They're helping.
Well, they're watching, but they're there.
The reader is taken to the event.
Not told about it.
It's not that Revere and Liberty go and come back to the classroom and tell the class about it.
They actually take members of the class, and it is written as though it is happening today in real time, although it's understandably history.
But every primary event in each book, the reader is taken to each of those events.
The first Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims first encountered Native Americans, it is actually the event the reader is taken to as it happens.
And that's another really fun thing to try to recreate and be historically accurate at the same time.
And I think that's when you hear these young kids call and talk about how much they like it.
That's why.
It's not history presented in any traditional way.
And as such, it makes it more interesting and the reader is actually in it, involved, so to speak.
Now, let me go back to this Ukraine business because played for you what I said a week ago.
Obama doesn't care.
He's just going to say he cares because he knows a lot of Americans think that the U.S. should, in fact, be the beacon of hope for the world, freedom, liberty, so forth and so on.
But he's not going to stop Putin because if Putin wants it, who are we to say he can't have it?
I mean, who are we to say that any nation can't do what they want to do?
What gives us the right?
That's what people like Obama believe.
And that's why it was easy to predict that Putin is not going to face any serious opposition from Obama.
So now let's go to the audio soundbites where this is proven.
First up, Ed Henry, a Fox News channel on the O'Reilly factor last night.
And O'Reilly said to Ed Henry, so what's the headline today?
Is there anything over there that's going to happen?
No, it doesn't really look like there's going to be much of U.S. action.
Officials were telling us privately in recent days that, look, as long as Putin doesn't extend beyond Crimea, then fine.
He's not escalating the situation.
That was a direct signal that they're not going to do anything to stop him from keeping Crimea.
The U.S. has already sent a tacit signal that Putin can have Crimea.
They don't want him to have it, but they're not going to do anything to take it back as long as he doesn't escalate beyond that.
Well, now, wait a minute.
Didn't we say at first, hey, get out of Ukraine.
You can't have Crimea.
And Putin took, well, okay, but if he goes any further, we're going to really get mad.
It's just history repeating itself.
This happened in Syria, drew the red line, then denied writing, drawing the red line, blamed it on Congress.
There hasn't been any punitive action on Basher Alassad or whoever has been doing the evil doings over there.
It's just a bunch of huffing and puffing.
So here you have it.
Well, direct signal.
They're not going to do anything to stop him from keeping Crimea.
So we've given Putin Crimea.
He said he wants it.
Who are we to stop him?
Then late yesterday afternoon, the White House, after meeting with the Ukraine Prime Minister, Obama and the Prime Minister spoke with reporters about the meeting.
Mr. Prime Minister, I would ask that you deliver a message on behalf of the American people to all the Ukrainian people.
And that is that we admire their courage.
We appreciate their aspirations.
You can rest assured that you will have our strong support as you move forward during these difficult times.
Well, big whoop.
Mr. Prime Minister, will you tell your people we're thinking about him?
And we really are thinking about him.
And we're really thinking good things when we think about him.
We're thinking about your own.
But we want you to know that as you're on your own, we support whatever you're doing while you're on your own.
And while you're on your own, while you're doing whatever, and just know that, my God, we're thinking of you.
And the Prime Minister, well, that's worth a lot.
I appreciate that.
Here is the Prime Minister of Ukraine, Arseni Yatsinyuk, speaking with reporters after his meeting with Obama.
My message to President Putin, Mr. Putin, tear down this wall.
The wall of war, intimidation, and military aggression.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute now.
So Obama says, Mr. President, I want you to go tell your people we're really thinking about you.
And we admire your aspirations.
What are their aspirations?
Well, they aspire to be free, and we admire that.
You tell them we really admire it while they're getting their butts kicked.
We admire it.
We admire they want to be free.
You tell them we're thinking about them.
And this guy says, well, my message to Putin is tear down this wall.
Obama says, well, go ahead.
We'll be thinking about you as you tear down this wall.
So easy to predict what else Putin wants.
Whatever it is, he's going to get it.
Here's the Ukrainian.
Stop and think about this.
Here's the Ukrainian prime minister quoting Ronald Reagan in front of Obama.
Mr. Deputin tear it down this way.
Obama said, USOB, how dare you come here to the White House.
You quote that right-wing fanatic in my face?
All right.
All we're going to do is think about you.
And to hell with what I said about your aspirations.
Screw you.
You quote Reagan to me?
How dare you?
That's probably what.
You imagine Obama goes back to the Oval Office, throws down a piece of paper.
Do you hear what that guy did?
That stupid little guy, quote, Reagan, Mr. Deputin, teared down this wall of intimidation, water, and military aggression.
Obama won't say it.
President Ukraine, somebody's got to say it.
Not us, though, anymore.
Quick time out, folks.
We'll be right back.
Chicago mayor Ram Emmanuel and potential Democrat presidential candidate Rah Emmanuel is warning that he may double property taxes in the state of Illinois in order to pay for spiraling pension costs.
Illinois has one of the largest under and unfunded pension liabilities in the entire fruited plane.
It is dire.
The circumstances, the unfunded, underfunded pension liability are absolutely horrendous.
And all of the problems are due exclusively to Democrat politicians and Democrat unions.
But of course, nobody's going to cast such blame except for yours truly.
But it remains true that Illinois has one of the worst pension messes in the country.
The cost of government employee benefits is sending state, county, and local governments into bankruptcy crises all over the state.
No place has more trouble than Chicago, prompting the mayor to warn that property taxes will have to double in order to pay those pensions.
And what are those pensions?
Those are payments to people who are not working.
Now, I know that they are commitments that were made in old agreements.
City employees, union employees, probably the pension, you get 100%.
The way it works in these Democrat cities is, you take any civil service job, any union job, fireman, police officer, accountant, you name it, and you put in 15 years and you can retire at 100% of your salary at age 45.
In some cases, it is that bad.
In, I kid you not, this is the spoil system at work.
Well, how do you pay somebody?
In some places, it's 120% of your salary, plus your health care benefits, from age 45 until you die, while you're ostensibly retired.
And what Mayor Rahm is telling people in Chicago, we're going to double your property taxes to pay these pensions because guess what?
We have so mismanaged it, we have botched it so badly, we're going to make you pay for it because you elected us.
It's ultimately your fault.
You're the stupid of the gets that elected us.
We don't know what we're doing.
We have no idea how to actually govern.
All we can do is spend your money, and we need more of it.
What?
What?
People can't afford their property tax being doubled?
That's not a problem.
They're going to send out the bills.
You pay your property taxes.
They reclaim your home and they own the home.
And then they'll resell it and they'll get it that way out of you.
That's the way it'll work.
What do you mean they can't afford it?
When's the last time a Democrat ever factored whether or not a taxpayer can afford a tax increase?
Name for me the last time a Democrat ever thought about that.
So snurders say, wait a minute, this can't possibly work because these people can't afford to pay double property tax.
You think they're worried about that?
You know what the Democrats think?
There's always money out there.
People always have money.
Every business rolling in it.
Every homeowner has money he's not spending.
Everybody does.
And we're going to get it, whatever how we do it.
And so if you own a home or any piece of property and your property tax is going to double and you can't pay it, what is going to happen to you?
Your property is going to eventually be taken from you.
They'll foreclose on you.
And who do you think is going to take ownership?
Ron Emmanuel.
And if he can't get money out of you from you paying your property tax times two, then they'll foreclose on your home and they'll take it from you and they'll sell your house and whatever they get for it will make up for whatever you were supposed to pay that couldn't.
How else are they going to do it?
Now, see, now I know that the normal reaction, okay, double property taxes.
There's already a stagnant economy nationally.
Illinois is already its own subset of a mess.
People do not have this money.
They do not have enough money with all their health care mandates now and everything else and already existing taxes now face their property tax doubling.
But you think RO thinks about that?
How can they?
No, that's my point.
No Democrat has ever thought about that.
Now, you might say, well, one of the ways of fixing the pension crisis would be to offload them to the government, which will guarantee only 60% of it.
And you do it.
No, we can't do that because these are Democrat voters.
And we promised them, they're not just Democrat voters.
They're Democrat donors and fundraisers.
And we promised them they can retire at age 45 or age 50 and get 100% of what they were earning in their health care.
And we're going to come through.
And if it means you, who are not one of these people, pay for it, that's what we're going to do.
We wouldn't think of cutting their benefits.
They might not vote for us anymore.
Remember, these people are still alive.
These people retired on the promise that they're going to get everything they were earning when they were working until they die without having to work.
And so here comes the mayor and say, well, they're going to cut your pension benefits.
It's the only way there'll be hell to pay.
Wouldn't happen.
So you go soak the taxpayer.
Because the doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter.
Wipe out this neighborhood.
It doesn't matter.
The theory is raise taxes.
In 2015, Chicago faced some of the details here.
2015, Chicago faces a looming financial disaster with a municipal pension system that is in worse shape than that of any other major U.S. city.
Chicago is under the gun for $1.07 billion balloon payment on its total of $19.4 billion pension debt for city employees.
The city of Chicago owes in the form of pensions to people who are not going to be working $19.5 billion.
They have a balloon payment coming up of $1.07 billion, and that's why Rah Emmanuel is going to double, or at least a warning of doubling property taxes.
The shortfall to the pensions amounts to $7,100 per Chicago resident.
If something isn't done, Mayor Emmanuel is warning that he'll have to double property taxes to fund this balloon payment.
And the shortfall to the pensions at $1.07 billion amounts to $7,100 per Chicago resident.
And doubling their property taxes is how he's threatening to get it.
The municipal pension fund isn't the only pension fund failure in Chicago.
The city's teachers' pensions are also widely understood to be one of the worst funded in the country.
The teachers' pension fund will require a tripling of its required contribution.
Now, how did things get to this point?
I mean, for crying out loud, these people have a portion of their pay deducted to go to the pension fund.
It's matched.
And then this money is supposed to be invested.
California, same thing.
Cal PERS and CalSTURS, the state teachers' retirement system, the public employee retirement system, the two of them in California.
And they're massively invested.
How in the world does this happen?
I know they overpromise.
They overexpect on the return they're going to get.
It's just total incompetence.
But as always, the taxpayer has to clean up the mess.
Be right back, folks.
Don't go away.
Now, a couple of things.
The pensioners, the people that receive the pension, they own property.
Their own property taxes are going to double.
They're not going to be happy.
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