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June 20, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:48
June 20, 2014, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hi, folks.
How are you?
Rush Linboy, and we are back.
Right here behind the Golden EIB microphone for yet another excursion into broadcast excellence on Open Line Friday, the greatest career risk since the Wright brothers decided to give up building bicycles.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday.
The biggest career risk since Michelangelo put down his sculpting tools and took up painting ceilings.
Great to have you here, my friends.
Open Line Friday is when the callers have much more latitude and power, actually, in choosing that which is discussed on the program.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882, the email address LRushbo in EIBnet.com.
Well, there were fireworks today up on Capitol Hill, but I don't think it's going to matter.
I just don't think it's going to matter.
They have the IRS commissioner up there by the name of John Koskinen, and this guy was as arrogant and brazen and screw you, both with his tone and his facial expressions.
He was sending the message.
Look, I don't care about what you think.
I don't even really need or want to be here outside of being polite and requesting your or accepting your invitation.
But screw you was basically what it was.
This segment was about the missing emails, the lost emails, the recycled server, the crashed hard drive.
And Paul Ryan was incredulous at some of the answers.
Paul Ryan was incredulous that Koskinen didn't apologize.
And so when Coskinen came under some heated questioning by Dave Camp and Paul Ryan, the Democrats on the committee circled the wagon and apologized to him, to Koskinen, for the way he was being treated.
I don't recall them ever apologizing to Sam Alito or Alito's wife for the way he was treated.
I don't remember anybody ever apologizing to Robert Bork.
I don't remember anybody ever apologizing to Clarence Thomas.
Well, let's go straight to the audio soundbites.
After his opening statement, Dave Camp, who is the chairman of the...
Well, no, wait a minute.
Yeah, he's chairman of Ways and Means.
And that's the committee doing the hearing today.
After his opening statement, Camp started off asking for an apology from the IRS commissioner John Koskinen.
And then Coskins said, well, I apologize to you for.
I gave you the emails that we have.
But they claim the importance of one are gone.
Important ones are gone.
But Koskinen said, what the hell?
Apologize to you?
A bunch of conservatives?
No way.
So here's what Camp, who is from Michigan, said.
He said, what I didn't hear you say, Commissioner Koskinen, was an apology to this committee.
I don't think an apology is owed.
Not a single email has been lost since the start of this investigation.
Every email has been preserved that we have.
Don't think the time period between January 2009 and April 2011 is relevant to this investigation?
There's a very relevant time period.
All right.
I'm told that the IRS knew as early as February that her computer crash supposedly caused the loss of her emails during the time period of January 2009 to 2011.
Has the IRS known since February?
The IRS knew in February there was an issue.
As noted, we all had emails from Ms. Lerner last fall in which she recited that she had had a hard drive crash.
Oh, we all had emails from her in which she recycaded.
How many of you recite an email in which she recited that she had had a hard drive crash?
And everybody just went, oh, okay, ho, hum, a hard drive crash.
Lois Lerner, only the target.
Lois Lerner, only the face of this scandal.
And I might say, very, I've always thought the woman is mean, just looking at her.
But that's just me.
I know we're not supposed to judge people on their appearance.
I mean by that, I mean associate ideological orientation or intention, but I'm telling you, you can do it, folks.
I can't anyway.
Anyway, she doesn't look like a nice woman.
So she's telling everybody that, oh, you know what?
My hard drive crashed.
They go, oh, really low?
Okay, cool.
Well, we'll see you at 5 o'clock at the old Ebbett for Adult Beverages.
The Old Ebbett Grill is across from the White House.
That's where you stop and have dinner.
If you're invited to have dinner at the White House, stop the old Ebbett first and eat, because you won't at the White House.
Anyway, hard drive crash is treated as, yeah, I lost my makeup.
I lost my compact.
I can't go to cocktails today.
Oh, that's too bad, Lois.
Well, maybe next week.
That's when she recited she had had a hard drive crash.
And this guy, Coskinen, the chairman of the IRS commissioner, the IRS, I mean, he was confronted with the lies that have come out of that agency repeatedly.
Kevin Brady, Republican, Texas, said, Mr. Commissioner, you did not tell me under oath that you told us in February and March and April and May that the information was lost.
That was just what you said.
Tell us that again.
February, March, and until April, I did not know if any information was lost.
Yet, your agency had already in April communicated with the Treasury Department about the problem.
And the letter we have from Treasury says we agreed with the IRS that it should inform Congress as soon as it is able.
That is the letter today that exactly disputes what you just told us under oath.
This is the most corrupt and deceitful IRS in the history.
And the Republicans were firing today.
Would you not agree, certainly?
The Republicans were both barrels.
Now, the point of this is that in the previous soundbite, Coskinen says, oh, yeah, we knew in February there was an issue.
We all had emails from Ms. Lerner last fall in which she recited that she had a hard drive crash.
Back in 2009, they only told her last week.
Anyway, so Brady here is saying, wait a minute, February, March, April, you didn't know if any information was lost?
You heard from her that her hard drive crashed, but you didn't know if any information was lost, and you didn't seem to care that any information might be lost, even after you've been told that her hard drive crashed a couple years prior.
And that's what Brady would say.
Your agency had already in April communicated with Treasury Department about the problem.
And the letter we have from Treasury says, quote, we agreed with the IRS it should inform Congress as soon as possible.
That's the letter today that exactly disputes what you just told us under oath.
And he says, this is the most, because the letter says, oh, yeah, we knew we should have passed it on.
He just said, no, we didn't find out about it until way after.
Most corrupt, deceitful IRS in history, which caused John Lewis, Democrat Georgia, to wake up.
Mr. Commissioner, I want to thank you for your service.
Thank you for your patience.
And I want to apologize to you for the way you've been treated this morning.
I thought this was a hearing and not a trial.
And the Democrats were apologizing this guy left to right.
Now, up next is Paul Ryan.
And here, I think it's safe to say he encapsulates why the country is so outraged by this scandal.
You can reach into the lives of hardworking taxpayers.
And with a phone call, an email, or a letter, you can turn their lives upside down.
You asked taxpayers to hand us seven years of their personal tax information in case they're ever audited, and you can't keep six months' worth of employee emails?
I don't believe you.
This is incredible.
I have a long career.
That's the first time anybody has said that you do not believe me.
If we are investigating criminal wrongdoing, targeting of people based on their political beliefs, and the emails in question are lost because of a hard drive crash that is apparently unrecoverable, which a lot of IT professionals would question, and you don't tell us about it until we ask you about it, that is not being forthcoming.
And this descended into Coskinen acting rightly outraged.
And how dare you accuse me of lying?
How dare you accuse me of being forthcoming?
So Ryan responds, and halfway through Ryan's response, somebody off camera, some Democrat, tries to shut Ryan down.
He says, he let him answer the question.
And Ryan says, I haven't asked him a question yet.
I'm still telling him what I think of him.
I haven't asked him a question yet.
And the whole thing blew up.
And it's precisely because nobody believes that her hard drive crashed.
Well, nobody believes the emails are gone.
Nobody believes it.
Everybody believes the emails incriminate her and who knows who else.
Everybody thinks we've got the hard drive crash version of the Rose, what was her name, 18, Rosemary Woods 18-minute gap tape during a Nixon administration.
Everybody knows what's going on here.
Everybody knows it.
And this guy comes up all smug and arrogant and condescending and basically acts offended that he has to even be there.
And I think it's, and again, when you look at Coskinen, you have to see who's really sitting there, and that's Obama.
That's the way Obama would behave.
How dare you ask me this?
How dare you not believe my lies?
How dare you challenge my lies?
How dare you?
Who do you think you are?
And that is the arrogance and condescension of the modern day government liberal.
And it's all over the place.
Now, last night on, and listen, don't you look at, folks, you know, even if her hard drive crashed, nobody believes those emails are gone.
Later on in the back and forth with Paul Ryan, Ryan became even more incredulous when Koskinen said, in answer to a quote, what did you do?
Well, what did we do?
Well, when we determined that the hard drives, the servers were irretrievable and that the sectors were bad and the IT experts informed us that there was simply no way.
We did what standard ordinary operating procedure is and we recycled them.
Ryan say, recycled, what does that mean?
Well, I don't know what the process really is.
We jumped them.
We trashed them.
Did you melt them down?
Did you throw them away?
I don't know.
They've been recycled.
They're gone.
And that's their story, and they're sticking to it.
And therefore, there is no way, unless there's a whistleblower somewhere that has these emails, that anybody's going to ever really know for sure what is on them.
And they're basically just saying to all of us, screw you.
There's nothing you can do about it.
You can't touch us.
It's not just we are the IRS.
We are the regime.
Whatever we say is what you are going to believe.
We define the truth and we tell you what it is.
And that's the end of it.
And if anybody wants to dissent from this, you have been warned.
The Scott Walker story, you know, I finally got to the bottom of this, and I'm going to spend much more time on this later on.
There's a headline in the New York Times.
This is really, again, I'm out of adjectives.
Well, it's worse than a smear.
It is a smear, but I'm out of adjectives to describe what's going on.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suspected of coordinating with outside groups.
He has been found not guilty of it.
The case is over.
Two judges have thrown the case out twice.
There was never anything to the allegations.
Nothing.
Everything about the original subpoenas were thrown out.
They were illegal.
They were violating violation of constitutional rights of the people who received the subpoenas.
I'll explain all this in detail in a minute.
I didn't mean to get into this now, but it fits.
The point is, there is no case.
There was no illegal outside coordinating on behalf of Scott Walker.
He has been found not guilty twice.
The New York Times headline today, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suspected of coordinating with outside groups.
The readers of the New York Times think that the investigation just getting started and that Walker is going to be found guilty.
It's certainly worse than a smear.
It's journalistic malpractice.
And it's not just the New York Times.
There is no story here.
It's over.
Walker, once again, has been found not guilty.
There never was anything to these allegations in the first place.
This is just an out and out lie.
This is the depths to which the left has sunk and is sinking.
But even with that, There's no, even when you learn this and are able to tell people and spell out exactly how the left is lying, smearing, making things up, destroying conservatives, literally on the warpath to destroy, even when you can tell people, it doesn't provide any satisfaction.
I don't get any satisfaction in illustrating for you how the New York Times is lying because for the people that read it, it ain't going to matter.
People that read it are going to think Walker's still guilty.
Investigation just beginning.
The left is out to get him and they're going to get him.
And even if they don't, what's going to happen is that the low-information crowd on the left is going to come away from all of this thinking Scott Walker is the closest thing to a mafioso running Wisconsin.
That is the point they're trying to make.
He has been exonerated by judges in Wisconsin.
The case was so flimsy, not even the lib judges wanted to join it.
And yet, and if it's in the New York Times, it's on Yahoo News.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suspected of coordinating.
I got this story was sent to me by somebody who didn't know what the truth was.
This person read the story for what it is and said, man, this is slim.
There's nothing really here, but it shows their desperation.
So this is how it works.
If you don't know the truth about this, you're going to think that there might be something there.
It's Slim.
It's little or he's guilty as hell, depending on your inclination.
I got to take a break, sit tight, we'll be right back.
Okay, I'll give you the details of the Scott Walker case immediately coming up after the next break, but here are the bullet points.
Liberal prosecutors went after Scott Walker for being tied illegally to outside conservative groups in one of his recall fights.
Judges in Wisconsin threw out the prosecutors' subpoenas.
Prosecutor, the judge kicked them out of court for their bogus case.
The case was never legitimate.
The case is over.
The prosecutors tried twice.
It has been thrown out two different times.
There is nothing there.
The story is how a bunch of partisan Democrat prosecutors tried to smear, not just smear, they tried to criminalize Scott Walker, and their attempt was thrown out of court.
And yet, New York Times, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, suspected of coordinating with outside groups.
Front page allegation, the AP and Politico both had similar stories yesterday, even though everybody knows there is no story and there is no case.
The Democrats lost it.
Greetings and welcome back, Open Line Friday.
Rush Limbaugh, one of the greatest career risks ever taken in major big league media.
Turning over the content of the program to rank amateurs, at least in terms of being highly trained broadcast specialists, but nevertheless, lovable rank amateurs.
All right, here is everything you need to know about the Scott Walker case within the confines of the case.
I want to preface this by pointing out that he is target number one and he's earned it.
He has turned a blue state.
I don't know if he's turned it yet, but it's not blue anymore.
Wisconsin, folks, this is not quite, but this is pretty close to something like this happening in California or parts of California.
This is momentous what Scott Walker has done, and he has done it with Reagan conservatism.
He has revived the state, beat back the unions, beat back the Democrats on four different occasions in court and at the ballot box.
He has produced a budget surplus.
He has created tax rebates and refunds.
The Democrats cannot let this stand.
If the Republicans ever woke up, got some confidence, they would look at Scott Walker in Wisconsin and realize they have a blueprint on how to react and deal with everything Obama has done nationally.
It really is profound.
It is great and it is magnificent.
It's wonderful.
It's stunning.
And that's why they are trying everything they can to impugn, to criminalize, to destroy Scott Walker.
He stands as the antidote.
He stands as an example of what can be, that this country can be what it once was.
And it's paramountly obvious that the Democrat Party has no desire for this country to ever be prosperous when that prosperity and abundance is created by average men and women in this country.
The Democrat Party, it is now clear, cannot abide prosperity and abundance that results from the hard work of the American people.
The Democrat Party is now insisting and mandating that the appearance of prosperity be associated with only one thing, their president and their party and their policies.
And the truth of the matter is, their president and their party and their policies are on the way to fundamentally transforming this country into being something it was never intended to be, something it never has been, and in practical terms will destroy it.
It will destroy the engine that creates opportunity for prosperity for millions and millions of Americans.
That's what they can't abide.
If a bunch of low-information Americans figure out that their route to abundance and prosperity lies within themselves, then the Democrat Party is cooked.
So the Democrat Party needs as many people as possible thinking that they're victims of this unfair country and that they don't have a chance for prosperity or happiness or abundance ever.
Those days were not real.
Those days were a fad.
Those days were faux, if you will.
They were artificial.
The real America is what we're on the way to being now, where there is hardship and victimization and discrimination and misery everywhere that only the government can address.
Their intention is for as many Americans as possible to think and believe that their lives are hopeless if left to themselves.
The only way anybody will ever accomplish anything is through government.
After all, that's where the Democrats derive their power.
Scott Walker, Ronaldus Magnus, any number of conservatives, the 80s demonstrate the falsity of the Democrat book.
And so Scott Walker has to be taken out.
I want to start this by once again sharing with you the opening lead of the New York Times story.
No comment on this anymore.
I'm going to go straight from this to the truth.
Headline, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker suspected of coordinating with outside groups.
Wisconsin prosecutors have alleged that Governor Scott Walker was part of a wide-ranging criminal scheme to coordinate the activities of conservative groups that spent millions of dollars to help him and other Republicans fend off recall efforts, according to documents released Thursday last week.
Yeah, well, yesterday.
Walker has not been charged and his legal jeopardy was unclear.
The documents stem from a multi-county investigation blocked last month by a federal judge, a decision currently on appeal, except it isn't.
So the headline suspected of coordinating the story, criminal scheme, Scott Walker, part of it, but they hasn't been charged.
Now, I turn to Gabriel Mater at the Federalist, a basic primer on the Scott Walker case for ignorant reporters.
This is a true story.
In 2012, Democrat district attorneys in Wisconsin launched a secret probe known as a John Doe investigation with the goal of providing that conservative groups illegal or proving that conservative groups illegally coordinated activities with Governor Scott Walker during his recall election.
The Democrat district attorneys issued more than 100 subpoenas, demanded the private information of conservatives and conservative groups actually conducted secret raids.
And under state law, the individuals who were targeted or witnessed to the investigation were forbidden from making knowledge of it public.
So the targets and the witnesses had to shut up when all this fraud was going on.
Fortunately, and it really is fortunately given Wisconsin, judges saw right through this partisan abuse of power by Democrat district attorneys.
And early this year, a state judge ruling in a secret proceeding quashed the subpoenas and all but ended the investigation.
According to the judge, quote, these subpoenas don't even show probable cause that the parties committed any violations of the campaign finance laws.
The subpoenas had nothing, close quote.
Well, close, he didn't say that was me, close quote, after Committed no violation of campaign finance laws.
This started the unraveling of the John Doe investigation that had many conservatives fearing that they would be targeted for subpoenas and raids next.
So in February, a conservative activist and group filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the partisan district attorneys who had pursued the John Doe probe.
And in short order, a federal district court judge held that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claim that the partisan Democrat prosecutors, district attorneys, investigation violates their rights under the First Amendment, such that the investigation was commenced and conducted without a reasonable expectation of obtaining a conviction.
The judge said this case never had a prayer.
Said the governor, Republican groups, conservative groups are likely to succeed.
So in other words, at this early stage, it looks to the judge as though the Democrat district attorneys abused their power and then chilled conservatives' free speech rights.
Accordingly, the federal judge ordered that the John Doe probe must cease.
All the seized property be returned and all copies of materials destroyed.
After a short trip to a federal appeals court, the federal judge reissued his order because the Democrat prosecutors lost on appeal.
Most recently, that appeals court has ordered some of the previously secret probe documents disclosed to the public, including an unsuccessful defense that the John Doe investigators made to one of their secret subpoenas.
In their attempt to get a subpoena, which was rejected by a judge for lacking probable cause, the partisan investigators claimed that Walker was involved in the so-called conservative conspiracy.
That's where the litigation stands as of today.
Having launched a secret probe that has now been shut down by both the state and the federal courts, Democrat DAs find themselves the subject of an ongoing civil rights lawsuit for infringing the First Amendment rights of conservatives.
But that is not how the media have reported.
The media, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, suspected of coordinating with outside groups.
The New York Times knows that's BS.
The truth is that there's now a countersuit against the Democrat DAs.
Civil rights lawsuit for infringing First Amendment rights of their targets.
That's the real case that's underway now.
Upon the unsealing of some of the probe documents by the federal appeals court, the media worked itself into a frenzy, claiming that Walker was part of a criminal conspiracy.
The media claim was based entirely on the subpoena document that was denied by the state judge as failing utterly to demonstrate probable cause to believe a crime occurred.
In short, the judge, looking at all the evidence, found no reason to believe a crime had even occurred.
But that hasn't stopped the media from falsely implying the opposite.
And this is largely accomplished by playing with the verb tense.
For example, the Milwaukee Urinal Sentinel kicked off this infuriating libel with a piece that claimed John Doe prosecutors alleged Scott Walker at center of criminal scheme.
The more accurate word, of course, would have been alleged past tense with the addition of the words in denied subpoena request or perhaps in failed partisan investigation or even in quote in politically motivated motivated secret investigation rejected by the state and federal courts.
Instead, all the headlines are what I share with you from the New York Times.
Walker suspected of coordinating with outside groups.
Not alleged.
It's just there's no news anymore, folks.
There is just the Democrat Party and its agenda being advanced by people we are told are journalists.
And here, Mr. Mater quotes the New York Times.
New York Times trumpeting the story on today's front page also uses the present tense to give the wrong impression.
Peace begins.
Prosecutors in Washington assert that Governor Scott Walker was part of an elaborate effort to illegally coordinate fundraising and spending.
Again, the true story is this took place last year and was ended by the courts.
It's an old story and it's gone and the Democrats got kicked.
You would have to read all the way down the 10th paragraph to learn that the subpoenas were not granted because there was no probable cause to believe a crime had occurred.
Oddly, the Times Peace muses on the electoral consequences for Scott Walker and all this in the third paragraph.
Will this story that we're lying to you about harm him in his reelection campaign or his future electoral opportunities?
The media obsession with Walker is no coincidence.
Liberals still stinging from their failure to recall him in 2012 after he successfully curtailed union abuses and a sense that he could be a formidable contender for the White House 2016.
The John Doe probe simultaneously harms him, suggests widespread wrongdoing by conservatives, raises the campaign finance bugaboo, makes this story the almost perfect storm.
The inconvenient fact that the investigation was cooked up for partisan purposes has now ceased and has impelled a federal civil rights lawsuit will go unmentioned in the news.
And now let me illustrate beyond the New York Times drive-by media montage on the Scott Walker story.
We have Devin Dwyer of ABC, Kate Baldwin of CNN, John King, CNN, Gwynn Eiffel, PBS, Peter Slin of C-SPAN, and Charlie Rose on CBS, all talking about allegations of illegal campaign fundraising against Governor Scott Walker.
A potential Republican presidential candidate is accused of taking part in an illegal fundraising scheme.
Prosecutors in Wisconsin say Governor Scott Walker took part in a criminal scheme.
Directly accusing Governor Scott Walker of being part of a criminal scheme.
Prosecutors have accused Republican Governor Scott Walker of illegal fundraising.
Prosecutors have alleged that Governor Scott Walker was part of a wide-ranging criminal scheme.
Prosecutors accuse him of playing a central role in illegal fundraising.
Every one of them is a doddering fool, and that's cutting them some slack.
The alternative is that they all know they're lying and they're doing it anyway.
In this case, I'm going to choose to believe that they're just happily, willfully ignorant and believe as gospel anything they read in the New York Times, because that's pretty much verbatim what they all said.
Accused of taking part in illegal fundraising.
Yeah, he was.
And it was a false accusation.
It was a bogus accusation that was thrown out into courts.
The subpoenas never even got past the judge and out of the court.
They were considered worthless.
I mean, this is Clear what's going on here.
You see, it doesn't matter that the Democrat prosecutor's case was nothing.
And it doesn't matter that the Democrat prosecutor's case was thrown out.
It doesn't matter that the Democrat prosecutors lost.
All that matters is they tried to get Scott Walker, which permits their willing accomplices in the media to report that Walker was targeted because he might have been involved in illegal campaign schemes.
That's how something that has been proven false twice ends up in the drive-by media as an ongoing story that could end up with Walker being found guilty, even though that is not even possible.
So, you see, it doesn't matter.
It's all image, PR, and buzz.
The reality, a distant destination that is of no concern.
All that matters is they tried to get Walker, and the media says, aha, Walker might be guilty.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
See how this works.
Okay, my friends.
Fastest three hours in media.
Open line Friday.
I failed to get a phone call in in this hour.
I'll make that up in the next hour.
I'm going to get a whole bunch of calls in.
We'll be right back.
I don't want you going anywhere.
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