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July 22, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:48
July 22, 2014, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yeah, it's big.
It's very, very big.
But what the heck?
Obama could just rewrite the law again if he wants to.
He's already done that 71 times.
That's the official count.
It's either 41 or 71.
I'm not sure.
One of the two, probably 71 different, all the waivers, all the delays, all the rewrites.
71 executive changes to Obamacare, if you count the IRS and their interpretation of things.
Anyway, it's a big ruling.
If it holds, ladies and gentlemen, how are you?
Great to be back with you.
Rush Limbaugh here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies of federal appeals courts.
The D.C. Circuit, by two-to-one vote, struck down the subsidies available to consumers, some consumers, who buy health coverage on insurance exchanges established by the federal government.
Here's the way that the law as written, and the L.A. Times has a story about it.
It's just a glitch in the wording.
Come on, people.
It's not a glitch in the wording.
It is the way the law was written.
The only way you can get a subsidy for purchasing insurance for Obamacare is through a state exchange.
Well, not all the states set up exchanges.
Some of the states opted out.
They didn't want anything to do with Obamacare.
They were trying to do what they could to stop it, delay it.
And so the feds came in and started their own exchanges, and that's what healthcare.gov is.
And it is not a state exchange.
So everybody who has purchased Obamacare through healthcare.gov, the federal exchange, essentially, and has gotten a subsidy is now disallowed.
That's it in a nutshell.
The U.S. Court of Appeal, and that's the law.
This is a huge day, at least temporarily, for the rule of law.
Folks, the law couldn't be plainer.
And this poor writer at the LA Times, it's just a glitch in the wording.
Come on, people.
It's just a glitch in the glitch in the wording.
The law is the law, and Obama hasn't liked it 71 different times and has changed it in order to protect Democrats at election time.
Everybody that's paying scant attention knows this.
A huge day for the rule of law here.
The D.C. Circuit, two-to-one vote.
Now, now, there are a number of different ways this can go.
It's by no means over.
The losing side, in this case, the regime, can ask for an in bank ruling or hearing.
That means ask for every judge to hear and vote on the case of the D.C. Circuit, which would, I don't know how many judges are on that circuit, used at 12, 13, it's going to be up to 20.
I just don't know the number.
But every case starts with a three-judge panel.
And then the losers can ask for enbanc.
And then after that, you go to the Supreme Court if they take it.
And then if the Supreme Court takes, if this ruling holds, and if they go in bunk and it holds there, and then if the Supreme Court decides to take it, then we're back with Chief Justice Roberts.
And will he want to bail Obama out a second time?
The Supreme Court could also decide, nope, we're not going to hear it.
Lower court ruling, D.C. Circuit ruling stands.
We're out of here.
There's any number of things that can happen.
Right now, all of the people that got subsidies, healthcare.gov are essentially in violation of the law.
The U.S. Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit 2 to 1 vote invalidated an IRS regulation that implemented a key piece of Obamacare.
The regulation said that subsidies were available to qualifying consumers, whether they bought coverage on a state exchange or one run by the federal government.
The ruling could cripple the act.
The drive-bys are in panic here, folks.
It's incredible.
The drive-bys, their only concern is the effect on Obama, not the impact on the American people.
They're not concerned about the impact on the country.
No, no, no, no.
They're only concerned about the impact on Obama.
Oh, speaking of that, I'm surprised it took this long.
Chris Saliza, the Washington Post, you know, the presidency, it's impossible to do it anymore.
It's just impossible for one man to do this job.
It is impossible for anyone to have a successful presidency in the modern era.
That same story was written a few years ago by somebody else, I think in 2010.
They always trot this story out when the Democrat president hits a wall.
And it's just too big.
It's just too unmanageable.
No matter how bright.
And clearly, we don't have ever had a smarter president than Obama.
And if Obama can't do it, my God, nobody can.
Didn't they try that even with Clinton?
Wasn't there a story way back in the Clinton year?
It's too big for what they just recycled this stuff.
Whenever certain triggers happen, and the triggers usually are: okay, when the point of no return is reached and there's no way of salvaging public opinion on a particular president, then it's time to write the story.
It's just too big a job for anybody to do.
Nobody can succeed at the presidency anymore.
If Obama can't, nobody can.
The ruling today, back to that, the IRS, which is the regime, just decided to interpret the law, the subsidy law, their own way.
The law clearly says that there are no subsidies available at healthcare.gov.
But the IRS said, well, that's not right.
That's not proper because every state didn't do an exchange.
So some people that live in states with no exchanges don't get, so that's not right.
So we'll just make the subsidies available at healthcare.gov.
But they were never part of it.
This was, and it was not, it's not a word glitch.
This was put in the law originally so as to enable Obama to say that the law wasn't costing as much.
This was part of sloughing the whole thing off on the states, transferring Medicare costs to the states, the subsidy costs to the states, and the states can't print money.
And a lot of governors said, to hell with this, this is going to break our budgets.
We can't afford to assume the Medicare costs, Medicaid costs, and now this.
So they opted out.
And that's when the IRS came in and said, screw you.
All right.
You're trying to sabotage our great leaders' law.
Well, take this.
And they just rewrote the law.
And the D.C. circuit today said, you can't do this.
It's a huge, huge deal.
Here from CNBC, a noteworthy paragraph.
If upheld, the ruling could lead many, if not most of, those subsidized customers to abandon their health plans sold on healthcare.gov because they no longer would find them affordable without the lucrative tax credits, i.e., the subsidies.
You see, the dirty little secret here is that nobody other than the top 5% could afford this out of their pocket.
Nobody could afford it.
They have to get assistance from the country going into debt, taxpayers, borrowing, and all that.
Now, if that coverage is not affordable for them, as defined by the Affordable Care Act, this is from the article, if that coverage, i.e., insurance under Obamacare, if it is not affordable for them, as defined by the Obamacare law, those people will no longer be bound by the law's mandate to have health insurance by this year or pay a fine next year.
I mean, there's so much gets thrown out with this ruling.
Here we go.
You want me to repeat that?
If the coverage is not affordable, because the subsidies are gone with this ruling, because they were never legal, if that coverage is then not affordable for them as defined by Obamacare,
those people who got subsidies that are now declared illegal, those people will no longer be bound by the law's mandate to have health insurance by this year or pay a fine next year.
See, the whole key to this was that this had to be affordable, so it's called the Affordable Care Act, but the subsidies are what qualified people and made it affordable.
And if they can't afford it, then they're not bound to have it.
And the ruling also threatens in the same 36 states to gut the Obamacare rule starting next year that all employers with 50 or more full-time workers offer affordable insurance to them or face fines.
And that's because the rule only kicks in if one of such an employer's workers buys subsidized coverage on healthcare.gov, which they now can't do.
So this guts, this ruling guts significant aspect of the funding of the law.
This has always been the little nub of this.
If you are able to carve out the funding mechanisms for this, it goes away.
And this ruling takes a huge, huge bite out of Obamacare.
It's David Savage writing at the Los Angeles Times in a two-to-one vote, a panel of judges, D.C. Circuit, rejected the regime's argument the problem was triggered by imprecise language in the complex law and that Congress had always intended to offer the subsidies nationwide to low and middle income people who bought insurance through either the state or the federal health agency.
See, just a glitch in the wording, imprecise language.
Congress had always intended, except there's this, as written, and what's written is what is intended.
As written, the law states that subsidies should be paid to those who purchase insurance through quote an exchange established by the state, close quote.
I should do a quick search of my website.
I remember discussing this in great detail when it became obvious that a large number of states were not going to set up exchanges.
This was going to threaten the entire subsidy program if the law meant anything.
This ruling today has shocked the drive-bys.
Because the law is irrelevant.
It's what was intended.
Obama wanted everybody to have free health care.
What did these judges not get?
That's what everybody wanted.
Congress, Obama, they wanted people to get free or very cheap affordable health care.
And that's what they did.
No, they didn't do it.
It's the most expensive way of paying for health care we could have devised.
Obama's law professor, this is 11 days ago.
11 days ago, before the ruling, National Review went and found Lawrence Tribe at Harvard.
Lawrence Tribe was one of Obama's professors at Harvard Law.
And Tribe predicted, he said, he would not bet the family farm on Obamacare surviving this legal challenge to the IRS rule about who's eligible for subsidies currently working their way through the federal courts.
He said, he made the comment to the fiscal times actually.
He said, I don't have a crystal ball, but I wouldn't bet the family farm on this coming out in a way that preserves Obamacare.
Because he could read the law.
It's crystal clear.
They're reduced now to say, it's a glitch.
It's confused wording.
It's totally unambiguous.
But in the L.A. Times, imprecise language in the complex laws, imprecise language.
It's a dead, horrible law.
It is so bad that in order to save the thing, Obama has had to, via executive actions and orders of various kinds, to change it, delay it, waive it, what have you, a total of 71 times.
Let's get a typical drive-by media reaction.
Let's see.
This is Joe Johns.
He's at CNN.
And the anchorette, Carol Costello, they're all in a purple panic today.
Spoke to Joe Johns about this, a reporter.
She said, Joe, explain this to us.
Well, Carol, this could be a huge blow to the administration and to Obamacare.
And a two-to-one ruling, a divided court just ruled that federal tax subsidies under the Affordable Care Act cannot be used by individual consumers who are trying to get health insurance on federally run exchanges.
And the subsidies can only be used in state-run exchanges.
Before anybody starts hyperventilating, it was always assumed that an adverse ruling would be appealed, and it's certainly going to happen in this case.
So don't worry about it.
If you want free health care, don't sweat it.
The regime is going to be right in there for you.
They're going to repeal this.
And they will.
As I say, go in bunk, ask the whole circuit to hear it, or either that or go straight to the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court does not have to hear it.
They can turn it down.
They can say lower court stands, not interested, or they can take it in which case, we're back to the original Obamacare ruling.
It's 4-4 with Chief Justice Roberts in the Anthony Kennedy role.
And he bailed it out once.
So something that's happened once can happen again.
But there's some who theorize that he wouldn't do it a second time.
It's going to be wild all this sorts out, but it's at least within its own sandbox here.
It is a great, great ruling for the rule of law.
Here's the White House press spokesman, Josh Ernest, responding to a question by Julie Pace at the AP.
Is there any White House reaction to this decision?
It's important for people all across the country to understand that this ruling does not have any practical impact on their ability to continue to receive tax credits right now.
There are millions of Americans all across the country who are receiving tax credits from the federal government as a result of the Affordable Care Act that is making health care more affordable for them.
And while this ruling is interesting to legal theorists, it has no practical impact on their tax credits right now.
You don't need a fancy legal degree to understand that Congress intended for every eligible American to have access to tax credits that would lower their health care costs.
That's all you have to do.
Regardless of whether it is state officials or federal officials who are running the marketplace.
You don't need to be a legal legal understanding.
See, it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter if you get it.
None of this matters because we're going to rewrite it.
Don't worry about it.
You want free health care?
We're going to provide it for it because the law doesn't matter to us.
So I just went back to rushlimbaugh.com, July 3rd, 2012.
We predicted all of this.
And I will share with you the highlights when we get to the next segment.
The news update on this is the White House has now said that they will indeed seek a review by the full appeals court.
It's 11 judges.
So they're going to ask for an in-bank hearing.
They lost two to one on a three-judge panel.
They're going to now ask for all 11 judges to vote on the case.
Seven of the 11 judges were nominated by Democrat presidents, including four of them nominated by Obama.
So the odds are that the full circuit, the full panel, will change the ruling in support of Obamacare and the subsidies will return to become validated.
And then the plaintiffs in the case will take it to the Supreme Court, i.e., the victors today.
Now, the three judges did not, the plaintiffs asked for the suspension of the subsidies as part of the ruling, and that was denied.
So if you are in possession of a health care policy that features subsidies and you got it at healthcare.gov, they are still valid because the appeals court, they know full well that they're going to be appealed.
So they did not suspend the subsidies or the tax credits.
So it's nowhere near over.
As I say, it's in its own little sandbox.
It's a good ruling for the rule of law.
But whether it holds up, anybody's guess.
And we got another brief time out here, and I'll share with you how we predicted this.
This is what being on the cutting edge means, folks.
Hey, ladies and gentlemen, let me ask you a question.
So we've got seven of the 11 judges at the D.C. Circuit who are nominated by Democrat presidents for by Obama.
And so it's automatically assumed that the ruling will change in favor of the regime.
Now, what does it say about a judicial system where party loyalty determines the meaning of laws?
I mean, if it's automatic that seven of the 11 judges were nominated by Democrats, What if it's automatic that because seven of the 11 judges are nominated Democrats, they're automatically going to find in favor of the regime, even though it's in violation of the law.
What does that say about the judicial system?
And does it not kind of make a mockery of Boehner suing the regime?
When you listen to Josh Ernest, can you imagine, look at this.
Imagine Tony Snow is the press secretary or Dana Perino.
Imagine Bush is in the White House and there is a Supreme Court ruling that invalidates a major Bush policy.
And Tony Snow or Dana Perino go out there and say, you know what?
It's just an interesting academic exercise for some legal beagles, but it doesn't have any practical effect.
What is it?
The law?
Come on.
This is just for people that like to sit around and theorize about academic things.
But for those of you out there that are benefiting from this law, don't worry.
Nothing's going to change.
Can you imagine the media reaction if Dana Perino or Tony Snow had basically said to the law as Josh Ernest just did?
Oh my God, the media would try to string them up.
It would be vicious.
It would be vicious.
Now, because there are seven Democrat-appointed judges on the DC Circuit, it's automatic that the case is going to get reversed and Obama's going to win, regardless of what the law says, because party loyalty trumps the law.
Party loyalty defines the law.
Now, back on July 3rd, 2012, you go look it up with our brilliant exhaustive search feature at rushlimbaugh.com.
These state exchanges are a healthcare DMV, is the slug line of the segment.
And I'm just going to read to you excerpts of what I said that day, July 3rd, 2012.
One last wrinkle.
It's those subsidies that trigger the penalty or the tax, whatever you want to call it, under Obamacare for employers who fail to provide workers with insurance.
So states that don't set up exchanges could escape the employer mandate.
Now, I said it a little differently, but states that didn't create exchanges got them through the federal exchange, but that's not within the letter of the law.
I also said Obamacare requires employers with 50 or more workers to provide health insurance or pay a fine or tax.
But that tax only kicks in if at least one employee qualifies for subsidies under the exchange.
So way back in July of 2012, we nailed this, that if the subsidies were killed, both the individual and employer mandates were also dead.
And I was able to come to that conclusion because it was what the law said.
And it was the law that was upheld today.
I further said that since subsidies can only be provided via a state exchange, a state that refuses to set up an exchange could end up blocking the employer mandate altogether.
Now, I also pointed out that it was nowhere near over.
And I just wanted to make one more observation.
And I repeated what I said there.
But the point was that federal subsidies are available only through exchanges the states set up because the law says, quote, the feds cannot offer subsidies through a federally run exchange.
And I cited Talking Points memo, which is a left-wing blog out there, that was very upset about this aspect of the law, that the feds couldn't offer subsidies through their exchange, healthcare.gov.
Talking Points memo said, Because as the result of a drafting oversight, Congress neglected to include automatic appropriations for federally facilitated exchanges.
So even back in 2012, the left, hey, wait a minute, we don't, that's not what you meant.
We know what you meant.
You meant to give away subsidies to everybody.
So they've had it set up for two years now.
I was bouncing.
There was a great article by Michael Tanner at Cato Institute.
We were bouncing off two years ago in making the well, and analyzing what was ahead.
And this is what I mean, folks.
You're in a cutting-edge societal evolution if you are tuned to this program because you're going to find out way in advance what is going to happen.
Now, Josh Ernest, the White House press secretary, boiled down to its essence.
To hell with the law.
We got most of the D.C. Circuit Court judges in our pocket, and it doesn't matter.
And you haven't lost your subsidies.
So all the rest of this is just a bunch of legal eagle, pointy-headed legal academics sitting around flapping their gums.
But it doesn't mean anything.
Don't sweat it.
Life goes on.
We got more fundraisers to attend.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the sum total.
So again, just to close the loop, where we go next, the regime has said that they're going to seek a full review by the, or a review by the full appeals court, 11 judges.
That is called an NBA, B-A-N-C, N-Bonk hearing.
And depending on how that goes, it will then go to the Supreme Court where they can decide to hear the case and render a decision, oral arguments and all that that were two years down the road, or they can reject it and let whatever the lower court ultimately does stand.
The regime's feeling is that since seven of the 11 judges on the D.C. Circuit were appointed by Democrats, that the ruling today will be overturned by virtue of party loyalty, which trumps the meaning of the law.
Well, that's what it is.
I mean, how else do you interpret what they're going to?
There's nowhere to it.
Look, this is not the first.
Even at the Supreme Court, you have four libs, and it's assumed that no matter what, they're going to side with the left side.
Although that's not true, you know, Obama has lost a bunch of unanimous decisions at this Supreme Court.
At last count, I think he's 0 for 12 or 0 for 13 when it comes to unanimous decisions.
But just the assumption here from the administration, and why wouldn't they assume this?
Four of the 11 judges were appointed by Obama, seven of the 11 appointed by Democrats.
To them, they are the law.
Look at Obama.
71 different waivers, exemptions, rewrites, executive actions of Obamacare to date.
And every one of them has been to limit or delay the impact and the implementation of the law so as to not hurt Democrats at elections.
And so if the Democrats carry the day on this, you can accurately say that we no longer even have the rule of law.
We have the rule of party.
There is no such thing, the law doesn't mean anything.
And we're on the road to that anyway with the way Obama is reacting and acting outside the Constitution.
And of course, this assumption, what does it say about Boehner's plan to file a lawsuit against a president who pays no attention to court rulings?
So we're going to file a lawsuit against a guy who pays no attention to court rulings, even if he loses the court ruling.
Big deal.
Because that's not the final rule.
The rule of law has been trumped now by rule of party.
And that's the assumption everybody at the regime is making in determining the ultimate outcome of this case.
The views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost always right 99.7% of the time.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882 in the email address.
They'll rushbow at EIBnet.com.
Now, this is typical.
Sadly typical.
I had a staff member, my trusted and loyal chief of staff, HR, just said to me during the break, my God, what is this?
There's no law.
Nothing means anything.
Oh my God, I'm depressed.
I said, HR, I've been where you are for five years.
Ever since this guy was imaculated.
This is everything that's happening here.
I had a total, I was like, no stradamus.
I knew it was, I'm not specifically, but I knew this kind of thing was going to happen.
We don't, remember the discussion yesterday, talking about Middle East peace and the Ukrainian situation, shooting down the airliner?
Well, Obama doesn't.
United States is the problem.
The United States military, how often have I said it?
The United States military, in their view, the focus of evil in the modern world.
We don't solve problems.
We are the problem.
They've always believed this.
That's why we contrasted how Obama dealt with this way versus Reagan back in 1983 when the Koreans shot down an airline.
There's a whole different view of America's role in the world with this bunch.
And this bunch does not think our role in the world has been positive.
They really don't.
They believe so much of this country is illegitimate and unjust.
And we don't have any moral authority to tell anybody else what to do and how to do it and what ought to be.
You know, this idiot, this idiot, John Kerry, is over talking Vietnam to Benjamin Netanyahu.
I know when I was in Vietnam, and Netanyahu said, this isn't Vietnam, you idiot.
When you talk about the business, talk about the Hamas Charter yesterday, the Hamas Charters, their version of a constitution.
Normalcy for them is war.
That's the normal state of things.
Peace is where you have a lull in the state of war while you regroup and retool and rearm.
The Israeli definition of peace is the absence of war, the presence of justice.
But the problem, imagine a family member gets pneumonia and you go to the doctor.
And your family member with pneumonia is coughing.
Here, take some NyQuil.
See you later.
Wait a minute, NyQuil for pneumonia?
What about treating the disease?
We've got a problem here.
My dad has pneumonia.
All I can do is say NyQuil.
If you don't like that, drink robot doesn't.
Well, the disease in the Middle East is anti-Semitism.
And there isn't one United States policy that deals with that.
The roots of this Strife in the Middle East.
Go back to the seventh century.
And it is rooted in the hatred of Jewish people.
The modern day Hamas, formerly Fatah and Arafat and so forth, these guys were consulted.
They did consult with Nazis way back.
They had a lot in common with the Nazis in terms of Jewish extermination.
All of this is, it's totally meaningless.
To treat Israel and Hamas or the Palestinians as equal and guilty participants in this war is ridiculous.
It's driven by anti-Semitism.
Nothing else.
And until you treat that, until you deal with that, there is never going to be a solution.
You can have John Kerry going over there.
Well, when I was in Vietnam, when I was driving the swift boats, this isn't Vietnam, you looney toon.
What are you talking about when you were in Vietnam?
That's why we joke about John Kerry, who, by the way, served Vietnam, because he tells everybody every day.
But my point is that the view that America is the problem and the re-education and the history revision that has gone on in the American public school system for decades now has created this worldview of America as guilty and as the problem in the world, not a solution.
And that the U.S. military is the focus of evil in the modern world.
It's not a solution.
And it's not just Obama who thinks this.
He's just the latest Democrat president who thinks so.
The last Democrat president that actually didn't think this way was JFK.
Maybe LBJ a bit, but after that it was all over.
Time you get to McGovern as candidacy and all the rest of them, U.S. military focus of evil.
United States is the problem.
And listen to this tweet.
It's a typical reaction to the D.C. court's ruling on Twitter.
We're just, we are surrounded by dumb, ignorant people.
We're just surrounded by them.
Stupid people.
If Congress meant to deny subsidies to states using Fed exchanges, it would have said so.
This is your average ordinary citizen tweeting who wants a freebie, who wants a handout, no doubt, who thinks this is outrageous.
And when the law hurts people, then it shouldn't be this.
This is a bad law.
It shouldn't be there.
If Congress meant to deny subsidies to states using Fed exchanges, it would have said so.
Well, it did say so.
Guess what?
It did say so.
It's exactly how the law was written.
You ever notice something that the left is just so literal, and other times they find the shadows and they lurk in the suburbs of ambiguity?
You know, the rule of law is everything for a free society.
If you lose that, you lose everything.
Now, Tony Dungy.
It's interesting.
Last night, I'm playing around with my new beta, new operating system, and I'm surfing websites.
I'm checking out new features here, playing with it.
And I decided, you know what?
I want to see what they're saying about Dungy and Michael Sam on the ESPN website.
They're ESPN.
Oh, man, this is a.
And it's not there.
There's not a single word.
There is not a single story about the Tony Dungy story in the Tampa Tribune on ESPN.
Not a single, now ESP and radio, yeah, and they may be talking about on Sports Center, I don't know, anyway, but on their website, there's not a single word.
If all you do to consume sports news is read the ESP and website, you do not know what Tony Dungy said.
But as predicted yesterday, elsewhere in the sports drive-by media, the long knives are coming out.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, well, the LA Times dares take on Coach Dungy.
The USA Today dares take on Coach Dungy.
There are a number of sports websites dare take on Coach Dungy.
And we'll have details as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears.
Slate.com, Tony Dungy's terrible comments about Michael Sam are homophobia defined.
Media, well, I'm out of time.
I don't have a Yahoo Sports, Tony Dungy's assessment of Michael Sam shows stunning lack of courage.
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