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April 3, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:40
April 3, 2014, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, President Obama says he's gonna get to the bottom of the Fort Hood shooting.
Just like he got to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi.
He's gonna get to the bottom of what happened at the Fort Hood shooting.
Don't worry, Obama will protect us all.
Obama is gonna get to the bottom of what happened when he finishes this fundraiser.
And then the next fundraiser, where he's gonna complain and moan about Republican money in campaigns.
He's not gonna be worried, though, about Ron Burkle money or David Geffen money or George Soros money.
He's only gonna be worried about Koch brother money.
Hi folks, how are you?
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh.
Starting to loosen up here.
Think maybe have turned the corner on whatever this is.
And we're feeling a little bit better here.
Got um a little bit more energy than I had yesterday.
I don't know how long it's gonna last, but starting off great here, telephone number if you want to be on the program 800-282-2882, the email address, El Rushbo at EIBNet.com.
Charles Koch of the Koch Brothers has an op-ed today, Wall Street Journal, I'm fighting to restore a free society.
That's a great piece.
It's kind of I mean, that's a personal take.
It's one of those things that's unfortunate he has to write it.
Uh but it's the climate in which we live.
And you could read the whole thing.
I I could read the whole thing to you.
It is uh even if it's even got a couple of handoffs to the left uh in it, and I understand why.
It's a common, well, he talks about all the great liberal things that his company has done so that they can be properly understood.
I understand why he throws these things in.
I've I've uh played golf with Charles Koch.
And and I'm not all of them, and that they're just they're fine people.
It is an amazing thing to watch great people like this to be demonized by absolute idiots led by the leaders of the Democrat Party.
What do you what is the official expression on your what do you?
Yeah, I played golf with one of the Koch brothers.
I uh I played golf with both Koch brothers, but I've actually uh was only in a foresome with one of them.
And it was at a charity golf outing for for prostate cancer.
And uh yeah, I've I've I've I've I've even spoken at a Koch brother event.
Oh the peaks of I think it was Aspen, Colorado.
Flew out one afternoon after the program.
Man, it was strange too.
I it it flew out there, it's a five-hour flight, landed, took a tram to the top of the mountain.
Um, so it was a lot of hours at high altitude, and I finished the speech and I went back down the mountain and got on a plane and came home.
In all of this in like 12 hours or whatever it was.
Uh it was just like two or three years ago.
So I want to share with you parts of this.
Uh and and the headline of the piece, I'm fighting to restore a free society.
I have devoted most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives.
It is those principles, the principles of a free society that have shaped my life and my family, our company, and America itself.
Now that's that's a powerful open.
And it's right in the face, it's right between the eyes of the critics who demonize the Koch brothers.
I have devoted most of my life to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives.
Not government to improve people's lives, because that doesn't happen.
I have devoted most of my life to understanding the principles.
How does it happen?
How do people improve themselves?
Me, my company, I, he's writing, have sought to enable this to happen with everybody we come in contact with.
There are principles, pillars of a free society that enable people to improve their lives, raise their standard of living, is another way of putting it.
Unfortunately, the fundamental concepts of dignity, respect, equality before the law, and personal freedom are under attack by the nation's own government.
That is also true.
The fundamental concepts of liberty, respect, and equality before the law have always personal freedom always under attack in this country.
There are always going to be leftists and Democrats who are afraid of people exercising individual choice and freedom because they will choose things that are not liberal.
But this is, and the point that Mr. Koch is making, it's one of the first time, it may be the first time in my lifetime.
I can't speak for all of American history, but I'm learning it as I write these books on it for kids, and I'm telling you, first time in my life that the people of this country are up against their own government when it comes to their freedom.
Now, look, Congress passes laws.
There are always incursions on our freedom.
Don't miss it.
I'm not being naive.
But this is unprecedented.
That we now have an administration which is devoted to this, that is using the government, the power of the government, the sprawl, the spread, the tentacles of the government, to intimidate any and all who would exercise personal freedom.
And this is unique.
Because now we're up against the government, not just a special interest group here or a politician there or a group of politicians over there.
We're up against now a government run by a man who is hellbent on running everybody's life.
And that's why Mr. Koch says if we want to restore a free society and create greater well-being and opportunity for all Americans, we have no choice but to fight for the fundamental concepts of dignity, self-respect, equality before the law, personal freedom, those principles that enable people to improve their lives.
He says I've been doing so for more than 50 years, primarily through the educational efforts that we've made.
It was only in the past ten years that I realized the need to also engage in the political process.
A truly free society is based on a vision of respect for people and what they value.
A truly free society based on a vision of respect for people and what they value.
In a truly free society, any business that disrespects its customers will fail and deserves to.
The same should be true of any government that disrespects its citizens.
The central belief and fatal conceit of the current regime is that you are incapable of running your own life.
But those in power are capable of running your life for you.
This is the essence of big government and collectivism.
More than 200 years ago, Thomas Jefferson warned that this could happen.
The natural progress of things, Jefferson wrote, is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
Jefferson knew that no government could possibly run citizens' lives for the better.
The more government tries to control, the greater the disaster.
As illustrated by the current health care debacle.
Collectivists, meaning those who stand for government control of the means of production and how people live their lives.
Collectivists promise heaven, but deliver Hell.
For them, the promised end always justifies the means.
Meaning, doesn't matter how many times our programs don't work, it doesn't matter how many times our programs fail.
It doesn't matter how much misery our programs cost and cause, it is our intentions that you must examine.
Our good intentions, we are good people, we are better people than you.
We care more, we love more, and we are more tolerant, and we know what's better for you than you do, and we want, and we demand, and we will make.
And whenever it fails, we're not allowed to examine the details of the failure.
We're always supposed to focus on their good intentions, the the the promised end.
That carrot dangling way out there in the future, all of this utopia that they claim to be able to bring, it never happens.
But we're supposed to let them do whatever they want or need to make it happen.
And we're not to judge their failures as we go, but to examine their intentions.
Instead of encouraging free and open debate, collectivists strive to discredit and intimidate opponents.
They engage in character assassination.
That's the approach that Arthur Schopenhauer described in the 19th century that Saul Olinski famously advocated in the 20th century, and that so many despots have infamously practiced such tactics are the antithesis of what is required for a free society, a telltale sign that the collectivists do not have good answers.
Now, rather than try to understand my vision for a free society or accurately report the facts about coke industries, our critics would have you believe that we're un-American, that we're trying to rig the system, that we are against environmental protection or eager to end workplace safety standards.
These lies, these falsehoods remind me the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's observation, everyone's entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.
And he lists some facts about his philosophy and about coke industries.
The Coke companies combined employ 60,000 people who make many thousands of products that Americans want and need.
According to government figures, coke industry employees and the 143,000 additional American jobs they support generate nearly 11.7 billion dollars in compensation and benefits.
In other words, for you low information people, coke industry is responsible for paying people eleven point seven billion dollars.
In salary, wages, and benefits.
Further, about one-third of the U.S.-based Coke industry employees are union members.
Yes.
And I would add on my own that it would earn a lot more than they do now if they were not members of unions.
But I just throwing that in there.
Coke employees have earned well over 700 awards for environmental health and safety excellence since 2009, many of them from the EPA, in fact, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, EPA officials have commended commended us for our commitment to a cleaner environment, called us a model for other companies.
This is one of the throw-ins for the left.
One of the responses to their criticism.
Our refineries.
Yes.
Coke industries refines oil.
Oh, evil.
Evil, aren't they?
Our refineries have consistently ranked among the best in the nation for low per barrel emissions.
Far from trying to rig the system, I have spent decades opposing cronyism and all political favors, including mandates, subsidies, productive tariffs, even when we benefit from them.
I believe that cronyism is nothing more than welfare for the rich And powerful and should be abolished.
And you know, if I may make another side observation.
It is crony capitalism that Obama is engaging in.
And in the process corrupting various industries or individual companies by luring them into relationships with his administration.
And it is those companies doing business with Obama who are rigging the system, who are benefiting from a rigged system, who are enjoying favors that others can't get.
Crony capitalism is an absolute horror, and it is something that we've talked about it in various elements in the past in this program.
It might be productive to explain it in some detail, maybe as the program unfolds today.
Instead of fostering a system that enables people to help themselves, America is now saddled with a system that destroys value, raises costs, hinders innovation, and relegates millions of citizens to a life of poverty, dependency, hopelessness.
This is what happens when elected officials believe that people's lives are better run by politicians and regulators than by the people themselves.
Those in power fail to see that more government means less liberty.
Liberty is the essence of what it means to be American.
Love of liberty is the American ideal.
If more businesses and elected officials were to embrace a vision of creating real value for people in a principled way, our nation would be far better off, not just today, but for generations to come.
And Mr. Koch concludes by saying, "I'm dedicated to fighting for that vision.
I'm convinced most Americans believe it's worth fighting for, too." I'm still intrigued by the way he opened this.
I've devoted my life, most of my life, to understanding the principles that enable people to improve their lives.
Meaning he's studied it, been interested in how it happens, and furthermore, interested in how he can help them make it happen for themselves.
People that work for Coke, people that were business with Coke, people that he knows personally.
Something I've found about all conservatives, everyone that I know wants everybody to do well.
Wants everybody to benefit from the grandest opportunity a human being can be presented.
That to be in a United States citizen, an American.
The greatest human opportunity on this planet, and we conservatives want everybody to do well.
We want everybody to improve their lives, want everybody to raise their standard of living on their own.
Sense of entitlement, no, but achievement and completion, sense of success, knowing what your value is, knowing how much you're capable of doing, all of these things are what we want for people.
We don't want people to suffer.
We don't want, but but we certainly want people to do better by doing for themselves.
It's the simple best way.
How do people improve their lives?
And one thing that we can say without any credible opposition is that government is not the way to improve your life.
Except, see, and now we're back, crony capitalism can improve the life of a corporation in a bad, bad way.
Got to take a break, we'll be back.
Don't go with crony capitalism, what is it?
Well, have you ever heard of Cylindra?
Maybe I'd have to use Cylinder.
You ever heard of the insurance industry, health insurance industry?
Have you ever heard of uh General Electric?
Have you ever heard of General Motors?
You know, this General Motors thing that's happening with the CEO being dragged up testify over the faulty ignition.
Why is the government not sitting next to that CEO?
The government's involved in bailing General Motors out.
The government was involved with financial decisions.
The government was solved in the decision to not highlight that problem so as not to impact sales.
Where's where's Obama?
Why doesn't he sit next to this woman who's being held out to dry?
Crony capitalism is when the government gives a company access to the federal treasury in exchange for support for the regime.
Ties a company to the regime and enables the company not to use its own money to grow.
That's one short definition of it.
And Obama has done that a lot.
Mostly with failed green energy companies involved in wind and solar.
Anyway, I've got to take another time out, folks.
I went long in the first segment.
apologize for that, but we got more coming up, so don't go away.
On the cutting edge of societal evolution, El Rushmore serving humanity, executing his nine host duties flawlessly, zero.
Zero.
Mistakes.
Let me grab we got one call here that's uh related to the uh opening monologue involving the Wall Street Journal op-head by Charles Koch.
This is uh Don in Indianapolis.
Hey, Don, I'm glad you called.
You want to weigh in on this, right?
Yeah, Rush.
It's John from Indianapolis via Wisconsin.
So Dill's from uh the Midwest, anyway.
Wait a second.
Wait, wait, hold it.
Have your call been screened.
Have you talked to Mr. Snerdley?
Yes.
Okay, he's got you as John from Indianapolis.
Yeah, John.
Yeah.
That's right.
I thought you said Don, I'm sorry.
Oh, I might have said non.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
No matter.
He can't hear much better than I can on these cell phones.
My comment has to do with the disconnect between right and left on freedoms.
And first of all, I totally agree with what you and Mr. Coke are saying regarding our personal freedoms.
We are losing our economic freedoms and our personal freedoms at a rapid pace and it has to be stopped.
But the problem we face, in my opinion, is that the left views freedom differently, and they are viewing that um the social freedoms that they think are important, such as gay marriage, abortion, pot smoking, that sort of thing, are expanding.
So for them, freedom is expanding.
And the fact that our more more properly stated conservatives' economic freedoms is being lost is to their benefit because we're funding their social freedom expansion.
My point is that we have to recover our economic freedom and make that point that our freedom is as important or more important than their social freedom.
All right, well, give me an illustration, if you will.
And I don't mean to put you on the spot, but you sound like you know what you're talking about.
So give me an example of um we're losing economic freedom, and then part two, if you want to tackle it.
Why because the left wants gay marriage and abortion, are we losing economic freedom?
What are the two have to do with each other?
Well, first of all, I think I I I guess it's a it's um uh the fact that we're losing our economic freedom.
Every time taxes go up, every time regulation goes up, every time a business can't make a hiring decision because of government uh policy law or regulation, we've lost that freedom.
We we don't have that freedom.
So that's a huge economic cost to the country.
It's reflected in slow economic growth to the extent there is any.
So I think my in my opinion, that's I don't know how else I can show that or illustrate that.
Okay, no, that's good.
You can't build a house where you want to without going through all kinds of hoops and shinola.
You've got to get a regulation for this to do that, taxes go up, you have less money, um, you gotta pay this person off, pay that person off.
So I no, that's a great explanation of how uh economic freedom has has been taken over and limited by by government.
Now, do you want to tackle a second part?
What does it have to do with the left?
Well, well, um, first of all, I think it has to do with an electorate where a substantial um number of people are not um pulling the wagon, they're in the wagon, and by that I mean uh benefiting from government uh welfare and things of that nature, and they are free to do those other things.
Um most of us don't really care about.
Um and I'm specifically talking about hot smoking, uh, and the and I'll say the uh just lump it into a category of expanded social freedoms.
By the way, with regard to abortion, uh their freedom to commit abortion ends the freedom of the of the baby.
So um I think that's a a mixed sort, and I wish we could have that debate.
My ultimate point is is to the left.
Look, you regardless of how you or I might feel about it, Rush.
They I believe they are winning on the gay marriage thing, regardless of what we think about it.
My argument to them is okay, you've won your battle.
Now our freedom is important to us.
I remember one time a couple years ago, you made a very brilliant point about the freedom to smoke.
And you said you may not like smoking, but every time you limit the freedoms you don't like, they're gonna come after your freedom too.
And that's what's going on now.
The left doesn't like our economic freedom.
They've come after it, they're taking it away, and they're gonna kill the goose and laid the golden egg.
My argument to them is no, this is gonna stop.
Well, but they don't uh wait, they don't think they're killing the golden goose, because to them that's a government.
That's true.
I agree with that.
That's the that's the problem.
A basic problem to them, the golden goose is not the private sector.
The golden goose were criminals, the private sector criminals live, and people need to be punished.
Uh uh government uh and good stewards of big government, growing government, people are gonna tax the rich and give everybody else the money.
That's the golden goose.
Yep.
Um, you know, I I mentioned the other day, I did an interview with Bill Donahue, the Catholic League for the Limbaugh Letter, and it was a great interview.
I only had to ask two and a half questions.
My favorite kind.
He just launched it.
Guy is is is excellent.
And he said something really provocative about the left.
He said, everything they want, everything they go to the to the mats for, everything they fight to the death on is related to sex.
And you not judging them or telling them they can't.
Everything.
Now he didn't specifically explain how pot legalization would have to do with it.
But he was talking primarily about all the arguments we're having over abortion and contraception, abortive fashions, making the Catholic church pay for it.
He says these people are sex-crazed fiends.
My word, not his.
He said, But everything is oriented towards sex and not being judged by anybody for it.
And they are not interested in our freedoms.
Like you say, uh John says, okay, we've lost the gay marriage fight.
If we've lost it, then they've won it.
Okay, so there's no trade-off.
If we want economic freedom, lower taxes, they are still hellbent on denying us whatever economic freedom we want, because if it doesn't comport to what they want, we're an enemy.
There is no common ground.
They don't see any common ground, and there isn't any, by the way.
And there's no desire to reach any.
One of the big differences between us and them, we're perfectly willing, or have been, to coexist with them.
They do not have any desire.
They are they are totally devoted, oriented toward eliminating and punishing severely.
Anyone who disagrees, anybody who opposes.
There's there's no there's a they are they're living lives where they feel constantly imperil and threatened.
And there's a reason for that, by the way, that I'm not gonna delve into it too much detail.
It's called conscience, and occasionally they have some.
And it just that they don't want it, they don't want to have conscience, they don't want to get pangs or attacks of it, they don't want to think it matters or exists.
Uh and this manifests itself throughout all of our politics.
And that's why when I when I hear Republicans say, we've got to cross the aisle, and I'm the guy who can do it.
Crush down, we're gonna show that government.
That they're not interested in that.
That's a sucker's move.
It's a sucker's bet, and they're not interested in it at any level, politically, socially, what have you on the on the left.
But it's an interesting question.
I mean, they're they they they want their the total expansion of their social freedoms, and what do we do?
What are we told?
We're told get the social Issues out of our politics.
It's killing us.
Okay, fine.
So we're supposed to get rid of any mention of abortion.
Otherwise, we'll lose elections.
Let them have it.
We're supposed to get rid of any mention of gay marriage.
Let them have it.
Any mention of it?
We gotta get rid of the social issues.
More and more Republicans think the social issues are killing the party.
The problem is that the moral fiber of the country is evaporating.
And now we're back to talking about how does one improve one's life.
How does one go about achieving a better life?
A more meaningful, productive, full life.
We all only get one.
Can you achieve a productive, meaningful, full life with no moral code in it?
You can't.
No matter how hard you want to try, no matter what kind of utopia you imagine, you can't.
And that's one of the many battles that are underway.
Anyway, I got to take a break.
I appreciate the call, John, not Don from Indianapolis.
We'll be back.
We will continue in mere moments.
Don't go away.
Half my brain tied behind my back.
Just to make it fair.
And let's delve into the Fort Hood shooting.
We also want somebody 22 at the end of this, Mike.
I just got that one.
So we're going to start here with General John McHugh this morning in Washington on Capitol Hill during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the 2015 Army budget request.
The Army General John McHugh testified and had this to say.
His opening remarks about the Fort Hood shooter specialist Ivan Lopez.
He was undergoing a variety of treatment and diagnoses for mental health conditions ranging from depression to anxiety to some sleep disturbance.
He was prescribed a number of drugs to address those, including Ambien.
Sounds like a Kennedy.
In a way.
I mean, what was it?
Patrick Kennedy, Ambian driving down the median late at night after a session of Congress.
You know what I find one of the most ironic things is that on an army base, army, folks, they don't allow people to run around armed.
army base.
I mean, there you have the life lesson It happened again.
The original Fort Hood shooter, Jihad, although not stated, but it was, Al-Akbar, you had Jihad going on.
Nobody was able to stop the original shooter until somebody showed up that was armed.
One of the reasons it happened in the first place, the shooter knew that nobody else was armed.
It's classic.
The assumption being, if you put guns in the place, they're all going to be fired because everybody's a rut gut when you give them a gun.
Here's another example.
The only guy with the gun was the bad guy on an army base.
I mean, it just it's clear illustration of how political correctness in the left totally distort common sense and reality everywhere in our culture.
Here's Carol Costello.
This is in the you should have seen the coverage on CNN this morning.
They just beside themselves.
How can this happen?
There weren't any goods.
What can we do about it?
It's just horrible, it's horrible.
And every shooting we talk about mental mental illness and they don't pass any laws on mental illness.
Well, we used to have plenty, Carol.
We used to have plenty of laws on mental illness, but they were deemed discriminatory against the mentally ill.
So we had to get rid of them.
That's why there are homeless people, dumpster diving and living under shopping carts and so forth, because we've de-institutionalized them in the name of their freedom and privacy.
And I think this country has a collective mental illness when it comes to looking to government for answers to everything.
You want to talk about insanity?
Definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
The genuine mental illness that we have is this seemingly nationwide belief that government is the solution to every problem, even the ones that government costs.
We always talk about dealing with the issue of mental illness in this country, and nothing happens.
There have been so many instances of a mentally ill person who somehow got a hold of a gun and then uh participated in a mass shooting, and no law changes.
Nothing happens.
Nothing changes.
What's supposed to change?
The government's in charge, Carol.
This is not supposed to happen at all because the government's making the laws.
Or not, as the case may be.
You keep looking to the wrong people to fix things like this.
Whoever is in charge of this rule that nobody on an army base can bear arms, sorry, that just defies common sense.
It's just absolutely silly.
And it's totally reactionary.
And it's rooted in the belief that if you get guns and take guns away from everybody, that you'll get rid of gun violence.
And here's the second, the third, the fifth, the fifteenth, the twenty-thousandth incident where we disprove that.
Take guns away from everybody, and we're not supposed to have any gun incidents, are we?
And yet, people who intend to get guns and do harm with them always seem to find a way, whether there's a law against it or not.
Now we know the mental health laws, where we're supposed to have laws that would stop this insane guy from doing this, or this disturbed guy from doing this.
If he's disturbed, he doesn't even know what the law is, and he doesn't care what the law is.
The law doesn't stop anything from happening.
The law doesn't prevent murder.
The law doesn't prevent bank robbing.
The law doesn't stop anything.
It's it's it's a moral marker, it's a social marker, it's a mechanism for meeting out punishment, and in some cases it's a deterrent, but not very often.
Here is uh, let's see if this is uh last night, uh, Anderson Cooper.
Uh 195, the fill-in host John Berman speaking with a White House correspondent from CNN, Michelle Kaczynski about the latest shooting in John Merman said, Michelle, give us some details, how the president learned and the response.
I think many of us remember seeing those pictures of the president and Mrs. Obama at the memorial service for those 13 shots in 2009.
He delivered the eulogy for that.
Some describe that as one of his strongest speeches.
So he too obviously was affected, calling this heartbreaking.
Are you kidding me?
This is about Obama.
Of all the things that happened with the Fort Hood shooter in 2009, we're supposed to remember Obama's speech.
Nobody remembers that.
What was the first thing came to your mind when you heard about the shooting at Fort Hood last night?
I guarantee you what your first thing came to your mind was uh all was it terrorism?
Is it a terrorist?
Is another terrorist?
Is it more jihad?
You didn't think, oh my God, Obama, what's he doing?
Oh my God, I remember Obama's wonderful speech.
Oh my God, what is Obama gonna?
It wasn't what you were thinking.
You were thinking another terrorist incident at Fort Hood.
CNN thinks we're thinking about Obama, his wonderful speech.
Here's Jay Carney.
You had time to squeeze this in this afternoon a press secretary in a daily briefing.
Question You have any updates on Fort Hood Jay?
Has the president been briefed this morning?
Is there any new information?
What's Obama think?
What's Obama doing?
How does it affect Obama?
Last night, the president convened a conference call with uh Department of Defense and FBI leadership while aboard Air Force One.
He received another update this morning during the presidential daily briefing.
Oh, good.
The President will continue to receive updates as new information becomes available.
Right and has directed that his team do everything it can to assist the families of the lost and wounded.
The president he's been told he's getting updates, is getting on the airplane.
Go to a fundraiser, in fact, I think, yeah.
Um with rich Democrats.
Then nobody seems worried or involved in politics, by the way.
As I predicted, the Democrats are just having a conniption fit over the latest Supreme Court decision on campaign donations.
And of course, their buddies in the drive-by media are also upset.
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