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Oct. 26, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:38
October 26, 2015, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 Podcast.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Republican establishment is coming unglued.
They're no longer making even any pretence at camouflaging or hiding who they are, where they are, and what they think.
Greetings, it's great to have you, Rush Limbaugh here behind the Golden EIB microphone.
Great to have you at 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program, the email address, L Rushmow at EIBNet.com, and we have a loaded day to day.
Try this headline, Women Cry Foul, as Glamour magazine names Bruce Jenner, woman of the year.
And the only woman I can find on record being upset about this is a feminazi, Jermaine Greer, who says that transgender women are not women.
What a headline.
Women, it's a Breitbart story.
Women cry foul as Glamour magazine names Bruce Jenner, woman of the year.
The Republican presidential primary continues to shake out, and the Jeb Bush campaign appears to be.
Well, what would you call it when Jeb says after a meeting of the Family Brain Trust to figure out how to cut expenses to the tune of a million dollars a month?
You know, there's a lot of the things I could be doing besides this and getting a lot less grief.
There's a lot, there's a lot of things I could do.
There's a lot of things I might like.
I mean, it just it it wherever you look inside the Republican establishment, you see panic, frustration, implosion.
I have been sitting on a story for almost a week.
I wanted to see if this got any play anywhere.
It's a story about Mitt Romney who is in the news on two or three different stories today, and they are all highly revealing.
They are extremely revelatory.
The story I'm referring to, however, was first posted on October 20th, and it was on Breitbart, so it's not an obscure website.
It was out there for everybody to see.
It was out there for everybody to react to.
And honestly, folks, I didn't see anything on it till yesterday.
I've been holding this story.
I've done monologues based on it, but without mentioning Romney.
Mitt Romney went on a podcast.
This may be why it didn't get widely reported.
He went on a podcast hosted by David Axelrod.
Of all places to go, Romney went on a podcast opened by hosted by David Axelrod.
And let me just give you the upshot of what he said.
There was a time when we all got the news from the same facts, if you will.
We had three networks.
We watched for the evening news.
Most of us got newspapers.
Everybody in the middle class got a newspaper, so we all got the same facts, whether we agreed or not.
Mitt Romney is on record in the David Axelrod podcast as lamenting and complaining about the fact that there is now a conservative media, both on talk radio, in print, in broadcast, and on the world wide web.
Romney told Axelrod that the demise of Legacy Media had empowered conservative insurgents like this show and others, which has prevented collaboration in Washington.
I mentioned last week that National Review had asked me to write a little piece, 750 to 1000 words, for their 60th anniversary issue.
And I did.
And they were getting panicky because it took me a while to submit it because I was looking for a hook.
What they said they wanted was a review of the AM radio revolution, what it means and where and where it's going.
And I thought that fine and dandy as it was, but it missed the boat.
I thought that the premise could be much larger and a little bit more powerful than that.
So I thought about it and thought about it.
I wrote the piece, but in the piece, just to give you a little heads up, I opined that the single greatest, most important and perhaps disruptive thing that had happened in the last 28 years since I started my program in 1980.
Remembered, you know, I I hate to keep reminding people of this because I run the risk of having it sound uh egotistical, but it isn't.
It's just a statement of fact.
In 1988, when I started this show is exactly the world Mitt Romney loves, and it's exactly the world Mitt Romney wants to go back to.
And he's not the only one.
The entire Republican establishment is probably in favor of this in one way or the other.
Back in 1988, all there was was three networks and CNN and a couple of newspapers.
And that was the media.
That was the news.
That was a monopoly.
The left ran the media then, just as they do now.
The Democrat Party and the media were at one.
The Republicans back then were perennial losers.
We're talking about 135 to 140 seats in the House of Representatives, and they were happy.
As long as the Democrats gave them a cut of the action, gave them a little participation here or there, they were happy being perennial losers.
They were all part of the Washington establishment, and as such, there was the bragging rights of membership in the club in the DC establishment.
So in 1988, when this program started, that's all there was.
This program was the first broadcast national conservative media presentation, radio or TV.
And in the piece for National Review, I chronicle what happened after this program started, and then the entire uh build-out, if you will, of the alternative media, or the conservative media.
And all along, I was of the opinion the Republican Party would have been ecstatic with this.
Finally, they would not be prisoner to the legacy media.
They wouldn't be prisoner to a Democrat Party media association and monopoly that basically aced them out and gave them electoral victories which were sporadic and unexpected.
And for many of the years following 1988, I was under the impression that the Republican Party was happy with this, that this was something that they welcomed and it was long overdue, and that they would want to associate with it.
And as time went on, some of that did happen, particularly in the in the early years, but it didn't take long for something I couldn't pinpoint, it just didn't seem right.
And I can't pinpoint when it began.
I mean, the Democrats were on my case from day one.
You know, Bill Clinton blaming me for the Oklahoma City bombing and calling KMOX in St. Louis to complain that I had three hours a day on the radio and there wasn't anybody to respond to it.
I was the only conservative voice out there.
This is 1993.
Without going through the entire history of the past 27 years, there were telltale signs that the Republican Party was not at all thrilled with this new media, that they considered it problematic and outsider-ish.
But this piece from Breitbart chronicling Romney's comments with David Axelrod, failed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney lamented the demise of the traditional media.
That would be when they had their monopoly.
Romney says it would be better if we could go back to those days, Where there were no Republican insurgents and extremists in the media.
Because with the birth of this new conservative media, and these Republican insurgents, that began to prevent establishment Republicans from compromising with the Democrats.
The good old days, we now know, and we've suspected for the longest time.
Look, folks, you don't have to hear an endless parade of Republican candidates list as their number one accomplishment.
I can cross the aisle.
I'm the guy that can work for the other side.
I'm the guy that can cooperate with the Democrats.
I'm the guy that can get things done.
You don't have to hear that from more than one or two Republicans to get the drift.
That they long for the days where there was no opposition to them compromising and caving to the Democrat majority and media majority on practically every issue.
And being tossed whatever bones they got in response.
As the Republican establishment is trying to convince to run for House Speaker, Paul Ryan, Romney told David Axelrod that the extremes within our respective parties are having a louder and louder voice and demanding more attention and immediate action as opposed to more collaborative action.
Romney said this phenomenon flows in part from the change in the world of media.
There was a time we all got the news from the same facts, if you will.
We had three networks, we watched the evening news.
He wants to go back to the days of Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, and Howard K. Smith.
And James Reston, Scotty Reston at the New York Times, and David Broder at the Washington Post.
And that was it.
Those were the good old days, folks.
That's before the days you began harassing them on issues like immigration and spending and resisting things like Obamacare and other initiatives put forth by the Clintons and their own version of health care.
Yeah, the good old days when you couldn't fax them.
The good old days when you couldn't call them.
The good old days when you couldn't harass them, the good old days when you didn't force them to pretend to say things you agreed with.
They've apparently been harboring a deep resentment over this for a long time, and we finally reached the boiling point and the tipping point to where they can no longer hold it in.
I don't know whether it's the Trump candidacy and the reality that the establishment Republican Party is not desired.
We now know why four million Republicans stayed home in 2012 when Mitt Romney was on the ballot.
Four million Republicans sensed this and wanted no part of it, probably more than that.
Many of them probably showed up and vote anyway just to be voting against Obama.
Now, according to Romney, people get their news on the web, the radio, they tend to read those things which they agree with.
He said people are not seeing the other side, not even getting the same facts.
Well, we have commentators on left-leaning and right-leaning cable news channels who are hyperbolic in expressing their views on issues.
Same set of facts.
How about the same set of lies?
How about the same set of bias?
How about the same set of disadvantaged?
The same set of facts?
Romney lamented that more Democrats are considering themselves liberal and quote, "In my party there are more and more who feel they are more insurgent than towards the center of the party." Translation, "In my party there are more and more who call themselves conservative." And I think that divisiveness is one of the things that has led Washington to having such a hard time getting things done.
Washington's job is not to get things done.
Washington's job is to stay out of the people's way.
Washington's job is not to solve problems, that's up to the individual, that's up to people.
Washington is to come up with things that help best make the country run, not advance a left wing Democrat Party agenda.
That is not what the U.S. Congress is about.
That's not what the United States government is about.
But apparently, as far as Mitt Romney is concerned, the Democrats were the majority, they had a monopoly on the media, their agenda is what carried the day, and those were the good old days.
Yeah, folks, they were.
Those were the good old days.
The rise of new media outlets in the internet age has allowed regular Americans to get access to information that the mainstream press conceals.
You know, it's just as important what isn't reported as what is.
It is my contention that busting up the Democrat Party monopoly on the mainstream media...
I do believe it's led to divisiveness, but it's not because of us.
The divisiveness and the reason there is so much partisanship and mean spirited extreme rancor is all on the Democrats, if you ask me, and the media.
They're the ones who had the monopoly, they're the ones that had their way, they're the ones that were in charge of everything the people of this country learned, and they were in charge of everything that was hidden from the American people.
Those days are over.
They have lost their monopoly.
They have reacted in extreme ways, complete with anger and frustration and a desire to destroy the upstarts.
The left-wing media has always been left wing.
But back in the glory days of Mitt Romney, where they had their monopoly and they ran their show, they could hide behind the pretense of objectivity.
They can hide behind a pretense of fairness because the Republicans weren't doing much of the complete Europe.
Remember, Spiro Agnew and Nixon were the first to actually ever speak up against this.
Other than that, the Republicans just went along and went along and went along and never complained about a thing.
So the Democrats have their monopoly, they got to determine what people learned, they got to determine what the commentary on the news was, and they got to determine what people never did hear or learn or have reported.
Those days are over, and I submit to you that the left wing of the media monopoly that existed is so out of sorts over this and has been for 20 years.
Their desire to regain their monopoly, to go back to the glory days, their desire to once again be able to move and shape public opinion is what drives them each and every day.
And the loss of their monopoly is what's forced them out from behind this invisible cloak where they hid their objectivity and their fairness, and now they've thrown all that to the wind, and they are as partisan as they've always been, they're just public about it now.
Because the news business has become the news business complete with competition.
And they are losing.
They're losing their audiences, they are losing ad revenue, they're losing circulation, they're losing pages, and Mitt Romney.
And he's not alone.
The Republican establishment long for the days when they were the only ones in the business with the power to determine what everybody knew and didn't know.
Well, on this podcast, actually knows on State of the Union, yes, it's CNN.
Romney Romney was praising various Republican presidential candidates as being in possession of best approach to find common ground with the people across the aisle.
The names he mentioned are Jeb Bush, John Kasick, and Chris Christie.
And then he said, We have Paul Ryan, for instance, willing to work with Democrats.
That's a good thing.
That's a productive thing.
That's what we need.
No, we don't.
Is there not a single one of you that wants to win?
Is there not a single one of you in the Republican establishment in Washington that has ideas you think superior to the Democrats that you want to win and implement is the entire reason for the existence of the Republican Party to collaborate with the Democrats and get things done in Washington like Obamacare and an Iran nuclear deal that makes the world much more dangerous,
a terrorist regime in possession of nuclear weapons.
You want to agree with a political party that's going to make that happen?
Name anything else the Democrat Party has done in the last seven years that has benefited this country.
And you want to collaborate with that?
That's how you measure your success.
This is embarrassing.
It is just completely embarrassing.
You know, this is even more incredulous when you stop and think what these people did to Mitt Romney.
Harry Reed, Mitt Romney hasn't paid his taxes in ten years.
I have a friend who told me.
Media.
Who?
Doesn't matter.
I've got a friend.
Romney hadn't paid his taxes in ten years.
This is a 2012 presidential campaign.
Romney hasn't paid his taxes in ten years.
Media.
Well, you've got to, you've got to give us more than that.
You've got to No, no, no, you need to go to Mitt Romney and ask him.
Have you paid your taxes in the last 10 years, Mitt?
You need to go ask him.
Take you back, Mary Mapes and Dan Rather, defending that forged document story on Bush and the National Guard.
Mary Mapes says they can't do this to us.
They can't, they can't do us just because we asked a question.
Did Bush not show up at the National Guard?
No evidence.
Forged documents.
No evidence whatsoever.
They asked the question, they created a news story.
Did Bush evade National Guard service?
Harry Reed.
Mitt Romney didn't pay his taxes for 10 years.
Media.
We need to see some evidence.
No, you don't.
You need to go ask Mitt Romney why hadn't he paid his taxes?
And for the next weeks.
News story after news story after news story.
Did Mitt Romney not pay his taxes for 10 years?
All it took was one day of stories, and then you put it out on social media, and you put it out in a local media, you put it out on the web, and bamboo, Mitt Romney hadn't paid his taxes ten years.
Typical rich Republic.
Mitt Romney wants to collaborate with these people?
Obama campaign 2012.
Mitt Romney's employee wife died.
Because Romney didn't provide sufficient health care at his company.
Romney didn't care.
They ran an ad.
They put together an ad.
It was totally made up.
It was entirely fabricated out of whole cloth by one of Obama's campaign people.
They go and ask Romney, did you really not care?
That the wife of one of your employees died of cancer because your company didn't provide adequate health care?
But that didn't happen.
News story after news story after news story.
TV ad after TV ad after TV ad.
Romney employee's wife dead because Romney health care insufficient.
Mitt Romney wants to collaborate with these people.
And of course, the old standby.
Mitt Romney hates animals.
Put his dog on the roof of the station wagon as a family tool down the highway on a hot summer day.
Did you see that?
Mitt Romney, you see what he did to his doggy.
Mitt Romney wants to collaborate with these people?
The good old days?
You know what the good old days were?
The good old days were when Harry Reed wouldn't say that.
The good old days were when they wouldn't make up story about an employee's wife dying with cancer.
The good old days, they wouldn't get mad at Romney for putting his dog in the roof of the station away.
You know why?
Because Romney wouldn't have a prayer of winning anyway, and the Democrats wouldn't be worried about it.
So they would never have to run stuff like that.
But today, when the Republicans have a legitimate chance of winning and should have won, the Democrats are panicked to have to put out all the stops and tell us who they really are by manufacturing lie after lie after lie.
And Mitt Romney wants to go back to the day where the Republicans were perennial losers so that he wouldn't be treated that way by Harry Reed.
And he wouldn't be treated that way by the Obama campaign.
And he wouldn't be lied about in terms of how much he loved his dog.
Yep, those are the good old days when they didn't say anything bad about you.
And the only reason they're saying bad stuff about Romney is because this conservative media's come along, and these insurgents on the right have blown up the monopoly, and now facts are from all over the place, and people are confused, and the Democrats are reacting in kind because they're going to get their monopoly back, which they should have never lost, according to Mitt Romney, and probably he's just speaking for countless others within the establishment.
He's not alone in this.
Why would you want to work with these people?
Why in the world would you want to collaborate with these people after having this kind of character assassination done to you?
Why is it after all of that, friendly media who supported your campaign are your enemy?
And if not enemy are the problem.
We supported Romney's campaign on this program.
Touted Romney, spoke highly of Romney.
Qualifications, economics, you name it.
We're the problem.
We insurgents are the problem.
The good old days are back when the Democrats so owned everything they didn't say mean things about Republicans.
That was very collegial back then.
They didn't have to resort to these lies and character assassinations and attempts to destroy people's careers and lives like they do now.
And the only reason they do is because of this upstart radio and internet media.
How many times have we heard John McCain or Chris Christie say we need to work with the other side?
I'm the guy who can cross the aisle.
I'm the guy who can cooperate with the other side.
Chris Christie said a month or two ago, look, I'm not going to shut him out.
If they've got an idea worth listening to, I'll listen to it.
I'll bring them into discussion.
I'll include them in whatever policy initiatives I have.
You know, we sit or we scratch our heads and we hear this.
Now it makes total sense.
They're not campaigning for your vote, they're campaigning for donor dollars with those comments.
This is not the only story with Mitt Romney in the news today.
Here we have from the Daily Beast, Mitt Romney finally admits Romney care gave us Obamacare.
Mitt's on a roll, folks.
Years after running, Mitt Romney seemingly comes to terms with an undeniable connection.
Three years after running on the promise to partially repeal Obamacare, Mitt Romney finally admitted the truth.
His own Massachusetts health care law led directly to President Obama's current law.
During the 2012 campaign, Romney was dogged by accusations from the right that Romney care was the foundation of the Affordable Care Act.
And he was, and there were many people on the right who questioned.
Why would we nominate somebody who cannot criticize the biggest policy boondoggle of the Obama administration because he created it?
Why would we nominate a guy like this?
It was a legitimate question, but we did it.
While memorializing the recently deceased Staples founder, Tom Stemberg on Friday, Romney finally admitted the similarities.
He said, without Tom pushing it, I don't think we would have had Romney care.
And without Romney care, I don't think we would have Obamacare.
So without Tom, a lot of people wouldn't have health insurance.
So Mitt Romney is now praising Obamacare by way of linking it to Romney care.
Without his buddy, Tom Stemburg, founder of Staples, we wouldn't have Romney care.
And if we didn't have Romney care, we wouldn't have Obamacare.
And if we didn't have Obamacare, a lot of people wouldn't have health insurance.
You want to hear some of the latest health insurance news?
Let's Start with this little statistic.
Daily caller, 51% of working Americans make less than $30,000 a year.
This data from the Social Security Administration.
That's $2,500 a month before taxes.
That is just above the federal poverty level for a family of five.
The new numbers come from the National Wage Index, which the Social Security Administration updates every year based on reported wages subject to the federal income tax.
This does not take it.
Stop and think of that.
51% of Americans make less than $30,000 a year.
And they want to talk to us about a booming economic recovery.
They want to talk to us about economic growth and all the great things Obama's done for employment and job creation and business growth.
This is absurd.
People are losing status economically.
And they know it.
They are scared to death in this country.
Half of the people of this country making less than 30,000.
They're all on some sort of government program or two or three in order to get by.
They have successfully been turned into government dependents.
And this doesn't take into account the 8 million Americans who are unemployed, or the tens of millions of working age Americans who are not participating in the job market.
That's numbers 94 million, tens of millions doesn't do it justice.
94 million not working, 8 million of them counted as unemployed.
What does that tell you?
94 million not working, only 8 million officially called unemployed.
Add it all up, nearly 40% of Americans are not working the lowest participation rate since 1977, and the problem is we're not collaborating enough with the Democrats for crying out loud.
The architects of this, our borders are flooded with low-skilled, low-educated people who cannot command any kind of a decent wage because they're not qualified.
They happen to be preferred employee customers.
By employee customers, I mean applicants for jobs.
What is the American economy supposed to exist on?
If people don't have any disposable income, if people aren't able to earn enough money to even have a chance to provide for themselves, what is this economy supposed to propel?
What's supposed to propel it?
Tell you what's propelling it.
$18 trillion in debt, printing money left and right given to Wall Street called quantitative easing.
But it certainly isn't money in the hands of the American people that's propelling the economy.
So now that you know that one in two working Americans make less than $30,000 a year.
Would you like to know what's going to happen to Obamacare premiums next year?
Obama administration unveils health care premiums for 2016.
When consumers turn on their laptops and tablets, this week they should be able to check premiums for 2016 under Obamacare.
Rates are going up in many parts of the country because new sign-up season starts November 1st.
They don't tell you how much rates are going up.
But try this story.
Insurance premium increase of 85% a stunner.
And this is in the liberal enclave of Santa Cruz, California.
The owners of the shock sock shop and shoe company face a stunning 85% increase in the cost of their group health insurance plan for their employees.
Eric Gilla, co-owner with his wife, said when you're doubling the cost, it's threatening.
No, it's exactly what's planned.
This is exactly the plan.
You price this out of existence.
This is how you get the single payer.
Meaning government runs it from top to bottom.
You simply price the private sector out of it.
They can't afford 85% increase To provide health insurance for their employees at a tiny little small business in Santa Cruz, California.
They can't afford an 85% premium increase.
And there's Mitt Romney.
Yep, without old Tom Stemburg at Staples, we wouldn't have had Romney care.
Without Romney care, we wouldn't have Obamacare.
And if we didn't have Obamacare, there'd be a lot of people who wouldn't have health insurance.
Well, now we have people mandated by federal law to buy health insurance that they cannot afford.
And it's becoming more and more unaffordable.
Paul Krugman, New York Times, free Mitt Romney.
Sometimes I find myself feeling sorry for Mitt Romney, writes Krugman.
No, seriously.
In another time and place, he might have been respected as an effective technocrat, a smart guy valued for his ability to get things done.
There it is again.
In fact, that's kind of how it worked when he was Governor of Massachusetts a decade ago, but now it's 2015.
Romney's party doesn't want people to get things done.
On the contrary, it actively hates government programs that improve American lives.
Name one.
Mr. Krugman, I got to take a break.
I'm long here, but back in just a second.
Okay.
We have been frustrated over the Republican Party's failure to stop Obama or even try to stop Obama.
There has been no pushback.
We've talked about it.
There have been two midterm elections where a vast majority of American people showed up to vote with one message.
Stop this.
Fix this.
Do not let any more of this go on.
Republican Party campaigns saying, yep, we hear you, we'll stop it.
Then they make meaningless gestures after they win election.
And we now know that it's purposeful and it's studied.
Here, even Paul Krugman.
Just a few days ago, Mr. Romney couldn't help himself.
He boasted to the Boston Globe that without Romney care, we wouldn't have had Obamacare.
And without that, a lot of people wouldn't have health insurance, and it's true.
And of course not Krugman's praising Romney is, oh my, what of the greatest.
But such truths are not welcome in the GOP, you see, according to Krugman.
Republican insurgent media, they're just gonna put up with this kind of truth.
You know, here's the thing.
I have always respected Romney and have said so as a man of impeccable character and decency.
Just has some of the most out-of-touch political instincts of anybody.
Remember when he said he was a severe conservative?
People's antenna were up.
Wait a minute, this guy really.
I'm a severe conservative.
We knew right then that he wasn't any conservative, because there's no such thing as a severe one.
Um better than Obama, don't misunderstand, but this is just the purpose of this, the value of this is he's not just speaking for himself.
This is the thinking.
Within the Republican Party, Washington, D.C., this is the thinking.
And I think I know or have an idea what may be partially responsible beyond conservative media and the lack of the old-day media monopoly.
I think what's driving a lot of this panic right now, you people have to understand Jeb Bush was going to be the nominee.
Remember, the donors get what the donors want.
And the donors gave gazillions to Jeb Bush.
And the ads that Jeb Bush and the establishment in the PACs are running are not working.
They're not working for Jeb.
New Hampshire has been blanketed with Jeb ads.
Iowa Ditto, and they're not working.
So these alternative sources of information, i.e., this program uh program, other talk shows, the media, uh, conservative media websites and so forth.
We are to blame because we are the ones making the primary electorate not believe their jeb ads, or their ads for any of their establishment candidates.
When Romney blanketed Florida with ads against Newt, it worked back in 12 primaries, but the Jeb ads are not working.
And remember, these people, money is the mother's milk of politics.
Money is how you overcome any deficit, any poll, and they've got more money for Jeb, and they've spent tons of it, and these ads are not working.
Whose fault is that?
It's ours.
Because we have convinced you that those ads shouldn't be believed or listened to or what have you.
Bloomberg has a story as Ad Blitz fails to lift Jeb Bush's numbers in New Hampshire.
I think it's all wrapped up in that.
This is Panic City because the standard rules are not working.
If you hear my voice at the beginning of the next hour, in about five or six minutes, you'll know that I'm okay.
Still here.
I'm just kidding, folks.
Hang in there, be tough.
We uh keep going here if we get back.
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