×

Rush Limbaugh

For a better experience,
download and use our app!

The Rush Limbaugh Show Main Menu

Listen to it Button

RUSH: I don’t know, folks. Some days I just feel swamped. I just feel overwhelmed. I feel smothered by the left. I mean, look. Here we are almost at 2015, and this is the day that Jonathan Gruber is testifying before a House committee on all the things he said about the American people and Obamacare, and what’s happening instead? The Democrats are blaming the Bush administration.


The Democrats, the main story, the lead story today, by design, is the release of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, dumping on the Bush administration on “Jonathan Gruber Day.” Gruber, what’s happening out there is being dwarfed by what is happening with the release of how rotten and horrible this stinking country was when George Bush was president. And it still is, because Obama still hasn’t been able to close Club Gitmo where all the torture went on, and may still be going on, even though Obama may not know about it and thinks he’s tried to stop it.

And this is the picture being painted today. As we head into the Christmas season, once again, America sucks, and it really sucked during the Bush years, on the day Jonathan Gruber is being questioned about all of the lies that were told in order to pass Obamacare. I think Gruber just admitted here — let me check something very, very, very quickly, ’cause I just got a flash note here. Gruber just said — and we got some sound bites on this coming up, so hang in there, be tough. Gruber just said that he did not lie in anything that was shown on the Internet. He didn’t lie. So everything he said on the Internet was true. They asked him today (paraphrasing), “Well, how much were you paid?”

“Well, paid, what’s paid?”

“Well, how much money were you given for your services?”

“Well, I need to consult with counsel on this.”

I mean, this guy is coming across today as Pajama Boy 2. Nothing like the Gruber that we see braggadocio in all of these YouTube videos. The cocksure, bragging, “Hey, look how smart I am, fooling all these idiots.” He’s up there looking dazed like he doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and he’s as quiet as a church mouse except church and these guys don’t go together.

So he’s as quiet as a warehouse mouse, I guess would be the way to say it. Yeah, he was just a bit player. (imitating Gruber) “I wasn’t front and center. I wasn’t the architect.” Except he ran around bragging that he was, and Obama claimed that he was. Obama didn’t use the word architect, but it was well known that Gruber was. And it’s a great show because even Elijah Cummings is acting ticked off. And he may be, for one reason. This is damaging to the Democrat Party.

I think Elijah Cummings is the ranking Democrat on the committee that is interrogating Gruber. If he’s mad about anything, it’s the damage Gruber potentially did to the party, not — (interruption) yeah, Gruber gave Republicans a gift. He’s not mad about health care. He’s not mad about what Gruber actually did. He’s mad that Gruber was foolish enough to brag about it and admit to it.

And Obama, if you hang around long enough, it becomes inarguably true that I am right. Obama in TheHill.com: “Protests Necessary to Trigger Nation’s ‘Conscience.'” Our president, in effect, is admitting that he welcomes all of these protests, that he welcomes all of this unrest because it allows him to further his radical agenda. And the radical left is famous for creating a crisis and then using the crisis to justify expanded government control. They got a crisis. The people are protesting. It’s out of control. The government must move in and stop it. The government must do something. What do we do? Well, we grant the protestors whatever it is they’re demanding and then we’re all considered to be great guys.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, now back to it. Do you remember the scandal a few months ago when it was reported — you may not remember this and this is one of the reasons why I am here as your host. But some of you might remember a few months ago when it was reported that the CIA was investigating certain Democrat Senate staffers. The Democrats’ CIA rendition report that was released is what the CIA was concerned about.

The CIA was curious how Democrat staffers got hold of highly classified information. They were concerned that these staffers in the Senate, Democrat staffers, would make that information public, and Democrats like Dianne Feinstein were in high dudgeon, just outraged that the CIA wouldn’t trust the Senate to protect America’s national security. And to me it sure looks like the CIA was right to be concerned.

In fact, they should have done more to stop these staffers, because this report is out, and Dianne Feinstein’s practically reading it verbatim on the Senate floor. She’s been at it for over a half hour now, and you can sum it up: America’s mean, America tortures, or did during the Bush years. The CIA lied to us. The CIA did far worse, like they kept some detainees awake and denied them sleep for a hundred hours, and they waterboarded them.

As I listened to her run through all of this, and it was conclusively proven that much of the intel we got from this torture was not true, it was just the inmates saying anything to stop the torture. I remembered back to the sound bites that we had here from Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes interviewing one of the CIA interrogators. We love this guy, Jose Rodriguez. The guy was great.

Lesley Stahl was just speechless and stunned when he was admitting to her the kinds of techniques that were employed successfully on just one of the detainees, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who we were told, broke the record for being able to endure waterboarding. And I remember Lesley Stahl saying (imitating Stahl), “But, but, but, that’s torture. We don’t do that.” And Jose Rodriguez, “But we do, but we do.” And then he went on to describe how it worked.

And shortly after Obama assumed office and the Regime was in place, they started making noise about prosecuting these interrogators. Remember that? They were gonna prosecute American interrogators down at Club Gitmo. I think they’re not going to do that, but they released this thing today, which basically says that this country — it’s typical of what the modern American left thinks of America.

It’s a catalog of everything wrong with this country. It’s a catalog of how we ignored our values. It’s a catalog of how we were not who we are. You know, all of this stuff that we set aside our values and we failed a worldwide test, and we can only seek to be a moral leader if we in fact behave as moral people in a moral country and so forth. And that philosophy, by the way, I don’t agree with.

The problem I have with it is this constant assumption that these people make, that the United States has to prove everything to everybody. That there’s something inherently flawed about us that requires us to daily prove to other reprobate nations around the world that we are worthy of our status. That’s what offends me about this.

I’ll tell you, this preoccupation these people have with torture, it’s a psychological thing. I’ve always known how big a deal it is to them. To them they all take this personally somehow. I’ve mentioned the two TV shows recently that I have watched where — and the stuff that we’re talking about, my friends, is seven years ago now. You would think, listening to Dianne Feinstein today, that it happened yesterday, it happened a couple days ago. We’re finally getting to the truth and we’re now telling everybody what went on.

These television shows make the same point, that it’s going on, it’s happening now. In fact it’s almost a signature of the United States that we torture. The obsession these people have with it, it’s almost as though they think these kinds of enhanced techniques were never used before by anybody prior to George W. Bush, and it’s almost to the point that you get the feeling these people think that nobody else in the world engages in these kind of enhanced interrogation techniques, that we are the sole users of such horrible things.

And it is an outright denial. It’s a flat-out denial of just how dangerous and despicable the world is in places. This moral equivalence these people have, that somehow we have the duty to prove ourselves every day because we haven’t met our own standards, because we have fallen short of our own lofty ideals? And the rest of the world is justified in thinking that we are a reprobate nation, and that’s the rubric under which all of this is taking place today. And I, frankly, am tired of it.

I’m tired of having to get up every day and listen to the Democrat Party and all of its allies tell everybody in as loud as voice as they can what a rotten place the United States of America is. And particularly when they arrive at this view with an unrealistic view and a lack of understanding of what the real world, and the real world of bad guys, is really all about. But that’s secondary because the opportunity here is to rip the country and a former Republican president, and that’s what they really are gleeful about, and particularly the timing, doing this on “Jonathan Gruber Day.”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I’ve got the Jose Rodriguez sound bite that I referenced and a couple of Dianne Feinstein. I don’t want to be hurried before the break, so I’m gonna save them for immediately after the next break coming up the bottom of the hour.

I want to remind you something. The demonization of the CIA is as old as the CIA. In fact, the demonization of the CIA goes back to the old OSS, even prior to the CIA. But the demonization of the CIA and their use of waterboarding is a textbook example of how the media and the rest of the Democrat Party establish a lie and repeat it until it becomes a fact. I’m gonna tell you: “Torture” isn’t torture, a “government shutdown” is not a government shutdown, and “immigration reform” isn’t immigration reform.

We’re losing the language.

But these people are hell-bent on convincing as many people in this country as they can that we are rotten to the core, because all we do is torture. We don’t interrogate with valor and with character. No, no, no. Remember, as Mrs. Clinton said recently, “We don’t treat our enemies with understandings and empathy.” No, we torture them! Well as these people are using it, “torture” isn’t torture just like “immigration reform” isn’t immigration reform. It’s amnesty.

Just like as the “government shutdown” that everybody is afraid of is not really a government shutdown. So the left continues to hijack the language and redefine important terms, and the opposing party just stands aside and lets it all happen! The demonization of the CIA and their use of waterboarding, this is textbook of how you establish a lie and you repeat it until it becomes a fact.

Do you know that the US military waterboards our troops, particularly our Special Forces people? They go through waterboard training. It’s part of their survival training, ’cause it’s likely they’re gonna encounter it if captured. A grand total three terrorists were waterboard 11 years ago, which has now produced thousands of pages of valuable intel that the Democrats are saying is all invalid.

They don’t believe it’s true because it was elicited with torture.

But it was that info that eventually led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, for crying out loud!

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: And predictably Senator McCain is now on the Senate floor endorsing what Dianne Feinstein said, basically concluding that whatever we did at Guantanamo Bay stained our national honor. Even though he understands it, sometimes in the fog of war, people do things they wouldn’t otherwise do, but that’s no excuse.

And we got the lecture on our values and how we must continue to act as though we understand that all men have certain basic human rights and we will be the one nation on earth that does not violate them or torture them in the process of finding out. Then he went on to say that you can’t trust what you’re told using these kinds of techniques because the sufferer will lie and say anything he thinks his captor will believe in order to end his suffering.

So it’s pile on America day again on “Jonathan Gruber Day.” This is not an accident. Jonathan Gruber, you’re gonna have to look long and hard to find it, is testifying before a House committee today on his lies, misrepresentations, and insults to the American people, his role in making sure this flawed Obamacare legislation was passed by virtue of lying to the American people, and it’s simply being dwarfed by the news that the United States tortured seven, eight years ago.

How many times have they brought this up? How many times have they kept making a point. And I’m telling you, it’s gonna keep going. Movies and TV shows are still being made about it.

Anyway, audio sound bite time. We played a number of these sound bites in the past. I’ve got one here. Let me see. This is not the one that I just mentioned, but it works. Back on April 29th, 2012, Lesley Stahl interviewed former CIA interrogator Jose Rodriguez, and I believe Jose Rodriguez was the guy who ran the program. Jose Rodriguez ran the CIA’s interrogation program.


Lesley Stahl, during the interview, was beside herself. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She said, “So what happens? You’re torturing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Does he break down? Does he cry? Does he fall apart? What happens to him?”

RODRIGUEZ: No. He gets a good night’s sleep. He gets his Ensure. By the way, he was very heavy when he came to us and he lost 50 pounds.

STAHL: What, his Ensure? You mean like people in the hospital who will drink that stuff?

RODRIGUEZ: Yes. Dietary manipulation was part of these dire techniques.

STAHL: So sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, I mean, this is Orwellian stuff. The United States doesn’t do that.

RODRIGUEZ: Well, we do.

RUSH: It is the sound bite I had hoped for. It is. I quickly read it and didn’t get the last line. “Well, we do.” He’s on the edge here because he’s taunting her and she doesn’t know it. (imitating Rodriguez) “Oh, yeah. Yeah. Dietary manipulation was part of these dire techniques.”

(imitating Stahl) “You mean you gave him Ensure? You mean that stuff cancer patients get in the hospital?”

“Yes. Yes. Dietary manipulation was part of these dire techniques.”

“Well, so sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, I mean, this is Orwellian stuff. The US doesn’t do that.”

“Well, we do. Well, we do.”

I mean, this is right up there. This is in my all-time top five audio sound bites. Nothing will outdo Nic Robertson at CNN in Tahrir Square. That will always remain, just like “Barack the ‘Magic Negro,'” being one of my all-time favorite song parodies.

But listen to this again. Now that you know what’s coming and going by, I want you to listen to Lesley Stahl just beside herself. She’s in shock here. She can’t believe that we do these horrible things, and she just can’t believe — and, by the way, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, everything he told us was true. It has been confirmed. And he set the record for length of time withstanding waterboarding.

I think it’s a world record, in fact, that he holds. I’m not saying this flippantly. He does hold the world record for being able to hold out for longer than anybody else on waterboarding, and I think it’s something like 75 seconds, which is a long time.

Oh, by the way, folks, look, I don’t like doing this. I don’t like citing television shows for evidence of things because it isn’t. Television shows are just that; they are scripted performances and not real. Therefore it’s a sad thing, it’s a sad commentary that you have to watch a TV show to find out how truly evil our enemies are. I find that somewhat appalling. Today we’re being told how rotten we are. Today this is all about the Senate and Republicans and Democrats joining together to describe once again how evil and mean and beneath our standards the American nation was, particularly back during the second term of the Bush administration.

There’s not a word being spoken about why all this went on. There’s not a word being said. There’s not a single description of the evil that is the Taliban, that is Al-Qaeda, that is ISIS. No, the evil is being portrayed today as being located at Club Gitmo and whatever other black sites the CIA is violating the law in using, by rendering prisoners under cover of darkness to black sites, i.e., prisons that nobody knows exist in far flung corners.

That’s why I say, I’m just worn out with this. I’m worn out having to hear about how rotten my country is, particularly in a contest with Al-Qaeda, or in a contest with the Taliban. But that’s what we’re getting today. And it’s helping to cover up what a reprobate Jonathan Gruber is and what an absolute fraud and lie all of Obamacare was and remains.

I did a Morning Update commentary today and a further news story that I have in the Stack of Stuff about all the doctors dropping out of Obamacare. There’s a legitimate shortage of actual treating doctors that’s about to rear its ugly head. More and more doctors are pulling out of it. It’s a disaster, top to bottom, and it’s being covered up so the Democrat Party and the media can join forces and once again tell the American people how rotten their country is. And let me just say, I’m not at all saying the United States is perfect. I’m not at all saying that we haven’t made mistakes. But to not even have a tacit acknowledgement that we are the good guys, that’s offensive.

By the way, it’s very worrisome when, to at least every member of a particular political party, the Democrat Party, in their eyes the United States is not the good guys, that’s a problem. But that’s what we’re being treated to today. So here again listen to this knowing full well what’s coming and a couple of other Di Fi sound bites after this. This is Jose Rodriguez, who ran the CIA interrogation program in Club Gitmo, being interviewed by Lesley Stahl. He wrote a book about it, so that’s why he was on 60 Minutes, and she was beside herself learning what went on. She said (paraphrasing), “So what happens with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after you waterboarded the guy, after you tortured him, after you beat him up, after you almost killed him, after you treated him mean and all that, what happened? Did he break down? Did he cry? Did he fall apart on you?”


RODRIGUEZ: No. He gets a good night’s sleep. He gets his Ensure. By the way, he was very heavy when he came to us and he lost 50 pounds.

STAHL: What, his Ensure? You mean like people in the hospital who will drink that stuff?

RODRIGUEZ: Yes. Dietary manipulation was part of these dire techniques.

STAHL: So sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation, I mean, this is Orwellian stuff. The United States doesn’t do that.

RODRIGUEZ: Well, we do.

RUSH: I don’t know, folks. I just love this. Yes, giving a terrorist who masterminded the 911 attacks a can of Ensure is a dire interrogation technique. Yes, it was part of these dire techniques. He’s just openly mocking her, she didn’t even know it. And now here is Dianne Feinstein, who is leading the show on the floor of the Senate today with the release of the committee report on just how rotten the CIA is. We have two sound bites, and this is the first.

FEINSTEIN: History will judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law and the willingness to face an ugly truth and say “never again.” The CIA’s actions a decade ago are a stain on our value and on our history. The release of this 500-page summary cannot remove that stain, but it can and does say to our people and the world that America is big enough to admit when it’s wrong and confident enough to learn from its mistakes. Releasing this report is an important step to restore our values and show the world that we are in fact a just and lawful society.

RUSH: See? You see what I mean? The whole premise here is that we are the problem. We have lost our values. We have embarrassed ourselves before the world, and we are a stain on the world because we lost our values, and it’s a stain on our history, and therefore history will judge us this way. And we want history to judge us by our commitment to a just society governed by law and the willingness to admit that we were wrong and it’ll never happen again. That’s what we want the world saying about us. We want the world to respect us and to love us, because the US admits when it’s wrong, and the US, when it’s wrong, promises to never do it again, like we are a little child needing to be sent to face the corner for not eating our peas.

I should take it back. For cramming our peas down the throats of our mothers for making us eat them when we don’t want to. That’s right. We are big enough to admit when we are wrong, and we are confident to learn from our mistakes, because we realize that we, when we lose our values, lose any authority to condemn anyone else. So when we become bad people, we can’t accuse anybody else of being bad. And, for what it’s worth, here’s the next sound bite. These are just two sound bites that basically summarize what it took her 45 minutes to read.

FEINSTEIN: They described brutal, around-the-clock interrogations, especially of Abu Zabaydah, in which multiple coercive techniques were used in combination and with substantial repetition. It was an ugly, visceral description. The summary also indicated that Abu Zabaydah and al-Nashiri did not, as a result of the use of these so-called EITs, provide the kind of intelligence that led the CIA to stop terrorist plots or arrest additional suspects.

RUSH: Now, keep in mind a whopping three terrorists were waterboarded and punished in the way that Dianne Feinstein described. Three murderers, three mass murderers were subjected to this treatment. Congress was briefed about all of these practices several times. Top Democrats were briefed, including Pelosi, despite her claims to the contrary. You remember that? There was a big controversy. She was told about all this and never raised a — in fact, this is all coming back to me now. She was told about it and never complained once until the political opportunity arose.

The Democrats knew about this long ago and didn’t say a word about it. Much it of, by the way, turns out not to be true either. Senate staffers wrote this thing after the CIA refused to be cooperative with Senate staffers ’cause they didn’t trust them to keep all of this secret.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let’s hit the phones. We’ll start in Wilmington, Delaware. This is Eric. Great to have you on the program. Hello, sir.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you doing today?

RUSH: I’m fine.

CALLER: I’m just calling ’cause I feel like I’m in Groundhog Day. Didn’t we, for weeks, go over these torture allegations and stuff? You know, I’m not feeling it for these people down in Gitmo. I’m thinking of the people that were in the towers that had to choose between burning to death and jumping to their death. I think we’re losing the big perspective, and also there’s a cabal between the press and the White House. I mean, they change the topic all the time where the cops are killing black kids, Gruber — they’re trying to cover up that — and also the immigration thing. They use the cops and killing black kids to cover that up, so all we do is talk for weeks about something we know is not true.

RUSH: That’s exactly how it’s done. You have just spelled out the technique. You are very shrewd, sir, very clever for detecting it, because that is exactly how it’s done. All these crises — many of them manufactured — are thrown up against the media wall every day to cloud, to obscure, to confuse, to suppress, to depress, to dispirit, to cause confusion and chaos. You know, here’s a question: Is Obama a stain on our honor?

I would think a president who is as lawless as Barack Obama, a president who ignores the Constitution purposely, over and over… You talk about a stain on our nation’s honor?

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This