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March 25, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:16
March 25, 2015, Wednesday, Hour #3
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And we are back.
Great to have you here as always, my friends, Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchor man, executing a scientist duties flawlessly with zero mistakes, which enables me to meet and surpass all audience expectations on a daily basis.
The telephone number, if you want to be on the programs 800-282-2882 and the email address, L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
There really are a lot of other things I intended to have gotten to them long before now, but the program's kind of been hijacked here today by Ted Cruz signing up for, well, either federal insurance or Obamacare, which uh whichever you want to call it, even some dispute about that, which we'll explain here as the program continues to unfold before your very eyes and ears.
Now, uh, all of this visit back into history.
Um the point is, because I had some emails.
Rush, what does any of this have to do with Cruz signing up?
It's a good question.
It is, it's kind of dovetailed together.
It's uh one thing has led to another, and so we've it's it served my purpose to remind you of some of the blatant hypocrisy that's existed in this bill from the get-go.
The Democrat Party gave us this monstrosity, and at every every juncture of implementation, they asked to be exempted from it.
The very people that told us this is going to end discrimination, it's going to end all of the pre-existing condition, people being denied.
It's going to make sure that women get all the birth control, whatever this bill was to you.
It was portrayed as a panacea.
It was utopia in the making, it was utopia in the waiting.
And yet at every stage, Obama was granting waivers here, waivers there to every potential Democrat donor, potential Democrat voters, waivers here.
There were there have been thousands of waivers granted, people exempted from this bill from the get-go, all of them friends of the Democrat Party.
Ted Cruz hasn't done any.
Ted Cruz hasn't asked to be exempted, he hasn't asked for special treatment, he hadn't done anything other than point out the bill is a disaster.
So today he signs up for it because his wife leaves Goldman Sachs, the family was out is without health care.
They had chose to insurance themselves, chosen to insure themselves through the through her job.
She's taken an unpaid leave.
So now his only choice is to sign up through his employer, which is the federal government.
He's mandated, matter of law, he did it.
This has upset some people.
They don't yet know why, they're not quite sure why, but it did it doesn't sit well.
I mean, on the one hand, here's a guy that's done nothing but claim he's going to get rid of it the first chance he gets, and then when he signs up, doesn't appear to have any problem with it.
So people are conflicted.
So we're trying to walk through this and explain why various things are happening.
The reason we're taking these trips down memory lane is to remind you of all the hypocrisy that's existed.
And I uh this this business of Harry Reed, congressional staffers, and members of the House and Senate complaining when they found see, they were originally exempt.
When this bill was first written, they were exempt.
Which is typical.
Washington writes a monstrosity of a law and exempts themselves from it.
And they did it in a case of Obamacare.
But Charles Grassley put the kabosh on it at some stage and forced the Democrats to subject themselves to it because they had to do everything they could to get this thing passed and signed into law.
There were no Republican votes supporting it, if you recall.
So they had to do things.
We could spend probably a week recounting all of them, and I don't intend to.
But staffers were the focal point because they make less than congressmen, and the newfound expenses being mandated upon them, they couldn't afford.
They publicly whined and moaned.
That to me alone was offensive.
They're the damned architects of this.
And they're publicly complaining about how they can't afford.
They make 125,000, anywhere from 90 to 125 grand, And they can't afford it.
And yet they have forced this on people that don't make anywhere near what they make.
And they didn't cry a single tear for the people who can't afford this.
And yet there they were bellyaching and whining and moaning over the fact they couldn't afford it.
So Obama came in and subsidized them up to 75%.
Special preferential treatment for preverred preferred citizens, in this case, Democrats and members of Congress, both parties, actually.
Now the latest demand for a waiver comes from a group of Democrat senators that are up for re-election in 2016.
And they are begging Obama to delay a key portion of Obamacare because the results could be harmful and disruptive.
They have written a letter.
These Democrats are in the Senate, and they beg Sylvia Matthews Burwell, the Health and Human Services Secretary, to delay an Obamacare rule change.
The rule change puts companies with 51 to 100 employees in the small group market.
The small group market is the more expensive market.
You have smaller groups, therefore a smaller group doesn't get as big a discount.
The rule change would put certain companies, 51 to 100 employees, in the small group market, and they want to be in the large group market.
The large group market has cheaper costs because there are more people in the group.
It's all about volume discounts and so forth.
The rule change, which will result in higher premiums for many companies, goes into effect next year at election year.
And these Democrats are upset because companies run by people that donate to them are going to experience vastly new health care costs unless they are exempted.
And that's what the letter is asking the regime to do.
Don't put them in the small group market, put them in the larger group market where their premiums and costs are going to be less.
The Democrats that signed the letter are all up for re-election in 2016.
Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Chris Coons, Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly, John Tester, and Angus King.
Now the point of this is it's just another example of the people who gave us this albatross, asking to be exempted from it.
Because they will be harmed by it.
So all of these elites who wrote this damn thing are taking advantage of their power to exempt themselves or to request exemptions and get waivers.
You and I can't.
My point in bringing this up is no matter what you think a crew is signing up for Obamacare, he's not out there bellyaching, whining and moaning and demanding this or that, asking for an exemption, asking for a waiver because of how much it costs.
He's just manning up and obeying the law.
Pure and simple.
But he is going to have to explain this, I think, to a lot of people because there are a lot of his supporters that don't understand it.
And they're concocting their own theories to explain his behavior here in order to mollify themselves because their instinct is to be alarmed by it.
Which I understand.
Again, in Senator Cruz, you have a guy who seemingly every day has criticized Obamacare in great detail.
He's criticized it specifically.
He's criticized it generically, he's criticized it ideologically, every which way he can criticize it.
He has.
Every word of it, he's going to repeal it.
And then one day we wake up and he signed up for it.
And people are scratching their heads.
They were shocked, it was came out of the blue, and they're thinking, where's the protest?
I mean, if it's that bad, why wouldn't he not sign up?
So that what I've been explaining today are his options.
And he doesn't have many.
None of us do.
But he can't go the not getting insurance route and pay the fine because they jump all over him as a responsible husband and father or irresponsible for leaving his family uninsured.
And he can't just ignore it because that would then subject himself to out of cost in the same criticism.
And Cobra is no deal financially and only lasts for 18 months.
So that's just a summation of where we are on this.
The AP headline, and boy, are they churtling in this whole story?
Cruise eyes insurance via Obamacare, a law he vows to scrap.
Now let me give you some of the other headlines.
Other things out here before we get back to the calls that you have on this.
The BBC has a story.
I need some help explaining some of this.
The headline is Students Swap Clapping for Jazz Hands at the National Union of Students Women's Conference in West Midlands.
Women at a national student event have been asked to use jazz hands instead of clapping.
The National Union of Students women's conference said that some delegates are requesting that we move jazz hands, move to jazz hands rather than clapping, because clapping is triggering anxiety.
Please be mindful.
Would somebody at what are jazz hands?
You don't clap, you just put your hands up and shake them.
So you just put your hands up and wave them around.
But it's not clapping.
You use your hands, but you never clap.
Because clap triggers anxiety.
What the hell is that?
What kind of anxiety is triggered when women clap?
The story doesn't actually say.
As someone who is new to this conference culture, surprised me at first, but actually within a few rounds of Jazz Hands applause, it began to make a lot of sense.
Loud clapping and whooping can be intimidating and distracting when you're speaking on stage.
Is what it says here.
Plus.
So the scenario is somebody's up speaking on stage or doing something, and you say something, and people applaud, and it triggers anxiety.
So use jazz hands instead.
If you boil this down to its essence, what is this saying?
This is about women, don't feel that.
This is the women's, the National Union of Students Women's Conference.
Applauding triggers anxiety.
What do they become anxious about?
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has commented on the fact that the Rolling Stone story about rape at the University of Virginia was totally made up.
She said, let's not blame the victim in this story.
Who do you think is the victim?
The victim is not the frat guys who were lied about.
No, no, no, no.
The victim is the woman who was not raped.
Let's not blame the victim.
There is no victim.
There is no victim.
The story didn't happen.
There was no rape.
Kirsten Gillibrand says, let's not blame this mess on this lying mentally ill girl who made this story up.
Let's not blame her.
We have a mentally ill girl who told a lie about being raped, and it whipped everybody into an hysteria.
And created this fake culture of rape that everybody now thinks is happening every day, all the time on campus.
This story smeared people.
This story ran the risk, had the potential to literally destroy the lives of people like those guys in the Duke lacrosse case.
And here comes Senator Gillibrand.
Let's not blame the victim.
In this case, the woman who lied.
Let's not blame her.
It would be wrong, she said.
Gillibrand said it would be wrong for some to call on the female students in the scandal to face criminal charge.
The woman lied.
She caused havoc out the Waza.
She ruined people's reputations at the fraternities and at the University of Virginia.
And Gillibrand says it'd be inappropriate to blame her.
Because she's the victim.
But she wasn't a victim.
Nothing happened to her.
Okay, folks, a brief.
Is there one more?
Yeah, I mentioned Hillary getting a standing O. Oh.
Byron York in the Washington Examiner has a story with this headline.
What did Jeb Bush do to fight Obamacare?
And the answer is he was MIA.
Byron York, yeah, the DC examiner at Jeb Bush MIA during the fight to stop Obamacare.
Gotta take a break, be right back.
Okay, so it's it's wrong to blame women for making up rape stories.
We can't do that.
That's blaming the victim.
We cannot blame women for making up rape stories.
So perfectly fine to falsely accuse people of rape, and it's perfectly fine to run the risk of ruining their lives, but it is wrong to hold the accusers responsible, according to Kirsten Gillibrand.
Isn't that wonderful?
By the way, ladies and gentlemen, Bull Bergdahl has been charged with desertion per his attorney.
Now wait.
Because I remember Obama loving on this guy's family.
Obama loving on this guy's family, and Obama gave up.
He released five Taliban members for the return of Bergdahl.
And Bergdahl was heralded as a hero at the outset of all this.
While everybody was saying, wait a minute, what are you doing?
He's a deserter.
No, no, no.
And Obama went out, loved on the family, gave up five Taliban, and now we're gonna charge Bergdahl with desertion.
Tell me what why would anybody worry about Obama negotiating a sacred deal with the what in the world?
And by the way, Josh Earnest, we got a soundbite coming up.
Uh yeah, we don't really need to have this deal signed.
We uh you'll see.
Jonathan Carl asked him about that.
But first, here's Andrew in Tampa.
Andrew, I appreciate your waving.
It's great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, how are you doing today, Ross?
I'm fine, thank you.
I just had one quick question for you.
Why couldn't uh Ted Cruz go with an individual insurance plan?
Well, he could except for the reality that they almost don't exist anymore.
And those that remain are expensive, like you can't believe that segment of the insurance market has been decimated by definite.
But we we had no choice.
We had to go with that one as a result.
Uh when we signed up through the market, that was this doctor we could say that was up in Spring Hill, and my wife wouldn't accept that, so we went ahead and went with an individual plan.
Wait, you are on an insurance plan, and you are the only insured.
No, it's me, my wife, and my my child.
Well, that's what I meant.
Your family is the only insured.
Yeah.
You're not part of a group anywhere.
No.
And you got this through Obamacare?
No.
So you're wondering and have you always had that, or is this something you did instead of Obamacare?
Uh, we did this instead of Obamacare because the closest doctor we could visit was up in Spring Hill.
Oh, because you couldn't find a doctor in your network.
Correct.
Right.
Well, you could the individual market is there from what I understand.
It's been decimated.
And so few companies are now offering individual health insurance because everything's trending toward mandatory Obamacare.
And as such, the number of policies offered are way down, the number of companies offering policies is way down, and it's just the cost is this become prohibitive, as I have been told and uh and understand it.
But I think in Cruz's case now, remember his employer is the federal government, and he's mandated to use it.
Jonathan Carl, ABC News pressed Josh Ernest today, the White House press secretary on whether the Iranian nuke deal would be in writing.
Reported earlier today.
It's in the New York Times that it might not be in writing.
John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, is on his way to Switzerland.
They've got uh six days to get this done by their imposed March 31st deadline.
And we're being told that it may not be committed to writing, that we're just gonna have to trust what we're told about what's in the deal.
Well, Jonathan Carl heard about this, and he's been demanding that Ernest explain this, and Ernest would not uh commit.
He's he's he's mumbling things about tangible commitments.
Here's the soundbite.
Carl says on the nuclear agreement with Iran, given that you need to show something to Congress.
This would have to be a written agreement.
It would have to be an agreement signed by both sides.
You're not gonna just take a verbal yes, sure, we're gonna do this.
Obviously, details still have to be worked out.
You got a June deadline for doing that, but this interim framework needs to be in writing and signed by both sides, right?
We're gonna seek very tangible commitments from the Iranians, and the president made a commitment to sharing those tangible commitments with members of Congress and with our allies.
Certainly without trying to understand what's going on.
Well, again, I I don't want to get into what the you know where the talks are gonna lead here.
We hope to uh be able to elicit tangible commitments that the Iranians have made that we can then share with our P5 plus one partners, with our allies, uh, and with the United States Congress.
There isn't gonna be anything written down, that's what that means.
So Kerry's gonna come away from whatever these next few days of talks with Iran are and tell us what the tangible agreements are.
We're gonna get tangible commitments from the Iranians.
And then Kerry is going to come back and liaison's will report to our so-called allies, the P5 plus one partners, our allies, and the U.S. Congress.
Well, the Iranians have tangibly committed to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Wait a minute, how can we ratify that?
There's nothing in writing.
Tangible commitments.
Meanwhile, over in Tehran, the Ayatollah hominy is going to be going on television, announcing what these tangible commitments are that he's committed to.
Death to America!
Death to America.
And we're going to be asking about that.
Don't worry about that.
He's just playing to his domestic audience.
Don't worry, we have tangible commitments.
There isn't going to be anything written down.
Now, why do you think that is why it's not just it's no, it's well, yeah, but it's it's not just that Congress won't have a chance to veto it.
It's that Obama can make it whatever he wants to be.
If there's nothing written down and there's no Iranian signature, Obama goes, yep, they swore off nuclear weapons forever.
Yeah, what does it say then?
It doesn't.
They made a tangible commitment.
Don't doubt me.
But we can't rely on that.
We have to see somebody having signed that.
We've got to see those words.
No, you don't.
Because there isn't anything like that on paper.
The Iranians wouldn't go for that.
But I trust them.
I believe them.
They tangibly committed to whatever Obama says it is.
That's the thing.
Obama wants the flexibility to be able to tell us whatever it is that's been negotiated.
If it's on paper, it's what it is.
How can it not be on well?
Okay, wait a minute.
How wait a second.
You're asking me how can it not be on paper?
Right?
Well, how the hell can 25 million people be granted citizenship with a wave of a wand?
How can any of this be happening here?
Because Obama's doing it, and who's gonna stand up to him?
If Congress can't sign it, because there's nothing to sign, if they can't ratify it because there's nothing written, then it just means that it is whatever Obama wants it to be, and that's going to become the law of the land, and it's never gonna effectively be ratified.
All right.
All right, you know.
Snerdley is shouting at me to the IFB that whether we see it or not, there has to be some kind of a document somewhere that both sides have signed the butt that at least the the framework will have been committed to paper.
Well, maybe, but we're not going to be shown it.
And so if we not gonna have it shown to us, does it exist?
If if there is a signed document that nobody sees other than the signatories, then it essentially doesn't exist.
A tree just fell in the forest.
Do you know it, or you're relying on me to tell you it just happened?
Were you there?
Did you have to be there to know the tree just fell?
I just saw beaver.
Beaver just chewed through a tree there, pfft, plopped over, killed a couple lizards on the way down.
Did you see it?
No.
You're having to rely on me to tell you.
Poor lizards, but at least we got the beaver.
But there's nothing on paper.
You're just gonna have to trust me.
Trees fall in the forest all the time.
Our enemies agree with us all the time.
You just have to trust me here that they have have agreed to tangible unconstitutional.
Unconstitutional, you say.
Unconstituing what?
To quote John Kerry.
Here is Tom in Las Cruces, Numeico.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Well, first of all, I want to thank you very much for being the truthful conservative voice of America.
Thank you, sir very much.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate it, really do.
Well, I was listening to your program on the radio in my uh truck about an hour and a half ago, and you played that sound bite where uh uh Ted was being interviewed, and they started uh hammering him about now he's gonna be on Obamacare.
Yeah.
And what I really called about was, you know, he started like he's was going to explain exactly how Obamacare affects him, which is doesn't affect him at all.
You know, he let's go back and listen to these real quick and then let's re make sure that people know what it is you're talking about.
Mike, grab sound by four and six.
Here is uh here's what we played earlier.
It's Ted Cruz being interviewed by Dana Bash on CNN, who said to him, You and your family have been getting your health insurance or your wife's job at Goldman Sachs.
She's now left that to help you with your campaign.
So where are you getting your health insurance now?
She's taking an unpaid leave of absence from her job, and so we're transitioning.
We'll be getting new health insurance, and we'll presumably do it through my job in the Senate, and so we'll be on the federal exchange like millions of others uh on the federal exchange.
So you will be getting Obamacare effectively.
It is one of the good things about Obamacare is that the statute provided that members of Congress would be on the exchanges without subsidies, just like millions of Americans.
So there wouldn't be a double standard.
Okay, is that what you heard you wanted to comment on?
Well, yeah, and and you know, I think Ted Cruz was a whole lot smarter than a lot of people give him credit for, because he could have cleared it up pretty quick, and he didn't.
You know, he is simply picking up insurance that is available for all federal employees.
I'm a retired federal employee, now retired, and uh and you know I am Blue Cross Blue Shield, and I have a choice of like two or three different uh insurance companies.
And uh it's and I don't have to go to the exchange.
I never did have to go to the exchange.
Well, here's here's the here's the next thing he said, because uh she she said, well, now are you gonna take a subsidy from your job, which is the he just got through saying here that one of the good things about Obamacare is the statute provided members of Congress would be on the exchange without subsidies, just like millions of Americans, so there wouldn't be a double standard.
In other words, members of Congress don't get something the American people don't.
She says, Will you take a subsidy from your job, which is the federal government?
We will follow the text of the law.
That means you are gonna take a government subsidy.
I believe we should follow the text of the law.
The law that you want to repeal.
Yes, no, I uh I believe we should follow the text of every law, even laws I disagree with.
He did not answer the subsidy question because I suspect that he himself suspected a setup there.
So he just he just he just stuck with the fact that he was a bang law.
Yep, that's it.
And uh and look at all the controversy he's fired up over this.
It's it's all it's exposure, you know.
Well, it is that.
I mean, there's there's no question about that.
He's he i you you're seeing that he's got an opportunity here, and a lot of other people have uh called here today, hoping that what they're seeing is an opportunity.
But we're just gonna have to wait and see how Senator Cruz further explains this if he intends to.
He may not, I don't know.
Um but clearly we have to take him at his word here.
He is going to sign up to the federal exchange, and he's going to get it from his job, which is Senator.
And he will be on the Federal Exchange like millions of others.
And he said it's one of the good things about Obamacare is that the statute provided that members of Congress would be on the exchanges without subsidies, just like millions of Americans, so there wouldn't be a double standard.
The staffers are being subsidized out the wazoo, though, and so are some members of the House.
I I th he I better stop there.
I don't want to get anybody in trouble yet before I know exactly what the lay of this land is here, because it's still a lot unanswered.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So somebody on um sound by the left.
Folks, I've got a story here.
One of these things I I intended to get to today.
This thing prints out to seven pages.
I'm not gonna have time for it today, obviously.
But it is about liberal college professors getting all ticked off at politically correct liberal students.
The PC virus has so infected liberal students, they are turning in liberal professors for violating it.
And the professors, you know, I can deal with the conservatives.
They'll shut up.
You know, they'll slink away.
I can deal with them.
But these little liberal students are giving us all kinds of problems here.
You've got to hear this.
I will have this tomorrow.
On open line Friday minus one, which is uh which is Thursday.
Why don't you hear Britt Hume?
This was last night on the Kelly file.
This is uh Britt Hume explaining why mainstream Republicans like him will not be with Ted Cruz.
They just can't see supporting Ted Cruz.
Ted Cruz has not won any friends among mainstream Republicans by his choice of tactics.
There's a significant number of Republicans out there who believe, and I'm not making this up, that the government shutdown did not hurt the Republican Party, but actually helped it win the majority.
Now, obviously I don't think that's so, but those are the people that will be Ted Cruz's people till the end.
I don't think there are that many of them.
I don't think in the end there are enough of them, and enough people have forgotten about that episode.
So Britt Hume, uh, who is the voice of uh the Republican establishment inside the Beltway is saying never, no way no how for Ted Cruz because he shut down the government.
And that's just that I don't care what anybody says.
That hurts the Republican Party.
It did hurt the Republican Party.
It didn't help.
There's a lot of idiots out there.
He thinks it's saying it did help, but it didn't.
So can't see my way to supporting Ted Cruz because this guy shuts down the government.
He does things that damage a Republican Party.
In no way, no how we can support him.
Government shutdown stuff, huh?
I'll tell you that packs so much fear.
I just no, no, no.
I just I don't have time to get into much analysis.
I just wanted you to hear that.
Um because it explains why there is so much animosity.
Partially explains.
There's other reasons too.
But it partially explains why there's so much animosity for for Cruz within the Republican establishment.
You just you don't mess with government.
You just don't.
You don't do anything.
Too many people depend on Washington.
Too many people depend on Washington working, and Washington can't work if if it's shut down.
And that doesn't help.
And they're very, very worried about that.
Anyway, I I uh you have to take a break here, folks.
Simply not enough time to delve further, but there's always tomorrow.
So sit tight.
We'll be back here.
Uh time flew by here today, but there's always tomorrow.
There always is in 21 hours.
We will be back.
Uh, folks, there's no hypocrisy in in Cruz using Obamacare, just like there's no hypocrisy in people opposing Social Security using it.
It is what it is.
That's not the thing going on here.
And he'll, I'm sure, address this further if uh if need be.
We will see you tomorrow.
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