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Rush Limbaugh Claims Unemployed People Aren’t Working Because They Have Food
On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said that the unemployed aren’t working and are living the good life because they have food.
Here is the audio from Media Matters:
Transcript via Rush Limbaugh:
LIMBAUGH: H: Stephanie in Vincennes, Indiana, I’m really glad you waited. I appreciate your patience. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hi. Thanks for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I’m kind of frustrated with the whole thing, and I can’t understand why there’s so many ignorant people out there who don’t see what Obama is doing.
RUSH: Let me ask you, Stephanie, I asked myself today, everybody does, not just you, why do you think that so many are ignorant about what Obama is doing?
CALLER: I guess they’re not listening to the news –
RUSH: No, no. No, no. Why do you think there are so many, not why are they ignorant. Why are you convinced there are so many who are?
CALLER: Maybe 47% of ‘em are because of the handouts.
RUSH: It’s a serious question because I think this is what the election’s all about. We are assuming — I do, too — that the country is just lazily apathetic, that whatever bad thing happens, nobody’s bothered by it. Nobody’s bothered by the ambassador being shot. Nobody is bothered by Obama blaming the video. Nobody is bothered by high unemployment. Nobody is bothered by the economy never in a state of recovery in three-and-a-half years. Nobody is bothered by the fact they can’t make any money anymore. Why do we all think nobody cares anymore? What’s the evidence?
CALLER: The media.
RUSH: A-ha.
CALLER: The media, you know, they lie. They’re not telling the truth.
RUSH: So you think more people do care about this, we just don’t see reporting on that?
CALLER: Right. Right.
RUSH: Or are you hoping? See, isn’t the great fear, isn’t the great fear that you’re right, that a majority of people just don’t care. Like, you can say 23 million people aren’t working, but they’re eating and they’re using their cell phones, and they’re able to watch the NFL on their flat screens.
CALLER: Right. And, you know what? I couldn’t watch the ball game last night.
RUSH: Why not?
CALLER: I don’t have a big flat-screen TV.
RUSH: Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
CALLER: I work. I don’t depend on the government –
RUSH: I see. You work.
CALLER: — to give me handouts. Yeah.
RUSH: You work so you don’t have a screen.
CALLER: Well, I don’t have a big flat-screen TV.
RUSH: Yeah. Yeah. I got you.
CALLER: But I work, and I don’t expect somebody to hand me –
RUSH: I’m gonna give you the answer. The answer to the question is in the polls. When you see on one hand the country literally disintegrating and everything about it that made it great under attack, when you see high unemployment, home values plummeting, all the evidence of economic collapse, all the debt, when you see all the unemployment, and then you see Obama at 47% with 50% approval, you say, “How the hell can this be?” And that makes you ask, “Why and how have all these people grown so apathetic?” It’s the polls that make you think this way, right?
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Okay. And that’s exactly what they’re trying to do.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: The purpose of the people right now, most of them doing these polls, they’re trying to make news, not reflect it, they’re advancing an agenda. They’re all Democrats. They’re all liberals. They just have different jobs. The polls are the replacement refs. They see certain things. They don’t see other things. They don’t call certain things, and other things go by. In this case, what they’re trying to do is exactly what they’ve done in your case: frustrate you, make you pull your hair out, say, what the hell’s happening to the country? They want you thinking the country’s lost. They want you thinking your side’s lost. They want you thinking it’s over for what you believe. And that makes you stay home and not vote. That’s what they’re hoping. That’s why you have to fight it every day, Stephanie.
Just like Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and the vast majority of Republicans in Congress, Rush Limbaugh believes that the reason why unemployed people aren’t working is because they have food. Mitt Romney’s comments about the 47 percent being victims weren’t an isolated episode. Romney’s comments weren’t just Richie Rich talking out his wealth bubble. Much of the Republican Party truly believes that the unemployed are lazy and we need to stop feeding them in order to get them back to work.
Much like Herbert Hoover, the modern Republican Party thinks that they can starve America into a better economy. Republicans had learned from Hoover’s mistake, and tried to avoid saying what they really believe out loud, until Mitt Romney got caught by the hidden camera.
Limbaugh’s exchange with the caller is a textbook example of the kind of targeted class warfare the right is practicing. The caller is being persecuted because she works while lazy (probably black) people get to stay home and watch the game on their flat screen TVs. The flat screen TV and the cell phone have replaced the Cadillac in the right wing myth of the welfare queen.
Limbaugh’s claim that all the pollsters are liberals will certainly come as a surprise to Rasmussen and the dozens of Republican pollsters and polling firms out there. There was none of this griping about polls until after Obama opened up a lead. If the polls show Obama winning, they must be liberal. Since virtually all the polls show Obama leading, it follows that all of the polls are liberal.
Mitt Romney’s comments about the 47 percent are what the Republican Party really believes. Republicans have failed to learn from the mistakes of Hoover, which is why they are poised to repeat his results on Election Day.
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Sally
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 6:42 pm
Oh my. And I hoped when Perry made those comments about the poor not being poor enough because they had ‘refrigerators and TVs,’ he MIGHT be just a bigoted clod. But no. This attitude permeates the GOP. Does Rush know or care what food stamps buy? Does he know or care that most of these 47% are WORKING and still not making it? Very few people are NOT working who want to. The non-workers they demonize are the retired people who have put in their 35-40 years and earned their income, the disabled, who is they are subsisting on food stamps are not eating steak, and young kids, who are in working poor households. I realize Gingrich would put a father out of work to give his job to three 10 year olds, but most of us are not that ignorant. At least I hope so.
And we have a small flatscreen, but it was a gift for my husband’s 30th anniversary in his job. Idiots.
Jann Swanson
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 6:56 pm
I went on my congressman’s FB page today and found this in the comments section of his reposting of the Republican lie about removing work requirements from welfare.
“What reason…would Obama possibly have for removing the work requirement? It is a no brainer…..at a minimum, you have to make an effort to work. Also, Republicans need to quit enabling these people – and let America know that we “the Taxpayers” are tired of supporting this laziness – quit sugar coating it – and call it what it is – people would have a lot more respect for Politicians if you did. We need to end all Entitlement programs – you don’t work, you dont’ eat (if you are an able bodied person). Anyone getting any $$ in the form of government (taxpayer) paid entitlements: should have to sign something saying they will not use our funds to buy liquor, cigarettes, lottery tickets and… Cell phones are a luxury – if someone is paying for your very existence, then you shouldn’t be carrying around a cell phone. These people are not going to voluntarily give up their freebie programs – we’re going to have to do it ourselves”
This is what the hate is like out there, fed by Limbaugh and his brothers. And yes, I did respond but I did so knowing it was hopeless.
greg
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
I’m unemployed. I have been since June. I have a flat screen and a cell phone. (although I did have to ditch my cable service) I also have a new car. All of these things I bought when I had a job. I am attending classes at the local Junior college to work toward an AA. (I actually started this before I lost my job.) I am not just sitting around and collecting an unemployment check. Having nice things while on unemployment doesn’t mean you bought them with your unemployment. These people just don’t understand how lucky they are to have jobs. Maybe if they spent some time worrying about how to fix their own problems instead of what someone else is doing, they would be able to afford that flat screen TV.
Seriously, they aren’t even that expensive if you shop around. I got a 46 inch plasma for $500.00.
Judy M
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 7:20 pm
Why is Limpball still on the air?
Thomas Johnson
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 7:26 pm
And if the foxnews poll shows PBO leading does that make them a liberal poll? See how that logic makes no sense? Yep. Oh wait, logic is one of those liberal concepts. We don’t need none of that. See, that was a double negative hehe. Don’t you just love ‘em?
Kenan Brack
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 7:36 pm
I think the basic thing that people are missing out on is this. Welfare does not equal cash. You need cash to buy cars and tv’s and drugs. You know who has that kind of money. People that work. I bought everything I had because I worked, and now I am unemployed. I barely get enough to feed myself. Welfare does not buy anything other than food. Owning a big screen TV while on welfare doesn’t mean anything. People neglect the circumstances. I have one and I am on welfare. Does that mean I am lazy? Hell no. It’s nothing more than a bit of imagery to depict those on welfare as lazy, system abusers. The truth is much harder than their pea-brains can fathom.
majii
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 8:38 pm
It appears that people like the Limbaugh caller have sh*t for brains, Kenan. My TV programs are always being interrupted by commercials run by rent-to-own outfits. Even those who earn very little can buy flat screen TVs from these kinds of businesses, even the Limbaugh caller! If this caller wants to divest herself of any government assistance and really prove how she does “everything for herself without the government,” I suggest that the next time she files her state and federal income taxes, that she take NO deductions of any kind. She gets lots of government assistance but is too stupid to know it.
Kenan Brack
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 7:43 pm
If you apply that signing for welfare benefits to corporations as well, then certainly I’m all for it. Anyone and that includes corporations (because they are people after all)
As for Cellphones being a luxury. I disagree. Most people I know, no longer have a house phone. Fewer people have them these days. An Iphone is a luxury. A cellphone in itself is not. Is a computer a luxury?
It seems to me that the general thought is that if you are on welfare you don’t have any right to entertainment or happiness; just to eat. If that is sound logic in your mind then doesn’t that mean that Ann Romney shouldn’t get so much money for her Dressage Horse? After all if a cellphone is a luxury then what is owning a horse if you aren’t a rancher or own a farm?
The Tea-publicans hate to admit the truth even when it is staring them in the face.
Colleen
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 8:03 pm
I want to know why people like jerk faces caller are so sure that the media is lying but the GOP is telling the truth. Are they so closed minded or just stupid? I am so tired of stories about Obama being a socialist, a communist and Obamacare having a death panel that I could scream. I am also sick and tired of the term Liberal being bandied about as if it were a curse word. Some of our most famous presidents were Liberals.
How about telling the truth for a change Republicans, that you are letting a bunch of tea baggers and religious nuts run the party and you expect people to believe every lie you spew.
Reynardine
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 8:34 pm
Colleen, she was a shill, the same sort that mountebanks used to plant in the crowd to ask the “right”questions. In this case, it was pre-arranged that she was to ask the Right questions, and everyone knew what was to be said and how long it would take beforehand. There was a script. There IS a script, and all these jerks are using it. Who’s writing it, 47% meme and all? Bet the name starts with a K.
Reynardine
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 8:09 pm
My computers are off-line dinosaurs I use for word prcessing, art programs, and an ancient horoscope program I use so that when I’m writing about a past date, I don’t describe a full moon when there wasn’t one. I go on line with my Android, and before that with a Samsung Flight. My TV, which I had to buy at a discount store when Republican-forced conversion to digital made me replace my old one, wasn’t a flat screen. It blew up during a power surge last winter, so now this Android is my connection to the world around me. I’m not on food stamps, because $67 a month isn’t worth the degradation. Though I never use doctors, I am lucky to have Medicaid, or they’d be stopping the premium out of my meager SS check. I get SSI, and I hope to Hell I sell a screenscript soon, because if Republicans have their way, I won’t get any of that. Yes, I’m one of the evil 47%. I admit it, Adolf. Break out the Zyklon B.
Darnelle
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Hasn’t someone put a muzzle on Rush yet? I guess the people who listen to his garbage are as dumb as he is. Wasn’t he addicted to drugs at one time? That 47% comment is gonna cost Romney the election. Serves him right, he’s out of touch with the world. I have a great job and I have worked since I was 17. I feel sorry for people who can’t find a job. I don’t mind if some of my taxes goes to helping others. I’d rather that then going towards a war. Why are so many Republicans so ignorant?
Shiva (Moderator)
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 8:37 pm
The caller was so typical. So typically ignorant. I am betting that Rush had that guy set up.
But then again, those in the (47%) military depend on government handouts.
A Walkaway
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 10:32 pm
This reminds me of a move made by the Florida Republicans that thankfully was dead on arrival.
They were going to make it so you couldn’t by anything but basic staples with food stamps… no “sweets” or anything like that (I read or heard that the “no” list was far longer than just sweet stuff – like most meats, fresh veggies, anything that cost even a little). The big hue and cry was against people buying and eating sweets (such as desserts) because “if working people have to do without anything, then those on food stamps should have less than they have!”.
There were also bigoted statements about people on food stamps buying steaks and decent cuts of meat… never mind that you don’t get enough to do so unless it’s for something special, like a birthday – and you do without later. They also don’t think about people who have to be on special diets, like diabetics or people who cannot eat anything with gluten (and there are no provisions for being in that situation with the food stamps program, even if the food costs three times as much).
Rush has had a silver spoon rammed in a certain orifice for a long time, and doesn’t even realize how lucky he really is. He’s never faced real adversity – and I know about his vision problems of a few years ago.
Andrew Rei
Sep. 25th, 2012 at 10:55 pm
The GOP may not suffer the same fate Herbert Hoover did in 1932….it could be as bad as Alf Landon did in 1936…in that presidential election, FDR defeated Landon with 60.8% of the popular vote. A little more than three in five people who voted for President that year voted for FDR. But, as I have to keep reminding people, the popular vote DOES NOT elect a president in this country…the electoral college vote does. That’s why any poll that doesn’t incorporate the ECV is blowing smoke. Polls that do put the ECV into the mix mostly have President Obama winning fairly easily with anywhere from 303 to 335 ECVs. When FDR won re-election for the first of three times in 1936, the ECV was 523-8…Landon won Maine and Vermont…that’s what 39.2% of the popular vote got in 1936…two states, 8 ECVs LMAO