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March 26, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:45
March 26, 2014, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, I guess I'm ready now.
So here we go.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
Great to have you.
It's the Rush Lindbaugh program on the EIB network, and here we are on Wednesday, SmackDab in the middle of the week.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address Elrushbaugh at EIBnet.com.
I'll tell you this, I can't keep up anymore.
Obamacare is falling apart so fast.
It is changing.
It is deteriorating.
It is just an absolute mess.
It is impossible for anybody to keep up with this.
The only thing that we know for sure is that the IRS is going to be collecting taxes on this no matter what else happens.
If you do not, I don't care.
They're extending deadlines.
I don't care if they don't know what the deadlines are.
They don't have a back end on the website.
Do you know that they don't even have a back end yet?
Do you know that the website, healthcare.gov, cannot even report to insurance companies yet?
Without that, the insurance companies are not going to get paid.
Without that, this can't happen.
The back end of Obamacare hasn't even been built yet after all of this.
That was the focus area last November when this thing went live and it was a mess.
They said they're going to bring in the brightest wizards of SMART in the tech field and get this thing all oiled and smooth and running.
They haven't even gotten to the back end yet.
They don't even know anywhere who's enrolled and how many have paid because the website cannot report that information.
You might have gone to the website, logged on, and clicked pay or whatever the button is to check out, and you assume that the insurance company has a record.
There's no guarantee of that because the back end is not done.
But this delay business, folks, I'm kind of surprised that this is news today because what was it, last week at some point, we made a big deal that this was coming?
I know, you know, these see, I told you so's.
I know it's tough.
Be honest with you.
I was looking at some stuff in show prep today because when the news hit that Sebelius is going to delay it, I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
She said that they didn't have the right to delay it.
She said they didn't have statutory permission to delay it.
And then I remembered I had predicted they were going to delay it.
But even I, host of the show, didn't remember specifically when I'd said what.
So it's impossible to expect you to remember everything I say because it's voluminous here.
There's nobody that puts out this amount of content.
Nobody comes even close.
And it's so much that not even I can remember it all.
That's why we have the archives.
And I went back and we have this story from the Washington Post today.
Just to pick one to start, we could start anywhere.
Obama regime will allow more time to enroll in health care on federal marketplace.
And look, I'm not trying to be snarky, folks, when I express a little bit of surprise here that everybody's treating this breaking news because we had this last week.
We reported this extension was going to happen last week.
And I've got it right here on the quick hits page at my website, rushlimbaugh.com.
Obamacare website, plans deadline leeway.
You might remember when I remind you here of what we said last week.
We said that when the White House last week we said the White House was going to delay the deadline for anybody who claimed they had a hardship in signing up.
And we pointed out that the way they were constructing this was that all you had to do was claim that signing up was a hardship and you would qualify.
It was going to be the honor system.
No proof was required that you didn't qualify.
All you had to do was show up and say it's a hardship and you would be exempted from signing up.
I mean, anybody could get an extension on the March 31st deadline.
This was last week.
Now, the rest of the media either completely ignored that news last week or they tried to pretend that it didn't matter since this would only affect a few people.
But our analysis turned out to be perfectly accurate.
Has Obama ever met a deadline?
There have been 10 delays now in this.
Impossible for people to keep up.
It's literally impossible for your average American citizen to know what's what on this.
It is impossible for your average American citizen to know whether he is complying with the law or not.
The regime has decided to give extra time to Americans who say they are unable to enroll in health plans through healthcare.gov by the March 31st deadline.
Federal officials confirmed yesterday, last night, that all consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on healthcare.gov but who don't finish by Monday will have about all until mid-April to ask for an extension.
And I get, look, I'm not trying to be snarky.
We reported last week that this was going to happen.
I know until I saw it, I had forgotten, too.
So it's reasonable if you don't remember because there's so much healthcare news.
This is Fox News.
This was last night at 10 o'clock.
The regime will grant extra time to Americans who say they're unable to enroll.
This is just a rehash, again, of what we had last week.
What's interesting to do is go back to the past when they said this wouldn't happen.
And they're on the record, I don't know how many times, saying there would not be any extension, that there would not be any delay.
The Obama administration will not delay Obamacare's individual mandate or the March 31st deadline for enrolling in new healthcare law, said Kathleen Sebelius, not long ago.
Sebelius ruled out the changes during testimony to House Ways and Means Committee, where Representative Kevin Brady noted that the regime has made dozens of other changes or delays.
Given the problems caused by the faulty website last year, Brady asked Sebelius directly if delays to the mandate would be next.
And she said, no way.
Let's listen.
Let's go back to November 22nd.
Start with audio soundbite number one.
Mr. Broadcast Engineer.
And this basically is where I first began talking about a delay in the mandatory enrollment.
Now, remember, this is all the way back November last year.
This is how little they think of you and how dumb they think you are.
If they just delay by a month or two, just delay the mandatory enrollment.
You've got to be signed up.
You've got to pay your money to Obamacare.
You've got to have insurance until after the election, that you'll vote Democrat happily, supportively, and then after the election, when you figure out what's happened, you'll have no power to do anything about it other than get mad.
And they don't care if you get mad after the election.
They don't care if you realize you have just been shafted after the election.
They don't want you to think or realize you're getting shafted before you vote.
You are getting the shaft.
We all are.
We are getting the royal shaft.
Obama just thinks you're stupid enough to not realize it before November of 2014.
And by the way, folks, that's right on the money.
All of these delays, some delays go beyond the elections this year.
Some of the delays go beyond November 2016.
And is it not obvious they think you are so dumb that you won't realize what they're doing?
They're delaying the pain so that you don't feel it, so that you won't vote against Democrats until after the election.
Then you'll feel the pain and you'll have already voted for Democrats is the theory, but you won't be able to do anything about it.
And at that point, you might realize you've been hoodwinked, but there's nothing you can do.
But at this point in time, that's how stupid they think you are that they can keep delaying this past elections and that you won't know why.
Now, here's Kevin Brady.
This is March the 12th, two weeks ago.
And he's talking with Kathleen Sebelius about the delay and whether or not March 31st is hard and fast.
Are you going to delay the mandate that individuals have to buy government-approved health care or pay a tax?
No, sir.
Are you going to delay the open enrollment beyond March 31st?
No, sir.
They did.
This is the point they announced the delay last night.
And now the delay is to the middle of March.
But of course, we told you last week they were going to do this.
And we didn't just grab it out of thin air.
It was reported last week the regime was thinking about doing this.
And it was the hardship.
All you had to do is the honor system.
All you had to do was claim you couldn't make it by March 31st for whatever reason, including the very act of complying itself, not because you couldn't afford it or not because of anything.
The actual act of complying, you could say was a hardship, and you would be granted an exemption from the delay.
March 16th, four days later, meet the depressed David Gregory talking to White House senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer.
He said, can you rule out the idea that the president does not delay the individual mandate?
Yes, I can.
You can.
That will not happen.
And yet it has.
And then I've got stories here.
Sebelia says mandate won't be delayed.
And then another one.
On a conference call with reporters on Tuesday, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spokeswoman Julie Battele said even if officials wanted to, her agency didn't have the authority to delay the enrollment deadline.
We have no plans to extend the enrollment period, she said.
In fact, we don't actually have the statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014.
Sebelia says the mandate won't be delayed.
Dan Pfeiffer says it won't be delayed.
A spokesperson says we don't even have the statutory authority to do it.
And yet, last night they announced the delay.
So this kind of stuff has to stop.
Folks, I don't know what's going to want to make it stop, but it just, actually, I don't know if it does.
This is becoming such an albatross for the Democrats.
You know, Celinda Lake.
She's a Democrat pollster.
She's part of the battleground poll.
She's half of it.
The other half is Ed Goaz.
She's a Democrat.
He's a Republican.
It's a fairly credible poll.
And Celinda Lake, the name of her company is Lake Research Partners.
And she provided a Democrat analysis of the latest battleground poll that was released yesterday morning.
And she summed up her advice to Democrats when it comes to Obamacare.
Don't defend it.
In unveiling the poll, she said the new Democrat strategery should be for candidates to promise to fix it while pledging to help keep Americans out of the claws of greedy insurance companies.
She said, in terms of Obamacare, don't defend it.
There's nothing to defend.
The American people don't like it.
They don't want any part of it.
Don't defend it.
Just say it was flawed from the beginning.
Now, where have you heard this before?
If I might do another C, I told you so.
Now, there you go, laughing in there.
Do you know what I'm talking about now?
Do you remember when the polling data came out that showed the Republicans going to clean a clock because nobody wanted Obama?
And I warned you the Democrats could see the same poll, and the Democrats could see the same data, and they could run against Obamacare by saying, this is not what I voted for.
This thing's changed so many times.
This is not what I voted for.
I don't, I'm not in favor.
And, you know, it could be interpreted as unloading an Obama.
But my point was that it wasn't just an opportunity for Republicans to run against Obamacare.
Some of these Democrats in the Senate in trouble could do the same thing.
And here comes Celinda Lake telling them how to do it.
It was flawed from the beginning, i.e., it's not what I voted for.
Flawed from the beginning.
It's not what I voted for.
Don't defend it.
We're going to fix it, and we're going to make sure the insurance companies don't screw you.
That's what she is advising Democrat candidates to say.
In the midst of an absolute, the greatest healthcare system in the world ever devised is disintegrating before our eyes.
And there isn't anybody apparently in leadership anywhere who knows how to fix this.
All anybody wants to be seen now is running away from this.
They gave it to us.
The Democrat Party owns this one.
Not one Republican voted for this anytime, anywhere.
And now the Democrats' campaign strategy is to run away from it.
They're being advised to just run away from it, to not defend it, and then blame it on the insurance companies.
I got to take a quick time out.
Back after this.
Don't go away.
No, sir, I do not.
I do not.
I was just asked if I think it's a coincidence that they announced this delay on the day of oral arguments for the Supreme Court in the hobby lobby case.
No way do I think it's coincidence.
There are no coincidences in politics.
We learned that with the Clintons.
As far as this hobby lobby thing goes, It doesn't matter, folks.
It doesn't matter because it's all going to come down to however Anthony Kennedy feels on the day they vote on it.
It's up to him once again.
The Stephen Breyer and the three liberal women just went on a holy terror yesterday about this.
If you had any doubts about what feminazis are made of and what the left is made of, all you had to do was pay attention to what Sodomior and Kagan and Ruth Buzzy Ginsburg was as far as they're concerned.
Hobby Lobby's got no business denying anybody anything.
Religious freedom doesn't count.
It doesn't matter when you're pursuing a profit.
When you're pursuing a profit, you cannot rely on your religious freedom.
It doesn't matter.
And if you've got female employees who want you to buy their abortion pills and their contraception pills, and by God, you're going to do it.
And you've got four conservatives say, wait a minute, the Constitution matters.
You can't just trample it that way.
In the middle, Anthony Kennedy.
And in his oral arguments, he asks questions that would give you an indication you're going to vote either way.
It's kind of like what Obama's going to do on the NSA spying.
Let me tell you what Obama is going to do in the NSA spying.
As you know, millennials, young people that voted for Obama, the Democrats, they don't care about anything else.
Well, they care about their jobs.
But they are really ticked off about the NSA and the government spying on them.
This massive vacuuming, if you will, of the telephone metadata.
They just hate it.
They can't believe Obama would do it.
They can't believe it Democrats would spy on him.
They can't believe it Democrats would monitor them smoking weed and this kind of thing.
They just can't believe it, and they're ticked off.
So Obama announced that he's going to just do away with the whole program.
He's just going to tell the NSA, you're going to stop collecting this metadata.
You're going to need warrants for everything that you want.
You just can't go massively collect it all.
But he's not going to do it via an executive order this time.
Here's what's going to happen.
He's going to announce it, and the millennials and the Democrats and the kids are going to go, yeah, man, all right, we're back.
That's our guy.
It'll go to Denny Denji-Harry in the Senate, and the Democrats in the Senate will agree with Obama, and it'll get to the Republicans in the House, and the Republicans in the House will say this is irresponsible.
We cannot just broom this whole program.
This is important for national security.
And guess how it's going to end up being perceived?
Republicans want to continue spying on you.
That's how this is going to shake down.
If my middle name is Hudson, this is how this is going to shake down.
Before too long, it's going to be the Republicans in the House who are portrayed as wanting to spy on you.
Well, Anthony Kennedy, he asked questions both ways.
He makes you think he could decide either way on this Hobby Lobby thing.
And so that depends on how he feels on that day.
Yes, I'll go through it one more time.
I don't mind.
Sometimes it takes saying things two or three times for people to really get it.
And I had to go through it in a hurry.
It's not the best analogy, but it's close.
The hobby lobby thing.
I mean, here you've got these four lib justices, and they don't care about the Constitution.
To them, the Constitution is in the way.
It's an obstacle.
And you have three of them here just madcap feminists.
And this is just this Hobby Lobby thing.
They hate them.
Doesn't matter.
You know how it goes on the other side.
We've got four conservatives, and they respect and revere the Constitution.
Don't think it should be trampled on.
Religious freedom is key to the founding of the country.
And the government can't force anybody to violate their religious freedom, whether making a profit or not.
And then here we have Anthony Kennedy in the middle.
And people are trying to get an idea on how he's going to vote by examining his questions and oral argument.
Well, depending on when you tuned in, you could think Kennedy's going to vote against a Hobby Lambie.
You're going to vote for him because he asks questions both ways.
And it's exactly what's going to happen with this NSA spying business.
And this is the Republicans, I don't know if they're ever going to be able to come up with a strategy to deal with this other than win the Senate.
That's probably the best thing they could do for this because what's going to happen, you know, you've got these millennials, these young Democrat voters, and the one issue, according to polling data, that has them riled up more than anything else is the NSA spying on them.
They just don't think the government should be doing that.
Government can do socialistic stuff and take care of people, raise taxes, and give out welfare all at once, but spying on us.
No, no, no, no, no.
We're not going to put up with that.
We don't want you knowing where we're going.
We don't want you to know what mass transit bus we're riding or whatever the hell they're doing.
They're really offended by it.
And Zuckerberg, who represents the millennials, calls Obama up and bitches about it.
And Obama doesn't give him any satisfaction.
Zuckerberg says, well, it's going to be a long time to get this fixed.
Then Obama has a meeting on Friday with all these tech CEOs where they collectively complain to him about it.
And then lo and behold, while Obama is over mucking things up at The Hague, he comes out and says, you know what?
I'm going to just propose that we just eliminate this massive metadata phone collection that we're doing.
And these millennials and the Zuckerbergs and all these young kids go, yay, yay, yay, yay, because that's they hear Obama responding to them.
They hear Obama hearing them, hearing them, reacting in a positive way.
Obama realizes he didn't do it, see?
It's a holdover from those evil Republicans in the Bush years, and they started all this spying.
But Obama, he finally has seen the problem because he's a smart guy and he cares about us and he's going to stop the spying.
So what Obama then does after making this announcement is prepare a piece of legislation and send it over to the Senate where the Democrats go, yeah, yeah, yeah, we think the NSA is spying way too much.
And we agree with the president.
So then it goes to the Republicans in the House, in this case, the adults.
And the Republicans say, wait a minute, we can't broom this program.
We need this program for national security.
We've got to be able to track the phone conversations of people who intend this country harm.
And the way it's going to end up politically is Republicans are the obstacle to the eliminating spying on citizens.
Or, put another way, Republicans want to continue spying on you.
So Obama proposes a fix, absolves himself, knowing full well that adults in the House on the Republican side, no way are going to support it.
Nobody in their right mind would support brooming the program.
But Obama proposes it, and the low-information millennial crowd go, yay!
And it ends up with the Republicans getting the blame and Republicans being perceived as the spy masters and are going to be hated even more than they are now.
And that theory of this or the strategy of this is to secure the millennial vote and keep it in the Democrat Party.
But it's not axiomatic that the Republicans would oppose it.
What if they don't?
NBC News today, House Intel Panel unveils NSA metadata overhaul bill.
The two top members of House Intelligence Committee unveiled a bill yesterday that would end the government's bulk collection of metadata under the FISA Act, including telephone, email, and internet metadata.
The bill, according to Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, Republican Michigan, ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, Democrat Maryland, very, very close to what Obama is proposing related to metadata collection.
So it appears that the Republican strategy is to agree with Obama to a point and thereby head him off at the pass so that they don't get blamed for it.
Hanging in the balance is the surveillance program.
The very surveillance program that does indeed ferret out conversations between terrorists who intend us harm.
It does do that.
Nothing's flawless, but it's better to have it than not to have it.
So this is the latest on that.
And of course, Anthony Kennedy is in the same situation.
He gave indications he could go either way on the Hobby Lobby case.
It's just going to depend on how he feels.
Now, back one thing I just want to remind you where this Celinda Lake thing, she's a Democrat pollster, the Democrat half of the battleground poll.
And it was she who came out yesterday after extensive reporting of her polls to the Democrats, look, do not defend this.
It isn't defensible.
Nobody likes it.
You cannot run for reelection defending Obamacare.
What you have to do is say you're going to fix it.
What you have to say is you didn't vote for this.
Now, if you remember, it was in our discussion of the special election in Florida, the David Jolly victory.
Remember, that election was a lot about Obamacare.
The Republican establishment was all over Fox trying to tell us it wasn't about Obamacare, but it was.
It was about Obamacare.
It was about climate change.
It was about immigration.
It had every issue in it.
And every position that the Republican took was a winner.
And after that election, there were a number of people pointing out that this is going to further isolate Democrats in the Senate running for reelection.
I pointed out, no, no, no, wait a second now.
If the Republicans can run against this, the Democrats have a way to do it too.
And that is to say this isn't what they voted for.
And it's not.
It's been changed so many times.
It's been delayed so many times that they can say with a pretty good level of credulity or credibility that they didn't vote for what Obamacare has become and that they oppose what it is.
They can do that.
And they can follow Celinda Lake's advice, which is, again, do not, do not defend it.
Any Democrat runs for reelection defending this is in big, big trouble.
So this is how the Democrats hope to get around the albatross that Obamacare is.
And it, folks, in a political sense, trying to trend to forecast election outcomes, it does go back to a question.
It is obvious that Obama and the regime are announcing all of these delays and these extensions so that their implementation happens after an election.
And it's clear that the regime thinks the vast majority of this country is a bunch of blooming idiots and will not realize what they're doing and therefore will not react cynically to the regime.
The regime is rolling a dice that most people will give thanks to Obama for understanding their plight and delaying the pain while they try to fix it when in fact what Obama's doing is delaying the full implementation and he has no intention of not implementing this.
He's just delaying it so that these people don't feel it before an election.
So it's going to come down to and we got polling data that shows a vast majority of Americans oppose Obama here.
But if Obama fixes it so there's less and less pain associated with it, are people going to be wise enough to realize that he's being very cynical about this and not let him get away with it?
And this we don't know.
And put this into the same hopper with Celinda Lake and what she is advising Democrat candidates to do.
She's telling them again, don't defend it.
You didn't vote for this.
You don't have to run away from this because it's not something you voted for.
Just talk about fixing it.
So forth, because that's what people want.
And they think they've got a winner there, folks.
I'm just warning you.
No, you just love it.
CNN.
CNN's now running a story.
Black boxes may not solve mystery of crashed airlines.
Of course not.
There's never going to be a solution to the mystery.
Otherwise, CNN's got to pack it in.
There can't be a solution.
The black boxes, of course not.
They're not going to tell us anything.
Or not nearly enough.
CNN set for life on the crash of Malaysian Flight 370.
Here's Chris, San Francisco, as we head to the phones.
Greetings, sir.
Great to have you here.
Hello.
How are you doing today, Rush?
Very well.
Thank you.
All righty.
Well, just let you know here that evidently the FBI is doing a little raid here this morning on Democrat Leland Yee's office here, conducted evidently in Sacramento as well as throughout offices in California.
Yeah, I happen to have, I'm holding here my former lady, nicotine stained fingers, that very story.
State Senator Leland Yee was taken to San Francisco's federal building wearing handcuffs after he was detained this morning in connection with a political corruption probe, according to KTVU Eyeball News.
A spokeswoman for the FBI would not elaborate because the raids, you're right, they're raiding every one of his offices, were ongoing.
The report of his arrest comes just a month after the L.A. Democrat Ron Calderone pleaded not guilty to charges that he accepted $100,000 in bribes.
Now, folks, you may be what, Chris, why did you, what's a big deal?
Okay, Leland Yee shackled and frog-marched out of his office.
What's the big deal?
Well, just the fact that it is an elected politician, you obviously expect hire from these people than marched out, but yeah, exactly what things have become nowadays.
Well, it's just going to be interesting to see what this all leads to and what is involved with him and how far this really goes in the Democrat Party here in California.
Well, it probably goes all the way to the top.
I mean, this is why nobody's surprised what Democrats do is how you enrich yourself.
No, but you might be right.
Chris, you're in San Francisco.
You call here in the midst of a discussion about Obamacare and that fiasco and the Democrats re-elected.
And all of a sudden, I've stopped everything.
Take a call from you on Leland Yee.
Why would I do that, do you think?
Well, I think it just probably highlights the party itself in general and what the heck these characters are up to.
Well, it's clearly a factor, but it might not have been enough for me to stop everything and take your call.
The reason that I stopped everything, take your call, and clearly, folks, he didn't call for this reason.
Leland Yee is the California politician who attempted to get me fired and disbarred and dismembered and diswhate else after I impersonated the ChiCom premiere.
No, no, it wasn't.
He was no, he wouldn't have cared if I was, it was, it was not, no, no.
There was a, the ChiCom premiere was here at a joint press conference with Obama.
I did an impersonation of the ChiCom premier speaking Chinese.
And yeah, it was one of my best shows.
And Leland Yi, and these people had an absolute fit.
And they thought, this is exactly the kind of racism and the bigotry and the insensitivity and all the what else that I, El Rushbow, am known for.
And that's why.
So here, this guy that wanted me thrown off the air for racism and bigotry is now having his offices raided by the Thebes because of possible corruption while in office.
I just love these guys that they sit up there all majestically in their royalty and they try to eliminate their opposition all the while their hands are in the till and they're engaging in corruption I couldn't even dream of.
So I'm actually glad, Chris, that you called, and I'm actually glad that you got through because otherwise Leland Yee's name probably would not have come up today.
Right, exactly.
Do you remember that now that I've reminded you?
I certainly do here.
His name certainly has been around for a long time in this state, and it's just kind of interesting that they've got themselves into this kind of a predicament here.
He's a candidate for Secretary of State out there.
Exactly.
He obviously had.
He's not some insignificant paper push.
Well, it remains to be seen.
Remember, his buddies are the judges.
Well, in California, his buddies are the judges.
I mean, the Democrats own that state.
Anyway, Chris, I appreciate the call.
I'm glad you got through.
I appreciate the heads up on this.
I don't even remember there was something specific that I said while impersonating the Chikom prime minister.
Oh, of course it was hysterical because everything we do here is hysterical.
And it just sent this guy, Leland Yi, into orbit.
And they denouncing me and demanding that I be censored, thrown off the air, FCC investigation, whatever else they demand.
And I'm not even sure that it was January 2011 that it happened.
I remember that.
Yeah, I gipped it.
I gypped it.
Like we always jip everything, whenever there's a foreign language guest, especially the ChiComs.
And it had to do with something.
I think my memory is, we'll find it in the archives.
It's back in the archives.
We'll find it.
Think it had to do with women of something, something good-looking women and forget that, but this is the top of my um uh no, no, I didn't say everybody's gonna be hungry a half after hour, half hour after the state dinner for the guy.
I did not say that.
That's not, no, no, no, it was not that.
I, it was in, in, in doing the, we'll find it.
Probably, cookie, go out.
It's January 2011.
Just find the, find the, find the actual tape of the program rather than sit here trying to remember what it was.
Anyway, I take a break, my friends.
Have you heard about Gwendolyn Paltrow and what's her name?
What's his name?
Chris Cole play Chris Martin.
They have consciously uncoupled.
Somebody's going to therapy on that.
There's no doubt about it.
It was maybe January 2010 when the Chinese, the Chikom premier was here and doing a joint presser.
And he was speaking in Chinese.
And I was, I can't remember what it was, but we'll find it.
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