RUSH: I don’t know how you feel, but I just spent four absolutely wonderful, fabulous days at what I call pre-Obama America. From Wednesday night until, oh, I guess about nine o’clock last night I thought not one thought of Barack Obama. I paid not one bit of attention to any Barack Obama-related news, which meant I had to keep the news networks turned off. And it was bliss! And to realize this was only just two years ago. I was able to relive pre-Obama America for four days. I would recommend this to anybody. I hope you all did the same thing. It had a profound effect and an amazing change on my overall outlook. But, of course now we’re back, Obama’s front and center, and everything sucks again. So we have a major psychological challenge here to deal with each and every day, but who better than I, El Rushbo, to deal with it and lead you through it?
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RUSH: Before I go any further I want to thank myself. I want to thank myself for hosting this show on tape on Thanksgiving Day, and I want to thank myself for hosting this show last Friday. I got a complaint last week. I read this complaint to you in e-mail that I was not thanking the guest hosts on this program enough, that it was rude and that I wasn’t being kind enough. I mean, some of this criticism I’ll accept if it’s worthwhile, and I haven’t been thanking myself enough. So I want to thank Rush Limbaugh for appearing on tape on two best-of shows, last Thursday and last Friday.
Everybody’s worried this WikiLeaks stuff, at least the stuff I’m reading, is gonna damage US credibility. Isn’t that the idea? Isn’t that the point of this administration? Isn’t this the exact kind of thing Obama’s been looking to do? Isn’t this the exact kind of thing this administration, this guy has hoped for, less respect for the United States? Great respect for him, but less respect for us? Well, it’s hurting Britain, too, but damn the Brits need to be hurt because, you know, they hurt Obama’s grandfather. Don’t forget now, Obama took the Churchill bust out. The Brits deserved to get hurt, the colonialists out there taking over and colonializing all these different peoples of color, the Mau Mau Revolution, Obama’s grandfather, or father, whatever, got his butt kicked by the Brits. So, look, I mean doesn’t all this kind of make sense?
I heard about all this starting last night. I really did not know about all this stuff. Obama busted his lip out there playing basketball? Did his teleprompter say, ‘Ouch’? What did he say when this happened? Does he play basketball with a teleprompter? What happened out there? The news didn’t tell us about that. Sarah Palin, if you’ve forgotten, Sarah Palin back in her high school days played in the championship basketball game on either a sprained ankle, a broken knee, or something. And poor Obama gets elbowed by somebody who won’t apologize for it. I’ve heard that, too. Is that not fascinating? Whoever elbowed Obama won’t apologize for it. That’s pretty interesting. But I’m not even sure he got elbowed, folks, so much of this stuff is designed… and Obama’s given up golf now, apparently he’s not playing golf. He’s out doing a manly thing, a pickup basketball game the day after Thanksgiving, gets a big elbow out there, yeah, real tough guy. I want to know if that’s really what it was, or was Bill Clinton giving Obama lessons on how to bite your lower lip? And Obama actually did it, rather than just faked it, as Clinton was an expert in doing.
I’m sorry, folks, maybe it’s just me. I’m coming off four wonderful days in pre-Obama America, and I kinda resent having to come back to all this stuff. I’m looking at every one of these news stories with a little cynicism. I can’t help it.
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RUSH: Now, one of the things I did yesterday in reveling in my pre-Obama America was I spent the day watching the National Football League, and I watched, of course, my team, the Steelers, try to literally give a game away against the Buffalo Bills, and it was luck. Poor old Steve Johnson, the Buffalo Bills wide receiver, had a bunch of passes dropped yesterday, but the biggie was in overtime. I mean a perfectly executed play, quarterback did the right thing, he ran the right route, he was wide open on the end zone for the victory, drops the pass. Steelers go on despite themselves to matriculate the ball down the field in the opposite direction, kick a field goal to win the game.
Now, there’s this story in the New York Daily News today about the Buffalo Bills wide receiver Steve Johnson, who apparently got on Twitter after the game and blamed God. This wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills went to Twitter and said: ‘I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO…’ He actually got ticked off at God on Twitter. God probably doesn’t have to tweet to know what this guy is thinking or saying. But can you imagine this? Guy drops, what is it, four or five passes and goes to Twitter and says, ‘I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO…’ And then he got all humble and he blamed everything on himself after a while, but I mean this takes something, to go blame God. Who does he think he is, Terrell Owens? It’s his second year in the league, some such thing.
Try this. ‘The Internal Revenue Service has launched a multiyear plan to regulate the tax return preparation industry for the first time.’ So once again it’s government regulating private business. ‘In the first step, the IRS wants tax preparers to renew their tax identification numbers before Jan. 1. Anyone who prepares a tax return in exchange for a fee must obtain a preparer identification number. Those numbers must be used on each return prepared by the tax preparer. Those preparers who used their Social Security numbers as their identification number will no longer be allowed to use those, they must use the new number assigned to them by the IRS Return Preparer Office, according to David R. Williams, head of the office. According to a study conducted by the IRS, 30 percent of taxpayers use tax software to complete their annual returns and 60 percent pay someone else to prepare their tax return. In the future, tax preparers will be required to take an exam [for a fee] and take continuing education [for a fee] annually ‘to stay up to date on the tax laws because we all know those changes come fast and furious,’ Williams said.’ And why is that? Because they have to manage health care, now, too, Williams said. Again, this is David R. Williams, head of the IRS return preparer office.
‘The IRS will take additional steps in the coming years to be sure payers can be comfortable with the people they choose to prepare their tax returns.’ Oh, that’s sweet. The goal is to make us comfortable while we fork over our money to a preparer. Wait ’til they get to the body cavity searches for income tax preparers. Wait ’til they get to body cavity searches for taxpayers. So let’s see. The government gives us a tax code so convoluted that no mere working person without an advanced degree in mathematics can understand it. Then we’re forced to pay additional money to experts to do our taxes, and now they want to regulate the experts. This is a power and a money grab.
Now, this story, again, I saw everything last night. Folks, you have to understand me on this. I started working diligently last night at about 9:30, ten o’clock when I finally figured out that the Chargers and Colts were gonna be a boring game. I still had the Chargers and Colts on, I’m sitting there working, I’m at the sofa, I don’t even go to the desk, I got my iPad and my iPhone and I’ve got printer software I can print from any iPad. Not Apple. They didn’t get that feature ready to go, but I got a good third-party work around where I can do it. So I’m sitting there on the sofa, I’m returning some e-mail. I didn’t return e-mail for four days. In fact, I didn’t even turn the computer on for four days. I didn’t look at the computer for four days. I got all my e-mail and stuff on the iPad. I read a couple novels. I went out there and played golf and a bunch of times, but I did not even go to the computer. I mean it was bliss. It was bliss. I figure the Chargers and Colts game is a bomb, so I start looking at stuff, and I found this on the New York Post on Friday: ‘Black-market Cigarettes Costing NY $20M a Month.’ And I said, well, I know what this is about. And then with some of the details in this story you realize that people in charge of all this are just absolutely lamebrain stupid.
Here you go. ‘The underground tobacco market is spreading like a fast-growing cancer in the wake of tax hikes that make New York cigarettes the most expensive in the nation — and it’s costing the state tens of millions a month in lost tax revenue.’ So what? My heart bleeds. So New York is being cost a bunch of money. Good. I hope it would cost ’em a lot more money. ‘Illegal cigarettes are pouring into neighborhood bodegas by the truckload from neighboring Indian reservations –‘ See, it always comes back to bite you when you kick people off their land. They’re eventually gonna figure out a way to flood your state with illegal products and shaft your state of needed revenue. Finally the Indians are getting their revenge against the state of New York, while at the same time servicing the people who smoke in New York, who deserve Medals of Honor because it is their taxes that are paying for many children’s health care programs. We’ll never see a smoker given a medal for anything, even though they deserve them.
Well, I know that may sound convoluted, but okay, we got a problem, we got children, another problem with children is health, right? We got another problem, we don’t have any money, but children’s health is bad, everybody’s child gets sick, every parent gets worried when the child gets sick, gotta do something about it. But because of Obama and the economy, nobody has any money to spend on anything, much less health because they’ve all been led to expect everybody else is gonna be paying for their health care and their kids’ health care. So the average New Yorker doesn’t think anything’s gonna cost him anything. Then all of a sudden he finds out his kid gets sick, and then he learns that there’s a program for it, and guess who’s paying for it? Smokers. The most ill treated, hated, despised people in the state and city are paying for irresponsible parents to get health care for their kids. And what’s the reaction smokers get? They’re hated, they’re reviled, they’re kicked out of everywhere, they’re made fun of, they’re laughed at, they’re stomped on, they’re accused.
And then there’s another story. It gets even better. You know now, the latest lie and fraud: ‘Second-hand Smoke Kills 600,000 People a Year.’ Six hundred thousand a year. It’s not possible. It’s not provable that there are 600,000 deaths a year due to smoking, period. It’s not provable. If it were provable, they’d ban the product. It’s not provable, and now secondhand smoke kills 600,000 a year? Ha. At any rate, I’m getting ahead of myself. ‘Government data show that New York state is being smoked out of as much as $20 million a month from all these illegal cigarette purchases — an estimated 7.3 million packs a month sold off the state tax radar,’ most of it coming from Indian casinos, which, you know, more power to everybody involved here. Indians get their revenge, people get their cigarettes at a more affordable price, state gets screwed, I mean what more could you want? ‘It’s an unfortunate side effect of the taxes, creating this black market,’ said Ron Turk, special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’ New York field office,’ as opposed to the New York office office. ‘Sales of taxed cigarettes have plummeted 27 percent since July.’ We all told everybody this was going to happen. ‘Sales of taxed cigarettes have plummeted 27 percent.’ Nobody is quitting. They’re just finding other sources and they’re willing to break the law to get ’em. It’s an addiction.
‘State lawmakers raised the excise tax to $4.35 a pack on top of the city’s tax of $1.50, making the average price of Marlboros here $11.60, with some shops charging as much as $14.’ We’re talking a pack. ‘About 30 million packs are being sold legally each month — down from 41 million packs a month before July.’ So from 41 million packs down to 30, that’s 11 million packs illegally being sold. ‘The plunge far exceeds –‘ and this is predictable, too ‘The plunge far exceeds tobacco-control experts’ predictions that sales would fall 8 to 10 percent, indicating that smokers are finding other means to get their nicotine fix.’ Really? The average American’s always gonna be smarter than the state official trying to outsmart him.
Anyway, ‘the New York Association of Convenience Store Owners estimates that as many as half of all cigarettes consumed in the state lack proper tax stamps. And law enforcement is also worried that the easy cash will spark rivalries among criminal gangs, just as drugs have.’ It was all predictable. ‘We see lots of [rip-offs] and violence with drug trafficking, and you will see a rise of that in tobacco, too,’ Turk said. ‘As volume and money go up, the stakes get higher. And certainly, a concern of ours is violence will spill out of this.” No, it’s not. You want smokers dead. Does it matter how they kill themselves? Does it matter how they die?
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RUSH: I can’t stop thinking about this poor guy on the Buffalo Bills, Steve Johnson. We have an audio sound bite of Steve Johnson at a press conference yesterday after the game.
JOHNSON: It was a great call. It was something that we knew we can beat ’em on. You know, we ran it in the last game, and pretty sure they thought I was gonna run the over. And came to the back of the end zone and had the game in my hands and then dropped it. You go through that whole game knowing you got a big team like the Pittsburgh Steelers, and then you got this kid coming up in the NFL, you know, making plays, and all of a sudden when the biggest play that needs to be made, you don’t make it, you know? You feel bad. I’m devastated right now. I’ll never get over it. I’ll never get over it. Ever.
RUSH: Yeah, yeah. He said here that he had a big game in my hands, then dropped it, you go through the whole game knowing you got a big team like the Pittsburgh Steelers and you got this kid coming up in the NFL, you know, and then he’s so devastated the guy goes to Twitter and blames God. He goes: ‘How you do this to me? How am I supposed to learn from this?’ I wonder what Obama thought when this guy started ripping him for this?
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RUSH: One more little note here to Steve Johnson, Buffalo Bills wide receiver, a little personal note Steve. I love you, man, big football fan, but you don’t go blaming God when you fail at a Hail Mary pass, that’s just not good politics.
You remember how mad people got at me last week, Brian, for saying that the Indians are killing us with tobacco? And look, they’re still doing it! They’re still doing it with all these illegal packs coming in from the reservations brilliantly and hilariously, very pleasingly denying the state of New York $20 million in tax revenue every month. Yeah!
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RUSH: Snerdley, you know what this New York Post story about black market cigarettes costing New York $20 million dollars a month is really all about? It’s, hey, you Indians — he-he-he-he-he — you think you got away with that stinking deal in Manhattan, we’re coming after you guys on this taxless cigarette stuff. Your freebie days are over. You’re costing us money now. We’ve paid our debt. We gave you the casinos, now you’re gonna start paying. That’s what this is all about. Oh, the poor state of New York, losing all this money, as though any of us care. Well, they don’t care when we are cost a lot of money with stupid stuff they do. Nobody’s out there crying for New York. (crying) No, most people are reading the story and they’re happy about it, even if they have to agree with other people they hate, smokers. This is a contest of who do you hate more, state government or the smokers. And when you get right down to it, smokers aren’t doing anything to you. They’re not doing anything to anybody, but the state — ha — that’s a different matter.
Now, there’s one key element in this story I didn’t get to. When we last left you, the state was beside itself, it had been cost all this money, all these taxable packs down, illegal black market cigarettes are out there, it’s just like the drug industry.