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Oct. 22, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:26
October 22, 2015, Thursday, Hour #2
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Time Text
The views expressed by the host of this program documented to be almost always right, 98.8.
No, no, 99.8.
I meant to short myself there.
Almost always right, 99.8% of the time.
Great to have you with us, my friends, 800-282-288-2 if you want to be on the program.
And the email address, L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Trey Gowdy is the chairman of this select committee questioning Hillary Clinton today about Benghazi and her emails.
What I just saw was dramatic.
Were you paying attention to it?
What I just saw was dramatic.
Trey Gowdy.
How best to describe this?
Because I don't want to oversell it.
When I have learned, when I watch things like this, when I think people have hit a grand slam home run, most people think Natov's barely a single.
But to me, Trey Gowdy just embarrassed the hell out of her.
Trey Gowdy just exposed her.
Trey Gowdy just illustrated how the Obama White House refused her permission to hire Sidney Blumenthal because they didn't trust him.
She went ahead and hired him anyway.
He got her to admit.
Well, what was he doing when you hired him when they were White House rejected?
Well, I don't know.
I he was uh consultant for uh many entities.
Well, uh what do you happen to know any of the entity?
No, I I don't, Congressman.
Could he have been working for your husband?
Oh, he was, in fact, working for my husband, Congressman.
So he was working for the Clinton Foundation.
Yes, that's right, Mr. Mr. Chairman.
Um he started reading emails from Sidney Blumenthal to Hillary.
And one of the emails was Blumenthal asking Hillary to further events on the ground in Libya that would help him with a business deal that he had.
And she responds that uh that she will.
And Gowdy's asking her about it, and her she gets this look of utter anger on her face and and frustration.
And gone is the smile and the warmth and the caring and the compassion.
And it's replaced with Nurse Ratchet at home in the cuckoo's nest.
One of the inmates has gotten loose, and that's Gowdy.
She's gotta somehow get him back in his cage.
He continues to press, and every question he asks that she she just I don't know, Mr. Chairman.
I don't know, Mr. Chairman.
Is it true that Sid Blumenthal worked for your husband?
Yes.
Is it true that Sid Blumenthal worked at Media Matters?
Silence.
I don't know.
I assume he did.
Is it true that he worked for another left wing group of I don't know, Mr. Chairman?
I don't know.
I can't know everything.
Starts reading the emails, and when I when the break ended, he was reading to her a bunch of cables involving intelligence in various parts of the world, and he said, Mrs. Clinton, are you aware that Sid Blumenthal did not write any of those?
He sent them to you.
Well, I was I didn't know it at the time, but I was aware that maybe, but no.
Congress is I I I Well, do you know who did write them?
Have you learned since who wrote them?
The cables that he sent.
Well, I I don't know, Mr. Chair.
I don't know what difference does it make.
She didn't say that, but that was the attitude.
What difference does it make?
And Gowdy's point was your guy, the Obama administration refused to hire because they didn't trust him.
You hire, and he's dealing with American intelligence agencies, and he's getting intel from them and passing it on to you, and you write him back saying keep it coming, keep it coming.
I guess, Mr. Chair, I don't know.
I guess it happened that way.
Now she's sitting there with her head in her hand trying to look like this is irrelevant and boring.
Now I didn't hear any of the Jim Jordan other than the very beginning of it, but see, to me, this looks like huge points scored.
This looks like a slam dunk that she has been exposed.
And every time I think that happens in a situation like this, I later find out that nobody else thinks it was that good or bad, depending on your perspective.
So I've always tried to exercise restraint in describing these things to you.
I can't tell you how many times it's happened that I think I'm during the Clarence Thomas and Eita Hill hearings or the John Roberts hearings, the Alito hearings.
Every time I thought that somebody scored a huge point, exposing one of the Democrats on the committee or whatever, I later in reading about to find out that uh the professionals thought it was no big deal.
So I thought, okay, well.
So I've I've learned to try to temper my reaction.
But this was the I'll tell you how Gaudi started it.
This was really good, too.
One of the Democrats, I forgot who it was, accused Gowdy and the other Republicans of conducting a prosecution.
At these hearings were prosecution.
Gowdy said, I want to respectfully disagree.
This is not a prosecution.
You and I both know what a prosecution is.
A prosecution is you've already formed your opinion, and then you assemble the evidence and go out and prove it.
We don't prosecute things that we don't know that happened yet.
That's all this is, is an investigation.
And we can't get witnesses up here.
And when we get them up here, they lie, and they don't tell the truth.
And if I'm a family member of one of the four people killed in Libya, and I'm watching this go by, I'm embarrassed and I'm ashamed and I'm angry because the people will not talk.
All we're trying to do is find out what really happened, and we're being stonewalled.
This is not a prosecution.
So he, as far as I was concerned, blew that Democrat on the committee, whoever it happened to be out of the water as well with uh what the objective was.
Now back, one more thing on this this act of spa by Mrs. Clinton in now today saying at the hearing, yeah, I didn't do much email.
I really didn't.
I didn't even have a computer in my State Department office.
Most of the business that I did, Secretary of State was not done on email.
Of course, everybody's scratching their heads.
What?
Right, then, okay, if that's the case, why have an off-the-grid server at home, Mrs. Clinton?
If email was so irrelevant.
If you didn't even have a computer in your office, I think the fact that she admits that she didn't have a computer in her office, that tells us exactly the computer and the server were at home because she didn't want anybody knowing anything about what she was doing when it came to email and the use of her computer.
And I'll guarantee you she's not happy, these Sid Blumenthal emails are out there.
They think they can overcome it in any kind of big deal, but she was exposed for that brief moment for what she is, an extreme leftist radical.
And that's what's never said about this woman.
The Republicans never say it about her.
Political opponents never describe Hillary Clinton as she really, because everybody's still scared to death of her.
Something I still don't understand.
But they are.
Now, the other political news, because there is other political news going on out there, and in the Republican presidential campaign, there are a wild bunch of stories from the Hill.com, Donald Trump closing in on 100 days atop the Republican primary polls.
The race has tightened somewhat.
Ben Carson now leads Trump in Iowa.
And the political establishment is shocked.
Now, Ben Carson, They shouldn't be.
Carson has been working Iowa like crazy.
He spent a lot of time there.
He's he's giving Iowa a lot of attention.
The details are these.
Ben Carson has surged past Donald Trump in Iowa.
This is a Quinnipiac University poll, likely Republican caucus participants.
That's just out today.
Carson leads the Republican field with 28%.
Trump has fallen to 20%.
Carson's lead is beyond the margin of error.
A September survey by Quinnipia of the same sample of caucus attenders, Republican caucus goers, had Trump at 27% and Carson at 21%.
Also scoring a boost was Marco Rubio.
Marco Rubio in third place now in the Quinnipia Act poll now with 13%.
He was at 5% in September last month.
Following Rubio in the most recent survey was Ted Cruz at 10%.
Rand Paul at 6%, Carly Fiorina, and Jeb Bush at 5%.
And all the rest are under 3%.
The strong showing from Ben Carson, who's gotten accolades for his debate performance and campaigns.
What is it that Carson's talking about predominantly lately?
During the period of this survey, can you tell me off top of your head what was it Carson was talking about?
Not a wild guess.
I mean, he was talking about the dangers of Islam.
He was talking about the dangers of immigration as Sharia.
This is taken during the period of time where Ben Carson said he doesn't think that a Muslim who believes in Sharia law and therefore the Constitution is subordinated should be elected president.
That's when the media was having a cow.
That's when all the political professionals, oh, that's the end of his game.
You just can't talk about it.
You can't talk about minorities now.
We just can't do it.
And he doubled down on it like Trump has doubled down on his things, and now in Iowa he's at 28%.
Here's how the politico writes about it, in fact.
The strong showing from Ben Carson, who has gotten accolades for his debate performance and campaign style, despite tossing out some inflammatory comments about Muslims and mass shootings comes in part from his support from women who back Carson by 33%.
Trump's percentage of women in this poll is 13%.
So Carson is eight points ahead of Trump overall, 10 but 20 points ahead of Trump in women.
And you notice here that the political claims this support for Carson comes despite the things that he's been in the news for.
Which is how they constantly report on Republicans.
Yeah, yeah.
Look, it's amazing.
He's going grant guns despite what he said about Muslims and Sharia and uh constitution and so forth.
A candidate who shares their values is most important to 28% of caucus goers.
23% think being honest and trustworthy is the key.
Carson doesn't have to worry about which quality is more important because 84% of those polled said that he shares their values, and 89% felt he was honest and trustworthy.
So the two most important reasons a caucus goer would vote for a person in the Hawkeye Caucasi.
Ben Carson scores 84 and 89%.
So you'd have to assume it in Iowa.
They like what Carson has been saying about Muslims vis-a-vis being elected and subordinating Constitution to Sharia law and guns.
Donald Trump now says he would be open to closing U.S. mosques to fight ISIS.
Anyway, I've got to take a break here, folks.
That uh could Steer us into this.
I really want to get into something today about this daily soap opera in Washington and how really it is a script that is written, and how we only see 10% of what makes the news each day.
And it relates to the presidential campaign and the Rubio, or the Paul Ryan Speaker of the House story as well.
That and your phone calls are coming up, so hang in there, be right back.
Fireworks, as the morning session of the Benghazi hearings just ended, everybody was expecting a yawner.
Everybody was expecting it to be typically Washington bipartisan yawner, polite and this and that.
And fireworks erupted.
When Trey Gowdy began quoting emails written by Sid Vicious, Sidney Blumenthal, who is one of the most partisan communists in all of Washington, and has been for I don't know how long.
One of Hillary's closest confidants and advisors for as long as she's had confidence.
She was by his side all during the Clinton administration.
So Gowdy starts asking Hillary about Sid's emails.
White House would not let her hire him.
Clinton Foundation did.
See, he's accessing American intelligence for her and briefing her on it.
Supposedly sending her cables.
Gowdy read an email from Blumenthal asking Hillary to help him with a business deal he had in Libya.
Clearly outside the realm of her gig as Secretary of State.
It was so damaging.
Apparently, my interpretation of this for once was right.
It was a grand slam.
It was exactly as I saw it, so much so that Adam Schiff and Elijah Cummings have now demanded that Gowdy release the full transcript of Blumenthal's testimony in a prior hearing that was behind closed doors and all of his emails.
Now I'm being told I didn't see any of this, so I'm this is being passed on to me.
The only thing I can until I'm able to get into this, the only thing I can figure out why is that maybe they think Gowdy is not being honest or fully forthcoming about the content, maybe taking Blumenthal out of context or whatever.
And Gowdy refused the request to make available all the transcripts involving anything Sidney Blumenthal has said.
He said, Well, you're the closed door hearings, we haven't made the transcripts of anybody else available, and I'm not going to now.
And apparently the lid blew after that.
So the point is, and allow me some breathing room on this until I'm able, just getting all this on the fly while it's actually happening, while also hosting the program and keeping you glued to your radio.
So at least you're doing a damn fine job of it.
I hope so.
I hope this is pretty accurate.
Cummings is now explaining himself to Dana Bash.
This obviously was damaging, is what this all means.
It obviously means that Gowdy put a dent in this image of Hillary that she put forth today as loving and caring and compassionate and disappointed.
And feeling so bad for the families.
He did.
You should have seen.
She did a personality 180 change like you haven't seen.
You want bipolar?
I mean, we saw it.
It's like somebody took her off the meds and it had an immediate.
I don't know, Congressman.
I don't know.
I guess I don't know.
He worked for Media Matters.
Silence, silence, silence.
Well, who did he have these consultancy deals with?
I don't know.
There were many entities.
Could one of them have been your husband?
I guess, yes, yes.
So Blumenthal was being employed by your foundation.
Yes!
I guess, yes, I suppose.
I don't know, Congressman.
So clearly, points were scored here.
they think some damage has been done, and they obviously think that Blumenthal has been taken out of context by Gowdy.
I don't know why else they would want the full.
I think the full transcript of Blumenthal can do nothing but hurt her.
I think the full transcript of Blumenthal can do nothing but hurt her.
It probably is just for show.
I think a lot of what what what Cummings and these guys are doing is probably to distract now, because the blows were serious.
I think that's what this.
I'll bet you at the end of the day that's what all this is really just for show.
Because Gowdy did not ask Hillary about anything but what Blumenthal said in his emails.
His testimony was not referenced.
She didn't she wasn't asked about his testimony, only the emails that she and he were sending back and forth.
So I think what Cummings was doing was standard Democrat Distraction, obfuscation and confusion 101.
He was trying to distract Gowdy.
He was trying to make what Gowdy was doing look ineffective and irrelevant.
But there's nothing in Blumenthal's testimony that would explain away what Blumenthal said in his emails.
That's why they better be careful for what they wish for here, because the exposure of everything Blumenthal was doing with Hillary cannot be helpful to her.
Just can't.
Half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair, Rush Limbaugh here on the cutting edge with play by play of the important things happening in our nation's capital and throughout our country, often as they happen.
Man, I've you know I've I'm so jealous of you, Peter.
You get to listen to this program.
I never get to listen to it.
I mean, I in the past, it's over.
You get to listen to this program as it happens.
You are so lucky, so fortunate.
Here's uh here's John and Dayton, Ohio.
John, I'm glad you waited.
It's great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush.
It's uh it's a real honor.
Um I want to I want to talk about something other than the circus in Washington for just a moment and address Paul Ryan's uh opposition to the Jefferson rule.
I hate to tell you that's a circus too, and I'm gonna but but go ahead.
Okay.
Um and I know the media, the mainstream media in Fox basically wants to talk about you know how great he is because he wants to be at home with his family and spend more family time, and I could do a sidebar on that from what you mentioned earlier, but my main my main reason for the call is that him uh uh his opposition to the Jefferson rule basically allows him as speaker to impose unity on a disordered and divided house.
The only people that are causing disorder or dividing the house in the eyes of the establishment are the people that are newly elected in the Tea Party base and the GOP base that put these guys in office to do a job that the establishment is not doing.
So by eliminating the Jefferson rule, it's kind of like a stopgap safety uh measure on behalf of Ryan in the event that a movement candidate like Trump or Cruz be elected to the presidency, that they'll have their man sitting behind him whenever he addresses Congress.
Wait now, run that last by me again.
If Trump or Cruz is elected, who will have their man sitting behind him?
Every time the president of the United States speaks to Congress the vice president, I know it'd be right, but who do you mean when you say when the president speaks, they will have their man, that's Ryan, sitting behind him.
Who is they?
Trump or Cruz?
The establishment.
The establishment, right.
Opposing Trump and Cruz, right?
Correct.
Okay.
You're on to something.
I just wanted to clarify, I wanted to make sure.
You know, sometimes people start using personal pronouns and they mean other people at what it sounds like.
I just wanted to make sure.
I'm sorry.
No, no, you're right.
You're I've uh your your instincts on this are right on the money.
And I want to, folks.
This whole Ryan thing hasn't made any sense to me from the first moment I heard about.
Look at this.
I'll only do it if you guarantee me unanimous support.
I will only do it if you remove the provision that you could recall me.
I will only do it if I don't have to travel on weekends.
One thing I've learned, Washington is a script.
Things do not happen spontaneously.
We are made to think they are.
That's what the news is every day.
But the news is properly characterized by my friend Andy McCarthy as actually a daily soap opera, and there's a script.
All soap operas are scripted.
The news every day is often used to camouflage what is really going on.
Now this is still, it's still forming in my mind, and I probably ought not start divulging this.
It may just end up confusing you.
Because I'm I haven't nailed it all down.
But I've I've I've got my instincts, and then I've uh come across some things that I think are confirming my instincts, and then I'm having to assume some things beyond that.
And it's always dangerous when you start assuming.
But let me just run some of this by you.
I think there was a seminal event in the House of Representatives that happened in 2012 that blew up a lot of plans, and that was Eric Cantor losing.
That shocked everybody, as you recall.
Cantor was a member of the Republican leadership, and Cantor was moving the donor class agenda.
Cantor losing was a huge blow to the leadership's ties to the donor class.
And as you and I well know, the donor class runs the Republican Party today, not the voters.
Money is important both to get you elected.
It's really important after you leave office when you can have the skids greased for a high-paying job, is there a lobbyist or a consultant to a corporation or what have you.
But money, I mean, everybody wants more.
I don't care how much you have, and the lure of more money is seductive.
It just is.
And it's always been a factor in politics, and it's always been a major factor.
It's just now taken on a dimension that I think has always been there, but it's surfaced now.
This cronyism, call it corporate cronyism, socialist cronyism, capital cronyism, whatever, it's visible now.
They're not even trying to hide it.
It's always existed.
But it's worse now than ever because Obama's, he's selling.
He's selling support for his radical agenda to corporations who would otherwise be destroyed by the agenda if they didn't give him money and buy insurance against him.
Such as the hospital, such as the insurance business.
Clinton also did this with all those coffees and selling the Lincoln bedroom.
Cronyism, it's been around a long time.
It's just now that we see it.
We see, for example, major corporations supporting an increase in the minimum wage.
Can we talk about Walmart for a second?
This is not on point here, but it something my brain synapses just fired on, and it makes the point.
Walmart, out of the blue and shocking everybody, supported a Democrat call for raising the minimum wage.
It was under pressure from unions to do so.
And at the time, I remember pointing out to you, this is a classic example of the kind of cronyism that's taking place now.
Walmart theoretically has the money to absorb an arbitrary increase in the minimum wage.
But their competitors may not.
So by associating with the regime, Walmart is able to win business competitions with, say, Costco or others, without really having to beat them in the market.
You sidle up to government, you get favorable treatment here or there.
Because you agree with Obama the minimum wage or buying protection against something other thing, the other companies can't afford it and don't.
And therefore it's more attractive to work at Walmart and so forth and so on.
This is in other words, doing deals with the government alleviates the need to be smarter and better in the market.
Same deal goes for agreeing with uh uh Obamacare.
If you've got the money as a corporation, do whatever Obama wants, fine.
But your competitors can't, that's how you beat them.
Now, Walmart.
I had the story in the stack here for two or three days.
Now Walmart's stock price is flat.
Their earnings are down, they're blaming the minimum wage increase.
Honest to God, they are.
They're blaming the and they're right, by the way.
I mean, economically, they're right.
But they weren't forced into it.
I don't believe.
Regardless, they're now complaining that their stock price and and their earnings, whatever is flat is because of the minimum wage.
And of course, here come big labors.
Oh, where do you lie?
You can't lie about you've got so much, you're kidding me, Walmart.
You've got more money than God's got.
You got you telling me that the raising a $5 increase in the minimum wage is hurting your.
They're not gonna let that stand.
In Seattle, though, look at all the restaurants that have closed because of uh mandatory minimum wage increase.
And now in New York City, you've got no tipping permitted, prices are automatically going up, restaurants are deciding to eliminate tipping.
But anyway, back to this situation here with Eric Cantor.
I really believe Cantor being defeated caused drastic action to be necessary.
The donor class, if you doubt this, have you paid attention to where Eric Cantor is spending his post-election time.
He spends it out in the Hamptons.
He's uh a consultant now for some moneyed uh institutions or financial institutions.
Anyway, Paul Ryan is the new cantor in my theory in terms of moving the donor agenda.
And what made me suspicious of this is again, throw out the Jefferson rule and demand unanimous support.
These are the kind of things that you demand when you don't really want the job, and you can you just you you hold all the cards.
And you would not think that the freedom caucus, the conservatives in the House, the Tea Party caucus, whatever you want to call them, no way would they go along with this.
No way under the sun would they go along with us.
But looks like enough of them will.
Now, Ryan said he needs 80% support from the Freedom Caucus, and if he doesn't get that, then he's not gonna do this.
And right now he doesn't have 80%.
He might have 70%, but he doesn't have 80.
He got a majority, he's got a clear majority of them, but he doesn't have the 80% he said was necessary to equal unanimity.
Well, we'll see if that actually makes Him not want the gig or not seek it.
What are you shaking your head?
Yeah, he's already said he'd take the 70.
I think that all of this, here's my point.
I think that all of this was already arranged and agreed to before you and I heard a word of it.
And when you and I first heard a word of it, it was presented as this just happened.
It's happening spontaneously.
All of a sudden they wanted Ryan.
These are Ryan's demands.
My point is, all of this happened last week, two weeks ago, whenever.
Long before this list of demands was ever made public, there has been a plan to make Paul Ryan the Speaker of the House.
And it's not spontaneous, and it isn't uh an accident or just the coming together of various unseen forces.
Anyway, I gotta take a break.
I'm not through with this.
I've got a little bit more, but now it gets the ground gets a little shakier because what's what's next is still not sure of it.
But I'll share it with you anyway.
Sit tight, we'll be back in a moment.
Welcome back.
Happy to have you, Rush Limbaugh.
Emitting vocal vibrations coast to coast, rhetoric and residence.
So Paul Ryan first said he needed 80% of the Freedom Caucus to take the gig and they had a broom the provision that would allow them to recall the speaker.
Those two things, and he's in.
And the no traveling and working on weekends.
Freedom Caucus said we don't have 80%, we get 70%.
I'll take it.
And now Ryan's spokesman has also said that he would give up the demand about doing away with the power to vacate the speakership.
Well now.
See, neither of these two were ever going to happen, folks.
There was never going to be an agreement to vacate the rule that allows a speaker to be recalled.
That was never going to happen.
But you're sitting out there thinking, wow, they might get rid of it.
They want Walker, they want Ryan really bad.
It was never going to happen.
Now Ryan looks compromising.
What it means is he really wants the gig.
He'll take the 70% of the freedom caucus and he'll agree with doing away with the idea they're going to suspend the power to re-vacate the speakership.
That means he really wants it.
Well, it may not, it is spokesman's tweeted things that makes it look like he will give up that demand.
He may not have may not have officially said so, but anybody who thinks that that was actually going to survive.
That this is this is how we get, I don't want to say played, folks, but I'm telling you, the script is written off site, backstage.
We don't see that.
We see everybody playing their part.
Including the Freedom Caucus members.
I think a lot of you would be shocked to learn why Freedom Caucus members really didn't like Boehner.
It had nothing to do with ideas.
It had to do with Boehner in the way he was running the place, chairmanships, punishments, this kind of thing.
They wanted him out of there for those reasons, not because he wasn't implementing conservative agenda.
You'd be probably surprised.
Here's the bottom line.
Donor class wants what they want.
And none of what's happened so far, including Trump and Carson, has them slowed down a bit.
It hasn't deterred them or their desires.
So the ser the the ultimate scenario is.
Well, by the way, did you see Bill Crystal today?
Bill Crystal said he's going to vote third party if Trump is the nominee.
I thought Trump had to take a no third party pledge.
I thought Trump had to sign one of those no third party.
Bill Crystals out there saying if Trump actually is going to be, he doesn't think Trump's going to win, by the way.
And neither do these guys.
I'm telling you the House leadership thinks it's going to be Jabber Rubio.
The dream.
Jeb or Rubio in the White House.
Ryan, Speaker of the House.
First 12 months of the Rubio or Jeb administration.
First 12 to 18 months, the donor class agenda is implemented, including amnesty.
And whatever else they want.
That is the objective here.
That's what I think all this adds up to.
Just guessing.
So check the email.
What happens if Hillary wins in your in your wild guess there rush?
Oh, that's easy.
If Hillary wins, the Republicans say, see, we have got to support comprehensive immigration reform, or we're never going to win the White House.
The donor class wants what the donor class is paying for.
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