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Nov. 17, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:16
November 17, 2014, Monday, Hour #2
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You're guiding a late through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, lying webs of deceit.
And whenever you can find them, the good times too.
Rushlin Baud, the most listened to radio talk show in the country, and the most talked-about radio talk show in the country.
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There's some people have some mean things to say about this show.
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Telephone numbers 800-28282-2882 in the email address, L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
All right, before getting back into this hard stuff, I got some light-hearted stuff on it.
Well, not lighthearted, but but that did different things I want to touch on here for a second.
I saw a story in one of my tech blogs over the weekend, and here's the headline.
Apple, Google, Facebook, other tech companies lobbying to stop NSA spying before new Congress takes over in January.
So I read the story, and you can figure what this is about.
Apple, Google, Facebook, other tech companies.
They wanna they want to get the NSA think about this now.
Get the NSA to stop spying before the Republicans take over the Senate.
Who do they think is spying on them now?
Who did they think has opened new frontiers in spying on them now?
Who do they think they are asking to stop spying on them now?
Because it was what?
Only gonna get worse when the Republicans because why?
Well, because everybody knows the Republicans, why they what they yeah, they spy, yeah.
The Republic, yeah.
Uh who's been in charge of the NSA and spying and setting new boundaries for it the last six years?
The guy, all of these tech companies can't wait to lick his boots.
And they actually are lobbying the NSA.
They're lobbying Obama to stop spying on him.
Because it's gonna get worse when the Republicans run the Senate.
And these are so-called brilliant people.
It's a Bloomberg news story.
Groups representing Apple, Google, Facebook, and other high-profile tech companies are lobbying to pass a new bill that would attempt to limit NSA spying of email and communications of their users.
The report says the groups are pushing the Senate to pass legislation limiting the SA spying, NSA spying, before the Republican majority takes control of change.
Don't you think maybe it would be the Republican majority that you would want to lobby to dial back some of the spying that's going on?
You talk about a branding problem or branding issue, or but this is just sheer stupidity.
You know, all these companies have done everything they could to promote Obama and everything that he's doing.
He is the one who has set new boundaries and set new standards for spying on everybody.
And they hate it, but all of a sudden, it's gonna get bad if the Republicans or when the Republicans take control of the Senate.
What am I missing?
I'm not missing anything, right, Snur.
This is this is flat out, just it it's in our face.
Stupid.
Okay, the drug enforcement agency in the raid of three visiting NFL teams yesterday.
The San Francisco Forturners were raided in New Jersey after playing the New Jersey Giants.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were raided after playing the Washington Redskins.
And what was the uh what was the uh third to the Seahawks I think were raided after losing the Chiefs or some such thing.
Uh and a lot of people are the news media's all hot to trot about this and very excited about it.
I Let me just ask you a quick question that might help put some of this in perspective.
Well, let me before I asked a question.
Let me there's a setup, a piece here that may be a factor, I'm not sure if it is.
But a bunch of former players have filed a class action lawsuit against the league and teams for prescribing them or giving them medications to allow them to play, which ended up harming them.
Because they were not, they alleged they were not informed of the dangers involved, such as organ damage or addiction.
Sometimes the drugs were mixed in a cocktail formula where drugs should not have been mixed.
The players assumed that the teams were only looking out for them and doing what's best for them, and there was an implied trust there.
But it turns out the lawsuit alleges the teams didn't care, and the doctors didn't care.
All that mattered was getting the players ready to play, and if it meant uh pain management, if it meant uh shooting of a painkilling injections before and during a game, fine, whatever.
Now that lawsuit's been out there for a while to have this, and this DEA thing was run from the uh U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of Manhattan.
I'm not sure the two are connected because raids had nothing to do with the abuse of medication.
These raids had nothing to do with that.
The only thing that was being investigated, at least best information at hand, is that the DEA wanted to find out if the and the reason they they rated visiting teams, they wanted to find out if the doctors of the visiting teams were licensed to prescribe medication out of state.
For example, you got the Fordiners in New Jersey playing the Giants.
Team Doctor, every traveling party from San Francisco, is the San Francisco medical staff, the doctors, are they licensed to practice in New Jersey and dispense medication in New Jersey?
That apparently was the scope of the investigation.
And apparently there was the NFL says that uh everything's fine and dandy, nothing was was found to be untoward.
The larger thing here is the federal government has got something going for the NFL.
There is no question you've got the Redskins name change, and don't for a moment think that that is a non-factor here.
It may not be a major factor, it may not be the motivating factor, but it clearly is a factor because we have a federal government that has no qualms whatsoever about reaching its tentacles into the private sector any which way it can, any which day it wants to, for whatever reasons it wants to.
There's no question the NFL is in somebody's crosshairs here.
The NFL is in a lot of people's crosshairs over concussions this class action suit with the with the painkiller prescriptions or or or dispensations, uh the Redskins domestic abuse.
By the way, you know what I saw this, I guess, maybe for the second time yesterday.
Have you seen this?
The PSA that runs during games of NFL players saying no more.
You've not seen this.
This is a this is kind of a crazy thing.
You've got it's a PSA, and it leaves with Eli Manning and then a bunch of players, and some of them you recognize and some of them you don't.
And they all say, no more.
No more.
Together we can do it.
No more.
And it goes on like that for 35 or 45 seconds.
And then the end of it, there's a graphic.
Together we can stop domestic abuse.
And I'm I'll watch it and I say, wait a minute.
Are they telling me?
I mean, I'm I'm watching the games.
I'm in the NFL uh audience per se.
I didn't know that it was fans doing the abuse.
I thought it was players.
And yet here are the players doing a PSA yelling at the audience.
Stop it.
Stop it.
Together we can stop it.
You stop it.
We stop it.
We're going to stop.
Together we can stop domestic abuse.
I didn't know I was committing any.
It seems like the fans ought to be running the PSA in the locker rooms of the teams.
It seems like we ought to be producing the PS.
Stop it.
Stop it.
Me, snurdly, whoever, stop it.
The end of it, stop domesticating it.
And it plays in the Ravens dressing room, it plays in the port, wherever we play it.
Why are they telling us to stop it?
What are we doing?
So anyway, that's that's going on.
But let me ask you a question.
In all of the circumstances in which a player is suspended for uh using banned substances, for example.
Just forget domestic abuse now, and forget whether or not you engage in corporal punishment of your own child.
Just stick now with players who are banned and suspended for using substances that are not permitted.
Have you ever heard?
Have you do you ever recall a player being suspended for being caught using heroin or a derivative?
You do not, do you?
You do not, do you?
Have you ever heard of a player suspended because he was engaged in uh he was found to be using Vicodin or PERCOSet.
No, you haven't.
Now you've heard of them being banned and suspended for cocaine, for PEDs, for HGH, human growth hormone, for uh some of them get banned because they take a diet supplement that's got something in it that's not loud.
Uh but never anything to do with opiates.
Have you ever noticed that?
You probably haven't.
Well, the reason you haven't is because opiates are dispensed as painkillers.
Just like everybody else gets them if they're in severe pain, surgical, post-op, whatever.
And you know what they're percocet, they're Vicodin, and you name it.
And they are routinely prescribed this stuff.
And so you can't very well have a test that reveals a player has opiates in his system and ban him when in fact they are given out in order to deal with the pain and suffering of playing the game.
But the teams do not dispense cocaine.
They do not dispense crystal meth.
They do not dispense alcohol.
You've seen players banned for alcohol abuse for for DUI, but never for anything opiate written.
It's because it's used.
So I mention this only to call your attention.
Here you had a DEA investigation into uh the abuse of opiates.
That doesn't wash.
That really now, except maybe from the standpoint are the doctors who are giving it out legally license to do so.
But the investigation here looked like it targeted the doctors.
Now there's also, you've heard of painkilling injections.
Those are not opiates.
You cannot, you cannot give a player an opiate, a traditional painkiller, on game day and have him perform because of the the way it works.
It it does the exact opposite of what they want.
They want players emotionally Peaked and just ready to go and filled with energy that's almost uncontrollable, and when one o'clock or kickoff on Sunday comes, it explodes.
And that does not happen to you if you're medicated with painkillers.
So what they use on game day is something called toridol.
And it is non-narcotic, it is not addictive, but it is really dangerous.
That is when you read of a painkilling injection being given any athlete, the odds are it's tordol.
You may have taken tordol in your life.
The over the counter name for it's not over the counter.
The uh the the generic name for it's catoralac.
But the oral form of it is not nearly as effective as as having it IV or or in a shot.
And it works.
It works like that without any narcotic effect, and without any uh uh any any addictive characteristics, it's it's non-addictive, it's non it doesn't,
it doesn't promote uh any kind of dependence or addiction, but if you ever need this stuff, and if it's prescribed to you responsibly, your doctor will tell you do not take this for more than five days because of the liver.
It the it it is metabolized as all drugs in the liver.
There's a price for everything.
And and this stuff, it really does get rid of severe pain in a non-narcotic way, but it also can do a lot of damage to the liver and kidneys.
And in in the in the lawsuit that the players have filed against the league, you've heard some players say, I got renal failure, I got these painkilling injury, I got renal failure, I got a kidney failure, I got that's probably that this tordol is is used quite frequently, and I've I I don't know how uh I I don't I don't I have no way of knowing and nobody does how responsibly it's used or not.
All I know is I've needed it, but the only reason I know is because I've need I have to take that.
I can't take any other kind.
And when it's prescribed to me, no more than five days.
I've even had a pharmacist if one prescription said ten days of I'm not gonna give you more than five days of this stuff because it's just it's that caustic.
It can do that much damage to your to your liver or or kidneys.
So that's that's an aspect of this of this too, particularly in the on the lawsuit.
But if if you're thinking about this DEA raid and you hear about all the painkiller stuff, just stop and remember that not a single player's ever been suspended for using those things.
Or for testing positive for it.
They don't even test for it.
They couldn't because it's it's their standard operating procedure for anybody who has experienced anything a post-op pain that's severe or this.
Okay, time to squeeze in a phone call here, folks, as we cover all the bases each and every day on the most listened to radio talk show in the country, you're gonna go to Baltimore.
This is Tim.
Thank you for waiting, sir.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Hi.
I uh recently bought my daughter Audrey, your latest book for her seventh birthday.
And as I was talking about some of the things that because we're reading the book together, as I'm talking about a country, I started to realize what we really need is a leader to stand up and put country before party and actually say if you vote us out, then vote us out.
But we're going to stand up for the fundamentals and the principles that make this country and have made it a lot of people.
See, I agree I agree a hundred percent with that, and I think it would be rewarded.
I don't think I don't think it would be rejected if it if if I'm gonna get into this in more detail in the in the in a few minutes here.
So I don't want to take away from your time on the phone here.
But I I I think it would be rewarded.
I don't I don't think it would cause people to get thrown out and rejected.
But even if it did, I get your point.
I I completely agree.
It's as a byproduct, the people will respect and follow somebody who does that.
And back to the principles that you're you you go to government to serve the people and not be there to be served.
And that's kind of the fundamental that I've been teaching Audrey as as we're reading the book together.
It's just get back to the basics and the fundamentals, take out the politics and make America, you know, what it was when we were.
You know, I'm sure uh rewriting those books and and revisiting American history myself.
It all seems so quaint now.
Everything now seems uh like it is a 180, like that we're here to serve government.
Uh we we're here to please them.
We're here to make sure we don't make them mad.
We're here to you know make sure we don't go afoul of their regulations.
We seem to be uh living our lives in hopes they leave us alone.
It is, it's it's stood everything upside down on top of its head.
You're exactly right.
You have another listener for life with uh me teaching my daughter.
She always hears me listening to Uncle Russell.
Well, I'm uh that's that's great.
I appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
I um of course I I love hearing this.
Naturally I would.
But you know what one of the reasons for these books.
There's no way seven-year-olds, seventh graders, eighth graders are gonna listen to this program.
I mean, even if their parents have it on.
And yet, I'm very proud of what we do here.
I wish everybody listened.
I hope it I was the theme, the mission, the message of this program reached everybody.
That's what these books are about is to get it to the younger demographic and and counter obviously what they're also being taught in the uh in the public schools.
So I appreciate that very much.
In the meantime, folks, here's a uh a brief timeout, and we just keep churning it out here.
Barely, barely scratch surface even now, so don't go away.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Rush limbaugh, rock and tour, radio rack and tour, radio all round good guy, award-winning author, historian, and media expert, extraordinaire.
You're a highly trained broadcast specialist here behind the golden EIB microphone.
Back to the audio sound bites.
Richard in Jackson, Michigan, hang on.
Do not go.
He's talking about net neutrality.
We'll get to him just a second.
Bob Schaefer, I mentioned earlier that Bob Schaeffer, he just beside himself.
When when when he learned what Gruber said that they lied and they had to lie about Obamacare, because people are so stupid.
And here he is on Face and Nation, yes, he's on his way to a Ron Fournier moment.
Uh uh an emotional come to Jesus breakdown.
But he doesn't quite get there.
He still can't find his way to blame Obama.
Obama for it.
I was dumbstruck when I heard the comments that are surfacing from an economist named Jonathan Gruber, who was paid four hundred thousand dollars to help shape the president's health care plan.
I'll be honest.
While I favor health insurance, I am not wild about the new plan and how it became law either.
But here is my question for Mr. Gruper.
If all this was as bad as you say, why did you take the money you earned as an advisor?
Nor is it too late to give it back.
As for the president, he may want to consider that old politician's prayer.
Lord, I can take care of my enemies, just protect me from my friends.
You know, uh you hear something like this, and you say, what good is Bob Schaefer?
I mean, he's a journalist.
He supposedly is a dean.
He's one of the all guard.
He's one of the guys that's been around since Edward R. Murrow was in diapers.
I mean, he's one of these guys, been there, he's seen everything, been there, done that.
Nothing can surprise Bob Schiefer.
He's seen the best, he's seen the worst, he's seen the underside, the inside, the outside of the belly, he's seen all the orifices, and yet he remains as naive as somebody watching their first newscast.
I'll be honest, while I favor health insurance, really, who doesn't?
Is somebody is anybody opposed to health insurance?
Well, I don't have any.
I'm frankly that's another story.
But I'm not opposed to it.
Well, I favor health insurance.
I'm not wild about the new plan and how it became Well, where were you when all that was happening, Bob?
Giving all this airtime to all these people Lying to everybody about it and not questioning it, even though you weren't crazy about it.
What what purpose did you serve here?
Bob, I'm serious.
I'm not trying to be mean or disrespectful.
I'm I'm it's a legitimate question.
If if if this is how you feel, then why?
Oh, journalistic objectivity cannot, cannot.
I get it.
I cannot inject myself in the story.
Oh, why didn't I realize that?
Must be the first time it hasn't happened.
But here's my question for Gruber.
If it's as bad as you say, why'd you take them?
Mr. Schiefer, have you seen Gruber?
He's running around celebrating this.
He and his economics buddies are yucking it up.
They're laughing, they're having the grandest.
They ran a giant con and they got away with it.
And they are applauding themselves and laughing at how stupid the American people and by connection, the media, has to be in order for them to have succeeded.
What do you mean give the money back?
You think Gruber's ashamed of anything here?
They're not ashamed.
They are proud of themselves, Bob.
They ran a giant con and they're still running the con.
That's the key.
You never admit it was a con.
You never tell the people you con that you condom.
That's the mistake Gruber made.
He couldn't keep it to himself.
You never give up the con, but he couldn't help it.
He was so proud of himself.
He was so proud of the way he so intelligently made fools of people.
And how easy it was.
Because they're so stupid, and he lied through his teeth, and they bought every syllable.
Isn't it great?
Isn't it great?
And you you think he's going to give back the money?
And by the way, this guy is not an enemy of Obama.
They're buddies.
They're from the same womb.
The same ideological womb.
So what good is any of it?
Here's Obama.
This takes us to where we're headed here in this segment this Sunday morning in Brisbane.
This is the end of the G twenty summit.
Obama with a press conference, and CBS correspondent Major Garrett said, how much do you fear the government will shut down?
And to what degree does your anxiety about this, or your team's anxiety about this, influence the timing of your decision on amnesty?
I take Mitch McConnell at his word when he says that the government's not going to shut down.
There's no reason for it to shut down.
We traveled down that path before.
It was bad for the country.
It was bad for every elected official in Washington.
No, it no it wasn't.
At the end of the day, it was resolved in the same way that it would have been resolved if we hadn't shut the government down.
So that's not going to be productive.
That's not even true.
Look, there was a government shutdown.
I don't even, and I do this for a living.
I don't even remember what it was about.
That's how big it was.
Now, Snerdley, who is a wonk, he probably remembers.
All I know is that Ted Cruz are getting blamed for it.
What was it over?
Continuing resolution for funding.
Okay, so we shut down the government over the mechanism that we were going to pay for the next series of months of government, the continuing resolution.
The Republicans have been trying to stop the Democrats and get them to do a budget.
As required by law.
And they've been doing this continuing resolution stuff, which I know there were the typical sleigh ride guy at Jellystone got cited for a while, and but he got his money back.
They all do.
The government workers that lost their jobs for a couple of days got their Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys.
It always ends up that way.
The point is, there was a government shutdown.
There were no politicians that got hurt.
The last I looked, the Republicans won a landslide election last week or week and a half ago.
And they were the guys blamed for the shutdown last January.
Am I right?
The Republicans were blamed for the shutdown last December, 2013, right?
Okay.
Single-handedly, Ted Cruz and the Republicans were tarred and feathered and blamed, And they were everything was laid at their feet.
It's a disaster.
And what happened?
The Republicans win a landslide election.
Less than a year later.
So where is it written that government shutdowns?
Now, granted, a government shutdown, the media is going to hate you.
And the media is going to say mean things about you.
And the media is going to call you racist and sexist and bigot and homophobic.
And the media is going to call you mean-spirited, and the media is going to call you extremist, and the media is going to say you don't like the little gang, and the media is going to lie about you.
But it didn't hurt, did it?
If the Republican shutting down the government last January was political disaster, somebody explained the results to me from ten days ago.
But I know how the inside the beltway thinks, and it is typified here and personified by Britt Hume of Fox News.
This is yesterday in Fox News Sunday during the panel discussion of host Chris Wallace speaking with senior political analyst Britt Hume about immigration reform and the federal budget.
And Chris Wallace said, if Republicans somehow tie funding of the government to opposition to this executive action, is it a smart political move or is it another mistake?
No, what the question is, if the Republicans tried to stop Obama from doing amnesty by denying funding for this aspect of it and that aspect of it, you know, a bunch of different aspects of it.
Wallace is asking Hume, is that a smart political move, or would that be another mistake?
Meaning, would it be dumb to deny the government money?
Or would it be good politics?
It's a total blunder to try that.
It is an iron rule in Washington, exemplified many times, that if the government shuts down, the Republicans get to blame.
Not some of the blame, not most of the blame, all of the blame.
And one would surmise that they may have learned that by now.
Their leaders seem to have, but there are some within the House and Senate who still think that uh that kind of a brinkmanship might work.
I doubt it.
And then Carl Rove this morning on Fox and Friends.
And he was being interviewed by Elizabeth Hasselbeck.
By the way, welcome back to her.
She had a cancer scare out there.
She's gone for a month, she'd back.
She said Republicans are now weighing a government shutdown to put pressure against the president who seems to be ready to uh use executive actions as it relates to immigration.
Is that a good move or not, Carl?
Actually, it's not Republicans, it's a few Republicans.
When we'd had the government shutdown last year, you may remember the poll in the immediate aftermath.
17% of the American people approved of it.
81% didn't.
And who'd they blame?
I think it was like 59% blamed the Republicans.
It took us a year to get back.
Uh what uh you got back, though, right?
And how'd you do that?
It took a year to get back, but you got back.
How did you how'd you get back?
What happened?
You got back because people wanted you to stop Obama.
Now, on this shutdown business, I think in the first place, this is not technically a government shutdown.
Just telling Obama we're not gonna give you the money for, say, uh driver's license for these people.
We're not gonna give you the money for social security cards for these people.
We're not gonna give you the money.
How the hell is that a government shutdown for crying out loud?
But even if it is, it seems to me, and I say this, I'm telling with all due respect, I I am I'm not a flamethrower here, and I'm not trying to pick a fight.
I am just trying to serve this audience the best I can.
And I it seems to me that this fear that whenever anything happens, that the media can call a government shutdown, and therefore we can't do it because the Republicans are gonna get blamed no more.
You don't want that.
Aren't you kind of being just like Jonathan Gruber in assuming the people are so stupid they won't be able to figure out who's really responsible for this?
Add to this the fact, if you want to talk polling data, whatever poll you want to cite, you've got 55 to 60 percent of the American people who disapprove of Obamacare and want it repealed.
So if you take action to deny Obama funding to implement it, and somebody calls that a government shutdown, how in the hell are the people going to get mad at you for trying to stop the implementation of Obamacare when that's what you were elected to do?
This inordinate fear that the Republicans are no matter what happens, going to get blamed for it, seems to rely on the fact that the American people are so stupid that they will always believe what the media tells them,
and that they will never question it, and that the re if this is the way you look at the why should the Republicans ever oppose anything?
Because we know what the media is going to say about them.
The media is going to call the Republicans' names no matter what the Republicans do or say.
And if our policy decisions are going to be rooted in trying to limit what the media says, aren't we conceding defeat?
And aren't we at the same time pretty much saying that we are afraid that the American people are too stupid to see our actions for what they are, and that is trying to save the country from the disasters of Obama's policy implementations.
And I would say the same thing about amnesty.
A majority of the American people, no matter where you look, no matter what poll, nobody's in favor of it.
Nobody wants executive amnesty.
It's not a majority because nothing Obama's doing is a majority position sport.
So any action a Republicans might take after having won a landslide election.
You that I mean, that has to be a factor here.
They were just elected to stop this stuff.
And so they take action to stop it.
And the media accuses them of shutting down the government, and the American people are so stupid that right then and there they're going to regret that they voted for the Republicans.
And the Republicans are going to be paying the price for what, another year till the next election, under two years?
How did the Republicans win this election if they got blamed for the shutdown last December?
Well, it took a year to get back.
Well, how do they get they got back?
I don't know.
I I think this is unnecessarily tying your own hands behind your back.
I gotta take a break.
More phone calls when we get back.
So sit tight, folks, don't go away.
Okay, so the establishment, they say they will not shut down the government.
What that means is they're not gonna deny Obama any funding to implement his various schemes.
So what are they gonna do?
I mean, they were elected to do something here.
They were elected to stop this.
Even if you think they were elected to do more than that, fine and dandy.
Uh I don't want to get into an argument about that, but you can't deny that part and parcel of the reason for this electoral win was to stop what is happening.
And if they're not going to use the power to purse, and if they're not going to use impeachment, then what are they going to do to stop it?
That's gonna get them in more trouble with voters than any so-called government shutdown.
The worst thing they could do is ignore the mandate the voters gave them.
That looks like what they're aiming for.
Here's uh here's Richard and Jackson, Michigan.
I'm glad you waited.
I'm glad to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hello, Rush.
Hey.
Megados, I've been listening since you were on TV.
Well, I appreciate it.
That goes in 1992.
That's many, many moons ago.
That's still while.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, you were talking about uh uh the government wanting to do the net neutrality and take over the uh internet.
That's exactly the way to put it.
The government wants to take over the internet just like they want to take over every other utility and monopolize it.
And they want to make it fair for everybody in the beautiful thing, fair, equal for everyone, like everything is fair and equal for everybody now.
Yep.
What are your thoughts on your thoughts on that, Richard?
That uh uh their equalization will be the same way that they equalized education, which is the lowest common denominator.
So whose ever internet was the slowest, everybody else will that.
The same objective exists in net neutrality as exists in Obamacare.
What's the objective in Obamacare?
To wipe out private sector insurance ultimately.
You partner with them first, you butter them up, and eventually the government becomes single payer.
That's where you go.
Net neutrality.
These we know who these people are.
Forget the title.
Forget net neutrality.
The objective here is for Obama, the Democrat, the government, to run the Internet.
Now, if that's what you want, if you think the government should run the Internet, and if you think the government creates and causes innovation to happen, why then have at it, folks?
Net neutrality is about an accurate a title as the Affordable Care Act is a title for Obamacare.
And nothing neutral about net neutrality.
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