RUSH: Okay, level check, test, one, two — test. Test. Test. Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis. This is the amnesty outreach. Testing — well, it seems okay. Everything seems fine. I was expecting it to be all out of whack and everything seems to be okay. So — well, no, I’ve been away for five days, folks, and sometimes you get back in the saddle and the horse doesn’t behave the same, and just wanted to make sure everything was okay before launching in. We’re great to be back, happy to be here, El Rushbo and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and as always, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. The telephone number if you want to be on the program today, 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.
So I went to the family, went to Cape Girardeau for Thanksgiving, and actually had a delightful, wonderful time. It was just a fabulous time. It could not have been better. And then Kathryn and I decamped and we left the friendly confines of the continental United States, and I have been literally, purposefully out of touch. And, in fact, I chose a place with rotten Internet so that I could not spend a lot of time doing what I normally do. I mean, I tried ’cause I’m habitually addicted to being online now and then, but the speeds were so slow. So until we got back into the country yesterday, I didn’t start getting into what had happened since I was gone.

I relaxed, I mean, for me. It was guilt-ridden. I get guilty when I relax. I get guilty when I’m not paying attention to things, but I fought it, and I didn’t start getting into things into last night. I had no idea what happened on television. I was… well, I don’t know that I could ever be low-information, even in a vegetative state. I think I would know more than your average low-information person out there. But anyway, I started paying attention to things. No news, no nothing, folks, and it’s an amazing transformative thing that happens to you when you do that. I’ve done this before, and I’ve mentioned this before. It has a totally transformative effect on your attitude and just things in general when you are not part of the daily grind.

My buddy Andy McCarthy, I did read one thing. He posted a column at National Review Online on Saturday morning, and I accidentally ran into it. I didn’t intend to go there. I accidentally ran into it, and he wrote a piece, and it was right on the money. I speak often about the daily media narrative, the daily media bubble that just sucks us all in, and it just vacuums us all in and makes us part of whatever the daily media narrative is. That’s what’s so great about escaping it so that you have no outside influences on things that you think matter or are important or what have you. And Andy’s piece had a different way of characterizing and describing the daily media narrative.

He said politics today has become a soap opera. It’s nothing but one suspenseful moment to the next, and every day we have a cliffhanger. He said the problem is it isn’t a soap opera. The problem is, it’s real. The problem is, it matters. But all the characters are like soap opera characters, and we are ginned up into feeling suspenseful about outcomes of people and things and so forth that are quite manipulative and so forth. I mean, I don’t have the piece right in front of me because I didn’t have the ability to print anything while I was gone. I got it in my computer but I don’t use the computer. It’s amazing. I’m Mr. High-tech and I’m still using paper. It’s the only way to do it, believe me, as I execute the program each and every day.

So I don’t have Andy’s piece in front of me but it was a really, really great perspective on all this. And it is. Everything’s constructed as one suspenseful moment to the next, and everybody’s always on the edge of their chair to find out what’s gonna happen. This is the way the media presents things and it’s not substantive, it’s not real, and it’s designed to appeal to basically low-information people. And of course all the characters play ball that way. All the people in Washington, they know what’s going on, and they comport themselves accordingly. It’s a long way around saying, I didn’t know, I had no clue what was being discussed on TV, what was important, what was happening with any single issue until last night.

And nothing had changed. It was all the same stuff as it was when I left. At the top of the list, Obamacare and the Obamacare website, and ancillary, the Republican Party, the GOP, Chris Christie. I told you people. I told you he’s going to be seeking the Democrat Party — he just became the president of the Republican Governors Association. Do you know what the number one role and job of the president or the head honcho, I don’t know what the title is, of the Republican Governors Association is? It’s to get other Republicans elected. And then Governor Christie said, “I don’t know that I could support a Republican against Governor Cuomo in New York.” Yeah. He said that. I have it right here. Fred Dicker had it. You know Fred. You’ve been reading Fred since 1930 in the New York Post.

He’s got a piece: “‘Bizarre Behavior’ Could be Risk to Christie White House Run — Gov. Chris ChristieÂ’s ‘bizarre behavior’ in refusing to say heÂ’ll support a possible GOP challenger to Gov. Cuomo next year could derail his chances to become president, state and national GOP insiders have told The Post. ‘Christie already has a problem with many Republicans refusing to forgive him because of his embrace of [President] Obama and his socially liberal policies,’ said a nationally prominent GOP operative. ‘But this bizarre behavior in suggesting he wonÂ’t help a Republican defeat a Democratic governor, and a Cuomo no less, could finish off his chances of becoming his partyÂ’s nominee for president in 2016,’ the operative continued.”

Now, I didn’t know this is going on, I didn’t know this ’til last night. “Cuomo claimed last week that Christie, the new head of the Republican Governors Association — an organization whose purpose is to elect GOP governors — had quickly called him to say The Post was wrong in reporting the New Jersey governor was ready to back Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, should he become the Republican nominee for governor next year. ‘I spoke to Gov. Christie this morning, who told me the exact opposite,’ Cuomo contended … But Christie spokesman Colin Reed refused to confirm CuomoÂ’s claim.”

The fact that there is even a mystery here as to what Christie will do in supporting a Republican candidate against Governor Cuomo. You know, I’ve been lightheartedly, jocularly suggesting to people — you know, tweaking them — that I think Governor Christie will get the Democrat nomination for president if he wants to be president and so forth. Surprisingly little reaction to that. I thought there’d be tons of outrage and, “How dare you? Why would you insult this great…” But there’s not any reaction whatsoever. There hasn’t been any. I was kind of surprised by it, and now this.

So we shall see. I also didn’t learn until today that even while I was gone, I seem to be in the top three discussion topics in cable news from Friday all through the weekend, A, about my comments on the pope. The Drive-Bys tried to make a huge deal out of that, and it’s funny. We’ve got a sound bite roster for that, and then other comments that I have made about Obamacare and the website were discussed.

The first 14sound bites here are me. Well, it may be the case. It may be accurate to say that I was one of the few brave enough to comment on the pope. Comments are made by people in the media, the Drive-Bys. “It’ll be interesting to see if other Republicans join Limbaugh.” Then, then I find out that Eric Cantor — who’s number two in the House leadership on the Republican side — gave an interview to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I read this in a great piece by Daniel Horowitz at RedState.com.

The title of his piece… You all know the drill. We’ve talked about this, too. He said, “The Republican Party is becoming an echo of the Democrat Party, and we need to be an alternative,” and this is all about how Cantor apparently is assuring everybody: We’re gonna get amnesty done, and we’re gonna get immigration done, and we’re gonna get the DREAM Act! We’ll get the kids of illegals legalized. We’re gonna get that done. We’re gotta get that done.

I’m reading this, and I said, “Really? Why is there a Republican Party if it’s just gonna echo?” That was in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, and then the Health Care Stack is just… Folks, I think it’s worse. I think the website, the whole thing, Obamacare… I think it’s worse than anything anybody’s willing to admit, and I will explain as the program unfold. In fact, last week I mentioned to you my hobby tech blogs that I read.

It’s sort of disheartening. These are young people who write these blogs, and I can’t blame ’em. It’s how they’ve been raised. It’s how they’ve been educated. “Government’s great! Whatever government does is fabulous. Government is the final authority.” Government just IS. I mean, it’s there, and it is a wonderful thing, and whatever happens there is never questioned. It’s a glaring, glaring illustration of how education’s been corrupted.

There was a long piece at one of these tech blogs, a long piece at a very highbrow tech blog on every failing aspect of Obamacare, and the guy that wrote it finally admitted that it was designed to fail. I said, “Whoa! This is progress.” So I felt a little bit optimistic about that. I mean, I’m just sharing with you my reemergence into the labyrinth, if you will, here after some days away. These are all the things that popped up and hit me, which we’re going to get into in detail as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears today.

But I do think it’s worse than anybody knows. Do you realize if you’ve signed up for Obamacare, you may not have? You have to call your insurance company to find out if they have a record of you signing up. And there’s Obama and his people out talking about that they got this thing “fixed” now, that it’s running with the vigor and the speed and the vitality of the private sector. Wait a minute! That’s absolutely asinine.

If it’s running as great as the private sector would do it, why did you stop it and take it away from there? I think it’s fascinating to hear these people measure their own failing website and try to convince everybody how good it is now, that it would be just the same as if it was in the private sector, which tells me that they have not succeeded in turning everybody off to the private sector. But, yes, details on that as well.

And then there’s Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos shows up on 60 Minutes and Charlie Rose has no idea what to do ’cause the guy is talking about… I hope the pope wasn’t watching because Jeff Bezos was just, I mean, full bore into unfettered total capitalism, so much so that if you wipe out your competition, it doesn’t matter who they are. Too bad, tough toenails. The world’s a tough place.

Amazon is not killing the book publishing industry or whatever. The future is changing it. “Don’t blame us,” and then he talked about these drones that in four or five years are gonna be just popping over to your house. Can you imagine? I tell you, can you imagine here in Low-Informationville, your average trailer park, and they order a six-pack of condoms from Amazon and a drone is gonna deliver ’em and they see these things flying over?

And the guy inside the trailer goes and grabs his shotgun, starts taking target practice, shooting drones down? I’m fascinated by high-tech, as you well know, but this, oh, it was amazing. Wait ’til you hear Bezos. I mean, Charlie Rose doesn’t know what hit him. He’s got a guy talking about capitalism, and he’s assumed to be this vast leftist, but he is talking about unfettered capitalism like Charlie Rose has never heard it. I think it’s kind of… It’s a bit perverse.

We may soon live in a world where we can choose from a million products to be dropped at our front doors on a miniature drone, but we’re not gonna be able to choose the doctor we want to see. We’re not gonna be able to choose the health policies that suit our needs or our wants. But we’re gonna be inundated. Whatever else we want, a drone is gonna deliver. The private sector is gonna do it. These miniature drones will be dropping whatever we want right at our front doors.

Anyway, I have Andy McCarthy’s piece up now, a couple of excerpts. I’m gonna share it with you ’cause it’s really good. I’ll take a break here. By the way, all these sound bites about me and the pope and health care and so forth, we’re loaded today, folks. That’s the bottom line. My challenge here is gonna be sounding organized and cogent ’cause I could be hop-scotching all over the place.