Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
I didn't do it.
It wasn't me.
It wasn't me.
You get the Politico saying I did it.
You got USA Today saying I did it.
And I didn't do it.
It wasn't me.
And it's fascinating.
It is literally fascinating that they want to take this episode and try to lay this off on me.
It makes me think.
No, I'll tell you what I'm talking about in a minute.
This is the hook.
It makes me think that we might have hit on something here.
The caller did it.
The caller did it, but they're laying it off on me.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
It's El Rushbo.
Here we are somewhere on the left coast, not identifying where, so the tax authorities here can't find me.
A telephone number, if you want to be on the programs, 800-282-2882, the email address, El Rushbo at EIBnet.com.
By the way, this program, I'm going to tell you something, folks, this program gets action.
It was just last week that we had a call from a woman.
Wait a minute.
Was it a call or was it a – no, it was a call and we found corresponding news stories.
We had a call from – no, no, no, take it back.
It was a – It was a story first.
Then we got a call.
The story was that some woman in Maryland had her income tax refund absconded with by the IRS because some family member of hers 30 years ago supposedly owed Social Security something.
Or no, I know what it was.
Social Security, the government was totally to blame.
Social Security had overpaid like a great, great, great, great grandaunt of hers or something.
Survivor benefits.
And the government said, you know what?
Your family member got too much money back.
So we're just going to take what your family owes out of your refund.
And this woman said, well, I didn't do it, but it's powerless to do anything about it.
Then we got a phone call from another woman who said the same thing had happened to her.
And then more stories started popping up.
And we started talking about that quite a bit with some great frequency.
I warned you that your refund, you may not see it.
If the IRS want, they were going to collect close to what was it, $2 billion?
They were going to try to reclaim $2 billion from various taxpayers' refunds.
And as I say, this program gets action.
Headline, Social Security halts collection of families' old debt.
They were not debts.
They were mistakes in Social Security overpayment.
So some former recipient got paid too much, benefit was too much, and didn't tell anybody.
And it took the government 30 years to figure out they'd overpaid Citizen X.
And when they figured it out, they took it from Citizen X's next of kin.
But the family never screwed anybody.
They just got more benefits than they were supposed to get.
Anyway, the Social Security Administration announced yesterday that it will no longer try to collect taxpayer debt to the government if the liability is more than 10 years old.
The news comes after reports that the Social Security Administration was seizing tax refunds from about 400,000 Americans whose relatives owed money to the agency, but they didn't.
It wasn't that the taxpayers had goofed up here, folks.
It was that the government had overpaid.
It was the mistake of the government.
Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn Colvin said that she ordered, quote, an immediate halt to further referrals under the Treasury offset program pending a thorough review of our responsibility and discretion under the current law.
The Washington Post was one of the drive-by outlets that reported last week that many of those who had their tax refund seized were unaware of the debts that their family members incurred decades ago.
Typically, Americans run up debt to the Social Security Administration if they receive a benefit overpayment and don't return the extra amount.
That's not fraud.
It's a mistake by the government.
Who knows whether they got too much?
Who knows whether the amount the government sent, who knows whether your check is to, what are you supposed to do?
Call a government, hey, you just sent me X amount.
Is that the right number?
I mean, who's even confident it could get anybody to answer that phone call?
Anyway, it shut down after less than a week of being mentioned on this program.
Now, we had a call yesterday from a woman who I could barely understand.
She was on a cell phone.
Her cell phone was not the, her cell call was not the best connection.
And the woman did not have the phone properly positioned so that her oral cavity was near the phone's microphone.
Therefore, I could barely understand what she was saying.
I had to ask her to start again a couple of times.
I was able to read the transcription of the call.
And basically, this woman's theory is that Mrs. Clinton staged the whole incident where somebody threw a shoe at her.
And her theory was based on the fact that Mrs. Clinton looked like she knew it was coming.
She didn't look that shocked.
She had too many really cute pat answers just ready to go.
And then this woman sent it at Clinton's.
They staged things.
The Democrats staged things and said, you know, I hadn't thought about it.
I said, I hadn't even seen it.
All I had seen was the still shot of Hillary avoiding the shoe on the Drudge Report.
I frankly didn't care.
I don't care anymore at stuff like that.
I think what the drive-bys do, folks, I'm just trying to limit my exposure to them so as to not be affected by it.
It's hard, I know.
Expose yourself to them each and every day.
You can't help but be taken in by it.
It's just so I, you know, somebody threw a shoe at Hillary.
Big whoop.
Well, anyway, from the politico, Rush Limbaugh floats staged shoe theory.
USA Today, Rush Limbaugh floats staged shoe theory.
Identical headline.
Two separate news organizations.
No, you know what it is?
USA Today has simply reprinted the politico piece, but doesn't identify it as such.
Or maybe, no, it's this credit politico here in one story and USA Today in the other, but it's the same story.
It's by Tal Copen is the writer.
Rush Limbaugh suspects that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's near miss of a throne shoe at an event last week could have been staged, he said on his show Monday.
No, I didn't.
While Limbaugh said on his show Monday he hadn't seen it and was thus ill-equipped to discuss it, he still suspected the whole thing wasn't as it seemed.
No, I didn't.
I simply took a call.
This is what these people do not, whoever this Tal Copen is, did not hear this radio program.
Guarantee you, this person went to Media Matters or some other watchdog media site for the take.
I've got people telling me her reaction wasn't natural.
This is what I did say that.
I haven't cared enough to go try to find it.
I really haven't.
Somebody threw a shoe at Hillary.
Big whoop.
Maybe it's because my subconscious, I think it was staged or whatever.
Look, folks, I know those people so well, I don't attach much genuineness to them at all.
Limbaugh is not the only conservative to raise questions about the shoe throwing at the bottom of the story.
It says, Fox News contributor Bernard Bernie Goldberg, his personal blog site, posted a piece from a contributor on the real story.
And then he quotes some guy also thanks.
Now, here again, a small teachable moment.
And it is in the same vein as I am the only voice.
I am the only person not going nuts, wild and crazy over Colbert getting Letterman Show.
They take a caller who says, you know, Russian, and I didn't see it, and I admit that I didn't see it.
And I said, you know, you may have a good idea.
I told the caller I was being polite.
You may have a good idea.
But it gets attributed to me.
Why is it attributed to me?
It is attributed to me because I seem to be the only contrarian out there, the only person not following the sheep.
And as such, I'm going to be the one that's going to be focused upon as the enemy or as the opposition here.
But couldn't they get it?
It was a caller's look.
I'm not trying to shove this off on the caller.
This is about media accuracy and what it really means about conformity.
And if you don't conform, they're going to come for you.
If you don't conform, you'd be an enemy of the state.
If you don't conform, you're obviously an idiot.
Grab, I wasn't going to do it, but since I brought it up this way, grab soundbite number one.
I don't have the transcript in front of me.
I guess this was on Comedy Central, is that right?
Some guy, some comedian named Lewis Black, is there a comedian named Lewis Black?
There is?
Okay.
Well, he was on Comedy Central last night.
Or was it comedy?
I don't have.
It was a national press club.
I can't read the soundbite rust.
I need a microscope for it.
So anyway, it was at the National Press Club.
It's Lewis Black guy, and he's being interviewed by this press club person, asked about me not thinking that, not jumping and doing handstands over Colbert getting the Letterman show.
And this is what the soundbite sounds like.
That's the kind of sentence that's stroke-inducing.
I go through that paragraph, and about halfway through, there's like a slight twitch of the eye.
I can feel a blood vessel beginning to pump too much.
What could he possibly?
He's an idiot.
He really is just a mean-spirited.
Here's how big an assault it's going to be on American values.
Stephen Colbert, Stephen Colbert has five, I think, five children, happily married, has this great family, was still hanging in with the Catholic Church when people were fleeing en masse.
Can you talk about he doesn't know?
I think he called me the P-word, the P-R word.
He called me the male anatomy word.
It's a badge of honor here, folks.
Now, look, see, here's the thing.
This is what they always do.
Ignore the body of work and talk about the symbolism.
We're supposed to ignore what Colbert did and does every night.
We're supposed to ignore the act and who he skewers and who he makes.
And we're supposed to look, oh, Catholic.
Really?
Not a very good one, maybe.
Don't know.
Family man, right?
Well, where is that represented in the body of work?
It's a little bit of a conflict here.
And this is what the left always does.
It's like that Washingtonian article on the Carneys.
You know, here's the left telling you that single parenthood is valorous.
Single parenthood is the answer.
It's the future.
It's the way this country is transforming.
Single parenthood is not to be condemned.
You can't go back to the 50s.
You can't be Ozzy and Harriet anymore.
It isn't possible.
You can't be old-fashioned in the modern age.
And yet, the Carneys are.
Leave it to Beaver.
The Carneys are Ozzie and Harriet.
Claire Shipman works when she wants to.
She earns much less than her husband, and it's perfectly fine.
She brags about the flexibility she has to be able to stay home with her children.
They don't get farmed out to daycare.
She fixes breakfast with them.
She fixes food.
She fixes the husband breakfast and lunch.
It's just a beautiful family.
But that's not the kind of family you can have.
If you want something like that, you're old-fashioned and a bigot and whatever it is.
So the symbolism that they always focus to, always ask us to notice, it's the same thing as essentially take a look at all their social programs and don't examine the results.
We are supposed to judge the intentions.
And the intentions of all those people behind the war in poverty are good.
The intentions behind all those people on the great society are good.
People where we are, we really intended to do good things.
So don't examine that they're abysmal failures.
Don't examine the results.
Don't tell because the results don't matter.
Our big hearts, our intentions, what matter.
In other words, it's the symbolism over the substance that always mattered.
Anyway, they're really, really mad is the key.
I'm just a guy on the radio having fun, laughing and yucking it up here.
And they are really ticked off that I don't think Colbert is a guy.
And I don't even care.
I just snerdly asked me in an offhand moment, and I answered in two minutes what I thought of it off the top of my head.
I don't even care.
I haven't watched Letterman in 10 years.
I'm not going to watch it.
I just don't do it anymore.
It's drive-by mainstream media.
I know what I'm going to get.
Why flog myself?
Why watch that stuff and be punished?
It's not my idea of a good time.
But the fact that I don't conform makes them really mad.
And now, somehow, I am responsible for the theory that Hillary faked the shoe.
They're really mad, folks.
From my standpoint, they're winning a lot.
They ought to be happy.
They just got the Mozilla guy run out of town.
They're now trying to get Condoleezza Rice run out of Dropbox.
They've tried.
One reason they're mad, they haven't gotten me.
They've failed miserably at that, but they're going to keep trying.
But they're never happy.
They're constantly angry and enraged.
And all you have to do to make them really literally enraged is simply say something that goes against their grain of conventional wisdom.
It's not really hard to do.
So anyway, that's the show open.
Did you know that the White House didn't know this until today?
Somebody at the White House, after that prayer breakfast that Ben Carson spoke two years ago, maybe three now.
I don't know, time flies.
It was a national prayer breakfast where Ben Carson got up and said what he would do with healthcare, how he would fix it and what's wrong with it.
And everybody, oh, yeah, they put him on the national map.
It turns out that later either that day or that week, Carson got a phone call from somebody at the White House suggesting that he call Obama and apologize for that.
Carson was told to call and apologize for embarrassing our young great leader.
Oh, well, I don't know or what, but there clearly was an implied or else.
Also, Bubba Watson won the Masters on Sunday.
After all the hullabaloo at the course, at the club, after winning, there's the green jacket ceremonies champions dinner.
At about 12:30, one o'clock in the morning on Monday, he took his family to his favorite place, the Waffle House.
The left is livid.
They are enraged that he would take young kids to the Waffle House and feed them poison.
I am not kidding.
They are enraged.
The left is outraged over this.
Some of them are.
That Bubba Watson has so much attention focused on him, would use that to set such a poor example by taking his kids to the Waffle House.
Hey, we're back.
We're off to a rousing start.
As always, Rush Limbaugh having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Before this gets out of hand, and maybe already is this Colbert thing.
The first thing my comments about that actually are aimed at CBS.
They're the hiring agent here, and that's who I was really talking about, what their decision means.
I mean, Colbert's who he is, but I'm going to tell you something, folks.
Nancy Pelosi is a devout Catholic, too.
And what does that mean?
She just got the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood, which is an abortion organization.
And she's a devout Catholic.
So what does it matter?
Dick Turbin is a devout Catholic and a priestess.
He said, We're not going to get in communion anymore because he's not.
And all these leftists fall back on their devout Catholicism, but it doesn't mean anything.
They use it as cover.
They use it as symbolic symbolism cover.
If Colbert's a devout Catholic, has five kids, I suppose that he must believe in traditional marriage, right?
And if he does, then he's a hateful bigot, according to the current definitions of the left.
But I don't even.
The way I was asked the question, what do you think of the decision?
And I'm definition of change of comedy.
What's funny, what isn't.
And I think it's a political hire by CBS.
There's no question in my mind that it is.
But I don't know, Colbert.
I have no dog in this fight.
I don't care.
I don't watch those shows anymore.
So the pop culture is what it is.
It's not a surprising move in any way, shape, manner, or form.
Now, as far as the Clinton staging things, let's have a retrospective.
Okay, a couple of questions here, folks.
By the way, welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh executing his side host duties flawlessly zero mistakes.
Show prep for the rest of the media to come.
Now, why is it even a news story that I or one of my callers think that Mrs. Clinton staged the shoe incident?
Why is that even a news story?
It makes Politico.
Politico chronicles the comings and goings of Washington's political scene.
Why does what I think about that matter?
Why does it matter so much that USA Today picks it up and reprints it by the same token?
Look at the apparent importance everybody is attaching to the choice of Stephen Colbert to replace Letterman.
Why is that so important to the left?
Hmm?
It's so important because of the political ramifications.
Make no mistake about it.
Everything the left does is oriented around something political, usually their agenda.
Why does it matter that I have not fallen in line and am universally slapping everybody's back saying, hey, man, what a great hire.
Why is that so important?
Why does it matter?
Why is it a news story that somebody on my show or even I might think that Mrs. Clinton staged a shoe thing?
Why is it so important?
What I think the Colbert hire means.
And the right way to ask the question is, why is the media and everybody placing such importance on the Colbert hire?
And you know the answer.
It's because it represents a continuation of the dominance of the left of pop culture.
The actions speak for themselves.
The reaction they have to somebody who doesn't conform also speaks for itself.
Because in the big scheme of things, what I think about either of these things is irrelevant.
Isn't it?
No, don't forget about me supposedly being the voice of the opposition and all that.
And I know they need clicks on their website for ads and my name gets clicks.
I understand all that.
But in the genuine substance, look at the importance they place.
Look at the anger that such importance generates when somebody doesn't conform.
Now, as far as the Clinton staging things, you know, I have this phrase that I employ a lot using intelligence guided by experience.
The Clintons are well known for staging things.
One of the very first things that Clinton staged, and there have been many, I'll give you two highlights.
It was at one of the anniversaries of D-Day, and it had a camera atop the hillside at Omaha Beach at Normandy.
And the camera was focused on a lone destroyer out near the horizon in the English Channel.
And as that camera zoomed out, you know what we saw?
We saw a lonely figure on the beach.
A lonely figure in deep solitude wandering the beach.
And that lone figure all of a sudden stopped and appeared to get choked up.
And then that lone figure kneeled down and miraculously there were some stones there right where he happened to stop.
There aren't any stones on Omaha Beach.
I have been there.
It is a beach.
There are no stones.
But there were just enough stones for this lonely figure to stop and arrange them in the shape of a cross.
And it just so happened that there was a camera close enough by to be able to focus in on the artwork of this lone figure.
This lone figure happened to be Sleep Willie, William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, who was wandering the beach at Omaha Beach at Normandy and came across the stones and arranged them in the shape of a cross, thereby creating his own deeply personal moving memorial to the lost souls at D-Day.
What a guy.
Yeah, the media cameraman at the end of the day says, you know what?
Just a lucky shot.
We happen to be packing up and getting on the way out.
And lo and behold, look what we found.
An entirely staged event by the Clintons and probably Carville.
I don't want to name it.
I don't know who did it, but the Clintons are well known, but the second big one was.
And this one was totally unbelievable.
This is right around, in fact, this was two, three weeks before, in retrospect, that we learned about Monica Lewinsky.
Oh, speaking of that, Michael Isakoff quit NBC News.
He was the Newsweek guy who had the Lewinsky story, but it didn't run in Newsweek.
They spiked it, and Drudge found out about it, and Drudge ran the story, not Isakoff.
Isikov gets the credit, but he didn't do anything.
Well, he found out about it, but his story got spiked by Newsweek editors.
Drudge found out about it under the covers of whatever wasn't, and Drudge made it public.
Isakoff quit NBC News the other day, claiming there's nothing for him to do there anymore.
Meaning, they're not going to be investigating anything at NBC News.
Cheryl Atkins quits.
Nothing for her to do there anymore.
They're not going to be doing any journalism anymore.
Now, for the next two years, no journalism at NBC, no journalism at CBS.
We're waiting for somebody at ABC to quit.
That'd be Brian Ross.
I don't think he's going to quit until he can find somebody in the Tea Party linked to the guys out in Nevada on this lands management dispute.
But anyway, remember three weeks before the Lewinsky story broke, there was a White House daily press briefing, and Mike McCurry was the press secretary.
And somebody stood up and asked him about a photo that was on the front page of the Los Angeles Times that day.
And a photo was nowhere else at this moment in time except the front page of the LA Times.
And McCurry, right on schedule and right on command, just erupted in faux outrage.
It was the most disgusting photo he'd ever seen.
He couldn't believe the media would stoop so low to do something like this.
This type of invasion of privacy is just beyond the pale, and it's not what we're about here.
And we totally deplore this vile act.
Well, nobody knew what he was talking about, but they sure as hell wanted to know.
Because so what the picture was, was a picture of Bill and Hillary in their swimsuits dancing on the beach somewhere in the Virgin Islands.
It was a still shot.
And they were embraced as though they were, I don't know, recreating some typical Hollywood movie scene on the beach.
Some war movie scene typical.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
From here to eternity.
Well, McCurry made sure that that picture was everywhere because he was so outraged by it.
It turns out the whole thing was staged.
There wasn't even any music.
We learned later that the whole event was staged and time to come out prior to they knew the Lewinsky story was going to break at some point, and they wanted that picture of them dancing on the beach to be able to be used in juxtaposition to the claim that he'd been having an affair with a 19-year-old intern.
So, intelligence guided by experience.
Do the Clintons stage things?
Heck yes, they stage things.
Therefore, is it outrageous that somebody would call here and think maybe Hillary staged a shoe-throwing it?
No, it isn't outrageous.
Intelligence guided by experience.
Nobody knows for sure, but it's not ludicrous to think it might be because the Clintons are well known for doing that.
The caller was speculating, and after years of political staging and planted questions, people are on alert for phonies, which is clearly what could be the case here.
As far as Colbert, if it's clear, folks, it's very important.
We have to assume now that having the right guy on a late-night talk show is considered a high political priority.
And I got to turn out the Ute vote.
That's one of the best ways that they can do it.
Get the right late-night host.
And comedians are rapidly gaining stature, not just in pop culture, but within the political culture.
And by virtue of the left and media's over-the-top reaction to what I think about it is proof that it is a big deal to them, a very important thing.
Yeah, I get to the Bubba Watson thing in just a second.
I want to get some phone calls in here, folks, as we head on down the road.
This is Chicago.
Kelly, I'm glad you called.
Great to have you on the Russian Boe program.
Hi.
Thank you.
Hi, how are you?
I'm well.
Thank you very, very, very, very much.
I have to tell you, I've been thinking about you lately.
I was just listening to the program.
You were talking about staging.
And then I recently been watching the House of Cards series on TV.
And I've just been dying to ask you if you watch it because there's all the staging and the politics there, which I think happens all the time.
And you're talking about it today.
And I was just wondering.
I do watch it.
It's hilarious.
I do watch.
I've watched both seasons in a binge.
I watched season two over a weekend.
Yeah, I'm almost there.
When it came out on Netflix.
I was going to tell you, my husband and I watch it.
Now, I'm a conservative, but he's a Democrat, so that makes for interesting viewing, you know?
Yeah.
And a lot of other things, too, I'm sure.
Oh, yeah.
So now that he's watching this, I have to say that I think it's turning his head to a different angle now when he actually watches the regular news now.
Does your husband, and don't, I can't ask this without there sounding like a strange tone in my voice.
And I don't mean there to be any.
I'm just, this is straight up.
Does your husband believe the news when he watches whatever CNN, whatever he watches, NBC, CBS, does he believe it?
Is that?
Yes, until I think recently.
And it's House of Cards that is having him look to the news differently.
Interesting.
Yep.
He watches it and he looks at me and he's like, you think this stuff really happens?
I'm like, all the time.
I'm sure you've been telling him over the years that you think stuff like this happens long before he saw House of Cards, but he didn't believe you, but he does, having seen House of Cards thing, aha.
Right.
Matter of fact, the other day when Obama was on TV for his live announcement for her busy in the Rose Garden for her register.
What's that lady's name again for the resignation?
Yeah, that's Sebelius.
Sebelius, yeah.
And, you know, there was this standing ovation, this long-standing ovation when he came out with her, you know, and she's turning her resignation.
And you would have thought, you know.
And I was like, I'm watching House of Cards.
Well, I could believe they'd be applauding her leaving.
She's been an albatross around their neck.
But this is a good idea.
They just had a bunch of paid supporters in there to applaud what Obama.
You can't, anything that happens is noted with Obama selling Obamacare against a bunch of people that weren't even doctors just wearing white lab coats.
Kelly, not all those people were doctors or technicians.
They were just made, the White House made a call to a costume factory and had some white lab coats brought over so they could stage manage that event in the Rose Garden.
Everything.
For the show, since he wasn't listening to me, at least now he's opened his eyes and thought he's second-guessing everything now, which is.
Okay, well, let's cut to the who do you think in real life Frank Underwood is?
I don't know.
Combination of people.
Well, who do you think?
Actually, that was a question I wanted to ask you.
Who do you think Claire Underwood is?
You mean Hillary?
Well, a lot of people speculate on Hillary.
Some think Michelle Obama, somebody, who knows.
But everybody tries to attach those characters to actual political persons and people.
I don't do that.
I just watch the show for its entertainment, and I marvel at how the writers do seem to understand how things work.
But to me, it's strictly entertainment.
But if it's working and opening your husband's eyes, then all the better.
Jim in Dixon, California, you're next on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Hey, thank you, Rush.
Hey, I just want to let you know that I'm on to you, my friend.
You did a great job of staging that call yesterday.
And it was an amazing, an amazing few minutes where you, obviously, you knew that call was coming.
You struggled to hear the woman.
You did a great job answering the question.
You had answers just ready.
They were ready just right on each time.
And apparently, you even had a transcript.
So, you know, you right wiggers, you guys, come on, you do the same thing.
You think.
I know you were ready for that.
You really?
Are you being serious?
Are you jamming me here?
I'm jamming you.
I knew you were jamming me.
That's really good.
That was really good.
You had the staff going.
There's some people on the other side of the glass that are really getting mad at you.
I guess I should have kept playing.
You know what?
It's a great call.
It's illustrating absurdity by being absurd.
It's exactly what we do in the program.
I normally tell people, don't try this.
Leave it to the professionals, like me, but you have shown you can do this at home.
I'll do it for a living, Rush, and I have great respect for you.
Thank you.
Well, I appreciate that.
I really do.
That was well done.
As I say, you had some people inside of glass shaking their heads.
Oh, come on.
Is this guy for real?
Way to stage the call, Rush.
That's another way, great way of illustrating, because we don't do that here.
I mean, I refuse.
You wouldn't believe, folks.
Now, you probably would.
You wouldn't believe the number of people.
Hey, would you give me a secret number to call in so I can, I've got a friend that's got a book or blah, but you would not believe.
And I don't do it.
We don't call anybody.
The only people is if we don't get to somebody in a day that we told them we were going to get on, we'll take their number and ask if we can call them the next day.
And that's it.
But don't stage anything here.
There are no bits that we do with callers as such.
But, Jim, thanks for the call.
No, we don't have to.
That's the whole point.
We are real here and it survives.
Off to a rousing start here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
It is tax day today, and we have some updated tax news in terms of who is paying how much.
And just to give you a little preview, the top 1% are now officially, they've reached the 30%.
30% of all federal income taxes are paid by 1% of the population.