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Dec. 29, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:26
December 29, 2015, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yes, good King Rush Limbaugh looked out on the Feast of Guest Hosts, where the hosts lay roundabout, cheap and broken available.
America's Anchorman is away, and this is your EIB anchor baby, Mark Stein.
Honored to be with you this Tuesday, direct from Ice Station EIB on a lovely snowy day in New Hampshire.
Rush returns live.
What is it, March 26th, April 29th, August 16th, something like that.
Who's going to be with us tomorrow, Mr. Snerdley?
Who's guest hosting?
Eric Erickson will be guest hosting here live tomorrow.
There's no shortage of guest hosts.
And if there are, we've got 10,000 Syrian guest hosts that we've just fast-tracked through the immigration system who will be here to cover for you.
So you need not fear.
1-800-282-2882 is the number to call.
If you wish to be part of America's number one radio show, Mark Belling, I left an umbrella in the New York studio, and I heard Mark Belling, I think he devoted the last hour and a half of yesterday's show to it, mocking, mocking my exquisitely refined umbrella.
As if there's something real men don't have umbrellas.
Real men get a U.S. Marine to hold it up above their head like the president does.
But yes, indeed, I cannot tell a lie.
I did leave my umbrella in the New York studio.
But I'll try not to.
We're back, are we?
We're back.
We've got, as you can tell, the wet piece of string that holds things together.
New Hampshire is like Baghdad outside the green zone.
You know, it's just murder.
So we may have some problems with Ice Station EIB today.
And as you just heard there, the plan, the fantastic backup plan for America's number one radio show is to go to excerpts from my CAD album.
So by the second hour, you may be wishing it was a double album.
But if there are technical issues here in the great state of New Hampshire, as we struggle to do the only national radio show anyone has ever attempted to do from far northern New Hampshire, if there are a few issues, bear with us.
1-800-282-2882 is the number to call.
If you wish to be part of America's number one radio show, who knows?
If you get through when we're off the air, you may in fact find yourself guest hosting all by yourself.
Last week, just before he took off on vacation, Rush raised a very interesting question.
What is the Republican Party for?
He was talking about this monstrosity of a budget bill that, what's he called?
What are they calling him now?
The bearded Boehner, Boehner's Beard?
Boehner's Beard, Paul Ryan, managed to usher through the House.
And Rush was saying, what the hell difference would it make if this was a one-party state, if there was no Republican Party and we just elected all Democrats?
Because basically, what John Boehner is doing, or not John Boehner, what's he called now?
The guy with the false beard?
Paul Ryan.
Paul Ryan, the guy with the false beard, John Boehner in a false beard, is doing is basically providing bipartisan cover for the Democrat agenda.
And Rush was saying, what difference do it make?
We've got more Republicans than at any time since the Civil War.
150 years.
I've got Republican House, Republican Senate, and what the hell difference does it make?
And I want to give an example of that, because this budget bill isn't the only example.
This bill was passed on December the 3rd.
The FAST Act.
And FAST stands for Fixing America's Surface Transportation.
So it's a transportation bill.
The FAST Act, Fixing America's Surface Transportation.
By the way, I will support any candidate who pledges to stop using stupid acronyms in government bills because that's a sign of the infantilization of politics, these stupid acronyms on these stupid, monstros 1,200-page unread bills.
Say what you like about George III, but the T Act, the T Act was about T. It wasn't because T stood for terrorizing entrepreneurial Americans or anything.
Okay?
The T Act was about T. The FAST Act, Fixing America Act, December 3rd, this was passed.
It's supposed to be about fixing America's surface transportation.
It's about roads.
In there, Somewhere on page 973 or wherever it is, there is a provision in this highway bill that allows the IRS to get the State Department to revoke the passports of U.S. citizens who, as the IRS sees it, owes them money.
You got this?
The IRS will be able to decide whether your passport gets revoked.
Republicans pass this legislation.
The Republican Party did.
A Republican House, a Republican Senate passed a bill giving more power to the IRS.
This is the same IRS that targets U.S. citizens based on their political ideology.
So that, for example, in the run-up to the 2012 election, they effectively took a lot of these Tea Party groups out of the game by tying them up in red tape and IRS paperwork for months and months and months on end.
They didn't target Democrats.
They didn't target liberals.
They targeted their ideological enemies.
They did not serve the government of the United States.
They served the ruling party of the United States.
So we're in full-blown banana republic territory with the IRS.
The IRS has powers that revenue agencies in other parts of the world do not have, and it abused those powers.
And this guy who runs the agency, Koskinen, is a political hack who lied to Congress, who obstructed the investigation, who destroyed evidence, who claimed that evidence no longer existed.
No one has been penalized for this.
They've said that Lois Lerner's server was accidentally destroyed and all the rest of it.
Lois Lerner has been suspended, which means she doesn't have to do any work now for the vast government salary she receives.
No one has gone to jail.
No one has been fired.
No one has paid any penalty for it.
Koskinen ought to be impeached.
He would be regarded as unfit for office in any non-banana republic society.
The IRS specifically targeted the conservative base.
And one could argue that it might actually have changed the result of the 2012 election because it took a big part of the activists out of the game.
And I would certainly say that it changed some results during the election when you get to this or that House race or Senate race.
Yet the position I took when all the IRS stuff came up is that the IRS ought to be abolished and replaced with a revenue agency with constrained powers appropriate to a civilized society.
Instead, the Republican Party has just given them more powers.
They'll now be able to confiscate, in effect, to have your passport revoked.
So next time round, if a Tea Party group catches the eye of Lois Lerner, it won't just be that you'll be able to tie them up in paperwork.
If they're non-compliant, she'll be able to get their passports revoked.
And by the way, you're probably saying, well, Stein, that's all very well for a foreigner like you, flibbity-gibbeting off to foreign parts, but no red-blooded American wants to leave the country anyway.
Do you realize that states that do not have the enhanced security features on their driver's licenses, you're going to need to show your passport just aboard a plane to go and visit your granny in Florida?
So these passports, in effect, if you have your passport revoked, you're not even going to be able to travel internally within the United States if you live in some kind of certain states.
The Republican Party, the Republican Party has just passed legislation giving this revenue agency powers that no revenue agency should have.
The IRS explicitly targeted the conservative base, the people who work hard to get Republicans elected.
The IRS explicitly targeted U.S. citizens on the basis of their political ideology, and the Republican Party has rewarded them for it.
A Republican House and a Republican Senate has rewarded them for it.
Now, Cruz and Rubio, only 14 people in the Senate voted against this bill, only 14.
So it's admirably bipartisan.
86 senators voted to give this corrupt IRS more powers.
Powers, in effect, over your citizenship, because it doesn't matter if you are a natural-born citizen of the United States.
If you don't have a passport, in effect, you have been stripped in a practical sense of about 80% of your citizenship.
What are you going to do?
What are you going to travel on?
Okay, you can buy a Syrian passport for $600 like a lot of these refugees do.
But other than that, your options are limited.
Now, 14 people, sorry, 16, 16, only 16 senators voted against them.
Among them were Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul, and Bernie Sanders.
Bernie Sanders didn't vote, but Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rand Paul all voted against it.
Why?
Because they're running for president, and they know that eventually this stuff gets out.
And at some town hall meeting somewhere in Iowa or New Hampshire, someone's going to be standing up and asking Marco Rubio, why did you vote?
I got tied up in IRS hell for 18 months because I formed a Tea Party group.
Why the hell did you vote to give the IRS power to take away my passport?
But none of the Republican senators, if you weren't running for president, you didn't have to worry about this.
You could just wave it through as part of yet another 1,200-page bill that nobody checks.
And so in a highway transportation bill, we wind up giving the IRS powers to take away your passport.
That's what a Republican House and a Republican Senate does.
Who needs to elect Democrats?
Why be scared of Democrats if that's what the Republicans are doing?
If that's what the Republicans are doing.
That's the problem.
That's the problem.
And that's why nobody in this primary season wants any more of that.
If you worked for Republican victories in the early years of this century when you had a unified president, House, Senate, all from the Republican Party, if you voted, if you worked hard for Republican victories in 2010 and you worked hard for Republican victories in 2014, what are you working for?
You're working to give the IRS, you're working for a party that gives the IRS the power to take away your passport.
And then everybody turns around, the George Wills and all the rest of it say, why the hell, what's wrong with the Republican primary electorate this year that they're falling for this clown, buffoon, demagogue, vulgar bully like Trump?
Yeah, well, we've just got a brand new Republican speaker with this bearded Boehner guy.
And we've just, and the first thing he did is this big super transportation bill that gives the IRS the power to revoke your passport.
Mark Stein for Rush, 1-800-282-2882.
Mark Stein in for Rush on the EIB network.
The piece of wet string connecting this part of New Hampshire to the rest of the world permitting.
We will try to hold it together here.
The State Department, well, also looking at your government at work.
By the way, the IRS thing is not a small thing because everyone hates the IRS.
Everyone hates the IRS.
It's not like when Republicans talk about cutting funding to the EPA and everyone thinks that just means, oh, those mean Republicans, they want smokestacks belching smog all over every pristine American city.
There's nothing fluffy about the IRS.
It's not like when you talk about cutting funding for Obamacare contraceptives and everyone says, oh, you're waging the war on women or anything like that.
The IRS is universally reviled.
So if you can't hold the line at not giving the IRS increased powers, you can't hold the line at anything.
As I said, it gets back to that question Rush asked.
What is the Republican Party for?
Because if you don't come up with a persuasive answer to that, you're going to wind up with Trump.
Trump is basically the hollowing out and annexation of the Republican Party by another force.
And that is what is happening.
And that's why we're seeing stuff about the Republican Party is now, if you mean the establishment, if you mean George Will and Jeb Bush and the consultants and everything, is now talking about running third party.
Because the husk of the Republican Party, the dead zombie husk of the Republican Party, looks like it might be hijacked by something else entirely.
And Mark Cricorian actually had an interesting piece on this over at National Review.
If you look at most of the recent polls, and certainly if you look at the Iowa frontrunner and the New Hampshire frontrunner, between them, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have over 50% of the primary electorate.
And Mark Cricorian thought the distinction between the two at National Review to be made was like this, that Ted Cruz is anti-establishment and Donald Trump is anti-regime.
And Cruz believes in the existing constitutional order and that you can return to it and operate it.
He's just at odds with the hacks and third raters who dominate what he calls the bipartisan cartel in Washington.
I had some experience of that myself directly because Ted Cruz invited me to testify to his Senate Science Committee a couple of weeks ago.
And it was a fascinating experience for me because Ted Cruz is so loathed by his fellow Republicans that they boycotted the entire committee.
All the other Republicans on that committee, starting with the ranking member of Senator Thune, none of them, they all know shows.
And Cruz was the guy basically for most of the hearing, propping up the Republican side entirely on his own up against six or seven Democrats.
So the Republican establishment hates Ted Cruz, hates Ted Cruz.
But he still thinks you can make the system work if you just put real people committed to observing constitutional government in charge.
Trump represents something bigger.
Trump basically has little interest in the U.S. Constitution, couldn't care less about it.
And the reason he doesn't care less about it is because Obama doesn't care about it.
Obama does what he wants.
Obama legislated by press conference a few months ago.
He basically suspended certain Obamacare provisions at a press conference in a press release.
In effect, George III, whose royal prerogative the U.S. Constitution was designed to prevent a rising in the new republic, because legislatures passed laws and then George III didn't give them royal assent because he didn't care for them.
So he left them kind of sitting on the back burner in his inbox for months and months on end.
And this system was designed not to do that.
The legislative branch was designed to come up with legislation and the president couldn't pick and choose which legislation he wished to enact or not.
Obama has done that.
He picks and chooses which legislation his Royal Majesty is prepared to enact.
So certain Obamacare provisions get suspended.
U.S. immigration law gets suspended.
So a guy like Donald Trump, who's a businessman and he knows that business is about what you can get away with, what you can get away with, doesn't think the U.S. Constitution is helpful at this point.
So you have two contrasts here, as Mark Krikorian sees it.
For Mark Krikorian, Ted Cruz is anti-establishment, but Donald Trump is anti-system, anti-regime in a much more profound sense.
And when you look at what is happening at things like the IRS and other elements of the regulatory state, it's hard to disagree there's not something in that.
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Let's go to Mary in Palm Bay, Florida.
Mary, you're on America's number one radio show.
Great to have you with us.
Hi, Mark.
I was just calling because I read that article the other day about the IRS having power to revoke passports.
And there's two details that I think bring that in a little bit.
One is that the person has to owe more than $50,000 that they haven't been paying.
And if they're in an agreement to make payment, it doesn't apply to them.
So, I mean, I know it's a powerful tool, but I don't think it's as broad as you're making it sound that you might be scaring people too much.
Well, look, the whole thing about they've made a payment plan, right?
For start, that 50 grand figure includes interest, which is basically loan shark interest that the government imposes.
It's not interest rates you would accept if you were negotiating.
I think they're pretty low.
Own interest rates.
It also, when you say make a payment plan, that's the IRS's way of that's essentially a part of the protection racket.
They're saying you may feel that you don't owe us this money, but come to an agreement to pay us so much per month, and we won't seize your home and we won't clear out your bank account where we won't.
I'm not sure how you prove that you don't owe it.
Well, no, that in itself is being asked to prove a negative.
Look, what I'm arguing against here, Mary, is that the IRS, I'll tell you the difference.
I've lived in a lot of different countries, and there is a difference between the United States and other countries that does not speak well for the IRS.
People despise their revenue agencies.
HMRC in the UK is loathed and despised.
Same in Ottawa, same in Canberra, same in France, same in Germany.
People don't like revenue agencies, even with very limited powers.
But the IRS, this is the only country I have in the civilized world that I've ever lived in in which ordinary citizens fear their revenue agency.
Because as we have seen, for example, you might have, there were some shopkeepers, I think they were in, there have been a couple of recent cases.
I think one was in Illinois and one was somewhere down in Arizona, where they make small deposits.
And because if you the bank will not let you make deposits in more than $10,000, if you make a deposit of more than $10,000, the bank has to notify the IRS.
But at the same time, because in other words, the $10,000 is a cutoff, then if you make sufficient deposits of $9,750, they may be perfectly legal, but the IRS will regard them as suspicious and seize the money.
They seized the money.
They just took the money of these storekeepers.
They're not arguing there's anything wrong with what they're not.
They're not even attempting to mount a case that this money is ill-gotten.
This money was paid by people coming into these guys' stores, buying products, and then at the end of the day, these people walk it across the street to the bank and stick it in the bank.
But the IRS has seized it, and then you have to justify getting it back from them, Mary.
And that's not a power that this revenue agency should have.
By the way, do you work for the IRS or do you have a connection with the IRS?
I do know some people, yeah.
What do you mean you know some people?
That work for the IRS, yes.
What, friends, family?
I'm not going to go into detail if that's okay.
No, I'm saying to you, Mary, that this revenue agency has powers that revenue agencies in free societies do not have.
How do you feel?
I'm going to take my word for that.
I was just calling in about that article that were the two details that you didn't mention.
Well, Mary, let's look at the IRS.
Do you think they have what they did in the Tea Party targeting was right?
No, in fact, that code section that was used for all those organizations, I think it was 501 C3 or 503 C4, I think.
I think what that does is it lets organizations take donations without disclosing them.
And I know that Obama, some Obama, and I can't remember the name of it off the top of my head, was using that.
And I think my personal opinion is that it shouldn't be used by anybody to hide who their donors are.
No, no, no, that's a cop-out, Mary, because I agree with you.
What it is basically is saying, if you make arrangements that meet the definition of the state, we will give you a tax break on certain activities.
And I agree with you.
The state shouldn't be in that business.
But when you've got a tax code, as long as this sclerotic federal government imposes on the citizens, that's all it is.
The tax code, when the tax code is that long, it's all exceptions.
There are no citizens anymore.
Mary, in your case and me in my case, when we appear before the United States government, we do not appear as individuals equal before the law.
What matters is whether we can claim to belong to any of these carved-out exemptions that are the reason that this tax code is so long.
And there's only a justification for this.
501c34, 501c3, 501c4, 501c57.
If everybody is treated the same and they're not treated the same.
And as I mentioned on this show before, a fellow called Malik Obama, who runs something called the Barack H. Obama Foundation in Kenya, sent in his application for 501c status from Unguia, Kenya.
That's what he did right.
That's the mistake that all these other people made when they're applying from Cleveland and they're applying from Des Moines and they're applying from Pocatello and they're applying from Phoenix and they're applying from Palm Bay, Florida.
The way to get express service from the IRS is to mail your application in like Malik Obama did from Unguia, Kenya.
And he got his approval in less than a month while U.S. citizens waited two years.
His approval was signed less than a month later by Lois Lerner herself, and it was backdated by Lois to cover the two and a half years that the enterprising brother of the president, Mr. Malik Obama, had already been raking in tax-deductible donations from Americans.
Now, that's illegal.
She's not actually meant to, she's not allowed to actually backdate it two and a half years.
There's limits to you're not meant to backdate it more than two and a quarter years.
But Lois Lerner doesn't care about that because it's the brother of the president.
And so she sends him a letter back to Kenya saying that they've backdated it two and a half years.
That's banana republic stuff.
It's just straight about banana republic stuff.
This foundation, by the way, doesn't do anything.
Its website shows that it's trying to raise money to build the Barack H. Obama executive latrine on some highway in Kenya.
That's all it does.
It does no charitable activities.
But Lois Lerner didn't need to see the donors for the Malik Obama's Barack H. Obama Foundation.
She just fast-tracked his application through in less than a month and backdated it two and a half years.
This is stinking banana republic stuff that stinks to the heavens.
And we've just given these guys more power.
They've abused the powers they already have and we've now given them more powers.
I'm sorry.
I don't trust the IRS to decide who should and who shouldn't have a passport.
And this idea about, oh, you make a payment plan, this is what's killed the U.S. justice system.
As I know because I'm stuck in the toilet of the D.C. Superior Court for these last four years, you know, in functioning justice systems, it's you're guilty or you're not guilty.
In the U.S. justice system, they say, we're going to tie you up for 20 years unless you make a deal.
We're going to destroy your life unless you make a deal, unless you come to a deal.
And that's basically what the IRS is offering in its payment plans.
You can agree to a payment plan, or we're going to take your house, take your business, clean out your kids' bank account, clean out your grandma's bank account, and then you can get into a big discussion with us about trying to get it all back, Mary.
And I understand you're loyal to whatever close persons to you work for the IRS.
But the fact is, in free societies, the King's Revenue Agency should not have this power.
And King Barak's Revenue Agency, where it in fact distinguishes between taxpayers on the basis of their political beliefs, should be abolished and replaced by an agency with far more circumscribed powers.
Thank you for your call, Mary.
We'll take lots more straight ahead.
Mark Stein and Farush, great to be with you.
And don't forget, the great Eric Erickson will return to the Golden EIB microphone tomorrow.
Just to go back to what Mary was saying, of course, the other thing about this is your passport's taken away without a judge or a court having any say in it whatsoever.
In other words, the IRS is in effect judge, jury, and executioner.
They decide to prosecute the case, they adjudicate the case, and they impose the penalty.
And again, that is something that does not happen in free societies.
And we know the Democrats are in favor of this.
So we don't need, in a two-party system where one party is in favor of that, the other party ought to be offering an alternative.
If both parties, what it means essentially is that a lot of the stuff that's gone on in the last few years since all this came out a couple of years ago about Lois Lerner is just a charade.
We've watched these hearings, right?
You switch on the TV and they're having an all-day hearing and the RS commissioner is being questioned and Lois Lerner is pleading the fifth and the Republicans are asking all these tough questions and it turns out it's all meaningless.
It's just a little bit of theater because when it comes to the bill, they vote to give the same corrupt revenue agency that's spending all these hours stalling them and stonewalling in these hearings.
They vote to give that revenue agency more power.
More news from your government department as we approach the end of the year.
The State Department has got a brand new hashtag because that's what they, all their hashtags are just terrific.
United for Ukraine.
That's the one that Marie Half and Jen Saki held up.
Great big cardboard hashtag.
And you go and ask the Ukrainian people how that's working out for them.
United for Ukraine.
They've got a new end of the year hashtag, hashtag 2015 in five words.
And they're listing State Department foreign policy successes of 2015.
And you may, after reading these, you remember what State may be wondering what State Department is this?
Is this the State Department of some obscure planet briefly mentioned in Star Wars Episode 7?
Hashtag 2015 in five words.
Winning fight against violent extremists, five words.
Protecting Arctic climate and communities, five words.
Iran peaceful nuclear program ensured, five words.
Bringing peace security to Syria, five words.
These are State Department success stories of 2015.
Bringing peace, security to Syria.
If that's the case, why are we having to take 10,000 Syrian refugees?
If there's all that peace and security in Syria, why aren't they stampeding back to Syria?
Why is Sweden being overwhelmed by Syrian refugees?
Why is Austria?
Why is Germany?
Why are Syrian refugees sneaking into Europe?
And, well, that brings me to winning fight against violent extremists.
What about Paris?
What about San Bernardino?
Bringing peace security to Syria.
So that's great news.
I didn't know they had peace and security in Syria, but it turns out they do.
And everything's just going hunky-dory there.
In fact, meanwhile, back on planet Earth, beyond the State Department hashtags, you remember the biggest hashtag that Obama got mixed up with this last year was that one that Michelle Obama posed with.
Hashtag bring back our girls about the kidnapped sex slaves by Boko Haram.
Yeah, how did that work out for those kidnapped girls?
Has anyone brought them back?
No, odd that.
It's amazing.
The cardboard hashtag, the magical cardboard hashtag apparently has no power.
ISIS's Committee of Research and Fatwas, they're like the IRS of ISIS, they've just issued fatwa number 64.
This is dealing with some of the brothers who have committed violations in the matter of the treatment of female slaves.
And these violations are not permitted by Sharia law.
So they have issued clarifications.
If the owner of a female captive who has a daughter suitable for intercourse has sexual relations with the latter, is not permitted to have intercourse with her mother.
And she is permanently off limits to him.
This is fatwa number 64 from ISIS.
They've just clarified that if you own, if you're the owner of a mother and daughter, you basically got to decide which one you're going to have sex with because you're not allowed to have sex with both of them.
If you own a mother and a daughter, as they do, the owner of two sisters is not allowed to have intercourse with both of them.
Rather, this is fatwa 64.
No, not Strawberry Ledder 23, Fatwa 64.
It's like the ISIS version of Love Potion No. 9.
It's fatwa number 64.
The owner of two sisters is not allowed to have intercourse with both of them.
It's Mambo number five.
It's horizontal Mambo number 64.
And the owner of two sisters is not allowed to have intercourse with both of them.
Rather, he may only have intercourse with just one.
The other sister is to be had by him only if he relinquishes ownership of the first sister by selling her, giving her away, or releasing her.
So if you own two sisters, if you own two hot-looking sisters and you have sex with the first one, you're not allowed to have sex with the second one unless you first sell the first one to some other guy or give her away as part of an everything must go store-wide clearance sale of ISIS sex slaves.
So this is right, right?
You could.
All you have to do is just give, or you might be feeling sorry.
Around about this time of year, Christmas, you might be feeling sorry for some guy across the street whose sex slaves are getting a little up there in years.
Maybe they're 10, 11, 12.
And so you give him one of the sisters that's old and worn out and you've no longer got any use for.
And so then you move on to the second sister.
This is the world of Bring Back Our Girls once Michelle Obama has put down the cardboard hashtag.
And yet, according to the State Department, one of their great successes is this year is Peace and Security in Syria.
Mark Stein in for us on the EIB network.
The 35-foot artificial Christmas tree on display in Stockton, California caught fire and burned to the ground.
That's a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, burned artificial Christmas tree.
It's gone in Stockton, California.
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