Rush Limbaugh Program - April 19, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #1

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April 19, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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April 19, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #1

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	Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
	Well, I've never seen such giddiness, at least in a week.
	Drive-by media thinks they got Scott McClellan today, and they actually think they got Rove, too.
	Even though Rove is staying on, they think they got Rove.
	They're notching their belts today.
	They're excited.
	They can hardly contain themselves.
	You couple that with their failed effort to get Rummy this week.
	Drive-By Media has moved on.
	Not going to say yet the Rumsfeld story is in a Drive-By Media morgue, but it's headed there.
	Greetings, folks.
	Welcome.
	Special hello to those of you watching on the DittoCam at rushlimbaugh.com.
	We got three hours of broadcast excellence straight ahead as we prepare to have more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
	Telephone number 800-282-2882 and the email address rush at EIBnet.com.
	We got audio soundbites to support all this upcoming couple C, I told you so's.
	Who is it?
	Helmet Head Dorgan.
	Somebody in Congress wants the scalp of Lee Raymond, the CEO of retiring CEO of Exxon.
	Told you this.
	We talked about his retirement package of $400 million.
	Congress doesn't like this.
	Some people in the Senate don't like this.
	And Chuck Schumer's out there wants to subpoena the oil company books now because they're showing a profit, but it's not hurricane season yet.
	They're only allowed to show a profit during hurricane season.
	So they're already gouging.
	Thomas Friedman, where was he?
	He was on Today Show Today.
	Made the case for $100 a barrel oil.
	He said the faster it gets there, the faster it's going to get back down to 20 bucks.
	And it'll affect our policy with Iran.
	The president of China, the ChiCom leader is here, Hu Zhintao.
	He stopped first in Washington State where he went to Microsoft's offices yesterday and told Bill Gates that he actually uses the Windows operating system.
	Gates said, if you have any problems with it, call me.
	I'll be glad to help you.
	Big dinner last night at Gates' house.
	Gates has a $100 million lakeside mansion out there.
	Christine Gregori or Greguire, whatever, however, pronounces her name, the mayor, governor of Washington, was the official host, but it was, I saw the menu too.
	There were no Chinese food items on the menu.
	It was either some sort of halibut.
	You had your choice between halibut or some sort of filet.
	And of course, who is going to be in Washington tomorrow to talk with President Bush?
	We have a few of his comments here.
	I will translate those for you.
	We don't have them on audio yet, but whenever these Chi-Com leaders come here and start waxing eloquent about what great friends of ours they are, it's always necessary to translate this for you in terms that you can understand.
	Another C, I told you so, Chuck Hagel.
	I said, I've lost confidence in Rumsfeld.
	I was just not predictable.
	And I did predict.
	But first, ladies and gentlemen, I want you to hear, I want you to hear a soundbite here.
	It's just over a minute, a little over a minute and one second, from last night's Larry King Alive.
	This is CNN's highest-rated show.
	His guest was the war protester, Jane Fonda.
	Now, Jane Fonda said recently that she's not going to join the war protests anymore, that Cindy she hands 10 times better than she is.
	Well, that means she hands a zero because 10 times zero is a zero.
	Ten times nothing is still nothing.
	But you still have to hear this.
	This is self-explanatory.
	Well, sex.
	I've heard of it.
	Did you ever have low points in your sex life?
	Come on.
	Yes.
	There's been a six-year drought.
	You've gotten six years.
	I know you haven't.
	Are you in the six-year period now?
	By your choice, obviously.
	Really?
	You don't have that kind of need.
	I'm not talking about need.
	That's a whole other issue.
	There's other ways.
	Should we really get into it?
	Tell me about the hip.
	I got one and it's bionic and I beep when I go through the security.
	Right side.
	How long did it take to get over it after the surgery?
	A couple of months.
	Now I've been riding horseback riding again, so it's pretty unpain-free.
	It's amazing surgery, isn't it?
	Aren't we lucky to be alive at a time when they can just sort of change the parts?
	I feel like a jalapi.
	How's your health now?
	Except for my joints.
	Perfect.
	Wonderful.
	And you?
	You look really good.
	Yeah, my joints.
	My joints are my Achilles heel.
	Pardon the pun.
	Oh, you got the right.
	You're going to need a left one?
	Probably and a couple of knees.
	Knees, too.
	Maybe.
	Jane the Rec.
	Great seeing you, darling.
	Love you.
	Great seeing you, darling.
	So there's Jane Fonda and Larry King.
	They're both 70-year-old liberal fossils, and they're out there discussing their sex lives.
	And Jane's admitting, oh, it's been six years, but there are other ways.
	You know, and that's their highest-rated show on CNN.
	So I just wanted to let you hear that because we found it hilarious.
	All right, here's Scott.
	Here is Scott McClellan this morning on the White House lawn after announcing he's out of there.
	Mr. President, it has been an extraordinary honor and privilege to have served you for more than seven years now, the last two years and nine months as your press secretary.
	The White House is going through a period of transition.
	Change can be helpful, and this is a good time and good position to help bring about change.
	Yeah.
	The second-term administration has also always go through this thing trying to reignite themselves.
	It's questionable whether these kinds of things matter.
	I mean, this is by McClellan after these two years and nine months of facing the abuse that he's faced.
	It's time to turn this gig into a private sector opportunity, which is probably what this is about.
	But Nora O'Donnell on MSNBC this morning gives us the drive-by media spin on all this.
	The big headline today in terms of the White House shake-up is that Carl Rove's role in the White House will be changing.
	Carl Rove has been this president Svengali, political spengali, for years, and many say is Bush's brain, of course, as that book is called.
	And so Carl Rove is going to be dropping the policy side.
	They realize they've got a real problem on their hands, that they are facing the very real possibility that not only the president's approval ratings low, but that it's going to hurt the Republican Party at large and that they could lose the House and Senate.
	Now, I don't know what all this means.
	But I can guess and I can analyze this.
	So what we have here is the drive-by media saying, okay, McClellan's gone, but the real news is that Rove has been forced to give up his policy position.
	After just over a year, Rove has to give up, or a year and a half, whatever it's been, give up his policy position and move back into the original job that he had.
	That's probably a net positive in terms of trying to secure Republican success at the polls this November.
	We may have a case here where Rove was given a promotion simply because of length of time and so forth and moved up to the Assistant Chief of Staff role and took him out of what he was best at.
	I'm just wild guessing here, but the drive-by media obviously is looking at this as a demotion in a sense.
	And they got McClellan and they think they've got Rove here.
	So again, these things are just, you know, they're almost predictable in second-term administrations.
	These are high-intensity jobs and people burn out in them very quickly.
	And I'm sure there's also a part of this is an attempt to change subject off of some other things going on up there.
	But in terms of the final analysis, all this stuff really doesn't matter much unless they get rid of Bush.
	Because the dirty little secret is that Bush runs the shop.
	Bush runs the place.
	And all this other rigmarole about Bush doesn't have his own brain, doesn't have his own ideas, and he's a puppet.
	He can't go through the day without somebody telling him where to go, what to say, how to say it, so forth is another media myth.
	There's news out of North Carolina at Durham.
	One of the suspects apparently has an airtight alibi complete with taxicab records, ATM card records, and so forth that place him outside the house.
	He was inside for a while, but not at the time the alleged rape took place.
	I have comments on that as the program unfolds today.
	And Scooter Libby, the media getting all upset now.
	They are resisting the subpoenas that Scooter Libby's lawyers have presented them, have issued them.
	I told you this was going to happen.
	I said to the media, be careful what you ask for because you're going to end up being the focus of this trial if it ever goes that far.
	And a top shareholder has put pressure on the underperforming New York Times company, Morgan Stanley, is upset.
	The Morgan Stanley Investment Management Limited, which holds over 5% of Class A shares in the New York Times, claims that the company's board and management have failed shareholders.
	Despite significant underperformance, management's total compensation is substantial and has increased considerably over this period, while others are losing money, giving payback, being laid off, and this sort of thing.
	It's sort of exactly like the same complaint about the Exxon CEO, except we're not seeing this much in the drive-by media.
	So we got a lot to do here today.
	Oh, and they're recycling an old global warming story.
	And that is those of you who eat meat are contributing to it more than you know.
	And that goes back to the late 80s and early 90s when McDonald's and the rainforest and methane and cow flatulence and so forth.
	So Global Warming Proud beginning to recycle their playbook, Lot to Do.
	Sit tight, be patient.
	We'll be right back.
	Hi, welcome back, El Rushbaugh, America's anchorman and truth detector, play-by-play man of the news and news commentator, 800-282-2882.
	It does appear to be that there is a shareholder mutiny going on against Little Pinch over at the New York Times.
	Morgan Stanley Investment Management Limited, they have 5%, a little over 5%, of the Class A shares in the New York Times, and they claim the company's board and management have failed shareholders.
	We believe the New York Times is a peerless news franchise with outstanding long-term potential, said the managing director of Morgan Stanley's Investment Management Limited.
	However, it is time for the company's board to combine the Class A and Class B common stock into a single class of common stock that would provide equal rights, voting power, and representation for all shareholders.
	What this boils down to is there are two kinds of stock you can buy the New York Times, Class A and Class B.
	The Schulzberger family owns most of the voting stock, even though they have really a minority equity holder in the thing.
	It's a little bit like apartheid in a way.
	But you'd have to say that these idiots that bought the non-voting stock in the New York Times knew what they were buying.
	So, you know, to come to their rescue here at this point in time is a little silly.
	They knew what they were doing.
	They knew they were investing in Little Pinch.
	And so everybody's trying to come, what can we do to save the New York Times?
	Because they're worried that it keeps up, that some right-wing group's going to move in there and buy it and all sorts of that.
	Libs are terrified that this is headed in the wrong direction.
	And despite significant underperformance, management's total compensation is substantial and has increased considerably over this period.
	I'm going to make a prediction to you that this is sort of like, if you want to compare us, this is like active generals dumping on Rumsfeld.
	When you have these current stockholders upset at the performance of the New York Times, dumping on the class structure, the stock structure, and the compensation of management, I think we've got to move against Pinch going on here at the New York Times.
	That's my guess.
	And something will have to be done about this.
	Should Pinch resign?
	Should he respond to the criticism for the good of the newspaper, for the good of the Schulzberger family?
	Should he go out and find somebody else to run the thing, step himself upstairs to a ceremonial position and get out of the way?
	We could ask the same questions about the New York Times.
	Let's move on to the gasoline.
	And by the way, let me get to that in just a second.
	My mind is going here faster than my tongue can keep up.
	Amid record oil prices and soaring gasoline prices, ExxonMobil's $400 million retirement package to its former CEO is a shameful display of greed that should be reviewed by Congress and investigated by federal regulators, according to Democrat Senator Byron Hellmanhead Dorgan.
	Dorgan said he wants ExxonMobil officials to appear at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing to explain how the corporation justifies giving its former boss, Lee Raymond, such a huge retirement package.
	He also said the Securities and Exchange Commission should investigate the deal.
	It appears to shortchange the shareholders.
	Well, if you're going to bring these guys up, bring the New York Times up.
	At least Exxon's making a big profit.
	Exxon's making huge money.
	Their shareholders are doing quite well.
	Next thing, bring up General Motors.
	And let's talk about the money they're paying employees that are no longer working and producing anything for the company.
	And it's far more than what Lee Raymond is getting.
	If you want to talk about corporate behavior, and if you want to talk about greed, I mean, at least Lee Raymond earned what he's getting.
	Is Pinch Schulzberger earning what he's getting?
	And are the workers at General Motors who are not working earning what they're getting?
	I know, I know it was a union deal.
	Roger Smith negotiated a deal, but at some point, it all comes to a head.
	I'll tell you what's happening at General Motors is a forerunner what's going to happen with Medicare, a forerunner what's going to happen with Social Security.
	It's all down the road, folks.
	And at some point, the point of no return is going to be reached.
	Now, the helmet head, Byron Dorgan, also said there can be no more compelling evidence that the price gouging and market manipulation, which has produced record oil prices, is out of control and is working to serve the forces of individual greed and corporate gluttony at the painful expense of millions of American consumers.
	Dorgan's criticism of Raymond's financial package came on the same day that U.S. crude oil prices hit a record high of more than $71 a barrel at the New York Mercantile Exchange.
	Of course, that was being blamed not on Lee Raymond's retirement package, but on the instability of the situation with that wacko nut case that runs Iran.
	Higher crude oil prices are helping to push up gas.
	No kidding.
	Whose revelation is that?
	How can that be?
	Higher crude oil prices are helping to push up gasoline costs.
	As though this is some sort of conspiracy.
	The Energy Department reported prices jumped 10 cents over the last week to a national average of $2.78 a gallon, up 55 cents from a year ago.
	The president said he was concerned about the impact that high gas prices were having on families and businesses.
	He might want to be concerned on the impact they're having on his approval rating.
	There's a graph here I found at heavyliftingblogspot.com.
	And the question has been raised by these bloggers: is it really Iraq that's causing the president's approval numbers to plummet, or is it gasoline prices, or maybe is it both?
	And what they've done, they plotted the president's approval rating and the inverse of the gas price index.
	And it looks like, you can't see this on the DittoCam because the page is too bright, the graph is too small, but as the inverted price of gasoline in this graph goes down, it's actually going up, but they've inverted it so that the rising price of gasoline almost coincides.
	It's uncanny how precisely it coincides with Bush's falling approval rate.
	The poster here says that one of my current econometric students is working on a similar hypothesis, trying to determine which is more important to presidential approval, accumulated U.S. deaths in Iraq or the price of gasoline.
	While the talking heads in the far left would have us believe it's the former, it is all too likely it's really the latter.
	Of course, everything's tied to Iraq because they want us to lose Iraq.
	They've got us invested in defeat there.
	The Democratic Party, willing accomplices in the drive-by media.
	But it's uncanny here how closely this parallels the each other, the inverted gasoline price or the rising gas price, but it's posited here as a lower price.
	It's to coincide so you can see the almost identical fluctuations in the president's approval number.
	It really is uncanny.
	In fact, I'm going to send this up to Coco, and he can put it on the website here pretty quickly, and you can see what I'm talking about.
	Chuck Schumer, press conference in New York yesterday, wants an investigation into price gouging and gasoline because it's not hurricane season.
	The bottom line is it's not hurricane season, but the oil companies are just raising the price up and up and up.
	And the question is, are they doing this dictated by the laws of supply and demand, or is something else at work?
	Only subpoenaing their books and looking inside what the oil companies do will give us that answer.
	Well, we had this story from another blog, another chart, if you will, from earlier this week that indicated that the gasoline price today, with all factors compared to 2005 and 2004, that the price should be about where it is right now.
	The price today is exactly what the price was in 2004.
	It's higher, but I mean, all the prices that go into comprising the price of gas per gallon, including taxes, pretty much indicate that the price of gas is exactly what it is today, should be, given the level of taxes, given the crude oil price, and some of the other things factored in such a speculation.
	Anyway, a quick timeout here.
	More commentary and analysis is right around the corner here on the EIB network.
	Stay with us, my good friends.
	Rado, Mama, Rado.
	All right, let's go through this again here, folks.
	I went back to the stack of stuff on Monday, and I want to reprise an analysis at blogcritics.org.
	BlogCritics.org, by the way, is a sinister cabal of superior elitist bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, technology, and politics.
	Now, in this story from Reuters about how Byron Dorgan wants the scalp of Lee Raymond, the ex-Exxon CEO and his retirement package, says here that the Energy Department reported prices for gasoline jumped 10 cents over the past week to a national average of $278 a gallon, or $2.78 a gallon, which is up 55 cents from a year ago.
	Let's take a look here.
	Instead of listening to talking heads or talk show callers to learn about gas price, hey, you guys at Blog Critics, stop being so pessimistic and elitist about talk shows.
	That's a problem.
	Some of you bloggers look down on everybody else.
	You know, we're all in this together, lighting up out there.
	Instead of listening to talking heads or talk show callers to learn about gas prices, I decided to just sit down for 10 minutes and do a little math.
	You know, the kind of math we learned in elementary school.
	In any case, I first checked out some facts on the internet.
	All figures are rough estimates, rounded up, rounded off.
	In 2004, the average cost of a barrel of crude oil was $37.
	In 2004, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline to pump was $1.85.
	The cost of crude oil as a percentage of the total was 47%.
	That means the crude oil cost came to 87 cents per gallon of gasoline.
	So, if $1.85 a gallon and $0.87 is the crude oil cost, then what else is there?
	Well, you're going to have all kinds of things in there.
	Taxes, state and local, federal, whatever, the biggest chunk of them.
	You're going to have marketing costs, and you're also going to have distribution costs.
	But that all goes in there.
	So, those are the numbers from 04.
	$37 barrel of oil, $1.85 price at the pump, 47% of the pump price is a cost of crude oil.
	Let's go to 2005.
	2005, the average cost of a barrel of crude, $65.
	That's in the last six months of the year.
	In 2005, the average cost of a gallon of gasoline to pump was between $2.50 and $3.
	The cost of crude oil as a percentage of the total cost of crude increased by $28.
	$28 is an increase of 76% over 2004, which means that the cost of crude alone added 66 cents to the cost of a gallon of gasoline between 2004 and 2005.
	Therefore, this one factor alone would have raised the cost per gallon of gasoline to $2.55 without factoring in any resulting increases in taxes.
	So just the increased cost of crude from $37 to $65 raised the price at the pump from $1.85 to $2.55.
	That's before you throw, and we're at $2.78 now.
	Average price around the country.
	And that's before you throw in the taxes and before you throw in all the other distribution costs.
	Now, I know numbers are hard to follow on the radio, but let's do it anyway.
	This $2.55, which is the 2005 price just based on the increase in the price per barrel of crude from 2004 to 2005, without factoring in any resulting increase in taxes, but which, by the way, at an average of 23% of the cost per gallon, so taxes are 23%, that would have risen from 42 cents to 58 cents.
	That's an increase of 16 cents.
	So that puts 255.16, it puts us to 271 a gallon in 2005.
	Refining costs, there was a hurricane, remember, transportation costs, the delivery trucks had to buy diesel at higher prices too.
	So the time you finish these calculations, with all these factors weighed in, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in 2005 ought to have been somewhere between $2.75 and $3, which is exactly where it was.
	Nowhere in these calculations do I find the category under gouging, price fixing.
	Now, you can say there might be games being played with the price of crude, but on that one, you got to call OPEC.
	You got to call old Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
	You got to call Asaudis.
	You don't call Lee Raymond at Exxon.
	You're shaking your head in there, Mr. Snirdly.
	Are you expressing, you doubt these numbers?
	My point, and we did this Monday.
	My point is that the price of gasoline, as reported last week, national average at $278 a gallon, is about where it ought to be using the same factors to calculate the price in 2004.
	The price of crude has gone from 37 to 65.
	Now it's at 71 bucks.
	It's going to keep going from there for a while, probably.
	So, I mean, it all makes mathematical sense.
	Now, if you want to go try to find a conspiracy or gouging column in here, you can, like Chuck Schumer, all because this guy's getting a 400 million.
	We did this too on Monday.
	You could make this guy, Lee Raymond, give back all of the 400 million bucks, and it wouldn't change your price at the pump at all, folks.
	It's sort of like it's the inverse here.
	It was a dollar for one day because 360 million gallons of gas are sold per day.
	So if this guy gives back his $400 million and apply it to your price of the pump, you'll save a buck tomorrow when you fill up.
	Big deal.
	This is class envy.
	This is no different when the libs come along and say, we need to raise taxes on the rich.
	And everybody else goes, yeah, yeah, soak them, make them hurt.
	And then you say, how's it helping you?
	When the rich get their taxes increased, you end up with more money in your pocket or in the bank?
	Well, no.
	Well, then what do you care?
	Just because it makes you feel good?
	You want to go through life with Schaddenfreud every day?
	You want to be enjoying somebody else's misery?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Same thing here.
	We got to get this guy to give his money back.
	While we're paying so much at the pump, why, why?
	Okay, so he gives the money back.
	How's it going to improve your price of the pump?
	How's it going to improve your life?
	How's it going to improve your energy budgeting?
	It's not going to matter.
	It's not going to matter compared to the amount of money this guy probably made the company.
	And I know you don't like hearing this company made a lot of money because it's big oil.
	But look, compensation committee voted it.
	You're going to bring these guys up, make them open the books.
	It's, you know, it can happen to your business too.
	Take a look at what the legislature in Maryland did to Walmart and what that action is now going to make them do to all small 36 other states.
	Hey, great idea.
	We're going to have a sliding scale of what every business, large or small, must pay in total to health care.
	And if they don't meet that number, they got to give us the balance.
	They're coming after all of us, folks.
	In terms of small businesses, let's go to Tom Friedman.
	Tom Friedman is the guru of the left when it comes to foreign policy.
	He was on today's show today.
	Matt Oauer asks him the following question.
	I don't think there are a lot of people who are going to say it's a good thing for the Iranians, except the Iranians themselves, to be enriching uranium.
	Question is, what are we going to do about it?
	And what you hear most often is sanctions.
	But how about this logic?
	If we impose sanctions, or the Security Council does on Iran, then we turn to the subject of oil.
	Why would the Iranians help us out in terms of oil supply?
	my attitude toward the president of iran is you go girl because the faster we get to a hundred dollars a barrel pal the quicker we're going to get back to twenty because when we go to a hundred dollars a barrel then you're going to see all these people change their behavior and their oil buying habits and their car buying habits in a fundamental way i'd rather see a crazy oil prices The nuclear Iran is another question.
	But from my point of view, the sooner we get the price of oil up where we change everyone's behavior, the sooner the price is going to come down.
	And then we'll be able to say to the Iranians, hey, do whatever you want, pal.
	All right.
	Now, do you people understand what you just heard?
	Let me explain this to you.
	One of the things that's always puzzled me, when the gas price starts skyrocketing, why don't the people who have been advocating a high gas price come out and claim victory?
	Why don't they come out and say, hey, all right, you know what?
	The poor people over in Europe are paying per liter of petrol.
	Man, we're getting scot-free.
	Why we need to be paying what the rest of the world pays?
	And I've always said, why?
	Well, to be fair about, well, who cares about fair?
	All of a sudden, now they've got the prices going up again, and the same people who are advocating for it are all of a sudden now panicked and wanting to blame Bush for it, except Friedman.
	Friedman comes $100 a barrel.
	And when he says it'll affect everybody's behavior, he doesn't mean that the government will be able to tell you what you can and can't do.
	He means the price will be so high that you'll have to go buy a hybrid or that you'll have to stop driving as much or that you will not spend as much period on any energy-related product.
	And that will help the long-term worldwide supply.
	And in turn, that will then, when there's less demand, goes the theory, that will then bring the price down.
	And it'll get back down to 20 bucks.
	Now, what he doesn't understand is if that ever happened, if it ever did get back to 20 bucks, people would be buying oil and gasoline products left and right.
	That's the way it's always happened.
	Remember back during the Nixon years and these phony contrived shortages, the speed limit was lowered to 55.
	How long did that last?
	10 or 15 years?
	And then when the price came back down and after a bunch of bureaucrats got sick and tired of getting speeding tickets, the 55 mile an hour speed limit waived Sayonara and it's back up to 70 or whatever you can get away with now, just like it was before it went down to 55 in the first place.
	So these things always fluctuate.
	But there is this school of thought that get the price up there as high as it can and we will affect your behavior.
	What they don't stop to think of is, okay, it's not just people driving less and polluting less.
	It's hotels benefiting less.
	It's leisure dollars not being spent.
	The leisure industry, the travel and leisure industry, service industries all would be impacted by this.
	Folks, you have to be wary of all these people advocating higher prices.
	It is an attempt.
	They think that that is a way to control your behavior and so forth.
	So obviously there's a move on now out there to get this 71 bucks up to 100.
	How that impacts Iran, if the price starts coming back, we'll have to talk about that.
	I don't know that, you know, Iran is a net exporter of oil.
	You know, we all know that Iran produces oil.
	But do you know this?
	Iran does not have one refinery.
	Iran has to export oil in order to have refined pre.
	You didn't know that?
	Iran does not have a Red Death the other day.
	They do not have a refinery.
	They're nuking up, but they don't have an oil refine.
	Not one.
	Even though they're one of the world's biggest producers, they export their oil.
	They're a net importer, and they have to import.
	They don't import crude.
	They import refined products.
	Quick timeout.
	We'll be back after this.
	Stay with us.
	Talent on loan from God.
	All right, to the phones to Albany, New York.
	This is Peter.
	Nice to have you with us, sir.
	You're up first today.
	Rush, thank you.
	Many time caller, listener since 90.
	Have a bone to pick on the gas prices.
	We're on $3 a barrel here in this state, and as you say, a lot has to do with taxes.
	But Bush has been president for over five years.
	I don't hear him talking much about it.
	Instead, he's sounding very Carter-esque on about being addicted to oil and wing grass and ethanol and things like that.
	And I think the Democrats are raw hypocrites on this issue.
	They won't support drilling in Alaska, but here we are five years later, still no more refineries being built, long after the Cheney Task Force has done its work.
	And I just don't see what solution he's bringing to the table.
	I don't even see him bashing Democrats.
	And I think as a result, politically, Republicans are really going to suffer in November.
	There is a lack of leadership on his part, notwithstanding Chuck Schumer and the Democrats' hypocrisy.
	Yeah, I know.
	I don't, it's way too soon to say what's going to happen in November.
	I know there's a lot of pessimism out there.
	There's a lot of pessimism in places there ought not to be.
	Sit tight.
	You know, there's any number of things that can happen.
	As to your main point about Bush and gasoline, there's no question, but we've made the efforts to open up and war.
	I don't know how really hard we've tried, but the Republicans have done everything they can.
	Some Republicans have undercut it in the end.
	It is really frustrating to me.
	I hear all this whining and moaning from everybody about oil and the price of it, the price of gasoline.
	And yet, when anybody comes up with an idea to reduce the price by producing our own supply, increasing that, boy, the brakes get put on the environmentalist wackos win the day every time, be it and war, be it offshore drilling.
	Meanwhile, the Mexicans are out there discovering all kinds of huge new finds off their shores in the Gulf.
	Castro is going to be drilling for oil, it is said, 45 miles off of Key West.
	And meanwhile, we got these long-haired maggot-infested hippie Zerpondach, Birkenstock, whatever wearing environmentalists that won't let us do diddly squat.
	And at the same time, we don't have any politicians out there fighting him.
	We've got politicians going along with him.
	And these are the same politicians complaining and moaning about the price of gasoline.
	Now, unfortunately, they are getting away with it.
	Like you say, it appears to be Bush.
	By the way, we have posted at rushlimbaugh.com this chart that compares the price of gasoline rising with Bush's plummeting approval numbers.
	And it's uncanny how every nick and cranny, nook and cranny is replicated.
	Price goes up, approval number goes down.
	They've inverted the price of gas so that the higher the gas price is on the chart, it's actually the cheaper it is to make sure that it's all coordinated here so you can track the decline in Bush's numbers.
	But, you know, here's Schumer.
	I mean, Exxon's the enemy.
	You know, this guy at Exxon, for whatever he is, he can't set the price at the pump.
	He can't.
	He doesn't control.
	They don't even own the oil.
	They've got to buy it from OPEC.
	It's not theirs.
	You know, there's so much misinformation and so much demagoguery, but none of that matters because when the price is going up, it's really easy to blame one guy.
	And of course, who are you going to blame?
	Schumer and the Democrats or the president?
	The president's in charge of everything.
	Well, I know there are people still looking for this one guy that sets the prices, but in fact, we had some gas station guy call here and say that it's the Lundberg report.
	Remember that?
	That's the price of gasoline.
	I mean, the one thing the Exxon guy does, and you've got to stop and think about this.
	The one thing the Exxon guy does is get the gasoline to the station.
	He makes sure that our supply is there.
	Chuck Schumer can't do that.
	Chuck Schumer may sit there and want to have all kinds of hearings and open up all kinds of books and paint these guys up against the wall with bullseyes front and back and take them down.
	But Chuck Schumer wouldn't know more how to get supply of gasoline and oil products to the market if he had to.
	But he's going to try to destroy the guys that do it.
	Yeah, the price may fluctuate, maybe higher than what we want it to be, but at least it's there.
	Our supplies don't get interrupted.
	You can't count on these ding bats in Congress to pull off any of this stuff, these experts on virtually everything.
	And these are the guys that have taken every, the Democrats especially, have done everything they can to oppose the discovery and the drilling for and the production of the domestic supplies of energy from natural gas to oil.
	They're the ones that stand in the way of it.
	And yet here they are complaining, whining, and moaning about the price of gasoline.
	Now, at some point, somebody needs to be focused on them.
	Why don't you guys just get out of the way and let the market work and stop worrying about what people make?
	You're not as worried about how much Ted Kennedy has inherited.
	You don't seem to get concerned that John Kerry has twice tried to marry into fortunes.
	But somehow a guy who goes out and earns one, chief suspect number one.
	All right, the first hour is Fini, fastest three hours in media.
	But fear not, my friends, there are two more hours to go.

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