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May 1, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:14
May 1, 2006, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
I'm still looking.
I've been watching television all morning.
I'm looking for signs of these massive protests, and all I'm seeing is B-roll footage of old protests.
I'm talking about May Day, the immigrant prototype.
We're going to, you know, this jump the shark moment, folks, may actually happen today, or the jump the shark moment, too.
So I think they've actually already jumped the shark.
But what happens when America goes on after all these people don't go to work today?
Well, the economy keeps prospering and business is conducted.
What's that going to say?
Geetings, my friends.
Nice to have you with us.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Welcome to those of you watching on the DittoCam.
It'll be up and running all three hours, as usual.
If you want to be on the program today, phone number is 800-282-2882.
And the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
Before we get into the news of the day, let me take a stab at explaining what happened on Friday, since I'm the one that did everything, and I'm the one that was involved, and so I know what happened.
The sum total of all of this is the case is over.
And the operative words that everybody needs to understand here are not guilty.
Not guilty.
On Friday, I went over to the Palm Beach County jail in the first step of a process to end this two-year, seven-month investigation of me by the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office.
It is now officially at an end.
Now, I have maintained from the start of this, folks, that there was no doctor shopping.
I continue to hold this position formally.
We have filed with the court a plea of not guilty to a single charge of doctor shopping that the state attorney's office has filed.
Additionally, my attorneys and the state attorney's office have jointly filed an agreement with the court under which I will continue treatment for the next 18 months with the same doctor that I have been seeing since I came out of the rehabilitation center in November of 2003 for dependence on prescription pain medication.
Now, that charge, the single charge of doctor shopping, will be held in abeyance until that 18 months of treatment has been completed, at which point the charges filed by the state attorney's office will be dismissed.
And I'll tell you why I agreed to do this.
From my point of view, the end result will be as if I had gone to court and won, but the matter is concluded much sooner and at much less expense for both me and for the public.
I have spent thousands of hours and millions of dollars with lawyers over the past 2.7 months fighting this at every stage.
We finally got a favorable ruling from the last judge to hear a ruling on rule on a motion in this case in which he basically told the government that, well, you can talk to Mr. Limbo's doctors, but you can't ask them anything that'll help you unless he waives his privacy privilege.
And I don't think Mr. Limbo is going to do that.
So the matter has been put to bed.
I'm thrilled that it's behind me.
It's my understanding state attorney is also pleased and thinks that this is the correct outcome based on the facts in the case, and that's fine with me.
The case is closed.
Now, let me address what happened on Friday afternoon.
You know, we did our, by the way, I've got the numbers from the curathon.
We set a record, one over $1.7 million raised for leukemia and lymphoma on Friday.
We knew we were setting records and we were, as I say, apprehensive about it because gas prices being up and all the drive-by media news about the terrible economy, all the doom and gloom that's out there every day.
We love you people.
You've always been there.
You have triumphed.
Yet again, the depth of loyalty and support that you have shown me and this program over the almost 18 years that we've been doing it continues to stun me.
You're just the best, and I don't know how to thank you appropriately, other than perhaps offering you each $100 rebates for your gasoline.
More on that, too, as the program unfolds today.
So after the program was over at 3 o'clock, my attorney, Mr. Black, met me here.
We climbed into a car.
We went over to the Palm Beach County Jail where I was booked on this single charge, filed a not guilty plea, went in there and smiled for the mug shot.
Mugshot got posted all over television Friday night.
Many people referring to it as a publicity photo.
And I must say, folks, it is one of the nicest photos of me that's ever been taken.
Gonna put it in the publicity profile list that we keep.
But there was one thing that happened Friday afternoon.
We scurried into fast action starting at about 6 o'clock Friday.
I was over there for about an hour, got back to the office here around 5.15 or 5.30 and turned on the news.
And there's this news, Rush Limbaugh arrested on drug fraud.
And I said, where in the world did this come from?
Because, you know, the word arrested, this is semantics.
When you hear the word arrested, you think cops show up with a paddy wagon with shackles and leg irons and handcuffs and take me resisting out the door, file me into jail and so forth.
None of that happened.
This was all arranged in advance.
It was part of the deal.
I walked over voluntarily.
I was voluntarily processed, is what this is.
Yes, there was a warrant.
It's called a CAPIS warrant to keep the warrant out of the system all day so that the media wouldn't find out about it.
We got in and out there without a media circus taking place, come back and find that I've been arrested.
And I got a note from Vince Flynn, the noted thriller author today.
He said, you know, I was scared to death.
I was down in Fort Lauderdale over the week and I was making a speech and I'm sitting at the bar and some guy's got his BlackBerry.
And he's reading the story, Rush Limbaugh arrested for prescription drug fraud.
And I said to him, oh, no, is this new?
And he says, yeah, CNN says they just arrested him trying to illegally buy prescription drugs.
And Vince writes, I was totally crushed.
I just, I said, when I heard it was CNN, though, I just couldn't believe it.
So, and I've found that a lot of people thought that that was the result, that this was something brand new rather than the conclusion of a two-year, seven-month ordeal.
There was no arrests.
There were no handcuffs.
There was no perp walk.
There is no charge.
I have not relapsed.
I am as healthy and happy as I have ever been, ladies and gentlemen.
A lot of that is due to you and your continuing loyalty here.
You've stuck, you know, we haven't lost one radio station.
We haven't lost one advertiser.
We have not lost one business associate through all of this.
And we haven't lost any audience.
So we've gained audience.
And it's, you know, I'm in awe of it.
It makes me feel humble when this happens and so grateful that I can't describe it to you.
Now, there's an what Mr. Snirdley interjects.
Most important, we haven't lost me.
No, I'm, folks, nothing's changed.
I'm not leaving here until every American agrees with me.
But the radio staff stood by.
Everybody did.
It's been an amazing 2.7 years.
I've been unable to talk about the experiences that led to all this because the case was ongoing.
And theoretically, anything I said could have been used against me.
So I haven't been able to be helpful to other people who have gone through what I have gone through.
And I'm looking forward to being able to do that now.
Use myself as a resource to help other people who have encountered the same type of addiction or many addictions.
They all stem from pretty similar things, regardless.
And I've learned more about myself in the past three years than I knew in the previous 52.
So it's just been a total upper.
In fact, Newsweek has a story, and it's amazing.
It's straightforward and it's fair.
If you haven't seen the Newsweek story, we've linked to it at rushlimbaugh.com.
They have sent it.
I don't know where they got them, but they got some details, for example, that I have not been able to discuss.
And it's put forth in a very honest and straightforward fashion.
In fact, I also have to thank Newsweek for this.
They continue to refer to me as somebody who lives in a multiple million dollar mansion.
It doesn't go out much.
And I want to thank them for preserving that for me because I have successfully, ladies and gentlemen, cultivated an image of a boring hermit, which allows me to party under the radar.
And of course, Newsweek has, again, portrayed that image of me, which is extremely helpful.
In fact, I'm going to be the centerfold next month, just made the deal in Hermit Weekly.
It's funny.
But it's all ended up tremendously, folks.
It's a victory, and the whole thing is over.
The amount of support that I have received throughout all of this from friends and family and the staff here is something that I'll never forget.
I will always be appreciative of it.
And it's been quite a learning experience in so many ways, which I will now be a little bit more able and free to discuss since the case is over.
It is essentially closed.
Again, there was no arrest on Friday.
We worked very hard on Friday night turning that around.
I found out that was originally from the first AP story about this.
Limbaugh arrested on drug fraud charge or some such thing.
We don't know where that came from.
It doesn't matter.
But we were finally able to turn it around in later stories.
But what happens, something like this, the first wave of news is what most people hear and what they remember.
So I've been looking forward to today to put this whole arrest business in perspective and to assure you there's nothing new.
In fact, this case is finally over.
A brief timeout.
We'll be coming back with all the rest of today's exciting program.
Another excursion into broadcast excellence continues right after this.
All right, our buddies at the Associated Press have done it again.
So let me take a stab at this.
Welcome back, folks.
Rush Limbaugh, America's Anchorman, America's Truth Detector, Doctor of Democracy, serving humanity and executing assigned host duties flawlessly.
So here's an AP story.
Just cleared the wire because as I say, we just today filed the agreement, myself, my attorneys, and the state attorney's office called a pre-trial intervention or pre-trial diversion agreement.
Sets out the terms of the 18 months.
It is not probation.
There is no reporting to anyone.
It's nothing like that.
It's just, it just requires that I don't break the law and this sort of thing.
So the deal is pretty clear.
It says what it says.
And the AP's lead is Rush Limbaugh must submit to random drug tests under an agreement filed Monday that will dismiss a prescription fraud charge against the conservative commentator after 18 months if he complies with the terms.
Of all the things in the agreement, that is what the AP thinks is the news in this.
Well, I have news for you.
I have been undergoing random drug testing for two years and seven months.
I never know when they're going to happen.
I have not failed one yet.
Folks, I haven't even craved a pain pill since I got out of rehab.
I've not even had a dream about one.
It's long ago.
It's not even relevant.
It doesn't even come up in my thinking or in my mind.
The random drug testing is, I gather this is what because AP leads with this, the rest of the news is going to consider that this is the news of the day.
So I just wanted to let you know what the real news of the day is.
Because later in the AP story, this is the key.
The agreement did not call for Limbaugh to admit guilt to the charge that he doctor shopped in 2003.
I pleaded guilty not Friday, not guilty on Friday.
This agreement does not require that I admit anything.
And so in the agreement, I have not admitted guilt.
And that's the news.
Not guilty, plea of not guilty, no admission of guilt.
Let me just say this, folks.
It's to all of you lawyers out there and those of you that follow these kinds of things, just ask you a question.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you think that if there was any real evidence, we would have reached a settlement?
After all of this, after all the leaks, they said they had 10 counts of felony doctor shopping.
They leaked that I was involved in a drug ring and involved in money laundering.
In fact, Brian Ross, that was the lead story one night on the ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings back, I think, in November of 2003.
If I just happen to think, if there was, I've maintained all along there isn't any doctor shopping, as has my lawyer.
And if there was any evidence of it, I don't know that we would have been able to settle this as we have.
Let me give you some details on the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society curathon on Saturday.
Basically, it is, it's $1.7 million.
This is less than three hours, folks, once every year.
This puts us well over the total $15 million mark in the 15 years that we have been doing this.
And of course, it started in a much smaller way.
It's really boomeranged here in the last five or ten.
And actually, the last five years.
But we do this on one day a year, and we don't even go wall to wall with it.
$1.7 million in less than three hours per year.
And again, that's all due to you.
As I said Friday, when we do the curathon, there's always other news going on, and we do not broom all the other news and go wall to wall with fundraising.
And you all still hang around, though.
You hang around for it.
And it was actually an uplifting day amidst all this doom and gloom news that we've been treated to for the last number of months or years, depending on how far back that you wish to go.
So you should be very, very proud of yourselves, because we all are here.
We love you.
As I say, you are just the best.
All right, we've got some people who want to – I asked at the beginning of the program – I haven't seen a whole lot of people marching.
Oh, wait a minute.
What are we looking at?
Ah, that's Chicago.
Okay, now I do see quite a few people, but they're not marching.
They're gathering.
They're standing around.
Let's go to Santa Monica, California.
Chris, you want to weigh in on this?
Welcome to the program.
Yeah.
Hey, Rush.
I just wanted to say this is a great day.
The illegals are not on the freeways.
Los Angeles is notorious for bad traffic.
I go up to 405 intentionally at 9 a.m., which I normally don't do to get into my office because I thought those freeways would be clear, and they are.
Traffic is moving.
Look, it's a Saturday morning.
It's unbelievable.
I got to work in about eight minutes.
And I think that I'll be able to do it.
Well, wait, wait, wait, wait.
If that's the case, we need another boycott tomorrow.
No, exactly.
The day after that.
Now, if they would say, if they'd go back, the cost of our housing would go down, the cost of a lot of other services would go down as well.
And we would have a great, great place to live again.
And the other thing is, I think I'm going to do a lot of my shopping.
There are a lot of stores I go to to buy socks and things like this.
And I think the lines are normally out the door long with certain clients' help.
And I am going to go there probably and shop today because those lines won't be as long, and I'll actually be able to communicate in English since my Spanish isn't very good.
Well, you don't need to know it yet.
Be patient.
Everything, as far as speaking Spanish, you shouldn't need to know it.
I just, you know, it will be interesting after today.
And I'm not going to make any predictions.
I could.
I go out on a limb.
But essentially, this is a strike.
It's a boycott.
And there are all kinds of people within this movement now a little worried about maybe the backlash.
And there's some people worried that other elements are taking over this event, like ANSER, the anti-war crowd, the anti-war left, and Vicente Fox called some leaders down to Mexico.
So you guys better be really careful with this.
This could backfire.
I mean, we already have some strained relations with the United States government.
We don't want to make it worse.
It will be interesting.
Here we go again with all these admitted illegal aliens congregating in public.
And we will see if the Border Patrol or ICE agents show up and take advantage of the opportunity of this massive surrender, in a sense.
But I just want to see at the end of the day, with all of this action, the strike and the boycott, we see just how much the economy is affected.
There is, my guess is not going to be affected very much, and then people are going to start asking questions about that and scratching their heads because the whole point is, you know, a day without illegal immigrants is supposed to curse and punish and harm the U.S. economy.
We will just have to wait and see if that actually happens.
All right.
Well, we said audio soundbites today about all of this, the immigration boycott and all the hype that's going around it.
The gasoline price rebate, $100 and the whole controversy over that.
There's a lot on the plate here today, folks.
So just sit tight and be patient and be cool.
And we'll come back and get started with all the rest of it.
Again, the phone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800-282-2882.
Won't be long.
Sit tight.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Rush Limbaugh triumphing regularly over the obstacles of life.
Here at 800-282-2882.
Again, the email address if you want to comment that way, Rush at EIBnet.com.
Well, a drive-by media, ladies and gentlemen.
In fact, Mike, let's start with audio soundbites on...
There we go.
Seven.
Start with audio soundbites seven.
We'll go in order from there.
The drive-by media, ladies and gentlemen, has discovered the high cost of driving by.
Our crack journalists, our professional politicians have discovered that our nation has increasing energy needs.
All of a sudden, we have increasing energy needs.
The world has increasing energy needs.
And the law of supply and demand is one law that nobody, including the illegals, can bypass.
We've had 30 years of neglect.
30 years of neglect.
No refineries.
We're not allowed to drill for any new sources of oil domestically while Castro and China drills 75 miles away from Key West.
And while the Mexicans just had a huge find in the Gulf of Mexico.
But despite all this 30 years of neglect, all of a sudden everybody wants a 60-minute solution.
You go to the Sunday shows and you have all these experts and you have all these politicians.
About gas, what are we going to do?
What haven't we done in 30 years and why?
They ask us, what can we do today?
What can we do?
The Liberals know what they can do today.
It's simple.
It's call a press conference in front of a gas station, attack the oil companies.
That's what they do.
Bring in the oil execs, bring them in, ream them out, rip them to shreds, point fingers at them, call them names.
After all of that, you haven't produced a drop of new oil.
30 years of neglect.
They want a 60-minute solution.
Do we really think that $1 a gallon gasoline or $2 a gallon gasoline is an entitlement?
Our buddy Tim Russert meet the press yesterday, did a full hour on the gasoline problem.
And with all due respect, where was the full hour when ANDWAR was blocked 11 years ago?
Where's the full hour of how are we going to satisfy our growing energy needs when we don't produce any new energy?
Why no examination of who it is that's standing in the way of that?
Why don't we examine the past 30 years who has stood in the way of increasing supply, which would help bring down price?
Where was that full hour of television when Mario the Pious famously buried a major nuclear plant in New York?
Dick Durbin, Senator Turbin on the panel, his credentials.
Well, he's a liberal, which means he's got the worst judgment you can show.
And nevertheless, at the same time, think that you are more of an expert than you are.
Let's go to the audio sound bites here.
This is the Today Show Today.
Matt Wauer interviewing Pat Buchanan and quotes me because I was in the New York Times.
The New York Times quoted me today from last Friday on these $100 gas rebates.
You know, if you were here last Friday, you will understand that I was, after I've been thinking about this, I got increasingly angry over this.
The idea that they just told us, and I know it's Senator Frist's idea.
I know it's a Republican idea, which is why New York Times used it and why the Today Show picked it up.
But, I mean, they think they can own us for $100, folks.
They can buy us for $100.
It's cheap.
What must they think of us?
Matt Wauer asks Pat Buchanan gas prices.
The president made suggestions.
The Senate's looking into the big oil companies.
There's all kinds of talk out there.
And then Lauer says this.
Let me read you what Rush Limbaugh had to say in his radio program about this.
Instead of buying us off and threatening us like a bunch of, he used the word whores, just solve the problem.
Well, there's a lot of people got ideas that can in the long term.
In the short term, Matt, the answer is no.
Both parties are playing politics.
What you're going to have to do clearly is you need new resources and supplies.
You're going to have to drill off the California coast, up in Alaska, off the Florida coast, and you're going to have to go to nuclear power and these other things.
But those are long-term solutions.
In the short term, quite frankly, this problem is going to be solved by rising prices, which are going to force a lot of folks into mass transit.
And meaning what he means by that is that the only way to avoid the rising prices is to not drive your car.
But you know what?
Mass transit is run by state and local bureaucracies.
And, well, I know I have that.
I have that.
I have that.
But Buchanan is wrong, ladies and gentlemen.
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but when he says that there's nothing you can do in the short term, he's wrong.
Try this news out of Saudi Arabia.
With gasoline prices at historic highs in the United States and some other Western countries, Saudi King Abdullah issued a decree yesterday lowering domestic gasoline prices by about 25% immediately.
According to a government statement, the decrease was to reach 30% by the end of the year.
The drop in prices means that Saudis will now be paying about the equivalent of 60 cents a gallon for gasoline.
The price of super will drop to about 76 cents a gallon.
The statement said to King issued a decree to ease the cost of living burden on Saudi citizens.
So you see, folks, it can be done.
With leadership, we just go out there and we just tell every gas station in the country, you're going to drop prices by 25%.
And then by 30% at the end of the year, there's leadership on this from the king of Saudi Arabia.
Now, must also say they don't have a whole lot of shipping costs to deal with in Saudi Arabia.
It's all their product from out of the ground into the tanks from the pump.
But here you have it.
It can be done by a decree from a king.
Now, we don't have a king, but we have a lot of people who think he acts like one.
And so interesting to see that the king of Saudi Arabia coming to the rescue of his own population because of prices skyrocketing in the United States.
And in Milford, Connecticut, welcome to the EIB Network, sir.
Nice to have you with us.
Good day, sir.
A question about illegal immigration that I've been waiting to hear spoken about is the big argument that I've heard for the illegals to get citizenship is that we don't have anybody here that will pick the lettuce for 50 cents an hour or work eight hours a day, correct?
Well, that's actually been revised.
You know, theoretically, yes, you're right, but there's been a change in semantics here.
Josh Bolton, instead of saying jobs Americans won't do, is now changed that to jobs Americans are not available for.
All right.
Well, I have a question.
If they become American citizens, they are now able to work for minimum wage, correct?
Yes, I know where you're going at that.
that.
Yeah, but that's...
See, then the unions will go out, and the unions will find up a But see, where you're failing to understand one thing.
Yeah, we've got whatever the number is.
I mean, I don't know this $11 million number is accurate, just like the 3 million homeless for all those years in the 80s was not accurate.
And even to the early 90s.
But we'll stick with it since that's the numbers being used.
If a percentage over the years of those 11 million become citizens, they have to be replaced by illegals who will continue to pick the lettuce for 50 cents.
Once the illegals get citizenship, join unions and get hired by rich liberals to work at grocery stores and so forth in high-paying jobs, then they'll have to be replaced.
What we're being told essentially here, Ed, is that this country needs a permanent underclass to perform work at very low wages so the American people can continue to buy food and other commodities at prices that they expect to always stay relatively the same relative to their income and personal wealth.
So that's why the whole issue centers on what are we going to do to shore up the borders.
It's one thing, nobody's suggesting deportation of 11 million people is not practical.
But at some point, if you take the program here and legalize these people over a period of time, what are you going to do about the border and shoring it up and stopping the problem so that you don't have to do this in 20 more years with another 11 or 12 million people?
Well, what frustrates me is that's never discussed.
Whenever I hear somebody come on the news and say, you can't pick lettuce, you won't pick lettuce, this argument is brought up.
And like you said, it has been changed, but they still bring it up.
Why isn't someone firing out these simple questions that frustrate me?
I would say, well, we're going to have a constant influx of illegals constantly to pick the lettuce because as they come in, they're going to...
Because it's real simple.
And it's an election year and it's politics.
And you've got a lot of things going on in this dynamic.
The U.S. economy, and I've got the numbers here.
Let me just give you the headlines just today.
Consumer spending rises as incomes grow.
Data indicate U.S. economy doing well.
Manufacturing performance robust in April.
March construction spending climbs to record.
Home building outlays spur greater than expected rise.
Walmart sales spending data lift stocks.
Report shows better than forecast gains in income and spending.
And then we have the stock market, which is about to set its all-time high.
It's about 300 points shy of its all-time high.
So what do you have?
We've got a growing economy.
We've got people becoming more and more prosperous.
That leaves a void where liberal Democrats are concerned, and that void is in victims.
They need victims.
They need helpless people with no future, as told to them by the Democrats.
They need people they can put into various groups, oppressed women, oppressed minorities, oppressed homosexuals, oppressed whoever, and blame it on the Republicans, and then create this ever-rising group of victims who then become entitlement cases.
They become part of the welfare state that the Democrats want to continue to administer and basically make them wards of the state, not offer them any kind of future.
Tell them, in fact, they don't have a future.
They live in America.
There's too much oppression and there's racism and there's greed and there's bigotry and there's sexism and there's homophobia and there's environmental destruction.
And you can't survive here without us.
We have a shortage of victims because the U.S. economy is creating success stories.
So bamboo, look to south of the border.
Here comes an ever-increasing flow of victims.
The unions are all excited about it because they're losing membership as a percentage of the workforce and they're in big trouble with some of their existing contracts at places like General Motors and Delphi.
Democrats are reaching out to the convicted felon vote.
Mrs. Clinton wants that.
That's their outreach.
Illegal citizens, illegal aliens, and felons, because they need victims.
And that's why in an election year, you're not going to hear any serious talk about shoring up the border.
Not only do they need victims, they need voters.
And creating victims, they think, leads to loyal voters.
Quick time out.
Back with more right after this.
Back to the phones we go.
This is Aaron in Los Angeles.
Cell phone call.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you, Rush.
I, for one, am happy for the boycott.
I'm enjoying less traffic.
I am spending the day in L.A. doing roof inspections, traveling the entire Southern California area.
And I just wish that the protesters would take it one step further and boycott our emergency rooms and the crime scenes and all the government services they take advantage of and just basically show the rest of America the impact that they truly have.
Yeah, well, as I said Friday when people call to discuss this, there's also an added benefit today, and that is you have with all these people striking and protesting and marching and whatever, you've got a lot fewer uninsured motorists out there when you're driving around.
And that can end up being, if you have an accident, quite beneficial.
What's ironic is the irony of that is I got a call from a friend of mine yesterday who got into an accident yesterday by obviously an illegal alien who couldn't speak English and was uninsured.
So he just brought the point home.
Just one more example.
Exactly right.
All right.
Thanks for the call out there, Aaron.
I appreciate it.
Eric, in the middle of Illinois, welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush.
Great to talk to you.
I've been listening to you since I was a small child.
Thank you, sir.
I have a suggestion for the GOP.
With the Democratic Party reaching out to all these illegal immigrants, I think this would be an excellent opportunity for the GOP to reach out to the labor unions and get a lot of the labor union votes since it seems that the Republicans are on the side of American workers in this thing.
Actually, I think the GOP has more labor union votes and voters than anybody really knows.
What they don't get is labor union money.
I think there are plenty of labor people vote Republican, but their dues go to support the campaigns of Democrats.
The Republicans are struggling with this themselves.
I mean, they're trying to figure out a way not to offend these people because they're hoping to get some of these votes as well.
I mean, it's really, it's sort of maddening to watch all this.
I mean, why do we want to try to out Democrat Democrats?
I just do not understand it.
Why do we think that we need to get into a competition for votes by saying that, well, we're going to think the same thing of you and so forth?
This is, you know, conservatism works every time it's tried and when it's explained properly and when it is a principled presentation.
But of course, the people that campaign on such principles have to then govern by them once they're elected.
And it seems that that is incredibly and increasingly hard to do for some Republicans in Washington.
It's like this $100 rebate.
One more thing about it.
Jim Talent, who's a senator from my home state of Missouri, I guess, one Fox and Friends today, and he was advocating for this, this $100 rebate.
And by the way, here's the, I didn't know this until today.
This $100 is to sort of equal a cut in federal gasoline taxes.
They have come up with a calculator.
Basically, they grabbed a number out of thin air.
They've taken the tax per gallon.
They've multiplied the average number of gallons that people are going to buy between now and the end of the summer.
And then they're trying to come up with a number to equal a rebate of $100, which would be the equivalent of you paying no federal gasoline tax during this period.
And so Jim Talent's on there, and he's saying, this is a pretty good idea because the amendment that contains this proposal also allows for drilling for oil in ANWAR, which if we ever do this, we'll get 1.3 million barrels a day.
Nobody's ever said it's going to make us independent of foreign sources or any of that, but 1.3 million barrels a day is about what Texas produces.
It would have to have a profound effect on the overall supply.
But the question comes down to this.
Is it enough of an exciting thing?
See, this is Republicans trying to be Democrats.
We'll try to get Democrats to vote with us on NWAR by giving away $100 to certain motorists.
Now, will the Democrats be enticed by this?
Will the Democrats say, ooh, yeah, $100?
Republican idea?
We get credit for it.
But we have to vote for ANWAR.
Now, frankly, I don't see the Democrats selling out for that little.
I just don't see it.
I think the Democrats would demand a rebate of far more than $100 to vote for NWAR, but I don't see them voting for ANWAR anyway.
They're probably going to put the kibosh or the brakes on this, as they have each and every time that it comes up.
Back after this.
I'll tell you, protests are going crazy.
We're protesting Darfur in Sasuda.
We're protesting a war in Iraq on Sunday.
And now we've got this.
Schoolchildren in Carpentersville, Illinois are rallying.
I got pictures of these little kids protesting, demanding the return of recess.
I kid you not.
We will have details coming up as the program continues.
Rush Limbaugh, your host.
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