We're in the midst of having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have America's real anchor man behind the golden EIB microphone.
Here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, I also double as America's Truth Detector and America's Doctor of Democracy.
And we will get to your phone calls El Quicko.
Very appreciative of those of you on hold at 800-282-2882.
Before we get on to our immigration stack today, I want to go back to this General Motors story.
They're going to offer customers in California and Florida only certain automobiles.
If you buy these cars, they're going to buy your gas.
They're going to cap your pump price at $1.99.
They're going to estimate how much mileage you use.
They're going to give you a card.
And they could save you anywhere from in Florida to $70 a month to over $103 a month in California.
Just these two states.
Now, and I mentioned that here's the market responding to the quote-unquote crisis that is out there.
Now, why is General Motors doing this?
What is the real reason General Motors is doing this?
Because you, the consumer, have been duped by political demagogues into believing that you are going broke, paying more for gasoline, despite the fact that you pay far more in taxes at every level than you pay in gasoline.
You're never going broke because of the taxes that are confiscated from you.
Well, no, You could go broke because of the rising cost of gasoline.
So General Motors, I mean, they see what's going on rather than talking about selling cars at 0% interest and no money down or rebates or $5,000 off per car or selling you the car at wholesale, whatever, rather than do that.
They'll dupe you into buying cars by buying your gasoline.
As long as you sign up for OnStar.
And you're going to think, oh, wow, wow, because I'm going broke.
There's no end in sight to rising gas prices.
GM's going to buy my gas over $1.99.
I can lock in a pump price of $1.99.
Wow.
And you might go out and buy a new car.
That's what they're banking on.
And all of this is because the way this issue has been profoundly demagogued by our august elites up on Capitol Hill.
Now to the immigration stack.
The New York Observer today, a story by Jason Horowitz.
Senator McCain worked blue on New York stage.
Behind closed doors, Republicans work in material.
I'd tell Shiites and SUNY's, stop the BS.
Fresh from Falwell attacks right-wing nativism.
For all the national attention surrounding John McCain's two highly anticipated protest-ridden commencement speeches in New York last week, the senator actually saved some of his best material for the crowd that gathered on Friday behind closed doors in the back of the Regency Hotel.
In a small, mirrored paneled room guarded by a Secret Service agent and packed with some of the city's wealthiest and most influential political donors, McCain got right to the point.
One of the things I'd do if I were president, I sent the Shiites and the Shilly Stars and say, stop the BS.
This was according to Shirley Cloys Dioguarty, an invitee and two other guests.
The exclusive audience included RNC finance chair Louis Eisenberg, Blackstone Group co-founder Pete Peterson, former Navy Secretary John Lehman, and Gail Hilson, the politically influential socialite who has organized events for McCain in the past.
He said, what kind of country do we want to be?
The table here was shaped like a horseshoe, and he walked around in the middle of the table talking to these august country clubbers and blueblooders.
He then cautioned against ghettoizing immigrants, which he noted has brought about disastrous results in France.
He criticized elements in his own party as nativist for lambasting the punditry, before lambasting the punditry of Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs and others for helping to fuel the problem, according to two of the sources.
All right, so now I'm a nativist.
What did Brooks call me?
Restrictionist.
Lou Dobbs is the same thing.
He's out there hobnobbing with country club blueblooders, and I'm nativist, and so are you.
But what this all adds up to, folks, is that McCain looks out across the countryside and he sees you the way liberal critics of this program see you, budget, mind-numbed robots, why you're unable to think for yourself.
Why you, you, you, you simply get up every day, turn on this radio program, and get your marching orders.
You are told what to think, and until you're told, you don't think.
You're told what to do, and until you're told what to do, you don't do it.
You don't act.
It's just amazing when you look at who he's wooing and who he's trying to distance himself from and the wedge that he is trying to drive here.
Nativist is not, of all the people I know on my side of the aisle who have an opinion about illegal immigration, nativist is the last thing we are.
I have bent over backwards on this program to not do what he charges is being done.
I have told you about my grandfather and how immigration has been an ongoing debate in this country.
It was his high school debate topic back in 1904.
I even praised the president's speech and talked about how it was a great speech dealing with a terrible problem.
And he was trying to balance the various was not highly critical of the president.
I have focused on the illegal aspect of this.
You know, it's real simple, Senator.
You're making this so much more complicated than it needs to be.
What the people on my side of the aisle want is something very, very simple.
Tell us how many legal immigrants we're going to be permitted to come into this country every year and tell us how you're going to reinforce or enforce that number.
We want to know what you're going to do to stop this flood and how you're going to protect the borders and then enforce the laws that you pass.
There is a fascinating column today in the New York Times by Ed Meese.
Ed Meese in the Reagan administration back in the 80s, he compares the Simpson-Mazzoli bill language with the current Senate compromise bill.
It is astounding how it is the same thing.
They just keep recycling the same things over and over and over again.
Now, we sit here and we're flattered that Senator McCain considers this program to be an obstacle in his plan.
But I am amazed at how he tries to lump me with people who don't think like I do on this.
He tries to lump me with people in a way that will cause my credibility and image to be damaged in the process.
In doing so, he totally misstates or misimplies to people in this small room of august Republicans at the Regency Hotel what my position on all of this is.
So McCain is taking the same tact that the left takes.
Rather than deal with the substance of the ideas presented on this program and ready to respond that way, he tries to miscast what happens on this program, misstate it, mischaracterize it for the purpose of discrediting me and others who hold this position.
By the way, we have, well, just listen, we just got this, folks.
We have connections.
Some of the finest bumper music known to exist in the free or oppressed worlds.
Got to go to an obscene.
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People are asking, folks.
They want to know what I think of ABC News dumping pregnant anchorette info babe Elizabeth Vargas in favor of Charlie Gibson.
Doesn't surprise me.
The only people raising a little tiff about it, the NAGs.
I have a story.
I'll get to it in the stack as we unfold today.
But the NAGs, the National Association of Gals President Kim Gandhi, is upset, but her comments are somewhat hilarious because not even she wants to go full bore into being critical of ABC.
But we'll get to all that in due course here, folks.
Lots of time remaining on the program today, and I want to go to the phones because we haven't done that yet.
People have been waiting patiently since we began.
We'll start Northport, Michigan with David.
Welcome, sir.
Nice to have you with us.
Meghadidos Vrash, how are you doing?
Good, sir.
Thank you.
Great.
Hey, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your comment on Dan Brown.
The Da Vinci Code, yes.
Yes, the Da Vinci Code.
Just a little background.
I'm an adult who became a Christian.
And I had a good friend two years ago give me the book, Da Vinci Code.
He said it was great.
And I read it, and I kind of started to laugh.
I got a real kick out of it.
I thought it was kind of a B-grade thriller.
But his footnoting, he goes through over and over an attempt to say, this is historical.
Here are the footnotes.
Here's what you can look at.
And then, when he's asked about it, says, oh, well, this is fiction.
This is fiction.
Now, my good friend, when I told him about that, that this was not true, that my good friend said, oh, it's all footnoted.
It's all there.
And to me, Dan Brown is just playing it both ways.
He's trying to take advantage of this anti-Christian kind of attitude in the country.
He's made a bazillion dollars.
And then when asked and pinned down, he says, oh, well, it's just fiction.
But if you look at the way he wrote the book, he made it appear like it's not very seriously.
So anyway, that was my only comment.
I don't mind what you are saying about it.
You don't think I should be boycotted like Melvin Babb?
No, no.
I think that's kind of silly stuff.
My opinion is your humor is the better way to deal with it because it is humorous, what he's trying to do.
I'm sorry.
No, I'm just, this is one of those rare times where I'm going to have trouble expressing myself.
It's more complicated than just simply saying, I'm not bothered by it.
Look, I'm a Christian, and my faith is secure and profound.
And I simply am not bothered.
I'm not threatened at all by it.
And I'm not threatened by Hollywood.
And I know that there's an anti-Christian bias in the country, and I know that it's the one religion that it's safe to attack, and you can even be praised and get credit, maybe earn a lot of money doing it, is Christianity.
You can't do it with any other religion.
Look at Hollywood, look at the media when it came to the Muhammad cartoons.
Oh, I can't defend these Islamic people.
Must practice restraint, very deeply held beliefs.
But I understand the paradigm in this country.
I understand that the elites on the left are frightened.
They're the ones who are scared to death of just how faithful this country is, just how many Christians there are here.
And I totally understand their effort to beat it back because the last thing these people want is to be judged.
They don't want anybody casting aspersions on who they are and what they think.
In fact, let me find, I've got to find this because this just dovetails exactly with the comments that I would like to make about this.
I have this buried into the stack here.
It's about not this movie.
It's about what's going on in college campaign today and what it's an opinionjournal.com piece.
And it is by a professor who's all concerned about the, here it is, the confusion on campus.
Now, this is the, and here's the quote of the Hulk piece, of the column.
In the absence of agreement on common values or a core curriculum, anything goes.
Now, this is an article about higher education.
But that quote, in the absence of agreement on common values or a core curriculum, anything goes, defines the Democratic Party today.
It defines the left worldwide.
They're struggling so hard with their plan.
They go behind closed doors to come up with their contract for America, whatever it is.
This is it.
In the absence of agreement on common values or a core curriculum, anything goes.
Well, the opposite is true when you get to people of faith.
There are common values, there is a core curriculum, and there are guardrails.
There's right and there's wrong.
There aren't too many gray areas of nuance.
And so it makes total sense to me that people who are confident in their faith, who are rock solid in it, would provide threat, would be a huge threat to people who have no foundation at all on which to stand.
Anything goes, whatever they want to do is find.
These people are the ones wandering aimlessly for meaning in their lives.
They don't have any meaning.
It's why they join protest marches.
It's why they try to convert every protest march to their cause.
It is why they engage in such nefarious things as the unscientifically proven global warming, any number of madcap leftist issues that come up.
It's simply a bunch of lost souls seeking meaning in their lives.
They are afraid to go someplace where true meaning can be found because that's going to put an end to their fun because there are going to be limits.
They prefer the anything goes.
They are threatened.
And so you get movies like the Da Vinci Code.
You get books like the Da Vinci Code.
Now, I, folks, to be perfectly honest with you, don't look at this movie.
And I didn't look at the Last Temptation of the Christ as a threat.
That was Martin Scorsese's movie.
It's offensive, but you know my theory on being offended.
I don't allow people to offend me anymore.
I think it's absurd to grant people that kind of power.
Just don't listen to them.
Just ignore them.
Now, some people get worried.
If Dan Brown's out there saying everything in this book is true, then, okay, you can go after him on that.
But I've checked this stuff.
I've gone to some of these websites with some of these organizations that he talks about in his book and in the movie, The Knights Templar.
If you go to the websites which support the belief and the theory as espoused in the movie, you find that you're going to be gazing at kook websites.
You're going to be gazing at people who believe in conspiracy theories because simple explanations simply won't do.
In a world this complicated, where there's people with so much power and so many people with so little power, there has to be some conspiratorial explanation for why this has happened.
How come the Catholic Church is so big?
It can't simply be because the flock believe it, that the faithful are devoted.
How can it be that Christianity is so large in this?
It can't be because the people who believe it actually do.
They have been duped.
They have been smeared.
They have been led astray down the false path.
All of that is nothing other than an attempt to assault and attack something much larger than these people have in their own lives because it makes them uncomfortable.
It adds to their meaninglessness and it adds to their fear.
So I don't allow myself to be offended.
If something I believe in is seriously and profoundly attacked, then you know me.
I launch to its defense and I will do my best to rebut what I think is bogus criticism.
But in this case, I read the book, and I must tell you, I didn't feel threatened.
My beliefs were not shattered.
I didn't start questioning the authorities that I had sought in the process of cementing my faith.
I just read it as it was a novel.
You find it in the fiction section.
And then here comes the movie.
And I read what all the critics had to say about the movie, and they ripped it to shreds.
They hated it.
They said they insulted the actors personally and the director personally.
They said this is horrible because their expectations were so high.
They were hoping for a movie.
This is how vacant they are.
They were hoping for a movie that would finally cause the whole country to question what they have always believed in terms of their Christian beliefs.
The movie didn't accomplish that, and that's why the critics hated it.
You can't deny people are going to watch it, but one of the reasons why is all the buzz around it, all the curiosity.
People want to see what all the hubbub is about.
But I don't think the book or the movie is going to result in one Christian renouncing the faith I've been lied to at all.
It's going to inspire curiosity as it did with you and your friend, and more people are going to look into it than ever before.
You've got to look on the bright side when you can find it.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have El Rushbo with half my brain tied behind my back.
Just to make it fair, we go to Eugene, Oregon.
And Karen, glad you called.
Welcome to the program.
Good afternoon, sir.
Yes.
Earlier in your program, you mentioned that Hillary has been opposed to ethanol, and it has been recorded that she has been so.
Yes, that's true.
I watched her this morning.
Well, yeah, this morning when she was talking at the National Press, and she came out 250,000% behind it.
Could you bring some proof that she has not ever been behind it?
Easy.
In fact, what you heard today, we played those audio soundbites on this program earlier, and I described what she did today as a flip-flop.
She has been staunchly opposed to ethanol and ethanol subsidies.
She voted against them twice.
I'll cite the bills and votes in just a moment for you.
This is a total flip-flop on the part of Mrs. Clinton because ethanol is made from corn corns in Iowa.
Iowa holds the first presidential primary, the Hawkeye Caucasi.
Is her virtual appearance, a virtual campaign starting the Iowa caucuses for her presidential run.
It also, Karen, this proposal that you heard her mention today at the National Press Club, most of which was very, very disappointing and dense.
It was a rehash of policies that Jimmy Carter had tried back in the 70s.
Wear sweaters, avoid jackrabbit starts, make sure your tires are inflated properly.
Then she gets this ethanol business.
There was in 2005, in the summer of 2005, just one year ago, the Senate bill was H.R. 6.
And the official title of the H.R. 6 was to ensure jobs for our future with secure, affordable, and reliable energy.
The highlights of H.R. 6 would require a gradual increase in the amount of ethanol that is added to gasoline from 4 billion gallons in 2006 to a minimum of 7.5 billion gallons by 2012.
Mrs. Clinton voted no.
Mrs. Clinton voted no on HR6, which, among other things, required a gradual increase for the amount of ethanol that's added to gasoline.
There was an amendment to HR6 and the Senate Amendment 781 to HR6.
And the official title of the legislation was to ensure that ethanol is treated like all other motor vehicle fuels and that taxpayers and local governments do not have to pay for environmental damage caused by ethanol.
Mrs. Clinton voted no on the amendment and the bill to ensure that ethanol treated like all other motor vehicle fuels and that taxpayers and local governments don't have to pay for environmental damage that it causes.
One of the highlights of HR 6 maintains the requirement that refiners phase MTBE out of gasoline production and in its place produce 8 billion gallons of renewable fuels such as cellulosic biomass ethanol and biodiesel per year by 2012.
Mrs. Clinton voted no.
Now, Karen, does that answer the question for you?
No, it doesn't, Rush.
Do you know why she voted no on that?
Does it matter?
Yes, it does.
It matters as well.
By all means, learn me, Karen.
What was it that made her vote no?
I don't, Rush, I don't know why she voted no.
But I also don't know why Bush, a couple of years ago, said, we're not going to build the wall between us and Mexico because that's a sign of bad faith.
Oh, my God.
People change their ideas.
They change.
It's okay to change.
Why did Hillary change her opinion?
I don't know.
Well, you certainly sounded like you knew when you were chastising me for.
No, but I think when, no, no, but I think when you come out so adamantly in one direction, there has to be a reason why.
Karen.
Yes.
You have to stop feeling about this.
And you're going to have to grow up.
I have cited for you facts.
I'm going to have to.
Now, you can argue with me all day long, but you don't get your own set of facts.
I said earlier in the program that she was against the expanded use of ethanol.
I was right.
You called to challenge me to prove it.
I proved it to you.
You said, well, do you know why she changed it?
I said, no.
Well, I don't either, you said.
And now you want to excuse her.
All I'm saying is she's flip-flopped on it, and I've told you why she's flip-flopping on it.
Are people allowed to change their mind?
Yes or no?
Of course they are.
Okay.
So does he have to?
Those that have minds are allowed to change them.
A mind's a terrible thing to lose.
No, it was once said.
Is it okay to change your mind?
But you called here challenging me.
You called here.
Hillary against ethanol.
Prove it.
You called here challenging me.
You said I said something and you wanted me to prove it, and I've proved it to you.
And even though I have demonstrated for you that Mrs. Clinton has flip-flopped, she didn't say anything today about previously opposing ethanol, by the way.
This is not a change of mind.
You've got to get up to speed.
This is a waste of time.
You have to learn who this woman is, Karen.
This is the one state, by the way, that liberal radio is succeeding.
It is.
This is the one state.
Oregon's the one state.
They got one, two towns out there where liberal radio can be said to have some listeners.
And I understand why now.
No, I think we have about six, as a matter of fact.
But is it okay?
Okay, six.
Yip, yip, yip, yip, yahoo.
No, no, wait.
Is it okay for people to change their mind?
Yeah, it's okay for people to change their minds.
It's okay for people to be terribly wrong.
It's okay for people to be dumb.
It's okay for people to be helpless.
It's okay for people.
Karen, everything's okay.
Okay, so when the president said anything else.
It's a bad thing to build a wall, and now he's changed his mind.
That's okay.
Well, in this case, I think the Senate members of Congress are responding to an outcry from.
This is a waste of time.
I'll try anyway.
The members of Congress responding to an outcry from the American people over enforcement of the border.
I haven't.
The president has agreed that, okay, a 370-mile-long fence, it's not the whole border.
It's not 1,600 miles.
It's 370 miles.
But now it's okay to build a wall.
Yeah, I think we need to build a bigger one.
Okay.
But before he said it's a bad thing to build a wall.
You know, you can, you, Karen.
Of course he did.
You can, no, I'm not even arguing it with you.
It's not the point.
You are going to find a way to treat Mrs. Clinton as your God candidate no matter what.
You call here demanding proof.
I give you proof.
You didn't even hear the proof.
The proof scares you.
And so you've got to come up with some way to make yourself feel better about the fact that you have been had.
Proof doesn't scare me.
I think proof tends to make people that are sitting on the fence a little defensive, maybe.
Maybe.
Proof tends to make people sitting on the fence a little.
Proof shatters people.
When proof shatters your worldview, you are destroyed.
Are you tilting one way or the other?
On what?
On the fence.
I'm not on the fence.
Oh, you're back to that fence.
I'm on the fourth.
No, I'm not tilting on the fence.
You're very good.
You know, I must compliment you.
Even when your back is up against the wall, you are very good.
And I must compliment you.
Your imitations are, you know, Helen.
Karen, Karen, let me ask you a quick question.
No, no, Helen.
Helen?
Helen, I'm sorry.
I was thinking of the movie Troy.
Karen, let me ask you a quick question.
Sure.
We all know that it's okay to change your mind, as you pointed out.
Everybody changes as they learn things, as they forget things, people change their minds.
But don't you, aren't you interested?
You're asking me, and I have no effect on you.
Aren't you concerned about why she changed her mind?
Shouldn't you be asking her why she changed her mind instead of simply blindly accepting that she changed her mind?
Aren't you curious as to why she did?
You know what, Rush?
I am thrilled that people, adult, mature people, actually have the ability to change their mind.
You know, it's not, you know, I know why that is, Karen, because that represents open-mindedness.
It means broad thinking rather than closed-mindedness and so forth.
I get it.
I understand it totally.
No, no, it's not Helen Thomas.
It's Karen from Eugene, Oregon.
Karen, I have to run here because I'm up against it on the constraints of the busy broadcast format clock.
And I really would have loved to have continued talking with you, but I changed my mind.
Oh, you just heard it, folks.
I get so many emails from people saying, bring back the caller abortions.
You know, I ought to do, we ought to do that.
We ought to go back and just from the get-go, reset up that whole thing.
The caller abortions.
Oh, man, the fur was flying back in 1988 and 89 when we did that.
People were demanding caller abortions.
But folks, this is educational stuff.
When you listen to people like Karen, you know, typical Hillary supporter, not questioning whatever, whatsoever.
No doubt, no questions about what Hillary says or does when she says or does them.
Not curious whatsoever.
She has to ask me if I change my mind.
And it's a big deal if a person is able to change their mind.
They have no idea why Hillary changed her mind.
They don't care.
They're glad she did it because it shows that she has a mind.
And some of them have a doubt about that.
Larry in Dearborn, Michigan, you're next.
Nice to have you with us, sir.
Mega Ditto, Rush.
It's an honor to speak to you.
Thank you, sir.
I was listening to Hillary's speech.
Well, first I was nervous because I had to follow a good caller, and then the liberal got bumped to the front, so I'm not as nervous anymore.
But the speech from Hillary was, it sounded familiar, and I realized where I heard it.
At the beginning of winter, my grandma called me, and she told me that prices for heating and gas were going up, and then I should check my tire pressure and make sure that my windows aren't leaky.
So Hillary is stealing ideas from my grandma.
And I saw a special on the news that said that if you do all that stuff with your tire pressure, that you'll save four miles to a full tank.
So I'm looking forward to that.
Well, but, you know, this whole thing is a rehash of stuff from the 70s.
It was banal.
It was really, I mean, here she's making this big energy speech before the media, the drive-by media at the National Press Club, their super secret headquarters, and gives them this.
Check your tire pressure, move to fluorescent lights, make sure that you get the leaks, the air leaks, or in your windows and doors fixed.
It all adds up, and it all really, really matters.
As far as tire pressure is concerned, I mean, that's you're going to stop every time you fill up.
Check your, what, Mr. Snerdley?
Hmm.
I don't know where the fluorescent lights have been swapped in Chappaqua.
I don't know.
I have no clue.
Probably not.
This is, you know, her plans will be for everybody else, not her.
The elites are not going to, their thermostats will be at 72 if they tell us to turn ours down to 68.
There's nothing new about that.
Speaking of Mrs. Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, Hillary Clinton has proposed amending, and this is this news today.
Mrs. Clinton has proposed amending the Senate's immigration reform legislation to provide federal funding for the education and health care of illegal immigrants, arguing that the federal government should pick up the tab for social services provided to illegals.
Mrs. Clinton told the Senate, quote, my amendment addresses one of the clearest examples of this neglect because our failed national immigration policy has left our state and local governments to bear the brunt of the costs of immigration.
Our screws, our hospitals, our other state and local services are being strained.
She said that her plan would direct funds to state criminal alien assistance programs to offset the costs of illegal aliens who continue to break the law after they enter the U.S.
And her plan would establish a program that provides financial assistance to state and local governments for the cost of health and education services related to immigration.
You know, we need to start throwing some labels around ourselves here.
They're going to call people like us nativists and restrictionists and so forth.
My friends, we are patriots.
What would they call Vicente Fox?
Does anybody really believe this?
Vicente Fox, the president of Mexico, on a three-day four-state tour to try to tell us what we're doing right and wrong about our immigration policy.
What does it matter?
It is so absurd.
The commonsensical reaction to this would be, who the hell are you coming here telling us what to do?
You're the one that's got the problem.
Except in his mind, it's not a problem.
I'm sure he doesn't mind this exit out of his country because the money that's being brought back in or sent back in is helping out their economy in any number of ways without the people that are sending the money actually being in Mexico, taking up jobs, earning it, or what have you, and putting a strain on their social services to the extent that they have them.
So now Mrs. Clinton wants to propose federal funding for illegal immigrants to take the strain off of the states.
So she wants to shift some of the responsibility for payment, but not eliminate any of it.
I know it's taxpayers' money.
I know Hillary Clinton wants your money to be used to fund the safety net, education, and all that health care programs for illegal aliens.
Still lots to go on the exciting big broadcast today, ladies and gentlemen.
A story from the Australian.
It's the UK Times and the French press agency are saying that the United States and Great Britain will begin their Iraq exit in July.
The U.S. will draw down to 100,000 troops from 133,000 at present.
The Brits will drop from 8,000 to 5,000 by the end of the year.
And again, U.S. 133,000 troops dropped down to about 100,000.
Iraq security forces could be in charge of much of the country by the year's end.
How many just people, when this story gets broad coverage and drive-by media, how many of them will say, ah, a sign that we are winning?