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Jan. 8, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:26
January 8, 2015, Thursday, Hour #3
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Hi, welcome back, my friends.
It's great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh, meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
Great to have you with us.
A telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800-282-2882 and the email address.
Lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
As I mentioned, there are other things going on out there.
We we could probably fill easily this hour with uh not just events in Paris, but of course the aftermath and related events because everything's a teachable moment.
Virtually every major event like this is uh is a teachable moment has lots of educational opportunities to it.
Um we do have some sound bites in this coming up.
One of them, let me get to him right now, because this is this is his classic.
In fact, grab number seven first.
And then we're gonna go back and get number six.
Both of these sound bites are uh well, the first one is July 20th, 2012.
And it's a good morning, America, George Stephanopoulos talking to Brian Ross.
Brian Ross is a chief investigative correspondent for ABC News.
He's a chief.
I mean, this is this is their bread and butter.
This is the guy that does investigative journalism.
This is the guy that goes out there and finds all of these people engaging in corruption before anybody else knows.
This is the guy that weeds through the murk and peels away the onion to get to the real focus of evil out there, on whatever it might be.
And this happens to be after a screw all shooting in Colorado.
Another mass murder shooting in Colorado in a screw.
You might remember this.
George Stephanopoulos says, I want to go to Brian Ross here, trying to find, they're trying to find the perp.
Well, they found the perp, but they're trying to who is this guy?
Who is this perp?
And that's what this bite's about.
I want to go to Brian Ross here, present.
You've been looking at investigating the background of Jim Holmes here.
You found something that might be significant.
There is a Jim Holmes of Aurora Colorado uh page uh on the Colorado Tea Party site as well, talking about him joining the Tea Party uh last year.
Now we don't know if this is the same Jim Holmes, but it is Jim Holmes of Aurora Colorado.
Okay, we'll keep looking at that.
By God, we hope it's the same guy.
Oh!
Do we want to break this story?
We want to break the story that the mass shooter is a member of the Tea Party, George, and I'm Brian Ross, and I'm working hard on it.
And we found a guy with this name, and he's right there.
He's right there on the Tea Party, named roster of members.
Well, it turned out it was not the same guy, because Tea Party people are not mass murderers.
Oh, but the left would love to find one.
I found it instructed the first place they went.
Okay, we get a name.
What's the first thing that they did at ABC News?
Let's see if we can link this guy to Republicans.
Let's see if we can link this shooting to conservatives, maybe on talk radio, maybe the Tea Party.
Maybe we'll hit the trifecta.
Maybe the guy's Tea Party and listens to talk radio and watches Fox News.
And that's what they were hoping.
And of course, the shooter had nothing to do with anything to do with conservatism.
If anything, he had liberal influences.
But this is just to illustrate, especially for those of you listening for the first time today.
Uh the kind of things that we focus on here.
I mean, it's as it was absurd from the get-go, but this is who they are.
They were hoping and praying that the Tea Party had something to do with this.
It's how afraid of it they are.
Okay.
Brian Ross.
This morning.
ABC News, good morning America.
George Stephanopoulos.
Stephanopoulos talking to Brian Ross about the event at the French magazine.
Eyewitnesses said the two gunmen said they were from Al-Qaeda in Yemen, but so far there have been no substantiated claims of responsibility from either Al Qaeda or the ISIS group in Syria.
George.
Thanks, Brown.
Very careful there.
Now you go back to 2012 when it might've been the tea party.
And we say that last, uh, Hey, Georgia, we got here is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado page on the Colorado tea party site as well.
Talking about him joining the Tea Party last year.
Now we don't know if the same Jim Holmes, but it's Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, and we're gonna keep looking at this.
And you go to yesterday.
Well, I don't know, George.
We gotta be real, real careful here.
Eyewitnesses said the two gunmen said they were from Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
But they went then no, no, no, no.
We don't have any, we don't have any substantiating claim.
We don't have any very, very, very, very, very, very careful here, George.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You see the difference.
Tea Party, we can't help ourselves.
We can't control ours.
It might be the Tea Party, yeah!
And they put it out there first.
So that's the first thing people hear.
Jim Holmes Tea Party.
And then they say, now we don't know if it's the same one, but Jim Holmes Tea Party.
And this one, well, they're saying it's Al-Qaeda, but we don't want to jump to the conclusions of this, George.
No, no, no, no, no.
It may not be Al-Qaeda, it may not be Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
No, no, no, no, no.
We gotta be very, very, very careful.
Speaking of Colorado, from Colorado Springs TV, CBS Eyeball News, a Colorado Springs TV reporter, was hospitalized.
Sorry, I shouldn't laugh.
Colorado Springs TV, eyeball news reporter hospitalized.
After suffering severe frostbite, following his attempts to do a late not a late night life shot by himself in freezing temperatures to tell people it was cold.
Eric Fink, KRDO TV eyeball news reporter faced problems connecting his camera to his backpack as he attempted to set up the live shot on Saturday night.
Fink told reporters at the station he couldn't fix the problem without taking off his gloves, but expressed concern about frostbite in the freezing temperatures.
I'll tell you that global warming's a bitch, folks.
It really is.
I mean, you you you you live every day of your life thinking that the sweat city out there, that the sea levels are rising.
You're a meteorologist, you're a reporter, you believe all of this.
Global warming.
Oh my God, we're warming up so fast, and all of a sudden a cold front comes in, which happens in the winter time.
People forget that, but it does get cold in places like Colorado Springs, Chicago in the winter.
And so, because in the news media, people have to be saved from themselves.
We had to send a reporter out in the midst of bitter cold to tell people that it was bitterly cold.
And the guy got frostbite.
Now that's commitment.
That may be worth a local Emmy.
Not Emmy, what a news people get.
Pulitzers.
Frostbite in service to the community.
What a sacrifice.
Jerry Jones.
Jerry Jones and Chris Christie.
I'll tell you, this is getting interesting.
Jerry Jones was talking about Chris Christie's mojo again yesterday.
The Dallas Cowboy owner and general manager said that he's going to do everything in his power to have Christie with him Sunday in Green Bay.
The Cowboys are undefeated when Christie has attended games this season.
Gerald Jones said, yep, he'll be there if I've got anything to do with it.
And I and I'm going to try, I'm going to have a lot to do about it.
And I want that orange sweater.
We want him there.
We've had him in the locker room.
It feels good to have him here.
We we we need all hands on deck, even come close to these Packers.
And if he's got enough mojo to pull this thing off for this cowboy team this year, then I'm for him being the president of the United States.
That's Jerry Jones talking about New Jersey Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Jerry Jones also explained why he enjoys having celebrities join him during games.
He said, Whenever I can get around important or exciting people, I want to do it.
I got a nice little list sitting with some pretty big winners at some of these key games.
I know Nelson Mandela, I got sit with him.
I took him to the dressing room, and you can imagine the players went crazy and coaches just meet Nelson Mandela.
We've had some of the top people, a top politicians, President Bush.
I've had people from many areas that come in, just add to, if you will, just the intensity of the moment.
It makes it seem special.
I want it to seem special for the ones who aren't in the stadium as well.
How many of you felt the game Sunday was special?
Because Governor Christie was there.
Now, Scott Walker, who, by the way, has hired a consultant for a potential presidential run.
And I heartily approve of that.
Scott Walker, this is great, by the way.
Scott, well, he's the governor of Wisconsin.
That's where the game is going to be played Sunday.
Cowboys and Packers at high noon Eastern time.
1 p.m. uh high noon central, 1 p.m.
Eastern.
Scott Walker said, hey, I'm going to be sitting with the owner on Sunday, too.
And he had a picture with a guy in a cheese head hat sitting in the stands.
The Packers are publicly held.
He's going to be sitting in a stands with regular fans that own the Packers.
I thought it was a great rejoinder.
There's a little friction between Christie and Walker involving the National Governors Association.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has a story out of Madison.
Governor Scott Walker's hired National Republican consultant with Wisconsin ties to manage his increasingly likely campaign for president.
CNN first reported yesterday on the hiring of Rick Wiley.
Sources confirmed it for the Milwaukee Urinal Sentinel.
It's the latest sign.
Governor Walker's gearing up for a run for president in what is expected to be a crowded Republican field.
He gave another sign of it Tuesday in an interview with uh with Hugh Hewitt out there.
Uh and do you know that Scott Walker does not have a college degree?
I did not know that.
But he doesn't have a college degree.
He was asked about that.
And he said, well, he didn't finish college because he took a job and started a family.
So I've got a master's degree in taking on big government special interests.
I think that's worth more than anything else anybody can point to.
I don't say this because I didn't finish college either.
But it's intriguing.
There's a lot of people who did college isn't for everybody.
And if you if you if you look at the successful people who've dropped out of college, you'll find that there is something they all have in common.
And it is a passion.
They already knew what they wanted to do.
And they just were eager to get started.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg, but the numbers are legion.
They're all kinds of people who who dropped out or didn't finish college because they already knew what they wanted to do.
And I love people like that.
I really do.
The passion, uh identifying their love and their passion, and going for it.
And it's more and more, I'm telling you, folks, something else, and I'm I mean this.
I really, really mean this.
It's always been thought that a college education meant that you were educated.
And it still might, but what have you been taught to learn in college now?
We're getting to the point that there's something to be said for successful people who've not been corrupted by the common curriculum at major institutions of higher learning.
Quick timeout, we'll be back and continue after this.
Sit tight.
You know, it's already Thursday.
Snerdley's asking me what I think now during the break about the upcoming NFL games this week in terms of who's going to win.
He just asked me, does Green Bay going to have a weather advantage with it being so cold against Cowboys?
Nah, I don't think so, because it's not going to be as cold as was originally predicted.
I mean, last Sunday, the long-range forecast for Green Bay was a high of three, somewhere between three and ten, with a low below zero, but it's gonna be games in high noon.
The highs are only three in the afternoon.
But it's now forecast to be in the low 20s.
And I don't think there's it's sunshine.
I don't think there's any wind of any imports.
I don't know the weather's gonna be a factor.
Uh then started, can luck beat Manning.
I said, well, Luck is not going to be playing Manning.
They're not on the field at the same time.
However, what he meant was can a Colts beat the Broncos.
And yeah, I mean, the Colts have been in a state of decline.
Manning's been hurt, bruised thigh, and who knows whatever else.
Um, you know, one one week the the the Colts can lose, get blown out by the cowboys, and and the next week dominate Cincinnati.
So it's it's why they play the game.
Maybe let's do some environmentalist wacko picks tomorrow with some variations.
In the meantime, back to the phones of Fort Lauderdale.
This is Paul.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hey, hey, what's up?
What's happening?
What's up and what's going on?
Hello.
Long time, long time listener, first time caller.
I'm so glad I was able to get through to you.
Thank you so much.
You're the real American hero.
I've been listening to you for so long, and I wanted to talk to you for so long for so many so many subjects.
But I just want to mention one thing about the economy right now.
Everybody's saying and the touting in the mainstream media and and even in all uh you know, news outlets that wonderful things are happening because of Obama's policies for the past eight eight years, whatever, six years, and all these kind of things.
But one thing I think we all missing is there are 35 to 37 uh Republican governors in the 50 states of the United States of America, and they're working day and night and and hardworking, bringing their budget to balancing and and having surplus in their budgets and and bringing down the uh the uh unemployment rates no question that that's a factor.
There's no question, Paulo, that that's a fact.
Yeah, these are all the facts, and that adds up to the national level, and Obama is running eleven saying it looked his politics are working.
It is exactly the opposite.
Well, speaking of that, we just got did I put it at the bottom?
Mike, you just got an Obama soundbite, and I've already put it away.
I don't even know what number it is, but it's the last one that came in.
It's maybe 24.
Grab 20 for his Obama, yep, yep, yep.
Yeah, he's out on the campaign trail.
And he's talking about and d on purpose.
One day after this massive attack in Paris, he's out there talking about how great everything is, how the economy's back, and how the wars are over.
There are workers today with jobs who didn't have jobs last year.
They're families who've got health insurance who didn't have health insurance before.
They're students who are in college right now who didn't think they could afford it before.
They're heroes who had served tour after tour who are finally home with their families.
They're auto workers who are building great American cars now when they thought that those plants were gonna shut down.
America is coming back.
They planned on saying this six years ago, no matter what was happening.
Uh he's in Phoenix at Central Haskrul, where he said this today.
Now, I have to be very careful here, because the economy is up.
But it isn't as robust as he's portrayed here.
It just isn't.
And if you think the economy is roaring back, but you feel left out and wondering why you're not left out.
The fourth quarter GDP rate was indeed, until they revised it, five percent.
And over half of the spending, over half of the consumer spending that created that 5% growth rate was people mandating or mandated to buy health care.
Over half of you do you think health care is a is a man, hey, let's go get some health care today, man.
Wow, cool.
As hey, man, there's a new flat screen, so don't sell a best bite, let's go.
People don't go out and buy health care and think they it's it's a mandated buy.
It's over half of the economic growth.
Um, But there are people who do not have health insurance today who had it two years ago.
It's the exact opposite of what he's saying.
They can't afford it.
And all this other stuff.
But this is the plan now.
This is this is again it's it's symbolism over substance.
And it's uh it's the launching of the final two years here, a giant image being created.
Get used to it.
Obama was gonna say what he said in Phoenix today, regardless.
Any other current event.
He talked about this great economy going on and how the wars are over, and he did not even mention what happened in Paris yesterday.
There are workers today with jobs who didn't have jobs last year.
Uh the sad reality is that the labor force participation rate, which is a calculation of the percentage of available people who are working, is at an all-time low.
We are very close to 93 million Americans not working.
We have lost millions of jobs from the job universe since Obama was immaculated in 2008.
The unemployment rate is deceiving.
The unemployment rate that's reported, and again, I'm I'm passing this on to those of you listening for the first time today.
Those of you who are regular are going to know this, and I'm sorry for the redundancy.
But the unemployment rate that's reported does not count people who have been out of work so long that they have stopped looking for work.
And that's a huge number of people.
And the reason that they are able to give up is that we are now up to 99 weeks of unemployment compensation.
We're paying people four years to not work.
And we're paying them enough that they're all eating and drinking pretty much what they want, which is the primary reason anybody works, that and shelter.
So we've got college graduates, millennial-age graduates who cannot find any openings in their careers of choice.
We have more people's jobs being converted from full-time to part-time so that their businesses do not have to provide them with health care, which forces them into a government or state exchange.
It's a total it's a it's it's it's a it's a total mischaracterization to portray what's happening economically in this country as this roaring rebound recovery.
It isn't.
To the extent that the U.S. economy is rebounding is a testament to the American people, not government policy.
The policies in place in the last six years are punitive when it comes to work, and they're punitive when it comes to business.
So let me illustrate this for you.
I'm gonna give you some some tax increases that went into effect on January 1st.
Now, many of these you will not be aware of yet.
Many of these will not hit you until you either file your tax return next year, or if you are an independent contractor and file quarterly, then you're gonna you're gonna find out in April how you're getting sucked.
The top Medicare tax has just gone from 1.45% to 2.35%.
Let me explain the Medicare tax.
The Medicare tax is on top of your Social Security payroll tax, which is FICA on your pay stub or your direct deposit form.
And there is a ceiling on salary that is deducted where payroll taxes are deducted.
I don't know what that ceiling is.
But at that point, I'm gonna make up a number, and it may be close.
Let's say it's 125,000 a year.
Every dollar above that you earn, you no longer have that deduction, whatever the number is.
Now most people probably never reach the ceiling, but a lot of People used to.
Medicare's on top of that, and there's no ceiling.
It is now 2.35% on every dollar you earn.
Now, if you and there's no matching like there is on FICA.
You know, that's a myth anyway.
The Social Security tax supposedly is 13-14%.
You pay 7%, your employer pays 7%.
See, you spread the burden.
In essence, you're paying it all.
And the way that works is that's what it costs to hire you.
The employer's not matching anything.
You're just not seeing in income that income that's being taxed, but you're paying it.
The employer isn't paying a thing.
I know it on paper it's made to look like the employer's matching your social security, but it's what the employer has to pay in total to hire you.
So there is no match.
You're paying it all.
It's costing you.
Now, Medicare, if you're an independent contractor, you pay this new 2.35% on every dollar you earn.
There is no ceiling to this.
It's not just ICs, but it especially hits them hard.
The only way that you can change that is to classify a portion of your income as something other than ordinary income, which is why a lot of independent contractors file as subchapter S corporations and pay themselves a salary.
So let's say a small business, a laundromat or a dry cleaner, just to pick one, and I'm going to make up numbers.
Let's say a dry cleaner owner, an individual, files as a subchapter S corporation, which means many things, but among them, the entire amount of income the laundroman, the dry cleaning firm takes in X, but he can designate only so much of that as salary and the rest of it as bonus.
That's not ordinary income.
So that's one of the ways that you can avoid paying all Social Security tax.
And it's legal.
It's set up.
John Edwards made a big deal out of it.
He did this.
It's totally legal.
You shouldn't be critical of people that do it.
But not everybody can file as a subchapter as a standard employee can't do it.
You really do have to be self-employed or uh independent contractor.
In addition to the Medicare tax going up, which is a biggie, but they all these things all add up together.
This is just the first one.
The income tax bracket, the top income tax bracket, as of January 1st, goes from 35 to 39.6.
The top income payroll tax goes from 37.4% to 52.2%, meaning the ceiling comes way down.
Capital gains 15% to 28%.
Now it's a percentage increase, that is huge.
It's almost a 100% increase.
And the impact, therefore, on people who pay it's going to be profound.
And when Obama was told that one of the greatest sources of revenue to the Treasury was the capital gains rate at 15%.
People were happy to declare gains if they only if they could keep 85 cents of every dollar they earned.
That's the theory of lowering taxes.
You tell me I get to keep 85 cents every dollar.
Okay, I'll report every dollar I earn.
I won't shelter it, I won't charity it, I'll report it.
Well, that caused revenue to flow into Washington like they hadn't expected because of the dynamics, they never interpret it.
So Obama said, okay, I'm going to raise it 28%.
People, well, you're going to reduce the amount of revenue you raise.
Obama said, I don't care.
This is about fairness.
It's not fair that some people should only be paying a 15% tax rate.
But the 15% tax rate is on the sale of assets.
It's not income.
It's not what you make at your job.
It's from the sale of a House, or any other stock bonds, what have you.
And the low rate promotes investment.
The low rate promotes all that raising this rate is going to end up being punitive, and it's going to have a negative impact on economic activity and money collected from the Treasury.
The dividends tax.
This on top of capital gains.
Dividends tax, 15% to 39.6%.
What this means is that there will be fewer dividends paid.
Which means less return on investment to shareholders.
In a convoluted way, the estate tax went from 0% to 55% as of January 1st of this year.
And there's one thing I want to tell you about all these taxes.
Every one of these, every single one of these tax increases.
And by the way, these do not include the Obamacare tax increases, which, in addition to your deductibles being up sky high, and your out-of-pocket being up sky high, there are taxes galore associated with Obamacare that you will slowly stumble into during the course of the year as your activity forces you up against these new taxes.
But every one of these tax increases I just mentioned were all passed with only Democrat votes.
Not a single Republican voted for these tax increases.
And they're every one of these taxes is part of Obamacare.
Every one of these tax increases I just mentioned to you is part of Obamacare.
Medicare tax up to 2.35% top income tax bracket up to 39.6.
This is how they got it passed.
They put all these tax increases in Obamacare.
And then they played all these games to get it passed.
Not one Republican vote for any of these tax increases.
Now, you might come across the news that the Republicans are going to be beating their chest like Tarzan like that and say, hey, we are just really made a big debt in Obamacare.
We're going to succeed in getting rid of the medical device tax.
It was going to fall anyway, but don't be fooled.
Do not fall for the trick that that means Obamacare is on the way to being repealed.
It's a smokescreen effort to make you think serious action is being taken against Obamacare so far.
No indication that any Matt in New Orleans, glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Good afternoon.
I the reason that the left is so shaken up about the murders in Paris is this is the first time since they, the left, invented political correctness that someone else has co-opted it and is setting the agenda and making the rules.
And they don't know what what to do with that arrow out of their quiver.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, that's increase.
Explain that to me.
This is the first time somebody else co-opted their PC agenda.
Well, yeah, because PC by definition is run by the left.
You know, the right doesn't have a PC or the the no other no other political organization is so concerned about restricting people's speech.
That's true.
And then all of a sudden, here comes uh the jihadists, and they do it, but they enforce it in a way that that's horrible.
Oh, I see.
The magazine's saying things they don't want said, so the jihadists go out and wipe them out and co-opt their own politically correct point of view.
Yes, their own playbook is being used by the jihadists, and they don't know what to do about it because they don't need they they know they don't want to completely because they completely get rid of it.
I can't think of the right word, completely um.
So what you're saying is that the jihadists are giving political correctness a bad name and the leftists are worried about that.
Yes.
Exactly.
So it's not the murder that bothers them.
It's not the loss of life, it's the loss of PC.
Right, right.
Or the discrediting of the language.
He may have a point.
I can see that being true in certain leftist circles.
You know, the ideology matters above all else.
And anything to protect it.
And if the jihadists are going to come along and use political group, meaning you can't say that.
And taking it to extreme by killing people who say, rather than just shutting them up, but killing them.
I can see some leftists being worried that knows that Islam is giving PC a bad name.
I hadn't looked at it that way before.
And that's it for us today.
Open line Friday tomorrow.
And we'll uh eagerly look forward to it in 21 hours.
May.
Not promising, but might do some environmentalist wacko or related type NFL picks.
Regardless, see you then.
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