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Dec. 12, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:22
December 12, 2014, Friday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost always right 99.7% of the time.
Views expressed by the host on this program, not necessarily the viewers of the staff, management, nor sponsors of this station.
It should be, will be sometime real soon.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Open Life Fridays 800-282-2882.
The difference in Open Line Friday and Monday through Thursday is an illusion.
It really isn't any difference.
But I intend for there to be.
The intention on Friday is that anybody can talk about whatever they want.
It doesn't have to be politics.
It doesn't have to be the news of the day.
It can be whatever your imagination wants to talk about.
That's not the case Monday through Thursday.
We kind of tightly control it.
Topic, issue, and subject wise.
And I'm going to get to the phones here right now.
Just a short minute or two.
Since I failed to get a call in the first hour.
I checked the email during the break.
And there's a lot of confusion.
No.
Confusion is the wrong word.
There's a lot of curiosity.
Where do we stand on this thing now?
And uh I it's a legitimate question because the way this has been reported is that it's a done deal.
It's a done deal because the House voted and finally voted for the rule and then voted for the whole thing, and it's done, and it's considered a rubber stamp in the Senate, and so it's done.
But it isn't yet, is the thing.
The media is reporting that it's done, but it's it's really not, and all eyes are focused on Elizabeth Warren.
And the question is, can she stop it?
Now, everything I mentioned in the previous hour is true.
Obama and Stenny Hoyer and uh uh Biden, these guys are all helping Boehner.
All the Democrats are doing everything they can to help Boehner, or did do everything they could to help Boehner get the votes that he needed in the House.
It was the strangest thing.
So now the attention shifts focus to the Senate, and the question there is can Democrats in the Senate still scuttle this thing?
And the answer is yes.
They could still scuttle the deal, but they can't do it alone.
And there's the rub.
They're going to need some help from Republicans if the Senate is to stop this from happening.
Now, what we're talking about is the 1.1 trillion dollar.
It's called the omnibus spending or cromnibus, and some people have even given to calling it the crimebus because they think it's an outrage the way it's happening, because it it really is a piece of legislation that is in Stark in your face.
Opposition to the people who voted this past November.
The American people want no part of this, or very little of it.
And the Washington establishment doesn't care.
And a lot of people are fuming and rightfully feeling that, well, what's the election not matter?
And I'll tell you, you know, that the answer to that question is a question a lot of people don't want to hear the answer to.
So here's where we are, and a little help here from Fox News.
They've had some analysts looking at this, trying to figure out where it goes from here.
Now, last night, both the House and the Senate passed a two-day continuing resolution to keep the government running and avoid a partial shutdown.
The House also passed the omnibus.
This 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill that funds the remaining nine and a half months of the government's fiscal year through September 30th.
Now, stop there for a moment.
A lot of people think that's asinine.
The Republicans just won a landslide election.
Why do a build that funds the government for the rest of this fiscal year, which basically takes a year away from the Republicans and the power they have over the budget.
Next year and the year after the Republicans won the show and run the budget if they want to, albeit with Obama.
So why punt one of those two years, which is what's happened by going for the omnibus to fund it all the way through?
And the Republican establishment's answer to that is, well, you know, we uh just we need to fund the government and then take care of that because the president will present his budget in February for 2016, and that's where we'll fight.
And a bunch of us, frankly, are getting really tired of the Republicans saying, let's go ahead and let this happen now, and in a couple of months, that's when we'll kick butt.
They never kick butt is the problem.
So what happened is the House passes the omnibus bill that funds the remaining nine and a half months of the federal fiscal year, but funding immigration programs for just three months, which will allow Republicans to try to roll back Obama's executive amnesty after the Senate is in Republicans' hands.
Now, the House's move punted the ball over to the Senate for final passage, and then Obama's signature.
But that's not as easy as it seems with Elizabeth Warren lurking in the weeds.
The Senate convened at 10 o'clock this morning, but had to first finish the National Defense Authorization Act, and time will run out on that bill sometime this afternoon, until the must-pass military measure is finished.
Harry Reid cannot file cloture to move to the vote on the spending package, and he needs 60 votes for it.
They can't get to it till this afternoon until they finish this military funding thing, which is a mass requirement.
And this afternoon becomes the critical or crucial moment for the bill.
Because if Elizabeth Warren, Foca Huttas, and liberal senators get enough help from conservative Republicans opposed to the bill for other reasons, they could prevent it from advancing.
It still could be stopped this afternoon.
But nobody knows.
Nobody really has a lay of the land to know if that's going to happen or not.
They have to find 41 votes to stop it.
And finding 41 votes for what would essentially be a government shutdown is what the drive-by snake is impossible to do.
Because nobody wants to shut down the government.
Nobody wants to get blamed for shutting down the government.
So if the bill is stopped, the end result's a government shutdown, and that is the big obstacle that's in the way, the abject fear of that.
Now it is reported that both conservatives and liberals have some additional options even after the thing passes, if it does.
For example, a single senator or a small group could insist on using all 30 hours of debate time, which would push past the two-day emergency funding plan that was approved last night.
Remember, it's only just two days that they gave them.
So if finding 41 votes is a tough thing, because that's a government shutdown.
But even at that, there's still some other things they could do, like insist on full-fledged 30 hours of debate, which would then cause the current two-day spending measure to expire.
That would force leaders to go back to the House for yet another emergency patch, if you will, say of another 48 hours to fund the government.
You see how ridiculous this is getting.
And another vote in the House would give conservatives who they say they were lied to by House leaders into backing the emergency bill a chance to redo their vote.
And this takes us back to the Santa impersonator and.
Martin Martin Stutz.
Stutzman, who openly claims he was lied to about this.
Just to refresh your memory, Stutzman was promised, if he voted for the continuing resolution, the rule, not the ACR, but if he for the uh for the procedural vote, if he voted for the rule that they would pull the omnibus and enact a 30-day continuing resolution to get the Republicans in power in both the House and the Senate, and then start working on the Omni.
And they lied to him.
They didn't pull the omnibus.
So again, if they get back to the House, if they have to go back to the House for another 48-hour emergency funding patch.
That would give these conservatives who say they were lied to by House leaders into backing the emergency bill on the grounds that the bill was uh dead and buried, and with the shutdown threat revived.
Liberals and conservatives alike could make some additional demands, or at least use the time to try to find 51 senators to vote against final package.
Now, it must be said that while on paper, this sounds, hey, this sounds like it could all shake out.
The odds of it happening are said to be very unlikely.
But the procedure provides some sticking points to bedevil the establishment, also some unhappy votes for ideological purists.
The Senate can avoid this whole mess by invoking unanimous consent to vote on the big spending bill this afternoon.
But if one senator objects, then the whole decision is rejected, and that would mean that the Elizabeth Warren wing and the Republican rebels alike would all have to cave to some degree.
So this is a is an outline of what would have to happen to once again scuttle it or put some roadblocks up.
And everybody involved thinks all of this is really, really unlikely to happen.
But it could still.
And a lot depends on Elizabeth Warren and just how big a flag she wants to plant on this.
So we'll just sit back and casually observe and see what happens.
But the smart money is that it's going to happen with no controversy whatsoever, that it's practically already a fate accomplished.
I just wanted to tell you for people sending me emails.
Is there still a way of stopping it?
I wanted to run down the ways for you that could happen.
But again, tell you smart money says not very likely.
Okay, to the phones we're going to start.
Nelsonville, Ohio.
This is Ron.
I'm glad that you waited, sir.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Mr. Lembaugh, after 20 plus years, I finally got a hold of you.
Here you are.
My Christmas present.
Sir, I really appreciate what you're doing.
My thought is there's been a deal made.
The Republicans wanted changes to the Dodd Frank and the campaign limits.
Mr. Obama and the Democrats want his amnesty program with no problems, and they don't want any more fiddling with Obamacare.
So there's been a deal.
The Republicans get what they want, the Democrats do what they want, and the voting public in the United States again.
I think it's pretty safe, Bet.
I think a pretty safe bet.
I mean, within parameters, I think you're exactly right.
And it's exactly the kind of thing that happens.
And it's going to make people think like this election that just happened was meaningless.
That the elected officials are not even paying attention or listening to it.
It was meaningless.
They don't vote for the people.
People, they vote their own self-interest, and that's it.
Well, that no, it's that's that's sadly a reality more often than uh than not.
But the that that's, by the way, his point here that the deal is in, and that both parties have made claims to what they really want, and they've Seen to it that both sides get what they really.
That's the biggest argument in favor of nothing going wrong this afternoon to scuttle the thing in the Senate because both sides eventually have struck a deal where they both are getting what they want out of this.
Again, it still it falls back to Focahattas, the fake African American Elizabeth Warren.
Indian American, yes.
The fake native American.
Right.
And their presidential politics all surrounding that.
And one of the things we talked about yesterday, uh, some of the uh again, when I say smart money, I'm talking about the so-called inside the beltway experts, consultants, and media.
They found out that Hillary Clinton is still accepting paid speaking engagements all the way through next March.
And so they're beginning to ask themselves, maybe she's not going to run.
Maybe she's not going to run for president, because in 2007 she announced in January.
And you don't take paid speech engagements after you have announced.
Everything you do after that is a freebie because you're campaigning.
So maybe she's not going to run.
Now they're saying today, no, no, no, that wasn't right.
Mrs. Clinton is so confident that she's got this in the bag.
She isn't going to wait till April or May next year to announce.
And then the smart money is saying that's a very egregious error, because that just expands the opening for Focahattus to go in there and start scoring points and trashing Hillary and trashing whatever she doesn't like about the Democrat Party and really rallying the Democrat base, which any Democrat nominee is going to need.
Okay, got a break.
We'll come back and continue more phone calls because it's open line Friday right after this.
And back to the phones because it's open line Friday.
Here is George in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Thanks, Rush.
Hey, I'm I'm calling to tell you what I think is the most inspiring thing you've said on your program in 19 years.
And that would be six years ago when you lamented how so how so many people do not use the gifts that God gave them.
And I got to tell you, Rush, that inspired me to use a gift that I hadn't used for a long time, and I thank you so much.
But it strikes me that that really encapsulates everything you've been saying.
You want a country, a society to you to that encourages people to use the gifts that God gave them, and that's what I call the telly rush.
Well, I appreciate that.
I I remember it well.
I've said it um a number of times.
Uh the one of the one of the ways of expressing it, I've I'll try this again.
There's so many things that are misunderstood about people who engage in political discussions, because so much of politics is about arguing to win and to lose.
And in politics, when you talk about people losing, well, there are negative consequences to that.
But in in you know, my fervent hope, and as a conservative, and I know I speak for every conservative when I say we love everybody, and we want everybody to succeed.
And that desire is really the foundation of every conservative economic and social belief.
We don't want people to have to be dependent on people that really don't care about them.
We don't want people to have to be dependent on people that uh are really not interested in it.
We don't want people to have to be dependent on people who are using them.
We want people to experience the great things about achievement and accomplishment and success, because that's how we have a great country.
That is how we have a wonderful society.
Now, it's obvious not everybody's gonna be able to do it.
Some people are never going to find what it is they're good at.
Some people simply are not gonna find what it is they want to do.
And that's always been something that has been somewhat disappointing because I was lucky.
I found out really early, early in life.
I found when I was eight years old, I knew what I wanted to do.
Some form of it.
I knew what I wanted to do when I was eight years old.
And I have been nothing but dedicated to those desires.
And it's true, the old saw that if you're doing what you love, you'll never work a day in your life.
Sounds kind of cliched, but it really is true.
And if more people had the good fortune of actually discovering their passion, their true passion, and if they could figure out a way to get paid for it, then they would know life and success and all kinds of happiness in ways that eludes them otherwise.
And that's what I wish for for people.
Welcome back.
It's open line Friday, Rush Limbaugh executing a sign host duties flawlessly, zero mistakes.
I want to continue on this vein for just a second, and maybe I can make a point that you know I assume it's understood.
And oftentimes that's a mistake.
Uh uh to understand or to expect that a core belief is understood.
Therefore, you don't need to express the core belief.
And as as I watch things, I'm beginning to think that there's a lot of misunderstanding about particularly conservative core beliefs.
Now let's let's take the conservative opposition of big government.
A lot of people, and make no mistake about this, a lot of people think that the conservative opposition of big government is rooted in the fact that we want people to suffer.
As strange and as impossible as that sounds, there are people to believe it.
And of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
The truth is that we as conservatives know that nobody is ever going to come close to anywhere reaching their potential or enjoying life the best and most they can if they end up dependent on anything.
Parents, a political party, a government.
The core principle of conservatism is wanting the absolute best for the human race.
It's wanting the and we understand that that is possible only with liberty and freedom.
Liberty and freedom to be the best we can be, liberty and freedom to be what we want to be, applied according to our ambitions and our desires.
We realize that people's lives are being stunted, their opportunity is being cut back and thwarted, the more they are talked into depending on other people.
Now, in the process of trying to be the best you can be, in the process of using liberty and freedom to find out what it is you love and then to go attack it and do it, there's going to be some pain.
It's not a smooth ride for anybody.
There are ups and downs.
And there are plenty of times where there are periods with no income, for example.
What do you do then?
And all of these variables have to get factored in, but the core belief should never be thoroughly and totally shattered simply because there are interruptions in the journey.
We also realists know that not everybody's a self-starter, and not everybody is uh is gonna be the best at whatever it is they want to do.
And we realize that not everybody's gonna figure out what they want to do, but it's the effort and the desire to do so that is the key.
And anything that thwarts that and replaces it with dependency, we think is destructive to people.
And we love people.
We don't want things to be destructive to people.
And it's you know the thing about conservatism and pursuing your dreams, pursuing your desires, it's hard.
But oftentimes people don't see the pain and the hard work.
They only see the end result.
They see a successful individual, and not realize what it took to get there, what happened along the way, and want immediate gratification, want to live like that, be like that, whatever it is, as quickly as possible.
So there's a constant battle.
We're always at war with people who tell us that our version of achieving a great society is thwarted because the people we're up against don't really believe people are capable of it.
Your average leftist, socialist, communist democrat views average people with contempt.
We don't.
We view average people as untapped potential.
Our desire is to get as many obstacles out of their way as possible.
We want everybody to succeed, however they define it.
But it's not Pollyanish.
And it's not rose-colored glasses.
We don't believe everybody can be Bill Gates, everybody become Warren Buffett.
We don't believe that at all.
But we do believe in liberty and freedom and human potential and all of these things coming together, equaling and resulting in an absolutely great country, however, you define that.
A thriving, growing economy with a fine underpinning of morality and decency.
And all of this stuff that we look at, we see it crumbling every day, rips our heart.
I'd just speak for myself.
Rips my heart out, see this stuff happen every day.
The stuff at Ferguson, Missouri, and the stuff with Eric Garner.
Uh rips my heart out.
And then to see people try to take advantage of it and use those examples, loudly use those examples to tell everybody, see America's a false promise.
See, this whole business of liberty and freedom is a false promise because of all the racism and discrimination and bigotry and all that.
We've all got our obstacles to overcome.
We all face people that discriminate against us.
We all face people that are mean to us, we all face unfairness, we all face inequity of some kind.
No two people are the same, no two results are the same, outcomes cannot possibly be made the same.
But it is the quest to be the best you can be.
It's the quest to learn, the quest to achieve things in life that gives you an identity.
That's about self-esteem is where your self-esteem is rooted.
And if we look at liberalism as denying even the opportunity from people to find themselves, to find their spot in life, to find their happiness, to find fulfillment.
And the reason there's such misery on the left, the reasons it's unhappiness on the left is because they don't have a prayer of being fulfilled.
A, they're told they can't, B, they're told to wait on other people to make it happen for them who can't make it happen for them.
All they can do is spread misery around equally.
And so when I say that the greatest thing that can happen to somebody is to find out what you want to do or find out what your passion is and go for it.
It's the single greatest result you can have in your life as an adult, aside from family and all of those things.
But speaking strictly personally here, you know you have to love yourself before anybody else will.
You have to be happy with yourself before anybody else will.
You have to take care of yourself for it.
That's not selfishness.
Self-interest and selfishness are two totally different things.
It's self-interest.
Everybody pursuing self-interest is how everybody else grows because the benefits spread, the results multiply, and people generally do far better relying on themselves than sitting around waiting for false promises to be made.
You can see it, that's the thing about it.
You can see the absolute distortion.
How many Americans we have not working now?
92, almost 93 million.
Not working.
And I guarantee you they're not happy.
They're all eating.
They all have TVs, but they're not happy.
There's a degree of unsettledness or disquiet in malaise and all those people.
In fact, this would be a good time to tell you.
Share with you a New York Times story.
There's a whole stack of stuff here about the new Malays in America.
And I said the Obama administration would be the second term of Jimmy Carter.
Now you got the media basically writing that very fact, not calling it the second term, but making comparisons to public attitudes, Jimmy Carter, and public attitudes now.
The New York Times has a fascinating story, The Vanishing Male Worker.
How America Fell Behind.
And it is a story about men, primarily in the 25 to 54 demographic.
This story details the deep changes in our country culture society, which have made it easier to live without working.
And that's not good.
Sixteen percent of men, 25 to 54, are not working.
Now, one of the reasons that they're not working, and there are many reasons.
There are economic reasons, Obama economic policy reasons.
Feminism is a reason.
Fewer men attending college because they've been chickafied.
And why go to a place you're going to be portrayed as a rapist or the enemy all day?
Well, who needs that?
It's tough enough.
Well, not showing up someplace just because you have male genitalia makes you a predator and a bad guy.
Who needs that?
So they're staying away in droves.
And that is having an impact on jobs, status, self-esteem, you name it.
But there's also less pressure to find jobs because more and more men in this demographic remain unmarried.
And so there is no necessity to provide for dependence.
No wife, no family.
Just you, okay.
Sit around drink beer all day, watch TV, watch ESPN, fine.
You're not affecting anybody else.
You're not letting anybody else down, just yourself.
But it's less pressure, less performance pressure.
So you don't need to go out and focus on yourself as much.
You don't need to go out, especially if a benefit here feeds you and a benefit over there gives you a phone and a benefit over here enables you to watch sports on TV.
You got a TV, so you're fine.
Many men, from this story, many men in particular have decided that low-wage work will not improve their lives.
In other words, entry positions start out, not going to help me.
In part because deep changes in American society have made it easier for them to live without working.
When I, you know, people misunderstand this.
When I make the point we got 92 million Americans not working, but they're all eating, that's not a criticism of them.
Many people hear it that way.
I have been surprised to learn.
See, to me, that's something that there ought not be any confusion about at all.
The degree to which that is misunderstood has always surprised me.
92, 93 million people not working and they're all eating is not good.
But I'm not calling them sloths.
I'm not calling them worthless.
What I'm saying is if you've got 92, 93 million Americans not working and they're all eating, there's no need for them to get a job.
And that doesn't help anybody.
It certainly doesn't help them.
It's not good overall for the economy and every derivative involved.
But the liberals might look at it and say it's the greatest compassionate statistic you come up with.
You telling me that we have a country with 92 million people aren't working and they're all eating.
Wow, we are good people.
No, that's not what it says.
It means we've really gone off the rails because somebody's paying for it.
And we're going into deep debt that we can never repay, paying for it.
It's not somebody, it's not all of our responsibility to make sure that 92 million who've chosen not to work eat.
It's their responsibility.
So if you take away responsibility from people, then you are also taking away any expectations of them, and you are by definition saying You don't think they're worth much.
And that's not doing them any good either.
Do you raise your kids telling them they're worthless?
Well, some of you might.
I'm not saying every parent's good.
But most of you raise your kids.
Certainly, you don't want them to believe they're worthless.
You may even go overboard in telling them they're special.
But you certainly don't want them feeling worthless.
You know that's not good for them.
You want them to have a sense of purpose.
You want the world to be a better place because they are in it, because you gave birth, they're alive.
You want the world to be a better place because they're in it.
Well, they have to do some things for that to happen.
Ninety-two, ninety-three million Americans sitting around not working, but all of them eating and all of them on the phone and all of them watching television is not what the founders had in mind.
It is not the way you get to a growing productive, satisfied, achievement oriented society.
And if you don't have that, you're going to have the opt, you're going to have a crumbling malaise, with people wandering aimlessly through life, literally throwing away the one life.
The only one life we are all given.
Let me ask you, do you want to spend your life not working, but depending on whatever comes your way for a morsel here or a morsel?
That's not how it's not how we are raised, and it's not the natural yearning of the human spirit, by the way.
So to explain it, what do we need?
Well, we need a political party which profits from this.
And which justifies it.
Tells the people 93 million who are not working, who are eating, that it's not their fault, that it's the Republicans' fault, but country's fault, countries flawed, countries fatally flawed, doesn't care about people, what have you.
It's not good.
None of it is.
We conservatives want everybody to be the best they can be.
This New York Times piece that I quoted from The Vanishing Male Worker, How America Fell Behind.
This is a series on um on unemployed that started after the elections.
Not before.
Oh no, they would not dare run these stories before the election.
No, no.
Now they are after the election stories, and they are meant to accompany the Republican victory.
How rotten the job situation is, is meant to accompany Republicans coming to power in the House and Senate and having nothing to do with Obama.
Here is uh here's Chris in South Windsor, Connecticut Heights.
Great to have you on the program.
Welcome.
Hi there, Rush.
I'm glad to talk to you.
I wanted to tell you that you've been talking about what we can do to get the message out.
Well, you're not only entertaining children with those books that you have written, but you're really making advocates of them.
And I'd like to tell you about my eight-year-old granddaughter.
She was so moved by the books that she has written to Obama, to our state representatives, and our federal representatives.
And she's told them she's interested in history.
She's told them she's upset about taxes, and that she would like to see them cut taxes back.
And uh included a picture of herself at Halloween where she was dressed as her hero, George Washington, the father of our country.
Now she's a small female African American child, so it's quite a picture, and she has sent those off.
You're you're doing what needs to be done, Rush.
My husband has a master's degree in early American history, and he read each of your three books, and was thrilled with the factual accuracy, and she was thrilled that you combined history and horses, her two favorite things.
I want to also tell you that I said when your second book came out, she said, Oh, grandma, I just hope he comes out with a third one soon.
And I said, Well, I'll call him, um, Annabelle and see.
And she said, Wait, you know Rush Limberg, which is what she thought your name was.
And I said yes, and she said, Oh, grandma, I hope I have at least two kids born before you die so that they can meet you.
You are so important that you know him.
Chris, Chris, don't hang up.
Whatever you do, don't hang up.
I've I've run out of time here for this segment.
I can't move them, but I want to keep talking, so don't hang up.
We will conclude our conversation with Chris, South Windsor, Connecticut.
We get back here from our uh break at the top of the hour.
One big exciting hour, open line Friday remains, and a focus will be on your phone calls.
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