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May 19, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:38
May 19, 2014, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
All right.
All right.
Here we go.
Barely made it to the air chair in time to start the program, folks.
But here we are.
Ready, said, go on another three hours of broadcast excellence hosted by me, Rush Limbaugh, documented to be almost always right, 99.7% of the time.
Happy to have you here to telephone number if you want to be on the program.
Hang on a minute, clear the throat.
800-282-2882, the email address LRushbo at eibnet.com.
So California Chrome, the horse, and it's going to be running the Triple Crown.
You say, what, what, what, what, what?
A horse?
With everything going on out there, California, what?
Yeah, because it's important, folks.
You see, California Chrome was possibly violating the rules of horse racing by wearing breathe-right nasal strips, a whole bunch of them on the snout or the snoot, the nose.
And this, of course, allowed the horse to breathe more easily.
Now, American athletes in all sports use the breathe-right nasal strips.
I don't know if he's breathe-right brand name, but it's the same principle.
And they asked last week after the horse won the preakness, the Belmont Stakes comes up, that's Triple Crown.
And the owners of the horse said, well, we want to continue to use strips.
And the gods of horse race say, wait a minute, wait a minute, we've got to check into this.
And they got an answer back in two days.
Now, imagine if you're in a VA hospital in Arizona and you've been promised to be on a special waiting list where you are going to get advanced treatment, preferential treatment, because you're on a special waiting list.
And then you wait and you wait and you wait.
And all the while you see that a horse has his request answered in two days, or the owners of the horse get the request answered in two days, but you are on the list and you die before treatment.
That happened.
I have it right here.
It's in the Financial Times, Veterans Scandal Risks Engulfing Obama.
Amid contrived outrage over, now imagine that this is.
This is Jeff Dyer in Washington writing for the Financial Times.
And his opinion, this is a news story, but his opinion right here in the first sentence.
Amid contrived outrage over Benghazi, meaning we don't really believe it, folks.
We're not really outraged, you and me and millions of other Americans, that four Americans died, perhaps unnecessarily, at the consulate in Benghazi.
No, no, no, that's fake.
That's contrived.
We're just politically motivated on that.
That's not real.
Amid contrived outrage over Benghazi and the improving fortunes of its health care reform, really improving fortunes of health care reform?
I know that's the buzz.
I know it's the PR, but in reality, healthcare reform isn't happening.
Well, improving fortunes aren't.
Rest of the sentence says the Obama regime could be facing a genuine scandal about its treatment of military veterans that has the potential to attract broad political condemnation of its competence.
And see, the reason why Jeff Dyer, writing in Washington for the Financial Times, thinks this is real and the others are contrived.
Well, Benghazi's contrived and healthcare is getting better.
But this is real because, well, because it's real, and there are Democrats and Republicans who are upset about it.
The Department of Veterans Affairs, otherwise known as the VA, is facing mounting evidence.
Some of the hospitals it runs have been keeping two sets of books to make it look like they were reducing waiting times to see a doctor.
More damning, the department's investigating the claims of a whistleblower doctor in Arizona that dozens of patients at one hospital died while they were languishing on a hidden waiting list without ever being given an appointment.
Richard Griffin, the department's acting inspector general, admitted on Thursday last week that its review could lead to criminal charges.
In the first political casualty of the scandal, Robert Petzel, the department's Undersecretary of Health, resigned on Friday.
That idiot take it.
No, not him.
Shinseki forced him out.
Eric Shinsecki, about whom we have spoken at great length previously.
If the evidence of mismanagement continues to accumulate, the regime will find itself not in another partisan knife fight, but under fire from both parties in a Congress where the uniformed military is venerated.
Right.
Both parties where uniform military is venerated.
Right, right, right, right.
Now let me ask you a question.
Let's say that just a little hypothetical here.
Let's say Obama had a secret list of people for food stamps.
There were two lists.
Everybody just signs up and then a secret list of people on food stamps who would be treated more rapidly because they're on the special list than everybody else in order to create the impression that food stamp demand is being met, being dealt with, and it's being streamlined.
Imagine if, say, 40 people on the Obama secret food stamp list died of starvation.
That's kind of what we're talking about.
I'm just little analogies here.
Presidency would be over.
Really, you think if 40 people, if they had a super secret food stamp list and 40 people died of starvation, presidency would be over.
You know what?
The president's really mad about this, folks.
He's fit to be tied.
This has been going on since 2008 and he had no idea.
He had literally no idea.
And he's so mad.
He is fit to be tied.
He's going to get to the bottom of this.
It's unconscionable.
I know.
He was just as mad about the IRS scandal.
And he was just as mad when he found out that you couldn't keep your doctor.
He's mad about Benghazi when he found out that the ambassador in Benghazi got killed.
Oh, man, they tell me that he was storming around the White House, demanding names, taking prisoners.
Who the hell made this happen?
Right?
Fast and Furious.
Remember that 200 people have been shot and killed, injured, wounded, maimed, whatever, Fast and Furious, an American gun running option, Operation 2, Mexican drug cartels.
When Obama found out about that, was he ticked?
Oh, man, when Syria crossed the red line, do you know how mad he was?
And folks, when he found out that you'd been lied to about keeping your doctor and keeping your insurance, oh, you don't know how mad when he found out the stimulus didn't work, when they had people telling him instead the first thing he did early on in his regime when it didn't work, I mean, it's amazing there's anybody left in this regime.
Yeah.
And, well, I don't know if he was mad when he found out I won the book award.
We haven't been treated that.
You know how mad he was when Jill Abramson got fired?
Oh, man.
So anyway, well, you don't know.
Here, Grand Audio Soundbite number 15, this Sunday morning on Slay the Nation, Major Garrett is interviewing the White House Chief of Staff, Dennis McDonough.
And Major Garrett said, Dennis, can you understand how a veteran who may have been victimized by these waiting lists or be concerned that they might soon become victimized by this waiting list, might hear all your answers, say, Yeah, yeah, I understand the broad argument you're making about things the president's done, but I need specific answers, specific outrage about this problem now.
The president, nobody is more outraged about this problem right now, Major, than the President of the United States.
And he will continue to press as it relates to this question of timely access to care until it is fixed.
That's why we've invested additional billions of dollars in the Veterans Health Administration so that they can have timely access to good care.
And as it relates to these allegations, what we're going to do is we're going to get to the bottom of them, ensure we understand exactly what happened, and ensure that it never happens again.
On 2010, see, he said Obama's mad.
I mean, I mean, it was right there.
Nobody is more outraged about this problem right now, Major, than the President of the United States.
And he's going to continue to be mad, and he's going to continue to stay mad as it relates to this question of timely access to care until it's fixed.
He's not going to sleep, Major, until this gets fixed.
The VA runs 152 hospitals and 817 outpatient clinics.
And it's long been known for delays and a dysfunctional bureaucracy.
And yet, everybody says, well, let the government do more.
I mean, the VA is just one of many bureaucracies that doesn't get things done on time and in the right way.
And yet, the low-information crowd just wants government to do even more and more and more.
In 2010, the VA introduced a new appointments system, which promised a 14-day wait for an appointment with a primary care doctor or specialist.
And that was a massive improvement.
14-day wait.
These are people who have worn the uniform for the United States military and have been sent to combat zones.
They have been wounded, injured, some cases severely.
They have offered their lives in defense of liberty.
And the best the VA could do for them was a 14-day, two-week waiting list.
Are you on any kind of a waiting list now with Obamacare or your doctor or anything?
I mean, if you, how many of you call your doctor and need to make an appointment?
How many of you are put on a waiting list?
And to how many of you is 14 days really good news?
Imagine most of you don't have to wait two weeks, and that if you do have to wait two weeks, you're not applauding and thinking, man, I'm special.
But that was what was special at the VA.
A two-week, we're going to move you up.
We're going to take special care of you, and we're going to put you on a 14-day wait list for an appointment.
While there have been reports for several years that the new waiting line system was being abused, oh, really?
Who would possibly think that could happen?
What could go wrong here?
While there have been reports for several years that the new waiting line system was being abused, the subject really began to gather stream three weeks ago, steamed three weeks ago, when CNN interviewed Sam Foote, who had recently retired as a doctor after working for 24 years for VA hospitals in Phoenix.
They originally thought he was a passenger on a Malaysian Airlines flight.
That's why they were talking to him.
And then when they figured he was a doctor in Phoenix at the VA, well, we'll stick with you.
That's how they found him.
Well, not a passenger on that flight, but he had been a passenger on a Malaysian flight.
That's why they found him.
Anyway, Sam Foote, retired, recent retired doctor, 24 years VA hospitals in Phoenix, said that as many as 40 patients had died after being placed on that hidden waiting list that promised you an appointment in two weeks.
Problem is, you could be on that waiting list for up to a year.
40 patients died while on the special waiting list.
And while that all was happening, officials at the hospital were shredding documents, faking evidence to make it seem as if the waiting times were under control and were in fact working.
Three officials in Phoenix have been put on leave, although Mr. Griffin said there was no evidence yet that patients had died because of delayed appointments.
They just died because they didn't see the doctor.
But the delayed appointment, there's no evidence of that.
No, of course not.
Who would think that?
Nothing to see here.
You got a promised two-week wait list that stretches out to a year.
You die in the meantime.
There's nothing to do with not being able to see the doctor.
What kind of evil conservative would even put the two together?
You got a 14-day waiting list, you're on a special list, you're going to get you an appointment in two weeks.
A year goes by, you don't get to see the doctor, and you die.
Who could possibly think that was a function of the appointment system not working?
Only an evil radio guy could think that.
Yeah, plus the shredded documents.
Only some mean-spirited homophobe can see something in shredded documents.
That might be of relevancy here.
Since then, whistleblowers have alleged similar practices at at least seven other VA hospitals around the country and claimed that officials of the hospitals were sometimes paid bonuses for reducing declared waiting times, not actually getting the appointments fulfilled.
They were given bonuses for reducing the declared waiting times on the paperwork.
You know, it's no wonder college graduates are booing if a commencement speaker tells them to get out there and work hard.
They're looking around and saying, why?
Who else is?
Reuters also has a story here.
Top aide says Obama madder than hell about veterans' allegations.
And it's a story quoting what you just heard to Chief Staff Dennis McDonough on Slay the Nation yesterday.
We're going to get to the bottom of things here.
We're going to get to the bottom of this, and we're going to fix it, and we're going to ensure it doesn't happen again.
Now, this is classic.
This is exactly how stuff like this gets spun, spinned for those of you in Riolinda, in dictatorships and in totalitarian states since time immemorial.
For example, if Lenin only knew all these people dying in Ukraine, if Lenin only knew, he'd be so mad he wouldn't let this happen.
If Stalin only knew he was the genocide by family, if Stalin only knew, if Hitler only knew what was being done in his own, oh, gee, if he only knew, if Castro really, if he finds out, oh, no, who's going to have to tell Castro this is not working?
Oh, no.
And then when the problem becomes too big to ignore, we hear, boy, is Stalin mad now.
Boy, is Castro really?
This is how it all works.
These guys are in charge of everything.
This VA business has been going on since 2008.
In fact, Grab Soundbreak 13 don't want to play the whole thing.
Just, I want you to listen to the first couple of lines.
Major Garrett says, look, it's three weeks since the president has commented on this VA story publicly.
I want to take that period of time, almost three weeks, nothing from the president.
Where's he been?
The president has been an active voice for increased resources and reform at the Veterans Administration since he joined the Veterans Committee in the Senate over seven, eight, nine years ago.
But I'm talking about specific issues.
He will continue to go out and he will continue to talk as he did in Asia.
Okay, stop it.
Now, he was on the Veterans Committee in the Senate seven, eight, nine years ago before he became president.
He's, hey, Major, you know, you be very careful.
He has cared about this.
See, this is the, he's cared about this.
His intentions have been good.
He's wanted to do the best for the veterans.
He'd been in that committee seven or eight or nine years.
Don't you dare question Obama's motive.
Don't you dare.
Don't go there, buddy.
Don't go there, buddy.
Don't you dare question Obama's commitment to this.
He's been working on this seven, eight or nine years.
And boy, is he really mad now?
So the pattern, they say of the leader, oh my God, oh, wait till he finds out how bad this has been screwed up.
And then when he finds out, oh my God, do you know how mad he is?
But they never fix it.
They never get to the bottom of it.
And the whole point is to absolve the leader who is in charge of everything of any blame.
That's right, folks.
You remember how furious Obama was when he learned about Benghazi?
And look how that's turned out.
You remember how furious he said he was when he heard about the IRS scandal and what those rogue agents in Cincinnati were doing.
And look at how that's turned out.
There's no reform, is there?
None of this has ever been addressed or fixed because it doesn't have to be.
Because all that has to happen is the low information voters are told Obama is livid.
How could this happen?
And boy, boy, whoever didn't tell him this was going on, their heads are going to roll.
The thing to take away from this, I mean, if you want to treat this VA thing seriously, this is exactly where we're all headed.
I mean, this is what Obamacare is going to be for everybody.
And the VA is just one small bureaucracy, veterans administration, medical benefits, care, treatment, so forth for a finite number of Americans, veterans.
It can't even do that.
40 of them died on a special waiting list in Phoenix, just waiting on an appointment for a doctor.
This is where Obamacare is headed.
There isn't any evidence to the contrary, in fact, anywhere that any bureaucracy runs what it oversees or regulates any better than the people that actually know that business in the private sector run it.
There's no evidence of this ever.
This is what's so flummoxing about people's requests or demands that government fix the problems they make, they create, they cause.
And you know why it happens?
There's one answer.
There's one reason why, in the face of constant, predictable and demonstrable failure, people keep calling on the government to do it is because they think the government's trying.
They think the government has good intentions.
What is that they've not been told about the private sector?
Corporations don't have good intentions, as you know.
Corporations cheat people.
They make faulty products that don't work.
They make airplanes that crash in the ocean that you can't find.
They destroy the planet on purpose.
They create products that kill their patients.
I mean, there has been a 50-year, maybe longer than that, effort to demonize every rousing success in the private sector, while concurrently or concomitantly, if you will, building up government as a great savior.
At least they're trying to help people.
At least they want to make things better.
At least they care.
And that's it in a nutshell.
There are either emotional or intellectual reasons or answers to these questions.
I mean, there isn't one thing that a government bureaucracy does efficiently or well.
Very little.
I mean, you could say if you turn the military loose, shackle them very little, let them fight a war, they'll win it.
But I mean, outside of that, take your pick.
It's drudgery when you have to deal with them, the IRS, the DMV, you know, the usual suspects.
But again, they get away with it because it is assumed that their intentions are good and honorable.
Low information people think.
And by the way, it isn't just big corporations.
It's anybody in business.
There has to be some cheating going on.
There has to be some screwing of the customers going on.
There has to be some taking advantage people going on.
And they're trying to do it.
And we need the government to make sure that the private sector doesn't cheat us or steal from us or screw us or make big mistakes.
But government is allowed to totally bollocks everything it does because they're trying to help.
And that's how Obama escapes accountability in many ways.
So the evidence is clear what this regime has done with the VA.
Just build on it and you find out health care at large.
Washington Times, Obama told a Veterans Affairs healthcare debacle as far back as 2008.
During the campaign, he was a senator, was on the VA committee.
But Obama really cares.
He really wants things to work.
He's really trying.
He's really trying to create jobs.
He's really trying to grow the economy.
He cares.
He really likes people.
He's more extraordinary.
All you Republicans did to run people down all the time.
And that's how it works.
It's not all bad news for the VA, by the way.
From the Washington Post, VA awards survivor benefits to first-known gay war widow.
Well, see, we've got some great news to report from the VA.
Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to provide survivor benefits to the first known same-sex war widow, marking a breakthrough for the gay rights community, according to an advocacy group.
Tracy Dice Johnson, staff sergeant with the Army National Guard, announced yesterday the VA would recognize her marriage to the late Donna Johnson, who died in a suicide bombing attack about eight months before last year's Supreme Court decision and guaranteed equal federal benefits for all legally married couples.
The decision means that Johnson will receive dependency and indemnity compensation, which goes to the spouses, children, and some parents of service members who died while on active duty.
The VA will pay her retroactively to the date of her late wife's death, according to an announcement from the American Military Partners Association.
So, see, it's not all bad news in the VA today.
There's some great news they could hang your hats on in there.
So, Washington Post proudly has the story: VA awards survivor benefits to first-known gay war widow.
Hubba, hubba.
But this is again, I mean, this is this is this is where single-payer is headed.
This VA situation, and I'm not going to say this outcome, but the arrangement is exactly what Obama wants for all of us.
That is government-run single-payer.
You know, I know when Obama found out that the economy was in even worse shape than he thought it was when he assumed, oh, you remember that?
When Obama found out how Bush had lied, not told him the truth, not told him how bad it was.
Oh, you should have heard what it was.
People were walking around on pins and needles in the White House, afraid to say anything because Obama was so mad and demanding to get to the bottom of it.
You know, when I first moved to Sacramento, California in 1984 and began what would become this program, it was October, I think, 15th in 1984.
I think that's the anniversary start date.
And of course, I was in town for a month prior, in and out.
One of the things that you do as a newly arrived air personality is get familiar with the town.
I mean, it's a talk show.
People are going to be calling about local things.
This is when I offered to move to Rio Linda if they would rename it Limbaugh, California.
They didn't.
And I tried the same thing with West Sacramento.
They refused the offer.
They're still paying the price, both places.
Anyway, drive around and learn about the community, who lives where, what the various neighborhoods are, two military bases at the time.
And that's how I found Rio Linda.
Accidentally, I was driving around one of the military bases, and Riolinda was nearby.
And I saw the population sign.
Well, I saw the city limit sign, but there was no population.
Normally, there's a, you know, the number of people who live there is on the sign.
And it just said Riolinda.
So I drove through it, and that's when I saw what I saw.
Washing machines and automobiles up on concrete blocks in the front porch houses, the main drag.
The relationship was established, and I went back and said, you got to tell me about Rio Linda.
What is the story with Rio Linda?
And I got the loaddown on Rio Linda.
And then since I put them on the map.
Well, shortly after doing the program, I quickly learned there's a regular caller, or was, I forgot, I think his name was Dave, but I'm not sure.
And he called every show in town, and he had one thing that he cared about.
He believed that fluoride in the drinking water was a communist plot.
Much like in Dr. Strangelove, the communists were corrupting our precious bodily fluids and that they were doing it with fluoride.
And I'd never heard of the fluoride conspiracy until arriving in Sacramento.
So I had to do some fast acting and learn about the fluoride conspiracy.
And it was part of the New World Order.
It's part of Trilateral Commission One World Government, I learned, that put fluoride into drinking water and somehow it enables David Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski to take over the world.
And that's all this guy called about it.
I quickly, I tried to have as much fun with it as I could, but after a while, regular callers are not kosher because it doesn't sound like anybody else is calling if they get on all the time.
So I institute a hard-fast rule.
This guy gets on once a year.
Well, that infuriated him when he did get through.
He really doubled down on the theory.
And I dispatched with it.
I cast it aside and effectively removed it as a topic because it was a fringe and not the kind of thing I was interested.
So imagine my surprise when I'm doing show prep over the weekend and I run across this headline.
Harvard study confirms fluoride reduces children's IQ.
And then imagine my surprise after reading this.
I found out in the comments that a lot of people believe it.
A recently published Harvard University meta-analysis funded by the National Institutes of Health has concluded that children who live in areas with highly fluoridated water have significantly lower IQ scores than children who live in low fluoride areas.
32-page report can be downloaded free of charge from environmental health perspectives.
In the report, it says here, recent report from the U.S. National Research Council, 2006, concluded that adverse effects of high fluoride concentrations in drinking water may be of concern and that additional research is warranted.
Of course it is.
To summarize the available literature, we performed a systematic review and a meta-analysis of published studies.
And they found that the effects of fluoride on your brain include damage to your hippocampus, Reduction in lipid content, exacerbation of lesions induced by iodine deficiency, impairment or impaired antioxidant defense.
In other words, you get stupider.
Your IQ plummets the more fluoride in your.
It's back.
The whole thing is recycling, and it's been given credibility here as having come from Harvard.
And now people are glomming on to it.
Just cutting-edge society stuff here, folks.
Just want to warn you, may be hearing about this in coming starting on the phones at Kent, Washington.
This is Scott.
Thank you, sir, for calling.
You're next.
Great to have you here with us.
Hi, Rush.
Good morning.
First, I'd like to say Coast Guard dittos to you.
I started listening to you back in 99 when I was just a lowly seaman on board a Coast Guard cutter off the coast of Washington.
Well, I'm glad that you're here.
99 and you stuck with it.
That's cool.
Well, sir, you are.
It is true.
You've got to have more than just once or twice to listen to you.
But, you know, unfortunately, I'm calling you on a serious note here because what we have, I know my job is to make you look good as a caller.
That's very true.
That's very, very, what a memory you've got.
Well, thank you, sir.
Here's the problem that we have today: is that you use the food stamp analogy.
Unfortunately, the VA is a single-payer system for veterans.
Due to the unique natures of the injuries and diseases that veterans get, they have to go through the VA because they can't afford to go to the private sector.
Right.
And so that makes the VA a, quote, single-payer system.
And unfortunately, what we have here, Rush, is government's first official death panel.
You have government officials that made choices to hide lists to go ahead and reduce costs.
It's kind of, I know, it's an inescapable conclusion, which is why you've been on Holtz.
You may not have heard me make the point that this is where we're all headed.
This is single-payer, and they can't even do this right.
And here is a.
I mean, Sarah Palin was mocked, you know, for bringing up death panels.
Well, folks, this is it.
You have 40 dead veterans that were, that the cause of death is the system that they were in.
It wasn't because of just their diseases.
They were caught in a system, a single-payer system that viewed them as a cost, not as a veteran, not as a human.
So if I'm hearing you correctly, you believe that the creation of this list and then the people that were on it were purposefully ignored.
Yes, Rush, because of fact, I heard a report that there were you, and I believe it was you that said that there were people that were given bonuses to go ahead and shorten the list.
There were.
They were given bonuses for paperwork.
Exactly right.
Exactly.
And most government officials, when they are given bonuses, it is because they, quote, reduce the cost of government.
They are recognized to reduce the cost of government.
Well, these folks went ahead and reduce the cost of government at the cost of 40 lives.
Now, I just want to make sure that you want to stick with this claim because you cited Sarah Palin, the original recognition in Obamacare of death panels, the way it manifested itself was.
You've got a panel of people.
They're actually a group of people, and they case by case decide who gets treatment and who doesn't based on how much is this treatment going to cost versus how long are they going to live, meaning, is this worth the investment?
Are you saying that there was a conscious decision, in your opinion, conscious decision that these 40 people on the list were not going to be treated because it just wasn't worth the money?
What other reason is there to create?
Well, we have to acknowledge that there was blatant incompetence and just inability to get to them.
I mean, it is possible their intentions might have been.
If these administration officials at any time were given bonuses, what other incentive is there other than to create the list other than to get those bonuses for self for themselves?
Well, I know.
They let people die and they lied about it to get the bonuses.
People died.
The people that make the list lied about the list in order to get bonuses.
Your conclusion, it's...
But do you know how mad Obama was when he found out about this, Scott?
Oh.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, oh, he was seated.
I had no idea that this kind of thing was.
Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the select committee looking into Benghazi, just had some fantastic questions for the media who have not been covering the story.
We have audio of that coming up.
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