Posted on 02/16/2010 2:59:54 PM PST by GOP_Lady
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On Today's Show... |
February 16, 2010 |
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The Rush Limbaugh Show® Premiere Radio Networks © All Rights Reserved, 2010. Premiere Radio Networks, Inc. 15260 Ventura Blvd. Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
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"Our great Olympic skater, Peggy Fleming, was injured in an auto accident in Biden's motorcade.
This guy's a walking calamity."
"It's one of those days: A great show and you still can't please everyone.
There are still some malcontents out there."
"More people die from lightning strikes than have died in Toyotas,
and if they could unionize lightning strikes I'm sure they'd do it.
Maybe they should because they'd never happen then."
"It appears that Obama has proposed a health care proposal.
There has been one person in this country who has been pointing out for a year that he has not had his own program."
"Someone ought to ask Leslie Gelb, who shouldn't be replaced in this administration?"
"Democrats and the White House want to be able to position the Republicans as the party of 'no.'
That would be fine, if the Republicans were saying 'no' to Obama's health care proposal."
"Here McCain is taking 'a sledgehammer' to a Republican opponent on day one.
Now, McCain never did -- and never does -- take a sledgehammer to Obama, who is destroying the country."
"This speech that Chris Christie gave in New Jersey is strikingly good."
Past editions of "Rush In a Hurry"
Rush Hudson Limbaugh. Mmm, Mmm, Mmm!
Continually repeat ...
It's not about me.
I'm the President.
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: From an eager-to-help Associated Press, we had a forerunner of this story yesterday: "Facing criticism that President Barack Obama isn't connecting with the American people, the White House is infusing --" It's bad. Folks, the left is so ticked off at Evan Bayh, you cannot believe how mad they are at him. Jonathan Capehart is calling this a brain drain of the Senate. If this is a brain drain of the Senate then I say more of it. The more Democrats we lose, the more brains we lose, fine and dandy, I'll get rid of those brains every time it happens. I'll cheer it. And we got John Podesta who was former chief of staff for Clinton saying the Obama administration's a mess, the Republicans are going to clean up in November, may take the Senate back. Charlie Cook, noted nonpartisan pollster and political scientist analyst said the same thing.
Remember, folks, let's go back just one year. This time last year it was settled political science that the era of Ronaldus Magnus was over. Last year at this time it was settled political science that the Republican Party would never be in power again, at least for 40 decades. I was the head of a failed party, conservatives were a dying breed, Obama was golden, the Democrats had all the votes and the power to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, forever. And yet just like global warming, we have to always be reminded that the ultimate definition of science is that it is never, ever settled. It is always changing. New factors come into play constantly, and it needs endless examination as it is endlessly never settled, and it needs a highly trained specialist like me to continue to analyze it. One year ago everybody in this country thought I was the one whacked out. Even people on our side thought I had lost it. I was the only one suggesting that what was going to happen has happened. I was the only one suggesting the era of Reagan was not over, that conservatism is timeless, as is the Constitution.
And now here it is a year later, and we get this story from an eager-to-help AP: "Facing criticism that President Barack Obama isn't connecting with the American people, the White House is infusing its communications strategy with some of the ironclad discipline and outside-the-box thinking that made the Obama presidential campaign famous - and successful. Sensitive about talk that the president was sometimes overexposed during his first year in office, the administration now is more discriminating about how and when the president deals with media --" Like as in never. "-- and about whom he talks to when he does." He went out there today, we got the tape, ramping up the whole notion of nuclear power. Eight-point some odd billion in loans. Now, this is going to be fascinating to watch because the entire entertainment industry, the Hollywood left -- do you realize why we don't have any nuclear power in this country in the last 30 years? One movie, The China Syndrome, starring Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas, and Jack Lemmon was in there. That's the reason that we do not have any nuclear power plants in the last 30 years.
Now, what everybody seems to forget here, you can't build new nuclear power plants and take 'em online without someplace to put the waste, and Obama's closed it. The waste repository was Yucca Mountain in Nevada, and Obama has closed it. Nobody is talking about that. He can do all he wants, he can extend loans and he can get the process going, but wait 'til the regulations and the red tape. This is simple pandering because his own party does not want this. His own entertainment donors don't want this. They don't want nuclear power. They're not just going to roll over and say, "Oh, our guy wants it? Okay, cool. We'll support it." But without someplace to put the waste, it's all academic. Mona Charen wrote about this at National Review Online four or five weeks ago. It's my superior memory that allows me to remember this. Here are some of the things that the Obama administration is going to do.
"More direct, rapid response to criticism. Through blog postings on the White House Web site by a small cast of Obama aides and unsolicited e-mails from press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted to the White House's vast press list, the administration seeks to more quickly and widely counter perceived misinformation. And Gibbs has finally resorted to Twitter. More events at which the president speaks directly to the public without the filter of the media." More? How can there be any more? Four hundred some odd last year. "Carefully choreographed interactions with the press. Instead of holding news conferences, which can cover many topics and put reporters in competition with the president for the spotlight, the Obama team is trying to place a premium on its media interactions."
I could go on reading the rest of the story, but isn't Mr. Obama just adjusting the ways in which he hopes to continue to dupe the dumb -- the whole Obama administration is a giant dupe. And it's been caught on to. He's no longer duping anybody, so they gotta find a new way to dupe people. They still can't be honest about what they're doing. They don't dare. So we'll keep a sharp eye on this, folks. We are not fooled. However, at CNN, they are breathless in anticipation. Rick Sanchez yesterday afternoon talking with the political correspondent Jessica Yellin.
SANCHEZ: Did the White House suddenly say, look, enough is enough, we're not going to sit back and take Dick Cheney going on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and all the right-wing places and arguing about everything that we do, we're going to take him on, and the man to do that is Joe Biden? Is this a strategy?
YELLIN: The White House has ramped up its communications message, and it's become much more aggressive on many fronts.
RUSH: Yeah?
YELLIN: And this is one of them.
RUSH: Ooh.
YELLIN: In general taking on Cheney in an election year is a win for Democrats because he's so unpopular with the Democratic base, and we all know part of the problem in politics is having an enemy is what helps you raise money which you need to succeed.
RUSH: Well, bring it on. I mean they've been doing it to Cheney the whole year, they've been going after me the whole year, and where are they? Their base is livid with them right now. Nobody's happy with Obama. Look at this. This is a New York Times/CBS poll: Just 6% of Americans believe Obama's $787 billion slush stimulus fund created jobs, just 6%. And these are the people that probably -- well, never mind. Now, in December the Obama administration announced they had saved or created 1.1 million jobs. In January the Obama administration announced that they had saved or created two million jobs. But the American people are not buying this. Just 6%. Does this not give you faith and hope in your countrymen, folks? I mean they know that there are no jobs being created 'cause they're outta work, and they can't find any, and they keep hearing about all these millions of jobs created or saved, and they're saying, "Where?" Just 6%. This is Obama's failed stimulus. I mean the word "failure" is all over this administration -- oh, yeah, Snerdley, you're right, this will deserve a rapid response. We'll probably hear from the White House on this by the end of the day that Limbaugh is out there quoting a New York Times poll, just 6% of Americans believe Obama's stimulus plan created jobs.
It is a failed stimulus. That's the whole way to describe that. That's the term we should use every time it's mentioned. George Lakoff would be proud of me, George Lakoff (rhymes with) would be proud of me. Obama's failed stimulus. And they're going to compound it here with a second failed stimulus. What all this adds up to, folks, is that Obama is admitting he cannot manage the presidency. Obama's admitting that he's failed. He's back on the campaign trail. He's back in campaign mode. He cannot govern. He cannot manage the presidency. The president has admitted and his administration has admitted he has failed. He's gotta go back to what worked, the permanent campaign. The problem, that isn't gonna work, though, because the permanent campaign is up against the hard dose of reality that the American people see each and every day.
END TRANSCRIPT
Click the pic!
KUSELIAS: My position on McNabb has been, I think his career, he has been underrated in the city of Philadelphia and probably a little overrated outside the city of Philadelphia. He's benefited from having public few days with two people that are very polarizing and unliked in certain situations. One, Rush Limbaugh, two, Terrell Owens. Those are polarizing people but I look and say, "One Super Bowl appearance, never won a Super Bowl, has not been great in championship games." There's a sense in Philadelphia - my friends who are Eagle fans - that we are never going to win the Super Bowl with five as our quarterback.
RUSH: And as far as I know, Kuselias is still working at ESPN. More power to him but apparently I, El Rushbo, the gift that keeps on giving. The latest now is that McNabb benefited from all this so-called controversy.
END TRANSCRIPT
| Read the Background Material... |
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| • eStack Section: The Media's Obsession with Rush & Donovan McNabb |
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: We got a great question here on the phones. It is from Patricia in Barstow, California. I'm glad you called, Patricia. What is your question?
CALLER: Well, Rush, we all know that government spending can't pull us out of a recession. But we say... Worse, everyone knows that World War II pulled us out of the Great Depression. But didn't government spending on all the resources we needed to prosecute the war, was that what did it or was it something else?
RUSH: No, I'll tell you why this is a great question because it points out something very important. It allows me to point something out very important. The New Deal, which Obama is trying to recreate here on an even grander scale, had no impact whatsoever on ending the Great Depression. In fact, some people say -- before we even get to World War II, now, Patricia -- that the spending of the New Deal seemed to lower unemployment when FDR put a ton of people on the public relief and public jobs roll. However, you need to ask the question: Should we count people receiving welfare checks as employed? Even if they are licking a stamp now, if that's all they're doing or if they're mailing things out from the CVA office -- and even at that, even with all of his spending, unemployment was at 14%, Patricia, when the New Deal part 2 took effect and the true downward trajectory was realized when the war started. Now, why is that? And that's your question, right?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Okay. What did FDR spend his money on and what is Obama spending federal money on right now?
CALLER: Well, make-work jobs that are actually produce anything, don't create any wealth.
RUSH: He's not even doing that. There hasn't been a job created because of what Obama did. Evan Bayh just admitted it. There hasn't been one job created in the last six months by the government. Not one. There hasn't been a job created in the private sector.
CALLER: Right. There hasn't been a job in the private sector created but they created jobs in the public sector.
RUSH: No, what they're doing is "saving" jobs at the state level. Most of the stimulus money has gone to protect union employees at the state level and at the city level. The money has been used to help the states delay the day of reckoning on their bankruptcy, because of their deficits. Now, in World War II, federal spending was in the private sector and it was building things. It was building the armaments of war. It was building ammunition. It was building guns, airplanes, boats. The country was on a full-fledged war footing, and products were being produced. There was actual merchandise being made. People were being paid for making things. There was genuine productivity. The gross domestic product was ratcheted up because we were at war. The GDP is not affected by the kind of spending that FDR did in the New Deal or by what Obama is doing because we're not building anything. We're not making anything. We're not producing anything. We're simply giving money to selected union Democrat officials and state governors to forestall their day of reckoning. So war spending like we were engaging in to the extent that we did in World War II, was a unique circumstance. We cannot pretend that we're at war every time we get into a recession and start funding the way we did in World War II. The government cannot create jobs in the private sector during the normal ebb and flow of daily life in America. FDR proved it with his New Deal 1 and 2 and Obama is proving it now. No goods being produced. The GDP is not growing the way it should. GDP equals CIG, and the way to understand this --
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Well, you've heard me explain that.
CALLER: Right. (garbled) Yes.
RUSH: There is no consumption going on (that's C), there is no investment going on, but there is massive growth of government going on. So all of this spending is doing nothing but propping up a bunch of Democrat Party union allies and governors in various states around the country, for a little while. They can't do it forever. Chris Christie. We're going to get to his speech, his State of the State Speech. This guy, I hope he's got a great security detail because he told them what-for. His state is on the verge of utter bankruptcy if he doesn't do some serious cost-cutting and program cutting, and he announced that he's going to do it and he's going to do it with executive order because he's working with a Democrat legislature. He's gonna cut as much as he can on his own. Does that answer help you or do you still have some lingering confusion? How can I explain it better?
CALLER: Well, Rush, just to make sure I understand you. By that logic, theoretically if the government spent money on producing things -- say even actually building infrastructure -- then the government could incent or cause recovery in the private sector. But the facts are that by the nature of government, government doesn't do that except in extraordinary circumstances, like World War II --
RUSH: Exactly.
CALLER: -- when they were forced to.
RUSH: Yes, 'cause the nation's security was at stake. The problem is, we're living under a bunch of false premises. The infrastructure of this country is not falling apart. Everybody wants to say we are. We had one bridge collapse in Minneapolis, and "the infrastructure is falling apart!" The things that are falling apart in this country are the things run by liberal Democrats: The school system -- and I'm not talking about the buildings. I'm talking about the actual thing that goes on in the buildings. Our education system is nothing but corruption. Any effort to privatize education with vouchers, even to benefit minority kids, is cut by Obama because the fealty is totally to unions.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: We don't have a glaring infrastructure repair need as evidenced by the fact that no infrastructure rebuilding is going on. All of this is a giant myth. Everything about this stimulus bill was premised on totally false things. That the country's falling apart here. We got shovel-ready projects to get going here. None of it is happening. It's all make-work, and the make-work stuff is obviously, by definition, not necessary. So it's just busybodies running around, and it's not even that much going on. This is just a transfer of wealth from producers to non-producers. It's just simply the redistribution of wealth disguised as "rebuilding the infrastructure" and "rebuilding our schools" and so forth. Let me tell you what I just read. There's a story, I think, in the Washington Post today. The DC mayor as asked residents to get out there and shovel the roads themselves; get out there and shovel the sidewalks themselves. The city can't handle it.
Now, how much do you think the people that live there are paying in taxes for just this kind of thing? Twenty-five percent of the snowplows are broken down and unusable, and now the mayor's asking people to get out there and shovel it? Now, I'm not against people getting out and shoveling sidewalks and so forth, but people are paying exorbitant taxes all over the country for this kind of thing to happen. Now, where's the money going if the snowplows are not operating and if there aren't sufficient personnel to handle these kind of weather circumstances? Where's the money going? I'll tell you where it's going, it's going to protected people that raise money and donate money to Democrats and vote for them in great numbers and get other people out to vote for them. There's nothing of any true economic benefit at all from any of this $1 trillion slush fund that Obama set up. But there was tremendous economic benefit when we funded the war -- and, by the way, the difference in World War II was we still had private sector companies building the airplanes. This was the defense budget. This is something constitutionally required. This was not the government overstepping its bounds. This was FDR moving in and defending and protecting the country and the Constitution, which is a constitutional obligation under the Oath of Office that he swore. There's literally no comparison. The closest comparison we have is to New Deal ` and New Deal 1 with what Obama is doing, and even at the beginning of New Deal 2, we still had 14% unemployment in this country. Ten years after the Great Depression.
CALLER: I'm aware of that.
RUSH: Well, I don't care. I'm not trying to insult you with this.
CALLER: (laughs)
RUSH: I'm just saying trying to be clear in my answer because it's a great, great question. Because there are a lot of people who do think that there have been times in the past where government spending has in fact revived an economy, and those are emergency circumstances. It's something that can't last in perpetuity -- and, remember, it didn't.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: We didn't conclude after World War II that the best way to run the private sector was for the government to run it and to keep deciding what gets funded and what doesn't, because politics was playing no role here. The necessity of building the armaments and machines of war to defend and protect the country -- and everybody in this country being on the same page with a minor, minor percentage exception -- all joined the effort. Rosie the Riveter and all of that.
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: I will go out on a limb. I'll go out on a limb and say the evidence throughout American history is clear: There is not one instance where anybody can find for me that this kind of spending -- New Deal kind of spending, Obama stimulus kind of spending -- expands the American private sector, which is what produces wealth in this country. Obama doesn't even understand that -- and if he does understand it, he resents it and is trying to see to it that the private sector is deemphasized. What is going on as a result of this man and his administration is hideous. Glad you called, I really am.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: That was really a great question from Patricia out there in Barstow, California. And I want to add a couple things to this related to government spending versus private sector economic activity. When the government spends -- and we see the evidence of it right now with Obama -- what is the objective, what's Obama's spending objective? Snerdley, take a wild guess? What is Obama's spending objective right now? It is to cripple the US. Well, his stated purpose is to end the business cycle so there's no ups and downs, to take risk out of it. I believe his real purpose is to destroy it and replace it with the government being the sole place anybody turns to for anything. But more specifically, if that's a little bit hard for you to get your arms around, more specifically, when the Obama government spends, the objective is to make sure that their party members, union members particularly, make sure they keep their high wages, that they don't lose any ground in their pension or their health care benefits no matter what the economic circumstances are in their businesses or in their states.
There is nothing market driven about Obama's spending, and that is the key. Every decision that Obama is making on spending is political. And when it's political, it is for his and his party's benefit. Health care is not about you. Health care is not about improving health care. It's about improving the Democrat Party and helping the Democrat Party. There are no rational business decisions being made because there's nobody in the Obama administration who's ever been in business in the private sector, not one! Not one of the czars, not one of his cabinet secretaries has ever met a payroll. They are all academicians, theoreticians. In World War II specifically, we were making things that were needed. We were making things that were desperately needed to defend and protect the country. The New Deal wasn't about that. There was nothing desperately needed that the New Deal was tackling. The New Deal was just like Obama's spending; it was to enrich Roosevelt and the Democrat Party.
Is Obama spending making anything anybody wants? Nobody wants windmills. The windmills that we have spent money on are leaking fluid and they become refuse and waste in places like Hawaii. Shovel-ready projects. We're supposed to get shovel-ready projects last year. We didn't get any of those. We're not getting anything anybody wants. We're not even getting jobs with this slush fund. Now, when the Nazis and when the Japanese were overrunning the world, there were a lot of people that wanted tanks. There were a lot of people that wanted airplanes. There were a lot of people that wanted guns. There were a lot of people that wanted bombs. There were a lot of people that needed tanks, there were a lot of people that needed airplanes, there were a lot of people that needed bombs, and there were a lot of people that needed guns and there were a lot of people that needed petroleum. Need. Market oriented need versus public sector spending which is purely a political calculation.
You're being lied to so profusely, you're being told the purpose of this spending is to create jobs, and here goes old Evan Bayh letting the cat out of the bag saying there hadn't been one government job created by Congress in the last six months, make it the last 13. It's just silly. I can understand people making the comparison, and we do have a lot of people in love with the notion of government as a protector, as a benefactor, as an equalizer and so forth, but it depends on who's in charge of it. And the people in charge of government right now have only one interest, and that's themselves and their party and their power. And for them to acquire power, folks, we all have to lose a little liberty. For them to acquire power we have to lose a little freedom or a lot, depending on how successful they are. They're not about helping us. They're about helping them. I defy anybody to point me into one direction of any Obama agenda item and you tell me where it's helping the country or helping individuals, other than public employee union people and Democrat governors. You tell me where it's helping the private sector of this country.
END TRANSCRIPT
BAYH: General Sherman was a wimp --
HOST: (chuckles)
BAYH: -- when it came, uh, to making declarative statements. Yes, I will go beyond, uh, General Sherman. Uh, you know, I've -- I've tried that before, as you know, and fortunately I'm back on my medication now and not --
HOST: Uh, heh, heh, heh.
VOICE: So you'll absolutely rule out there are no circumstances under which you'll run for president as a Democrat or an independent in 2012?
BAYH: None whatsoever.
RUSH: Back on CNN this morning John Roberts said, "You said that you love public service but you don't like Congress. Well, what's your assessment? Is Congress, in its current iteration, broken?"
BAYH: We've got a lot of good people in Congress but they are trapped in a dysfunctional system. Uh, we need some real reform here because -- as I said in your clip -- the public's business is just not getting done -- and, uh, at a time of desperate need for our country. So, uh, we gotta vote out the ideologues who are unwilling to accept half a loaf rather than none; and we've gotta, you know, vote out the partisans who care more about their political fortunes than the country.
RUSH: Well what the hell are you doing by cutting-and-running? Let me tell you something, folks -- and this is essential that everybody understand. He says, "The public's business is just not getting done." Au contraire! The public's business is getting done. The public, by wide margins, wants no part of the Obama agenda. The public by wide margins, now that they see it, don't want any part of the Democrat Party agenda; and so they are stopping it in whatever way they can. The Democrats... I continue to marvel at this guy talking about gridlock and the lack of bipartisanship. Senator, your party had 60 seats and you still have 59. The only gridlock is on your side of the aisle. Ideologues? We need to get rid of the ideologues? We don't want half of the Obama agenda, Senator. The people of this country do not want one-tenth of the Obama agenda! That's what this is all about. The dirty little secret is the people's business is getting done, and it is remarkable to see. It is heartwarming to see. Here's Bayh ripping on Obama's Porkulus plan.
BAYH: Maggie, I would tell you but I don't know. Uh, I'm going to, uh -- what we call in Indiana in basketball I'm going to -- play until the -- the final -- the final, uh, second ticks off the clock and, uh, then think about what's next. If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months.
RUSH: If I could create...? Is the White House going to have a rapid response to this? Retiring Democrat Senator Evan Bayh says not one job has been created in the last six months and he's going to go try to create a job -- just one -- in the private sector. How they going to respond to this at the new rapid response team in the office of Robert Gibbs?
END TRANSCRIPT
CALLER: Wow. How you doing, Rush? I can't believe I'm talking to you. You are the man.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate that. Many women have told me that as well.
CALLER: Rush, in light of Evan Bayh's most recent comments about extreme partisanship causing him to leave, he makes the same assertion the liberals do that there are as many right-wing extremists as there are left, and the so-called extreme right-wing is as radical as the left. So I mean aside from the few neo-Nazi skinheads or what's left of the remnants of the KKK can we please define what a right-wing extremist is?
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I mean is it those of us who don't want to see the unborn killed or want the right to own a hunting rifle, or don't want half our salary going to the government because I can't stand what the liberals are doing trying to perpetuate this idea: "Well, we do it, they do it, the right-wing is as guilty as the left wing." You know, that's a bunch of crap, Rush.
RUSH: It is. But the whole notion that there are right-wing extremists is a moving target, depending on who's popular in the country at the time. Right now the right-wing extremists are Sarah Palin, me, and the tea party people. Those are the right-wing extremists.
CALLER: Rush, and what do the so-called right-wing extremists represent? I mean that's just the bomb being thrown.
RUSH: Look, I'm not saying we're extremists. I'm saying that's what they call us to try to discredit us. They will not debate us in the arena of ideas on the very subjects that you mentioned because they will lose. So they're trying to discredit those of us who espouse those views by calling us extremists and wackos and all this. I'm going to illustrate this with a guy from the Southern Poverty Law Center when we come back in the next hour. Sit tight.
END TRANSCRIPT
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I want to get on to this speech that Chris Christie gave in New Jersey. I have the text of this speech. We have just a couple sound bites from it, but it is strikingly good. Let me play the sound bites first just as a tease here, and I'll read the excerpts of the speech myself. This was addressing the state legislature, and he says in this bite that the budget in New Jersey is in a shambles.
CHRISTIE: New Jersey is in a state of financial crisis. Our state's budget has been left in a shambles and requires immediate action to achieve balance. ... [S]ales tax revenue is not up 5%, it is down 5.5 %; and corporate business tax revenue is not flat, it is down 8%. Is there any wonder why we are in such big trouble? Any question why the people don't trust their government anymore and demanded change? Today, we must make a pact with each other to end this reckless conduct with the people's government.
LAWMAKERS: (applause)
RUSH: Right on, right on, right on! You gotta remember now this is a speech being given in New Jersey -- in New Jersey where, by the way, the Senator there, the 86-year-old lout, Frank Lautenberg, fell in his condo. I'll tell you, these Democrats are dropping like flies one way or the other. They'll do anything to stay away from Harry Reid, apparently. There's a rumor out there that Barbara Mikulski, who is 73, is not going to seek reelection. Some people are saying that that's 'cause she's gonna lose. Jim Geraghty at National Review says (summarized), "She's not going to lose. She doesn't have any prayer of losing. She may just be tired. She broke her ankle and it's a long recovery. She's not feeling well and is still a lot of pain." So it's anybody's guess, but there is a rumor out there that she's going to retire and not seek reelection. We don't know. We don't know. But the Democrats are dropping like flies everywhere you look out there for one reason or another. Here's more Chris Christie.
CHRISTIE: Today, we come to terms with the fact that we cannot spend money on everything we want. Our constitution requires a balanced budget. Our commitment requires us to begin the next fiscal year with a prudent opening balance. Our conscience and our common sense require us to fix the problem in a way that does not raise taxes on the most overtaxed citizens in America.
RUSH: That's New Jersey governor Chris Christie -- and you gotta remember, now, the audience is the Democrats. They still have the legislature in New Jersey. I have the full text of his speech. Let me read you some additional excerpts. This is how it began. "It's difficult to describe the extent to which New Jersey is a Democratic machine stately." Oh, I'm sorry. Wait just a second. Just a second here. Nope, that's not it. That's somebody describing it. Here's the speech. "Mr. President, Madame Speaker, members of the Senate and Assembly, fellow citizens of New Jersey. Twenty three days ago, I was honored to take the oath of office as your governor and promised you and the people of New Jersey a new direction. The old ways of doing business have not served the people well, I said, and I asked for your help in bringing about change.
"Today, I have called you together because it is time to take the first major -- and urgent -- step in delivering the change we promised, in the critically important area of the state budget. New Jersey is in a state of financial crisis. Our state's budget has been left in a shambles and requires immediate action to achieve balance. For the current fiscal year 2010, which has only four-and-one-half months left to go, the budget we have inherited has a $2 billion gap," and remember, now, these guys cannot print money at the states like Obama can. They're stuck. "The budget passed less than eight months ago, in June of last year, contained all of the same worn out tricks of the trade that have become common place in Trenton, that have driven our citizens to anger and frustration and our wonderful state to the edge of bankruptcy. What do I mean exactly?
"This year's budget projected 5.1 % growth in sales tax revenue and flat growth in corporate business tax revenues. In June of 2009, was there anyone in New Jersey -- other than in the department of treasury -- who actually believed any revenues would grow in 2009-2010? With spiraling unemployment heading over 10%, with a financial system in crisis and with consumers petrified to spend, only Trenton treasury officials could certify that kind of growth. In fact, sales tax revenue is not up 5%, it is down 5.5 %; and corporate business tax revenue is not flat, it is down 8%. Any wonder why we are in such big trouble? ... The facts are that revenues are coming in $1.2 billion below what was projected last year, and over $800 million in additional spending was done by the previous administration on their way out the door. ...
"I take no joy in having to make these decisions. I know these judgments will affect fellow New Jerseyans and will hurt. This is not a happy moment. However, what choices do we have left? The defenders of the status quo will start chattering as soon as I leave this chamber. They'll say, 'The problems are not that bad. Listen to me. I can spare you the pain and sacrifice.' We know this is simply not true. New Jersey has been steaming toward financial disaster for years due to that kind of attitude. The people elected us to end the talk and to act decisively. Today is the day for the complaining to end and for statesmanship to begin. Today, I am taking action to cut state spending to balance the budget this year. This is the immediate action I am taking: This morning, I signed an executive order freezing the necessary state spending to balance our budget.
"We will freeze the spending of unspent technical balances across a wide array of state programs. This includes everything from unspent funds to upgrade energy systems in state facilities to those aimed at assisting local governments in their consolidation plans. Not everything is painless. Some projects will be delayed or terminated, some services will be reduced. But in total, we can reduce spending by over $550 million this year by lapsing these unspent balances -- by not spending these funds and applying them now towards our multi-billion dollar budget gap." He goes on to specify which programs are going to be cut, and he says this: "By far the biggest category of spending we will need to cut, however, is that for programs which actually have merit, and in most cases make sense, but which we simply cannot afford at this time.
"Like any family, and like forty two other states with constitutionally required balanced budgets, we must live within our means. New Jersey does not have a revenue problem -- we already have higher taxes than any other state in the union. We have gone down the road of ever higher taxes to pay for Trenton's addiction to spending. What has it given us? 10.1 percent unemployment, a dormant economy and a failure of hope for growth in our future. Higher taxes is the road to ruin. We must, and we will, shrink our government. That means making some tough choices. It means tightening our belts. It means making do with the resources we have. And it means charting the course to reform now so that our spending will be more effective in the future. So today I am implementing over a billion dollars in reductions and reforms to programs that we simply cannot afford in the current economic environment and in our current fiscal state.
"For example," said Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, "the state cannot continue to subsidize New Jersey Transit to the extent it does. So I am cutting that subsidy. New Jersey Transit will have to improve the efficiency of its operations, revisit its rich union contracts, end the patronage hiring that has typified its past, and may also have to consider service reductions or fare increases. But the system needs to be made more efficient and effective." Folks, this is a slap across the cheek of any union official that has anything to do with four wheels and an engine in the state of New Jersey. "The state cannot this year spend another $100 million contributing to a pension system that is desperately in need of reform. I am encouraged by the bi-partisan bills filed in the Senate this week to begin pension and benefit reform. ...
"The special interests have already begun to scream their favorite word, which, coincidentally, is my nine year old son's favorite word when we are making him do something he knows is right but does not want to do -- 'unfair.' Let's tell our citizens the truth -- today, right now -- about what failing to do strong reforms costs them. One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him?" and I had this yesterday "$3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits -- a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair? A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing -- yes, nothing -- for full family medical, dental and vision coverage over her entire career.
"What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime. Is it 'fair' for all of us and our children to have to pay for this excess? The total unfunded pension and medical benefit costs [in New Jersey] are $90 billion. We would have to pay..." Hello, public employee unions! The day of reckoning has arrived for you in New Jersey. This is not going to be pretty, folks. This is not going to be pretty. "We would have to pay $7 billion per year to make them current. We don't have that money -- you know it and I know it. What has been done to our citizens by offering a pension system we cannot afford and health benefits that are 41% more expensive than the average fortune 500 company's costs is the truly unfair part of this equation. ... Suburban districts will sacrifice. Urban districts will sacrifice. Rural districts will sacrifice. Some, both inside and outside this chamber, will urge you to retreat to the corner and protect your own piece of turf. Our state is in crisis. Our people are hurting.
"Now is the time when we all must resist the traditional, selfish call to protect your own turf at the cost of our state. It is time to leave the corner, join the sacrifice, come to the center of the room and be part of the solution. I urge all of us to come to the center of the room voluntarily, to stand up to the special interests, to fix our broken state -- together. ... In total, I am cutting spending in 375 different state programs, from every corner of state government. I doubt that many will be popular. I will use my executive authority to implement them now, because I must. ... I am not happy, but I am not afraid to make these decisions, either. It is what the people sent me here to do." It goes on. It prints out to ten pages. I'm not going to read you the whole thing. We'll link to it at RushLimbaugh.com. But there is a story here from NewJersey.com, the Star-Ledger. The Newark Star-Ledger: "With Governor Christie targeting benefits, some New Jersey public workers consider retirement." I'll have the details when we come back.
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RUSH: From the Newark Star-Ledger statehouse bureau staff, this headline: "With Governor Christie targeting benefits, some New Jersey public workers consider retirement." The New Jersey Police Benevolent Association says in this piece, "You're going to see a mass exodus," that mayors and state politicians, many of them Democrats know that "this can't continue." It says that in the story. "No one in this economy is going to bolt over contributing one-and-a-half percent to their health care," says a Democrat. So he's serious and everybody in New Jersey understands he's serious. Apparently a decent number of people understand how serious the situation is and they realize, "Okay, we had our chance, we milked the golden goose for all it's worth, we got ours, okay, okay," now they're going to come in and straighten it all out. This is happening in I can't tell you how many states. "'There is a lot of fear,' said Hetty Rosenstein, state director at the Communications Workers of America, which represents 55,000 public employees. 'They don’t feel confident that their work will be respected and protected.'
"Even though employees might leave ... mayors and state leaders say they agree with Christie’s contention that they need to remake a pension system too generous for the state budget to handle. ... Mayors say the proposed pension changes are not enough to prompt a mass exit. 'There’s nobody that’s going to run out the door for 1.5 percent of their pension,' said Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bollwage, a Democrat. 'It’s smoke and mirrors. It does absolutely nothing.' ... Timothy Fleming, who retired from the Hunterdon County Department of Corrections after just over 25 years, said pension and health benefits are a primary reason people work for the government. 'We weren’t going to be making a tremendous amount of money,' he said. 'A lot of people go into public service if you know you’re going to get good benefits.'"
What if the money's not there? The money isn't there. It's the promise of all these benefits that kept people voting for Democrats all of these years, that kept them in power. It's what's happening in Washington right now. The only difference is that Washington can print money, the states can't. They can print money, they can do all kinds of stuff to paper over this and delay however damaging it is the inevitable. But this guy, Chris Christie, he knows, by the way, everybody in this state knows this is what he was elected to do. When a Republican gets elected in New Jersey to run and a conservative Republican, I'm not talking about a moderate RINO like Christie Todd Whitman, I'm talking a guy like this, you know the people of the state know it's serious. And even the beneficiaries of all this largesse, according to this Newark Star-Ledger story, understand the fun times are over and they're going to be making a mad dash to get out of there as quickly as they can.
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RUSH: Yeah, I bet the Chris Christie speech, folks -- I just have a simple question. Has there ever been a generation of Americans with public pensions and benefits like today's? No. Nowhere even close. The current city, state, federal retirees are probably the first and possibly the last generation to have such generous pensions and lavish health care benefits. It simply is unsustainable. If you're a state worker in New Jersey and you contribute $124 grand over the course of your job and you retire at 49, by the way, and over the course of your job life or you quit at 49, you've had deductions from your paycheck totaling $124 grand and you get $3.3 million for the rest of your life in pension benefits, another half million dollars in health care benefits. Now, that's one person. That's multiplied by I don't know how many in New Jersey. This is unsustainable, simply unsustainable.
I read an interesting piece the other day. It was in American Spectator by some-time substitute host here Walter Williams, and Walter Williams said that he once spoke to Jesse Helms about crop subsidizes. He said, (paraphrasing) "Senator Helms, you're a big free market conservative, how in the world can you justify crop subsidizes?" for North Carolina tobacco growers and so forth. And Walter Williams wrote that Jesse Helms looked at him and said, "How do you think I'll ever get re-elected here to do the rest of my good work if I don't support crop subsidizes?" The point being, that when you really get down to brass tacks on all this spending, Walter Williams' point was, it's our fault, it's the American people's fault for wanting it. I forget who it was, I ought to remember this, one of the founders: (paraphrasing) "When the public figures out that they can vote themselves money, the end of the country is not far away," and basically that's what happened.
Now, I can only speak for myself personally, and I'm doing this only to contrast myself with other forms of thinking, not to say I'm better, although I am, than other people in this way, but that's not why I'm saying this. Sorry, folks, sometimes I just can't help it, the truth is the truth. Now, I said this to you many times. I'm embarrassed to be obligated to anybody. The whole concept that somebody else is going to pay for me is repulsive to me. I've had bouts in my life where that's been necessary, I've been broke twice, and I had to ask for help from my parents, and I hated it, I hated it, and so did they 'cause they really didn't have it. But I vowed that one of my career objectives was going to be that if I ever wanted something, and more importantly, needed something, I'm providing it for myself and for everybody in my family. I don't want to be obligated to one person, and I don't want to run the risk that something's coming to me ten or 15 years down the road that's not under my control and I'm going to wait around for it, whether it's paying for my own health care or whatever it is, not going into debt, I don't owe anybody anything other than the monthly -- this is just me.
The only reason I'm saying this, and folks, for the vast majority of the my life I never made more than $40,000 a year, for the vast majority of my life, never made more than 40 grand. And even then I've had this constitutional objection to being dependent on other people. (interruption) Just a moment. I'm being interrupted here by the program observer. No man is an island? Snerdley is trying to confuse the issue. What are you really saying, Mr. Snerdley, when you say, Rush -- and isn't it Mr. Limbaugh in this circumstance, by the way? -- no man is an island? What are you saying? Are you saying I'm lying to people? What are you saying? Hmm. Hmm. Determination to be so independent -- (interruption) well, now, that's interesting. Snerdley says that this desire that I have to be totally independent runs counter to everything we're taught. Not counter to what I was taught. My brother and I growing up, we were never, ever told that somebody else should have to support us or that we should have a claim on what somebody else has produced. Walter Williams talking to Jesse Helms is right.
It's hard to trace the beginning of this, and when you put a big pot of money someplace and you have elected officials in charge of spending it, you can imagine what's going to happen. It's very seductive to be taken in. They tell you you're entitled to it 'cause it's yours, it was yours first and it's just been taxed from you and now it's coming back to you. I understand all that. I understand how seductive it is, this is me personally. I understand, folks, do not misunderstand me, I know I'm in a very small minority here, and I know that many of you are thinking, "Rush, you're outta touch here. Of course you're not dependent on anybody." Look, I had to work to get here. It was an objective, for crying out loud and I have to sit here and get criticized for achieving it, by my own staff, overrated and on some days problematic. But what kind of mind-set is it, this sense of entitlement? I could no more live with myself if I found out that all I had to do was have $124 grand deducted from my aggregate pay over the course of 30 years and in return I get $3.3 million, not because of anything I've done? It's just me. Sorry. I couldn't live with it.
I understand the need for money, believe me, I understand the importance of it. Dawn, am I digging a hole here? You think I'm digging a hole? Dawn says 99.9% of Americans would sign up for the job where you have $124 grand deducted and you get $3.3 million when you retire at age 49. Money for nothing. Well, if that's true -- and I don't believe it's true because if it were true, Dawn, Obama wouldn't be in any trouble because all he's doing is giving away money. I think instinctively people understand this can't be supported, this kind of deficit, $1.6 trillion, for what purpose? What good is coming from it? Where are the jobs? Where is any economic growth? Where is any new creativity? Where is any new innovation? Where is Americans leading the world in manufacturing or inventing new stuff? Where is it? All this money is going to people who are basically sponges.
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RUSH: There were two people that I've been able to find so far who made the comment about when the public finds out it can vote itself money the country is finished. Ben Franklin: "When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." But Alexis de Toqueville went further: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of governement. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years." We've already busted through the envelope on that. We're over 200 years. But those are the two guys.
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RUSH: We're going to go to Reno, Nevada, Kevin, hello, and welcome to the program. You get to talk for two minutes without me saying a word.
CALLER: Oh, that's going to be tough. (laughing) Maha Rushie, 20-plus-year-listener and second-time caller. My pleasure. I'm a retired city worker here in Reno, and Nevada is a right-to-work state, so I want to comment a little bit on getting government benefits after not paying anything in. I worked for 28 years, and if I remained retired for 28 years, God willing, I will have made just a little over $2 million, but that again was my investment.
RUSH: Now, wait. Let me ask you a question about this. Is the two million total or is it two million in retirement only?
CALLER: It will be two million in retirement only. There is also a health benefit there. And I'm being blatantly honest with you. It's a good retirement.
RUSH: Well, yeah.
CALLER: We self-contributed to this, there were no unions involved. When the money came out of the paychecks that of course was salary that we did not receive so we're getting it back on the end and certainly we're getting it back in spades. There's no argument about that. But the reason that PERS has grown so financially well here in the state is it was very well invested in the stock market --
RUSH: Now, wait, let's define. PERS is the Public Employees' Retirement System.
CALLER: Yes, I'm sorry, Public Employees' Retirement System.
RUSH: In California they got two of these, they got Public Employees' Retirement System and a public teachers retirement system.
CALLER: Okay, this is not it. I work for the police department here.
RUSH: Okay.
CALLER: I believe the teachers, I have a couple sisters that were retired teachers, I believe that was generated by the unions --
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: -- and paid out by the unions. We were not a union shop at all. But, anyway, the money that we contributed that was deducted from our paychecks at the time we were receiving it was invested in stocks, bonds, that sort of thing, and it was very wisely invested to the point where Nevada PERS, Public Employees' Retirement System, has about a $20 billion investment right now.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, wait. But is it running a surplus or a deficit?
CALLER: It's running a surplus right now.
RUSH: That's one of the few.
CALLER: Not as much of a surplus as it was a few years ago, but of course the politicians here now, we've got a guy running for governor here that says, "Hey let's look at that money."
RUSH: Hey, the Reverend Jackson's been looking at that money for 20 years in every state there is.
CALLER: Yeah, that's going to be a fight, we're going to fight that tooth and nail. Oh, by the way, I forgot, I wrote these notes on my hand, I'm also a Rush to Excellence veteran, when you came to Reno several years ago. That's the last note I have on my hand.
RUSH: (laughing) Well, then you probably remember early on in this program's history that I had to ban callers from Reno.
CALLER: I remember that. (laughing.)
RUSH: For a while.
CALLER: We weren't happy with that. We're definitely in the conservative part of the state, we're in the Northern part of Nevada, we're not --
RUSH: Well, we had a genuinely stupid caller one day that just really rubbed me the wrong way, so I said I'm not going to put up with this, so just banned Nevada callers, Reno callers a little while.
CALLER: You didn't take a call from Harry Reid, did you? (laughing)
RUSH: (laughing) No, not knowingly.
CALLER: Anyway that's my only point is the money that I'm reaping, and again it is quite a benefit, is money that we contributed.
RUSH: All right, but how much did you contribute, if you want say.
CALLER: You know, I don't know. It certainly wasn't $2 million. I know that. I'm reaping the benefits of some very good investments by the handlers of the retirement system.
RUSH: Okay. So what it sounds like to me here that your PERS system basically took money from your paycheck and invested it for you.
CALLER: Exactly.
RUSH: And the pool grew, the investments were done wisely and the pension fund is such that your share of it when you retire is going to be equal to whatever you've said, the $2 million.
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: And that it's paid for, and it's covered, and if it had not been invested wisely or if that pension fund had been raided, which New Jersey, they're $90 billion, they don't have the money in the pension package.
CALLER: That's terrible. No, we're not in that boat at all.
RUSH: They have raided it and raided it, just like they've raided the future in all kinds of states to pay for current salaries, spending, whatever it is the politicians want to spend to secure their power and so forth. But you're a right-to-work state, you're not union. This was the deal when you accepted the job as a cop. Did you know you were going to get $2 million when you retired?
CALLER: When I hired on I couldn't spell PERS, you know, I was a 19-year-old kid when I walked into the police department, and everything just contributed and added up and, again, we're very thankful for it. But I don't want to -- I agree with you 99.9% of the time, but our system here is we are not dependent on the government. We're not dependent on the unions. So maybe we're in the minority, I don't know.
RUSH: Well, I definitely think you are if your pension plan is still showing a surplus and nobody's gotten their mitts on it.
CALLER: Well, they want to, though, the politicians coming up for this next election are looking at that big nest egg there --
RUSH: Yeah, and I'll tell you what, I want you to be prepared for how they're going to go after your money. They're going to say it's just not fair that police officer Kevin here gets $2 million when he retires, when so many people can't even afford the dime slot at the Bellagio.
CALLER: (laughing) If there are dime slots anymore.
RUSH: That's right, yeah, shouldn't have said the Bellagio, the dime slot at Planet Hollywood, whatever. That's the way they're going to come after your money.
CALLER: Okay. Well, we'll keep our eyes open for that.
RUSH: All right. Keep us informed. That's Kevin from Reno.
This is John in Diller, Nebraska, great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hi.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. I'm glad to talk to you. My wife and I have been watching, listening to you since the Clintons were in office and you were on TV.
RUSH: Thank you, sir. Appreciate that.
CALLER: I just had a quick question for you.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: The governor of New Jersey's talking about cutting union jobs. What about the white-collar jobs? Is he going to cut into them as much as --
RUSH: Oh, yeah, he's cutting everybody. There are 357 programs that are going to be cut. In fact, some of the union people are getting out. They're gonna take their retirement now. They don't want to wait around and see all this stuff depleted. Yeah, everybody is going to get cut. Everybody that's on a government paycheck one way or the other is going to have some kind of a cut somewhere.
CALLER: Oh, okay. Well, that's good to know. Thank you, sir.
RUSH: All right. Now -- (laughing) -- see, I know what was going on there. I know what's going on there, blue-collar versus white-collar. Folks, the point here, look, I don't want to get into this class envy business, I don't want to pit people against each other here because that's not how this is going to get fixed, but I'd have to say right here that the vast majority of the unemployment in this country is going to be white-collar private sector people or even blue-collar private sector people who are not members of unions. That's where most of the unemployment is. By definition we know what the stimulus money was for, it was to make sure that the states were able to continue to pay the cops, the firemen, whatever, the redundant payments that people were getting in the state. They always claim that the cops and the firemen will be the first to go, the teachers, as a means of scaring the citizenry into not supporting budget cuts, but there's so much fraud and there's so much theft and there's so much abuse in all of these state budgets, city budgets, little town budgets, village budgets, and they always scare you by saying the teachers are going to go, then the cops are going to go, and then the firemen are going to go, then your house is going to burn down, then you're gonna get robbed and maybe killed, and it's all because you demanded a budget cut. "No, no, I don't want to die, and I don't want to get robbed. Please don't cut!" That's how they hook you.
But the vast majority of people that are unemployed now are going to be joined soon by state and city union employees because the slush money has run out and these states have done nothing -- Chris Christie, the state's Reagan huge, huge deficit, tax receipts are down everywhere because unemployment is up. There are simply fewer people paying taxes, corporate and private. This is not complicated. This is economics 101. And after a while, when this round of stimulus spending expires, you're going to see a bloodbath out there. I've been predicting this for three to four months now at various states, I'm talking about state employees, union or otherwise. Everybody's looking at Greece and the pigs, which is what they're calling the four countries over there causing real stress on the euro and the European Union. And BusinessInsider.com says, "Well, okay, what really got Greece into problems? What caused it?" And the speculation here is that it was the Olympics that broke the bank in Greece. Government deficits rose every year after 1999, and they spent money they didn't have in order to put on the Olympics. That's what they say, that's the latest excuse. That's maybe a factor but I don't think it's anywhere near the total picture.
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RUSH: Ben Smith has it in The Politico today: "John McCain's communications director, Brian Rogers, takes a sledgehammer to McCain primary foe J.D. Hayworth," and this is true. Hayworth announced his candidacy for McCain's Senate seat yesterday. He had a speech or two out there to make, and the McCain people didn't like very much about what J. D. had to say. So look at this: Here they are taking "a sledgehammer" to a Republican on day one. Now, McCain never did take a sledgehammer to Obama, who is destroying the country -- and we're going to get a chance now, I guess, to see if the era of McCain is over depending on how this primary goes out there. But I just remember during the McCain-Obama campaign, it was going to be "honorable," and remember Mark McKinnon and Steve Schmidt were worrying about "civility" and "staying above the fray" and McKinnon even said he would quit if there were attacks on Obama by the McCain campaign because of the historic nature of the Obama campaign.
So what we have here, folks, is a teachable moment about RINO Republicans: They will go after conservatives more than they will ever go after any liberal, including ones who are destroying the country! "Senator John McCain has full confidence that the people of Arizona will again return him to the U.S. Senate this year and will work hard to earn their continued support. ... Former Congressman Hayworth obviously disagrees, and it was sad to see [Hayworth] use blatant lies and fabrications to attack Senator McCain when he 'officially' entered the race for U.S. Senate today. ... Mr. Hayworth falsely said [blah, blah]. Mr. Hayworth falsely said [blah, blah]. Mr. Hayworth falsely said [blah, blah]. Mr. Hayworth falsely said [blah, blah, blah, blah]. ... One would think that when asking Arizonans to entrust him to represent them in the U.S. Senate, Mr. Hayworth would have the decency to at least respect them enough to tell the truth.
"Instead, Mr. Hayworth has started his campaign with a litany of lies. Sorry J.D., the people of Arizona aren't stupid. They're on to you." This is McCain's spokesman! "Mr. Hayworth has obviously resorted to lies and distortion today because he has no record of his own to stand on." Now, this is a great line coming out of the campaign McCain. Why the hell didn't they use it against Obama? Why DON'T they use it against Obama? Talk about no record of his own to stand on! He was a community agitator. He had a five-minute career. (angry McCain impression) "That's right, Limbaugh! That's right! But we were running an honorable campaign, something you wouldn't understand. See? See!" I guess not. But the honorable campaign was designed to lose. But I just wanted to point out here, folks, how RINO-type Republicans will go after conservatives. I mean, it's like nothing you've ever seen, but they wouldn't go after Democrats this way, and they wouldn't go after a president who's literally destroying the US private sector this way. I'm just pointing it out. Just saying it.
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RUSH: Victor in Boca Raton, Florida, I'm glad you waited, sir. You're on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Great. Hello, Mr. Limbaugh. Mega dittos to you from your fans at the Free Republic.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: Sir, I would like to hear your opinion on Sarah Palin's endorsement and campaigning for John McCain. Thank you, sir.
RUSH: Well, I've been waiting for this question to come up, and I see there's a story out there today that Joe the Plumber says that he cannot and will not support Sarah Palin because of her endorsement of McCain. It is problematic, but you know what's going on here. She's a Republican. She's not a tea partier, she's not a third party person. She's a Republican. McCain picked her. No matter what has been written about how she wasn't supported by some people, I think -- and I'm not coping out here -- I just think I understand the reality of the circumstance. Maybe she coulda stood mute and not said anything but it would have really, really caused some problems in the other direction for her if she had not endorsed McCain. She's in a no-win in this situation as far as I can tell. I'll have more when we come back.
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RUSH: I haven't forgotten about Sarah Palin and McCain, I'm not avoiding this. Folks, I'll say again, Sarah Palin is not a tea partier, she spoke there, but she is a Republican, and I've interviewed her a couple times for my newsletter and the radio show, but I haven't gotten into any of this kind of thing. We talked about her bio and her book. So my guess is as good as yours. But I think if she's going to have a political career, it's going to have a big capital R next to her name, not a capital TP or some other party, not third party. She's going to go Republican. And there are just rules. Politics is repulsive to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons, but the one thing that she knows -- I mean, you've seen the story about how she went into Daytona and totally took over the place. Danica Patrick who?
Sarah Palin went in there and was mobbed at the Daytona 500 on Sunday. She was in there to speak I think to the Daytona Chamber of Commerce on Monday, and she went into the drivers meeting before the race on Sunday and got standing O's from everybody on every crew. She could not get out of there, signing autographs, and there's one person that made that happen, and that's John McCain. Despite whatever happened during the campaign to belittle her and closed budget and all that stuff, one thing she knows is that nobody would know any more about her than they knew before McCain picked her were it not for the fact that he picked her. You remember how upset everybody got at George W. Bush back when Specter was still a Republican, was running in the primary against Pat Toomey, and Specter was a Republican disaster, but Bush is out there endorsing him and raising money and I think he did a couple campaign appearances, and people: "What the hell is this? Why didn't he get behind Toomey? Where are the conservatives?" It is a problem in a lot of people's views. This is just how parties work.
This is why, folks, the tea party movement must stay oriented on reclaiming the Republican Party and not going third party, but reclaiming it, and then establishing a new set of principles here that rewards conservatism first, foremost, and down the line. It's going to be a slow evolutionary process because the RINOs are entrenched in this party, and a lot of them are very wealthy, personally and corporately. And they're not going to give up the power that they've got easily. It's going to be an ongoing battle. We've talked about this battle for two years. As conservatives you and I know that we're persona non grata in the RINO Republican Party and in the liberal Republican Party, the New York elitist, Washington corridor Republican Party. We know those are the people saying the era of Reagan is over. They're the ones that didn't like Reagan in the first place. He was embarrassing, they didn't like abortion. It boils down to the social issues with these people.
There's this new group of Republicans called the Mount Vernon group, and they're coming out with position papers on stuff. The Republican Party is fighting the tea party people now for control of the party, there's a big battle going on. And I think personally four or five of these very prominent members of this Mount Vernon group said, "I'm not joining if the social issues are going to be part of our mission statement, I don't want any part of it," meaning they don't want this party having a thing to say about any social issue, not just abortion, but anything else that's cultural. They want it to remain fiscal and political only, not cultural. So the battle is going to be raging. And I hate to put words in Sarah Palin's mouth because I'm just guessing and I'm neither defending nor criticizing, I'm just observing and I think I understand why she's doing this. I don't think in her mind she has a choice. She wouldn't be who she is, she wouldn't have all of this opportunity in front of her had McCain not chosen her. So this is the obligatory payback and I think after this it's over.
This is the right thing being done that is required, given circumstances, and then don't talk about it anymore, don't go into any appearances, don't do that, just do the endorsement and move on. And we'll see if I'm right. Usually am. But I haven't spoken to her about this, so I apologize if I've got this all wrong, I'm not trying to put words in her mouth, I was asked what I think about it and that's what I think about it. And, frankly, one more thing, it doesn't matter. Her endorsement of McCain doesn't dampen anything I think about her. It has nothing to do with it. This is issues, issues, issues to me and look for consistency on that side. But, you know, I'm not kingmaker, I even feel a little strange here saying, "I'm going to be watching." I'm just a guy on the radio telling you what I think about it every day, and that's what I'm doing here. Snerdley, would you get the smirk off your face? You wouldn't even let me try to be humble!
BREAK TRANSCIRPT
RUSH: You also have to think of something else here, folks. Imagine if Sarah Palin had not endorsed McCain. Can you imagine the media field day with the following: "Oh, wait a minute! Governor Palin, he's good enough to be president -- he's good enough for you to be his vice presidential running mate -- but he's not good enough to be Senator from Arizona?" Can you imagine what they'd do? By the way, does anybody who seriously read her book knew that she would do this? She doesn't have one bad thing personally to say about McCain in her book. With all of the record straight that she did vis-a-vis the McCain campaign and some of the staff, every comment she made about McCain in her book was positive. But I shudder to think what woulda happened if she'd endorsed somebody besides McCain and the media gets on this.
"Oh, yeah! He's good enough to be president, but not good enough to be Senator from Arizona." You know, loyalty is loyalty, and sometimes people want ideologue purity over loyalty and not realizing that loyalty is actually part of a party. By the way, Joe the Plumber has backed off, too. At BigGovernment.com, Joe the Plumber says he shouldn't have said what he said about Palin, that he likes her and thinks that she'd make a good president. Hillary Clinton has said that if Palin's elected president she's going to be visiting Canada a lot more, which is where Clinton's girlfriend is. So there could be a double meaning there. But that's not a bad notion, Hillary in Canada a lot.
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BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen: Lake Erie is now frozen over. "For the first time in 14 years, the 241-mile-long lake is virtually frozen over from win end to the other." Now, this will prevent a bunch of lake effect snows because what happens within, you got cold air mass over the relatively warmer waters of the lake, and it rises up there, it condenses in the clouds and, bammo! You get lake effect snow. Not cold front snow but lake effect. So lake effect snow will be way down since the ice on the surface of the lake is not nearly as warm as the water, relatively speaking. Now, the reason that this is important is we find ourselves here each and every day more and more is known... For example, now the IPCC. Somebody's going to have to run in there and take the peace prize away from these people and from Algore, because every day there's a new revelation. Now, an independent scientist --who is not either a global warming "believer" or a "denier," he doesn't care, he's just a scientist -- has examined the data from which they concluded that global warming is causing more and more intense hurricanes.
It's not true. The data doesn't support their conclusion. It just isn't true. He says, "I defy anybody to show me where my reading of their data is wrong," and, of course, nobody is going to step forth. The whole thing is made up! The whole thing is made up, and the bottom continues to fall out. Yet the Obama administration... Not one US media outlet other than Fox and of course us is reporting any of this -- Not one! -- because our media is no longer media. They are repeaters and propagandists. So I take you back to April 13th of 2007. Laurie David, who's a big environmentalist person out in Hollywood (the ex-wife of Larry David) sent an open letter to me via the Huffing and Puffington Post: "Dear Mr. Limbaugh ... Global warming causes extreme weather in BOTH directions. For example, the reason the blizzards are getting worse in the Northeast is because the Great Lakes are no longer freezing over thus fueling the stronger snow storms that are topping the headlines and disrupting the start of the baseball season."
This is April 13th, 2007. But today, Lake Erie is frozen for the first time in 14 years. So now we're going to hear, "Well, yeah! That just means there's global warming!" It just doesn't work that way. They call it "climate change," now. But this is all becoming... What did I see? This can't be right. My memory must be failing. I think I saw somewhere today where less than 20% now believe it, man-made global warming. I'll have to find it somewhere here in the stack. Now, here. From another UK paper, a paper called The Register: "More trouble looms for the IPCC. The body may need to revise statements made in its Fourth Assessment Report on hurricanes and global warming. A statistical analysis of the raw data shows that the claims that global hurricane activity has increased cannot be supported." Now, remember, this was a central feature of Algore's propaganda movie.
"Les Hatton once fixed weather models at the Met Office. Having studied Maths at Cambridge, he completed his PhD as meteorologist: his PhD was the study of tornadoes and waterspouts. He's a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, currently teaches at the University of Kingston, and is well known in the software engineering community -- his studies include critical systems analysis," and he goes on cite that Algore uses a fluke year of 2005, one year, to push the agenda that global warming (or climate change, whatever it is) is causing more and more intense hurricanes. This guy has analyzed it: 1999 and 2009 and then between 1946 and 2009 9 averages of storms and their strength "almost exactly balances" out, and Algore picked one year in that range, 2005, to make a 100-year prediction that everybody bought into. Then, ladies and gentlemen, the Obama administration scientist on snowstorms is out there saying "weather is not climate." This is yesterday on an NPR radio show in Washington, the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) administrator Jane Lubchenco, got this question. Last week we saw some really unusual weather patterns not only through the mid-Atlantic but even today in the southern part of the US. What do you think has made this year so different?"
LUBCHENCO: It's important that people recognize that weather is not the same as climate, and record-breaking storms neither negate nor approve climate change. This year we have indeed seen a lot of seemingly strange things -- record snowfalls in the mid-Atlantic region -- even though the planet is warming. And this isn't a contradiction, and it's not really unexpected. The multiple snowstorms we've been seeing this winter with more on the way likely (clearing throat) are a result of the confluence of El Nino and the Arctic Oscillation.
RUSH: That's exactly right, and they are cyclical and they happen all the time regardless of man-made activity! Now, she says here: "[T]he planet is warming." Well, we just had Phil Jones, the architect of all of this, and Michael Mann, the guy at Penn State who put together the bogus hockey stick graph, have admitted -- Well, Jones has admitted - - there hasn't been any warming since 1995. The Medieval period was in fact warmer than it is today, and, of course, there was no manmade activity to cause it back then. The bottom has fallen out of this, and yet Obama's NOAA administrator is out there still promulgating a hoax, promulgating a lie. I think this Lubchenco woman needs to resign. She's not fazed in the least after learning Dr. Jones is a fraud! So she got another question. "One last word. What is your reaction to the growing sense around the country, perhaps even around the world, that global warming is a hoax?"
LUBCHENCO: Climate change is underway. It's happening now. It is resulting in many changes that will affect the way people live and do business. And the fact that (clearing throat) we are getting more and more requests for information about droughts, about future heat waves, about air quality, forest fires, sea level rise inundating coasts --
RUSH: Wait a minute, stop the tape. She just said "weather is not climate," didn't she? And now she's citing a bunch of weather phenomena to suggest that there's warming. She said, "heat waves, forest fires, sea level rise inundating coasts." Does this woman not know that the hoaxers have pretty much come clean? You know, this guy's name is Phil Jones. Do you remember the Billy Paul song, Me and Mrs. Jones? (signing) "We got a thang going..." She could swing a duet with the guy. A normal person would be outraged over how they have been misled here by these people. A scientist would be curious to know all the facts, and we don't get that with Obama's propaganda scientists. Weather may not be climate, but years of weather where there's no warming is climate. We're not talking about today's cold weather or yesterday's cold weather or last summer's cold weather. We're talking about the cumulative weather since 1995.
That's the climate that Dr. Phil Jones is talking about when he says there hasn't been any warming since 1995. Folks, do you realize that we're talking 15 years, and we were told 1998 was the hottest year ever! "It's going to get worse! We're going to bake! We're going to fry," and Obama is out there saying, "Let this be the day! Let the sea levels begin to fall!" (clapping) "Right on, right on, right on!" These people have zilch, zero, nada credibility, and I think what's happened here is Jane Lubchenco of NOAA has given herself away. A really good liar would feign some concern here. A really poor liar just keeps pitching the same lie with no emotion, after learning that one of her coconspirators just turned state's evidence! This is like Al Capone's henchman continuing to say, "We never did anything," after Capone just admitted everything. What legitimate scientist wouldn't call time-out on anything connected with global warming? See, the bottom line is this is not science. That's been my point for 25 years. There's nothing about this that's science. It's pure left-wing politics.
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CALLER: Yes. Rush, thank you.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: It's an honor to talk to you. I've been a longtime listener, and I'm a retired systems engineer for Ford Motor Company. As such I've survived a number of fairly major recalls but I do find it interesting the way both the government and the media are continuing to bash Toyota. You know, they seem to be going after them with continued gusto. In fact, today I hear that there are Democratic demands for congressional investigations, which I'm sure will be televised. But I haven't heard anyone in the media mention the fact that Toyota, who currently operates five assembly plants in the US, has no UAW members in any of the plants. Just wondering. I find it interesting. I know you were talking earlier about the way Obama kind of takes care of his buddies in the UAW and I'm just wondering if you think it's possible that Ron Gettelfinger maybe could have been a recent visitor or guest at the White House?
RUSH: What do you think?
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: I think it's a rather distinct possibility.
RUSH: I think your instincts on this are pretty on. I think your instincts are right. Look, they own General Motors and Chrysler. They're using the power of government ownership here to go after a competitor on the basis the competitor is killing its customers, and (sigh) Yep, they're not unionized. It's out there for one and all to see. This is Chicago thug politics.
CALLER: It's interesting, too, that Toyota did have a unionized plant at the Fremont, California, NUMMI facility and they announced late last year that they were going to mothball the plant. That's the one that they inherited from General Motors -- and, as such, inherited a bunch of GM UAW workers along with it. But that was their highest cost assembly plant, and that was the reason given for their shutting it down this year.
RUSH: I think your instincts are right on the money here. I mean, there's no question that that's what this is all about. In addition to taking slams at a competitor. No question whatsoever. Look, I'm glad you called out there, Frank. Thanks very much.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to our caller, I think his name was Frank from Ford Motor Company talking about the government and UAW. The US government, I saw it on Fox, US government, which is GM, Chrysler, and the UAW, I mean that's who this is now, GM, Chrysler, Obama, and the UAW demanding to know what Toyota knew and when did they know it regarding the brake problems and all these recalled cars. And according to Fox, Obama, GM, Chrysler, and the UAW are demanding that Toyota hand over all related documents to them. Now, this clearly, ladies and gentlemen, is harassment. There are literally hundreds of car recalls every year. We almost never hear about them in the news. You know, more people die from lightning strikes than have died in Toyotas, and if they could unionize lightning strikes I'm sure they'd do it. Maybe they should because they'd never happen then. But all of a sudden Toyota being attacked by the UAW for plant closings like the one out in Fremont, California, and for trying to avoid hiring union workers, suddenly they're getting all of this attention from our government, which -- (laughing) -- is in partnership with the UAW in the car business. Holy smokes! I know I got a smile on my face but sometimes that's all you can do. This is hideous.
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| Read the Background Material... |
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| • AFP: Crisis-Hit Toyota to Idle Two US Factories: Report • Wall Street Journal: Regulators Step Up Toyota Probe |
Who was the FReeper who got thru today?
FREEPERS? FREEPERS? :-)
Did anyone figure out what FReeper called in (I believe he has made it through before).
Rush’s response to him was spot on and rational.
Special thanks to you today, because I feel asleep during RUSH’s show!
{{{ducking}}}
Yes, reading the transcript, I am happy with Rush’s reply to FReeper Victor in Boca Raton.
Dammit! You caught me again.
I am going to proof read before I ever post anything to you again!!!
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