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June 12, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:39
June 12, 2014, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Right, here we are, folks.
Told you we'd be back, and we're back.
21 hours ago, I told you to be here, and you're here.
Great to have you here.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program.
The most listened to radio talk show in the country, the most talked about radio talk show in the country.
I even get credit for things I didn't do.
I even get blame for things I didn't do.
You'll hear about it all in the audio soundbites coming up.
Oh, yes, sir, Rebob.
Telephone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800-282-2882.
And the email address, and we check them, is LRushbo at EIBNet.com.
New York Times has a story today that the president is refusing to send any military aid to help the Iraqis.
They're being overrun there by Al-Qaeda terrorists, the Al-Qaeda branch in Iraq.
And Nouri al-Maliki, do you know that he's still alive and still running things?
Nouri al-Maliki has been begging us to send in some air support.
You know, just fly some of our fighter jets over and drop some bombs on the Iraqi al-Qaeda insurgents.
But our president is refusing even that.
Nouri al-Maliki is not asking for any troops.
He's not asking for any re-entry of boots on the ground.
He just wants two or three fighter jets.
He'd accept even a couple of warthogs to fly.
He's not even asking for F-15s.
And he says that he's Obama's refusing to do that.
He says that he is not going to let the U.S. get involved again in Iraq.
Why do you think that is?
Any flash-in-the-pan guesses?
The wars are over.
All of the wars are over.
There is no al-Qaeda.
We defeated terrorists once we killed bin Laden.
But that's not the answer.
That's not the reason why he's not.
Let's go back.
Let me go back to me on this program two and a half years ago, almost three years ago, October 24th, 2011.
Now all of a sudden, we're going to get out of Iraq.
At the end of the year, this is a campaign move, pure and simple, that runs the risk of saddling the Democrat Party with the ultimate loss of Iraq because we're not going to have any troops there.
And I guarantee you, on a scale, Seesaw, whatever they have balanced it out, and Obama says, I have to get my base.
If I have any chance of being re-elected, I got to get the base back in love with me.
And that means pulling out of Iraq, regardless what happens.
Now, don't frown at me, Snerdly.
I know you think it's over the top to say, but it's not at all.
Obama's base, the Michael Moore crowd, would love it if we got shellak.
They would love it.
If we end up, quote-unquote, losing in Iraq, it'd be a repudiation of Bush.
They could say, see, we never should have gone there in the first place.
It didn't make any difference.
Damn straight, even after 4,500 American soldiers did.
Damn straight.
We're not dealing with a rational bunch of people on the left.
We're dealing with people who have an abject hatred for this country, who believe this country needs to be taken down a peg or two or three, who believe we shouldn't have gone to Iraq in the first place, and we need to pay a price for going in there.
And what would that be?
Worldwide humiliation.
And Obama would benefit from it, from the base.
So, essentially, ladies and gentlemen, two and a half years ago, I predicted this.
I mean, I didn't predict the exact event.
I didn't know that the Iraqis, if I thought about it, we could have all probably figured out that once we pulled out of there, this was going to happen.
We just didn't know exactly when.
And that once we pulled out of there, we can probably predict that the Iraqis would ask us to do something to help them.
But what was easily predictable was that Obama would say no.
And the New York Times story today is yes, Iraq said to seek U.S. strikes on militants.
As the threat from Sunni militants in Western Iraq escalated last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, how I pronouncing all these names, Nouri al-Maliki secretly asked the regime to consider carrying out airstrikes against extremist staging areas, according to Iraqi and American officials.
But Iraq's appeals for a military response have so far been rebuffed by the White House, which has been reluctant to open a new chapter in a conflict that Obama has insisted was over when the U.S. withdrew the last of its forces from Iraq in 2011.
Now, I would probably, no, no, no, probably, I would understand if a whole significant swath of the United States didn't want to get any more involved in Iraq.
Just don't, you know, we shouldn't have gone.
A lot of people think in the first shouldn't have gone in the first place.
The mission didn't have a chance.
We're never going to democratize the place unless we stayed forever.
And we don't want to relive this, so don't go back.
Probably a lot of Americans would fall into that camp.
But that's not why the White House is rejecting these overtures.
I think the reason is obvious, and I said it back in 2011.
I think this administration wants both Iraq and Afghanistan to fail as stable democracies.
And if you doubt that, would you give me, I'm open to changing my mind about this, just give me any evidence to the contrary.
And don't cite Afghanistan because everything we're doing in Afghanistan is designed to prop up the Taliban.
Why?
We just gave them five of their apparently biggest and most important freedom fighters, just released them.
We're restocking the Taliban.
Obama thinks they're a legitimate entity.
They have a right to run that country and we should negotiate with them.
They're not an enemy that needs to be defeated.
So, you see, you have to understand liberals, folks.
And it takes courage to understand liberals.
Well, maybe not to understand, but it takes courage to admit that you understand liberals.
And if you understand liberals, you understand that everything is viewed through the prism of politics.
So Nouri al-Maliki asking for air support to beat back al-Qaeda insurgents is immediately calculated as a political move.
And that's by Obama and everybody on the left.
It's not about human rights.
It's not about saving the women and children.
It's not about saving a war-torn country.
And sadly, it's not about standing up for U.S. policy.
Whether George Bush was your enemy or not politically, he was a former president, and it was the policy of this country to save Iraq and potentially establish a Democratic beachhead.
There's a long shot, but that was the policy of the country.
And in no way does Obama share that at all.
So it's not about maintaining American consistency.
It's not about showing allies we can be counted on.
It's not about helping people in need.
It's about advancing a Democrat agenda.
And this is where it takes courage to admit this, and particularly say so publicly on a microphone broadcasting to tens of millions of people like I'm doing right now.
The simple fact of the matter is the ultimate objective, Obama and the Democrats and the whole anti-war crowd, code pinkmoveon.org, you name it, is to prove for the rest of time that everything Bush did was a mistake and was for nothing.
It's to continue the public perception that Bush was rotten and horrible, incompetent, dangerous, inconsiderate, unfeeling, uncaring.
Nouri al-Maliki asking for American air support in Iraq gives Obama another political opportunity to blame Bush.
And that is an opportunity they just can't pass up.
It's too juicy.
The opportunity here to secure defeat in Iraq, have it overrun by al-Qaeda, buck up Taliban people in Afghanistan, essentially get out of there and hand that company over to them, what have you done?
You have proven, in your mind, for the rest of time, that George Bush's wars were all for nothing.
You have proven that George Bush was a dirty, rotten president.
You've proven that Bush had no business going anywhere.
You have proven that we lost lives unnecessarily.
You have advanced your own political agenda.
And at the same time, you are hopefully, in their view, exciting your base.
As I say, the Michael Moore crowd, which just loves to see the American military fail, because they consider the American military an agent of evil in the world.
The GOP has always been considered the party best at foreign policy, something the Democrats don't like.
This is an opportunity to take a hit at that.
In other words, it's a political opportunity.
Iraq falling, Afghanistan falling.
That's a political goldmine.
That is a grand slam home run.
And if you want to doubt me, go right ahead, but just ask yourself, how often does Barack Obama blame George W. Bush for everything that is, has been, or will go wrong in this country?
He does it still to this day.
The effort to say or to illustrate, we can't trust these Republicans with foreign policy.
They go into these parts of the world and they do it for personal reasons and they fail and they get people killed and it's horrible.
Now, also remember all the other countries that sent soldiers to fight and die in Iraq and Afghanistan who went along with us because of, at the time, our power, if you will, and our moral authority.
That is another thing here that can be chopped down.
Our moral authority.
U.S. can't be trusted.
Abandons allies.
Goes places where it's hopeless.
Republican presidents, incompetent, get us involved in ill-conceived and horribly executed foreign wars.
You fill in the blanks.
This is a golden opportunity.
And I predicted it.
Back 2011.
So when I saw the New York Times story, Iraq said to seek U.S. strikes and militants on militants and the regime, well, we'd love to, but we're really not.
No surprise here.
Let's go back, in fact, December 14th, 2011.
This Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Obama addressing the troops there.
We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq with a representative government that was elected by its people.
We're building a new partnership between our nations.
And we are ending a war, not with a final battle, but with a final march toward home.
This is an extraordinary achievement.
Nearly nine years in the making.
Now you're saying, okay, Rush, what is he doing now?
He's taking credit for it.
At the time, everything is done with a political calculation.
So we're getting out of Iraq.
The place is stable.
There was a short period of time where it appeared to end up, aside from the weapons of mass destruction fiasco, a successful enterprise.
And right there, December 14th, 2011, Obama taking credit for it.
Now, nobody's going to remember that.
Now al-Maliki is asking for air support.
Al-Qaeda is overrunning parts of the country.
And it's just a political gold mine for the regime.
Here's Major Garrett, CBS this morning, and his report about this, the Islamist insurgents taking over cities in Iraq.
There is deep concern in the White House about the swift moving and brutal advance of these al-Qaeda-inspired insurgents across Iraq.
But there is no new policy to counter that insurgency.
And there won't be.
But there's deep concern.
See, well, we care.
Well, that's not our problem anymore.
We shouldn't have been there in the first place.
It's not something that we'll ever do again with the Democrats in charge with Obama in charge.
It's a total mistake to go in there.
Bush should have never gone in there.
Ditto, Afghanistan.
And that, my friends, is all you need to know about that.
We'll be right back.
Sit tight.
Yesterday, you might remember me mentioning that sometime before the program started, the official program observer, Mr. Bo Snerdley, strode into the studio, smiling ear to ear, saying, hell, I guess that's the end of immigration reform.
And I said, nope, nope.
If you think the Eric Cantor defeat is the end of immigration reform in the Republican Party, you are misreading the situation.
I said, they are going behind closed doors.
They're going to get angry and get ticked off.
They're not going to be scared.
They're going to be mad about what had happened.
Well, let's see.
Just got a couple of audio sound bites here.
John Boehner on Capitol Hill weekly press conference during the Q ⁇ A. Luke Russert Ask Boehner, a lot of people are saying immigration reform is dead because your conference will not move out of fear.
What happened to Mr. Cantor?
Is immigration reform dead?
Let me just first debunk the first thing.
I don't believe the first premise of your question.
Secondly, the issue with immigration reform has not changed.
The president continues to ignore laws that he signed into law violating his oath of office.
Let me just first debunk the first thing.
I don't believe the first premise of your question.
That was a lot of people are saying immigration reform is dead because your conference will not move out of fear.
He said, no, no, no, we're not afraid.
I don't believe the first premise of your question.
So he's saying, we're not afraid.
And then he said, the issue with immigration reform has not changed.
The president continues to ignore laws that he signed into law violating his oath of office, and that's going to continue because nobody's going to stop it.
Oh, let me run an idea by you.
I was reading the power line, guys.
Stephen Hayward.
He has put forth what he thinks is a very real possibility.
After the 2014 elections this November, Barack Obama will issue a blanket pardon for everyone, every single illegal immigrant in the country, using the pardon power he has in the Constitution.
Hayward points out there are no limits on it that he could do this.
And Hayward says in his prediction that one of the reasons Obama would do it, not the only, one of the reasons would be to goad the Republicans into finally getting serious about trying to impeach him and actually do it.
Because the Democrat theory is that if they can goad the Republicans into doing that, then they will lose forever the race for the White House, and especially in 2016.
The thinking is if the Republicans move to impeach the first African-American president, that this country will react in outrage.
They already are predisposed to thinking the Republicans are nuts and extremists, and that will prove it, trying to impeach the first black president, and that will unite the Democrat base.
And there is no way the Republicans can win.
It's a prediction.
It's just a prediction.
Hayward's not saying it's in the cards, but he does say he thinks that every reporter talking to any Democrat from now until November needs to ask that question.
If the president issues a blanket pardon as a means of securing amnesty for all of these illegals, would you support it?
He thinks every Democrat needs to be put on record answering that question.
Now you take a break.
Hold your thoughts, your reactions, whatever.
Be right back.
Have you forgotten Jimmy Carter did a blanket pardon of all Vietnam-era draft Dodgers?
Do you recall that?
Some of you are not old enough to remember that, but he did.
And it's, look, this is just a prediction.
Stephen Hayward at Powerline, I read it last night.
And again, the thinking is that the Democrats believe they would love for the Republicans to try to impeach Obama.
They think that that alone would end the Republican Party.
They really do.
Do not doubt that.
They're way off in that.
The Democrats do not understand, and I mean this, they do not understand that we have political, they don't understand that they're a minority.
In the terms, circumstances of how people live their lives, they do not understand that.
They live under this false impression that they are and have taken over a majority of the thinking and behavior in this country.
So they believe, even with Obama's approval numbers down, they believe that he is still loved and respected.
People may be down on him right now because the economy is bad, but at the end of the day, the Republicans impeach Obama and the people of this country will rise up in righteous indignation at the Republicans.
How dare you?
We elected that man.
This is the first African-American president.
How dare you?
In truth, it would be the exact opposite.
If Barack Obama ever issued a blanket pardon for every illegal immigrant, it would result in the biggest landslide defeat of the Democrat Party there has ever been in this country.
Because in addition to whoever, or in addition to those being pardoned, you're going to have a bunch of real hardened criminals.
You're going to have rapists, murderers, purse snatchers who have committed crimes in addition to being here illegally.
So if this were to actually happen, and it's obviously it's a long shot, I think the end result would be blanket disaster for the Democrat Party.
But I also think that Hayward might be mistaken here because we had a sound bite on the program yesterday from Britt Hume at Fox News who said that immigration reform has nothing to do with pardoning the illegals.
He said, that's what amnesty is.
He said, look it up in the dictionary.
He says, I'm surprised as many people use the word and don't know what it means.
It is a blanket pardon, and that's not what immigration reform is.
So somebody needs to tell Hayward that he might want to withdraw or rein in in some fashion his prediction here since they're saying in the establishment that amnesty isn't what's on the table here.
A blanket pardon would be amnesty.
And Britt Hume clearly said that nobody's suggesting that illegal aliens would be pardoned.
Now, actually, they are.
That's the whole point.
Again, just to summarize, this is the divide.
This is the great, I don't know, mystery.
This is what you and I can't figure out about the Republicans, that they do not see that immigration reform is nothing more than a Democrat Party voter registration drive.
But somehow they've got themselves believing, and they're listening to Democrats.
They're listening to the media.
The media is telling them these things, and they're believing it, that they're never going to win unless they do amnesty and get the support of the Hispanic votes.
And Hispanic voters only care about one thing, amnesty.
Hispanic voters only care about one thing, immigration reform.
And if the Republicans don't do it, they're never going to win because they're never going to get the Hispanic votes.
And they appear to believe that.
Just like they believe that every election is won by winning the independence.
That remains one of the greatest tricks ever perpetrated on a political party in my book.
The old saw, and this is the Republican consultants that tell all these candidates this.
Hey, I'm the guy that can put you over the top because I'm the guy who can run the ad campaign is going to get you a majority of the independent votes.
Take for granted your base is going to vote for you.
Ask Romney about that in 2012.
Take for granted the Democrat base is going to vote for them.
So you get 80% of the vote already committed no matter what you do.
20% undecided, independent, moderate.
That's where elections are won.
This is what Republicans believe.
And so what do they do?
They run a campaign aimed at 20% of the country.
And they run a campaign aimed at 20% of the country that's got nothing to do with standing up for who they really are and what they really believe, conservatism, free markets, all of that, never enters the campaign because it is thought the independents are not interested in that.
It's one of the greatest tricks that's ever been perpetrated.
Democrats seem to get away with trick after trick.
And this immigration reform is perhaps the biggest one because all it is is a Democrat voter registration drive.
Here is the second John Boehner soundbite.
And remember, we're playing these because I predicted yesterday that the Republican leadership is not going to be scared over what happened to Eric Cantor.
They're going to be mad.
Nancy Cordis, the CBS congressional correspondent, then asked Boehner, on Iraq, do you think the U.S. should be launching airstrikes?
And if not, what should the U.S. do?
It's not like we haven't seen over the last five or six months these terrorists moving in, taking control of western Iraq.
Now they've taken control of Mosul.
They're 100 miles from Baghdad.
And what's the president doing?
Taking a nap.
He's mad.
Well, at least he's mad at Obama.
So that's that.
So a couple more soundbites for the break.
Then we'll get to your phone calls.
I mentioned mere moments ago that even when I don't say anything, I get credit for it.
Even when I don't do anything, I get credit for it.
Or even when I don't say anything or do anything, I get blamed for it.
It happens.
CBS.
Oh, sorry.
NBC Today Show Today.
Kelly O'Donnell reporting on Dave Bratt, primary victory over Eric Cantor, talking about what Bratt did yesterday.
Bratt was not at his own headquarters and kept a very low profile Wednesday.
Rush Limbaugh spoke up for him.
Dave Bratt is not a wacko.
He's not a kook.
He's an economics professor.
The aides who ran Bratt's campaign say they are suddenly swamped with calls and requests.
So it is I, El Rushbo, speaking up for Brad.
It is I, El Rushbo, doing the heavy lifting for Brad.
Believe this.
And get this next one.
This is yesterday in Boston on the radio, and there's some guy from the Cook Political Report, National Editor Amy Walter, about this loss.
And she was asked, what about crossover voters?
I'm reading here that they didn't come out in such numbers.
If he went into the most Democratic precincts in his district, the turnout was really pretty abysmal.
Where Eric Cantor lost was in heavily Republican areas of the district.
He lost among Republicans.
And I think one thing we have to remember, too, is the amount of national attention that was being brought to bear in this race.
Folks like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham really encouraging folks to turn out.
So you had that added momentum the weekend before the election.
Now, you know, it'd be easy for me to play this and let it go and then let it slide.
But folks, you know, those of you who listen here regularly every day, you know, and this is typical, by the way, low information inside the Beltway, political reporter, blissfully unaware.
I do not get involved in primaries.
I have had that policy since day one.
Well, it might have taken a couple of years, but I've had that policy for 23 years.
I do not get involved in primaries.
And how many of you have called me over the years angry at me for that, wishing I would get involved?
Rush, we're going to have to get involved.
And now it's getting down a nutcracking time here.
It's too crucial.
We've got to get the conservative.
And I don't get involved in the primary.
And I didn't get involved in this one.
And can I tell you another reason why?
Yes, I can, because it's my program, it's my mouth, and I'm in charge of both.
There's another reason why I don't get involved in primaries.
If you have looked at any media, either in print or on the air, about the Brat victory, what are you hearing?
You are hearing that Bratt had nothing to do with it.
You are hearing that a whole bunch of conservatives in talk radio are responsible for Bratt's victory.
Now, I don't deny that a whole lot of people spoke up for him, but what is the real message here?
What is the underlying premise of reporting?
Well, when's the last time when Obama wins?
Do they credit the media for it?
They know.
They credit Obama.
They credit the campaign.
They credit the consultants.
They credit the voters.
When a guy like Bratt wins, it can't be because he was any good.
And it can't be that Republican voters were able to make up their own minds.
No, no, no, because you people are mind-numbed robots who can't and don't do anything until you're told.
It is a subtle continuation of the idea that you are brainless and mindless, and you sit out there in your stupidity waiting for marching orders.
And that's another reason why I don't do primaries, because I do not want to give the left, the Democrats, the media, that ammo.
And this is not to be critical of any of the people that do this can do it any way they want.
That's fine.
Free market, have at it.
My only point is, don't ignore Bratt.
He was the candidate.
He's the guy who got the votes.
People showed up and voted for him.
I don't deny that there were education efforts taking place to let people know.
But I think people were mad at Eric Cantor no matter what.
I think there are a whole lot of Republicans people are mad at, no matter what.
I think Eric Cantor was in trouble no matter what, because of substance, because of ideas.
Ideas matter.
Ideas and substance have consequences.
And Eric Cantor just learned them.
So another reason, just to restate this, that I stay out of primaries is I don't want to give the left the ammo to suggest that any result is illegitimate, which is what they're trying to do by pointing out that the voters only did what they did because they were told to do it by powerful people in talk radio.
What is it?
It diminishes the candidate.
It diminishes the voters.
And it perpetuates this idea That you and everybody else that chooses conservatism in the media is really an idiot, unable to make up your own mind, incapable of thinking yourself.
Whereas when Obama wins, did they credit, say, Chuck Todd?
Did they credit?
Talk about what a great job the New York Times did for the guy?
No way.
He got all the credit.
Yeah, I did.
But Obama got all the credit.
And his campaign consultants got all the credit.
And David Fluff got all the credit.
They didn't waste any time.
And they didn't say that Democrat voters were dumb idiots that had to be guided into voting for Obama.
They left it up to everybody to conclude that people independently, brilliantly made up their minds about Obama.
And I resent this.
I can't tell you how much.
It's been going on for as long as I've been doing this program.
It's just another reason why I don't get involved in primaries because I don't want to take, I don't want to have anything happen here actually take away from whoever wins these things.
And there are other reasons too.
I mean, as I've mentioned before, my success is not determined by who wins elections.
Ratings, all that.
That's another thing.
Even conservative media people out there say, well, these rabid talk radio people, they're the robot in the Republican Party because all they want to care about is their ratings.
And so they're getting people all worked up about immigration and getting people all scared.
And that's why Brett won, because talk radio is so reactionary.
You've got people like John Pedoritz and other so-called conservative media leveling that charge.
Saying that all we're interested in here is ratings.
These people don't have the slightest idea, if that's what they think, how ratings are achieved.
But I'll just remind you again, been saying this for 25 years.
My success is not determined by who wins elections.
And if it were, I wouldn't be here still, would I?
Okay, Kurt in False Church, Virginia is where we're starting on the phones.
Thank you, sir, for calling.
It's wonderful to have you with us on the program.
Hello, thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
I just want to point out a problem with your pardon theory.
No, it's not mine.
It's not mine.
It's not mine.
Okay, Mr. Hayward, that's your power line.
Stephen Hayward, yep, power line.
The theory is you can be pardoned for prior actions and you can't be punished for them.
But assuming that you're still in the United States and you still don't have a legal right to be here, you're immediately as guilty after the pardon as you are before the pardon.
I don't think so.
It doesn't give you a status to stay in the United States.
Well, Mr. Hayward thinks it does.
And by the way, I've run the, you're the first guy who said he can't do it.
I've run it by a lot of people.
Yeah, there's no constitutional prohibition against something like that because.
Well, yes, you can.
If they were not in the United States and you pardoned them and they didn't come back illegally, they would be free.
But assuming they're still in the United States and they're still here illegally, they're immediately.
But you can pardon somebody for all future.
Actually, I don't think that's true.
I don't think you can immunize somebody.
Well, even if you can't, by pardoning the fact that they are here illegally, the next day they don't start being illegal all over again, it's been pardoned.
You're thinking they can only be pardoned up to that day, right?
Right.
You can be pardoned up to that day, but if you don't have a legal right to be inside the United States, you're not a citizen.
Then how did Bill Clinton pardon Mark Rich and then say, and by the way, you can never come back to this country?
Well, what he said is Mark Rich is pardoned for these acts which have happened before.
If you violate the law after you've been pardoned, you're not immune.
You're subject again for the acts that occurred after the pardon.
Okay.
Well, look, I will, as we say, take this under advisement.
And I'm going to call some people say that smart Alec caller who said that everybody talking about this doesn't know what they're talking about.
I've just, no, no.
Kurt, I'm just kidding.
The real answer to you is with this bunch, who cares what the Constitution says?
Well, yes.
I mean, that's the bottom line.
And I was just kidding.
you're not a crackpot caller it's actually very i'm just i've just you know yeah thanks for the call Appreciate it.
We'll be back here.
He's not a crackpot.
didn't mean that was just by the way uh the draft dodgers at jimmy carter pardon they were still draft dodgers when they came back from canada and they weren't re-prosecuted when they got back here And they were still draft dodgers, but they had been pardoned from it.
And it did hurt Carter's reelection.
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