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March 23, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:53
March 23, 2007, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24 7 podcast.
All right, I want to take a vote here.
Hey, hey, hey!
Heads up in there.
The show has started.
I want to take a vote.
Do we lead off with the Edwards stuff or the disarray of the Democrats in the House?
Disarray in the Democrats in a house it is.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yahoo.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
This the Rush Lindbaugh program, the EIB network.
Open line Friday.
By the way, Mike C here.
We're going to start with Audio Soundbites 10 and 11.
We'll go all the way through 17 here.
Broom.
The Edward stuff till later.
Open line Friday.
We go to the phones.
The program is all yours, meaning you can talk about whatever.
You gotta be good.
I mean, you know what?
Remember, I'm a benevolent dictator here.
There's no first amendment unless I grant it.
It exists only for me.
So here's the number if you want to be on the program today, 800-282-2882.
And the email address rush at EIB net.com.
The uh the kerfuffle over uh whether I'm irrelevant, Arnold Schwarzenegger's surviving a third day of media attention in Los Angeles on television out there.
And uh we'll have that coming up.
A German judge.
This is unbelievable.
A German judge has stirred up a storm of protests.
She cited the Koran in turning down a German Muslim woman's request for a speedy divorce on the ground that her husband beat her.
A German judge said that the man can beat his wife because it is Islamic law.
It's in the Quran.
Now this is all well and good, except for the fact this is in Germany.
You talk about multiculturalism running amok.
A German judge said Don, shh sh listen.
I'm gonna start calling you Esther.
A German judge said that it's okay for an Islamic guy to beat his wife because it's in the Koran in Germany.
Now the obvious question here, so the Germans are using foreign law just like the U.S. Supreme Court.
What's the big deal?
It's the latest thing, folks.
It's the next big thing using foreign law.
Germans, cowards, capitulating.
This is absurd.
Then we've got a story about U.S. immigration.
In this U.S. attorney scandal, we have learned and continue to learn a lot of things.
So one of the things we've learned today is that it's five strikes and you're out for illegals coming across the border.
Story of the Houston Chronicle today.
That uh you get you get five attempts, and on the sixth one they send you back.
Uh details are coming up.
And this this uh, as I say, was discovered because of the attention being paid to the U.S. attorneys whether or not they're actively prosecuting certain cases.
Uh and we've got a big uh John Edwards stack.
You know, it my my my comment yesterday that the press conference between uh John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth would be used to jumpstart the campaign was called Cynicism by Bill Schneider, our old buddy at uh at CNN.
We've got a plethora of sound bites here from drive-by media types who said the same thing.
So we will get to that in due course, but first let's talk about the disarray, the Democrats in the House of Representatives.
I went out to dinner last night.
This is fun, so I'm on a I'm on a diet.
I'm not made a big deal about this because I've done it so many times.
Uh but I'm down 30 pounds in 40 days.
Uh five notches off the belt.
So I go to dentist, this is about the third or fourth.
I've been hibernating for the most part uh this month, because you gotta do that.
I mean, you don't have to, but I choose to.
But I haven't gone in any restaurants, but I've gone to people's homes for dinner last night.
Um, did another one.
What's really tough is everybody else gets sauced in.
I'm sitting there drinking water.
Uh, and then all they want to do is talk about the diet.
Everybody in the world has done diets, but they act like this is a first that they've never seen it before.
How are you doing it?
Well, it's just you're losing too fast.
I don't know.
Well, what are you eating?
Well, My gosh, you can't you have to eat more than no, not if you want to go on a diet.
Well, does it taste good?
Well, yeah, if that's that's you get your mindset.
Yeah, you're on a diet.
You don't expect to be eating five coarse meals every night.
I don't know.
Can you drink?
No.
Alcohol shuts down the whole weight loss.
You can't.
Oh, I could never do that.
Well, then why are you asking me?
Uh here I am the expert at the moment.
30 pounds in 40 days, and you're all can't do that.
Can't do that.
You want to do it, you do it.
If you don't want to do it, you don't do it.
But don't act like you halfway want to do it, and then say then chicken out.
All right, Democrats, disarray in the House.
Before I went out to dinner last night, I'm reading the website, doing a little show prep for the program today, and uh the news is they're going nowhere.
Pelosi can't keep the place in order.
The DC vote bill, Eleanor Holmes Norton uh and her little baby uh going down the tubes.
Stenny Hoyer yelling at staff, Democrat House just can't get anything done on this Iraq war bill.
They want to they want a definite withdrawal date of March of 2008.
This is the bill the presidents asked for 100 million, the Democrats have loaded it up with 2400, is it 100 million?
Or 100 billion?
Well, I'll find it.
Twenty yeah, a hundred billion, hundred twenty-four billion.
They've loaded twenty-four billion dollars of uh of pork into it.
Uh and uh, you know, a bunch of Lib Democrats, the out of Iraq caucus, they want to vote for them.
They they want a clean bill.
And the Democrats are having trouble holding them together.
Finally, enough arms were twisted that the Democrats claim that they have the votes today.
While all this is going on, Pelosi's in New York last night attending a fundraiser for the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee having a five-star meal herself while her lieutenants are doing everything they can to keep the place in order.
That's before I left my humble abode uh and drove uh it's just two doors down.
I'd probably drove fifty yards to get to dinner.
And uh why didn't you walk?
I can just see the that's a little farther than that, but uh you don't walk anyway.
I mean, it's the wind uh did did just no.
Um they want to get there fast and get home fast so forth.
Anyway, I get home, and all of a sudden none of that's none of that's happening.
All this disarray has somehow been quelled.
They put it all back together.
It's all fine and dandy, and that's an illusion.
Liberal opposition to a 124 billion dollar war spending bill broke last night when leaders of the anti-war out of Iraq caucus pledged to Democrat leaders in the House that they will not block the measure, which sets timelines for bringing U.S. troops home.
Now, as I say, all the stories that I saw before I left home last night were of Pelosi losing the House and her caucus.
Now they're gonna have this vote today, even if she wins, they are a divided caucus.
She's got big problems with her own party, and this bill's not gonna go anywhere in the Senate.
And something also is happening in the Sen in the in the House that's a little surprising.
Republicans, the minority, are succeeding in pulling off a bunch of parliamentary procedures uh that are that that causing Democrats to scuttle other bills.
What's happening on the DC vote bill is the Republicans snuck a little provision in there uh uh banning the D.C. gun law.
And of course, the libs are not gonna go for that.
So Eleanor Holmes knowing just in tears, she's beside herself that uh that her little baby, the bill to allow Washington uh residents the uh the vote is gonna go down the tubes.
Of course, that's unconstitutional.
If you if you read the Constitution, it's clear that uh uh D.C. is a district, it's not a state, therefore its residents don't have a vote in federal uh elections.
So the bottom line here is that the Democrats have paid a price.
They have demonstrated that they are weak.
They've demonstrated that they have to buy votes in their own caucus, or everybody thinking this is a united amalgamated bunch.
It ain't the case.
Twenty-four billion dollars of pork, twenty-five million for spinach, for example, some big Democrat donor out in California had to bribe their own members with billion dollars of pork to um uh to get uh to get their vote, and and they lost the DC vote too, as I say, which is terribly, terribly, terribly upsetting to Eleanor Holmes Norton.
We've got some pretty juicy sound bites to uh support all this, and we'll get to those when we come back.
Uh the uh telephone number is 800-282-2882.
Oh.
Uh one thing.
I am getting email questions.
Why all of a sudden rush during the this from from people that listen uh to the program uh on our web stream and those of you who are watching on the Ditto cam.
How can we be playing these parodies during the breaks rather than all of music that used to play?
I explained this.
I explained this in great detail last week.
You know, the copyright review board that determines the price, royalty price that you have to pay for playing tunes on the internet has just come out with retroactive price increases.
And essentially for us, it's it's based on how many people you reach on a like it's it's like point zero zero zero eight cents times every listener every time you play something.
For us, uh ballpark figure to be four thousand dollars every time we played a tune.
Uh, which is why these things don't show up on the podcast unless, of course, somebody screws up, which uh which happened a couple weeks ago, which is good because you got to hear I forget what parody it was, but it snuck on there.
So anyway.
Um the bunch of people are are trying to repetition a copyright, the royalty board here to review board in order to this is crazy because they're gonna slit their own throats.
This is uh this is sort of like airlines raising prices so high that nobody flies.
Uh and and uh this is this is something that that's gonna have to change.
Uh but it just it it's it just gets after you add all this stuff up.
I mean, uh, you know, one day wouldn't cost all that much, but you do it every day.
Uh 250 broadcasts a year, three hours, all those breaks in there, it would add up.
It's just it's just silly.
So uh in order to be legal, and we of course here do not flout the law at the EIB network.
Uh that's why there's no more music in the uh in the commercial breaks.
Hope it changes at some point down the uh down the road.
Back with uh Democrat sound bites on the disarray in their caucus in the house after this.
L. Rushbow to the rescue, America's real anchorman and doctor of democracy.
And America's truth detector, all combined into one harmless, lovable little fuzzball behind this, the golden EIB microphone at 800 again, 282-2882.
All right, let's go to the audio sound bites.
We'll start late yesterday on the House floor.
This is during uh the debate on the appropriations bill.
It's the 100 billion dollars that's got twenty 124 billion dollar bill at 24 billion dollars of pork in it.
Um by the way, uh you know it's gonna be interesting to see what happens in the Senate on this.
The Senate they're not gonna have the votes to uh to pass this.
The qu uh uh question is um will the president veto it?
And he said he would.
He just wants a clean bill for uh uh Iraq and Afghanistan funding.
However, the uh the Pentagon, Robert Gates, the defense secretary saying, hey, we're gonna need this money by May 15th, or we got to pull back training, we're gonna pull back a whole bunch of things.
Uh so there's there's pressure here, and uh uh uh the way I read the story is the president might be pressured into not vetoing this uh if it passes this way to get money.
We'll let uh we'll have to wait and see.
But here's uh here's delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, uh, who is she pleading here with uh with her Democrat colleagues on her um on her bill to allow D.C. residents the right to vote in federal elections.
If you vote for the motion to recommit, you will kill this bill.
Please do not do it.
Vote against the motion to recommit, or else you're voting against voting rights for the residents of the district of Columbia.
So what?
That's what the Constitution says.
It'd be it it's an unconstitutional thing, anyway.
Of course, that doesn't matter.
We're talking about voting rights, civil rights, and or people's feelings.
Now you may have heard late yesterday afternoon that uh Stenny Hoyard lost control of the leadership in the House.
There were arguments among staff on the floor when they couldn't get anything going on the funding bill.
Liberals, anti-war liberals in the house, Democrat caucus were still holding out.
On the House floor, this is a little bit of it.
Stenny Hoyer and his staff get into a shouting match, and it had to be quieted down by the substitute Queen B in charge.
That would be Ellen Tosher, because Pelosi was at a fundraiser in New York.
Pursuant to section two of House Resolution 260, further proceedings on the bill will be postponed.
The gentleman from Indiana.
Did I understand that because of the motion to recommit?
The staff in the rear of the chamber will please quiet their remarks.
This was Hoyer's staff.
They were shouting back there.
There were all kinds of arguments.
Hoyer could not believe it.
His staff hadn't gotten everything in line and that this vote was.
Now remember now this is this is late in the afternoon.
Uh that the vote was going to go down the tubes.
Now Baghdad Jim McDermott on the House floor during debate on the appropriations bill.
Speaker Pelosi has given us a plan.
Not as strong as I want, but one I will support as a bare minimum.
Bare minimum, but dramatically better than what we have.
A war without end from a president incapable of only escalation, not negotiation.
All right, so they began to turn some of the caucus members to get out of Iraq caucus.
Here's the because clearly McDermott here.
Uh Baghdad Jim thinks Pelosi's plan is lousy, but he's going to support it anyway because he's fed up with all this uh piddling around.
Now Mirtha, uh Jack Mirtha on the floor in the House uh late yesterday, he just literally loses it.
I found our troops 44,000 without body armor.
I found our troops with a shortage of uh jammers.
I find our troops now because of the policy, having to go back to Iraq before they have a year at home.
I find our troops now because of the policy of this white house having to extend troops who have been there thirteen months.
That's what hurts the morale of the troops when you send them without training, without the additional training they need, without the equipment they need, and without the resources they need.
We're putting the resources if you vote against this bill, you're voting against the resources they need to go into combat.
And that's what he wants.
But uh the bottom line uh is that uh the surge is working and it's a little known secret.
In fact, there were some pictures.
And I found it very interesting.
These photos didn't make it to the front page of the New York Times.
They were in the LA Times.
You had to hunt for them, but it was about a bunch of Iraqis having a carnival in Baghdad.
Ferris wheels, uh, little rides for the kids, snow cones.
What look like snow cones, uh they're having a just having a grand old time right here in the middle of a civil war, led by insurgencies where innocents are being wiped out by the gazillions each and every day.
Smiling little parents, smiling little kids, just having a great time, look like they were at the county fair.
Uh there's much less activity going on in the insurgent wise.
Uh, and and here's Mertha still acting like this is a lost cause and uh and going nowhere.
But anyway, the point of all these bites is to is to illustrate for you the lack of unity, the disarray, and even after they pass the bill, if they do today, they have demonstrated that they're weak.
They've demonstrated they have to buy off their own members in order to get votes for this thing.
Uh, and some of the get out of a rock caucus, Maxine Waters, still not happy uh with all this.
For example, John Lewis, this is what he said.
I'm not prepared to vote for another dollar, another dime to support this war.
It is time to bring our young men and our young women home.
And here's Peter Defazio, a Democrat from Oregon.
This is the first enforceable challenge to the president's plan to escalate and continue a stay the course, open-ended commitment to a war.
A war that was launched with massive deception.
And we an unnecessary war.
All right, yeah, right.
I forgot.
Sorry to interrupt there, Congressman.
Uh, Representative Hank Johnson, Democrat from Georgia, just sounds confused.
The people of the Fourth District, by and large, are ready for this war to come to an end, and they want to see a cessation of deaths of uh United States soldiers in combat on the streets of Iraq, and they want to see that happen now.
Politically, the reality is that uh you you just can't yank the troops off the streets.
You just can't leave them without the funding that they need in order to wind this process down.
You see, I mean, these guys, they don't know what to do.
We got this March 08 deadline, which is pulling them out.
You set a deadline, you may as well pull them out tomorrow.
It's just it's it's it's asinine.
Uh David Obe, uh, during the debate on the appropriations bill, this speaks for itself.
Very frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of those who were consistently wrong from the beginning on the issue of Iraq.
Uh, I'm getting tired of them lecturing those of us who were consistently right from the beginning.
Not talking about Republicans here.
Remember, Republicans were not part of this.
Uh David Obe here getting frustrated.
Basically, the way to translate this by, look, guys, we control the House, and we can't still get our way here.
We control the House, and we can't get our act together, and I'm getting tired of it.
Some of you Democrats in here, I'm getting fed up.
You have been wrong from the beginning, and some of us have been right from beginning, and I'm getting tired of it.
The Washington Post again today, in an editorial slams the House mandating this uh withdrawal from Iraq.
The Washington Post in an editorial yesterday slammed the Democrats in the Senate on the Judiciary Committee for the way they're overreaching on this U.S. attorney thing.
Details.
Right around the corner.
Sit tight.
And we're back, El Rushbo, serving humanity simply by showing up.
And as always, half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
You will not believe this.
This is just hilarious.
And this is out of the New York Times today.
And no, it's not the story about the couple, the environmentalists who have have stopped using toilet paper in their apartment.
That is coming up on our global warming stack.
No, this is about Bill Clinton and a fundraiser at a gym.
He went to a workout place, and women had to cover up their skimpy clothes at the Clinton fundraiser.
It was all t-shirts, lycra, and sneakers steaming into the Soul Cycle spinning studio on the Upper West Side Manhattan last night.
About 35 women and five men paid $2300 apiece or per stationary bike to hear former President Clinton speak and take questions for half an hour on behalf of the campaign of his wife, Mrs. Bill Clinton.
Not everybody came ready to sweat.
There was more makeup in that spin class than I'd ever seen in my life, said Charlotte Krupp, a writer who attended the event.
Everybody looked like they'd just come the beauty salon.
Remember now, 35 women and five men, 40 people there.
Among the unusual details of the fundraiser, everybody was given a long-sleeve white cotton t-shirt to wear over their workout clothes.
You know, usually you go to these gyms and people uh wear as little as possible for spinning because they're in there trying to get noticed.
Let's let's just put it up.
Unless you go to an all-female, and this they'll try to get noticed.
Uh in their own way.
But everybody knows what these gyms are for.
I mean, they serve a dual purpose.
This is the alternative to go into the bar or the church.
Uh what from the story here, people tend to wear sexy spandex outfits with mid drifts showing uh Charla Krupp said, but in deference, in deference to the horn dog in chief.
We w we wore these uh these shirts that said exercise your vote.
They had to cover up their middrifts and everything.
In deference to Clinton.
Now, do you think Hillary's hand might have been behind this?
Who came up with this idea anyway?
Twenty-three hundred bucks per exercise bike to have a fundraiser in a gym.
Anyway, um the Washington Post uh editorial on uh the Democrat disarray.
Today the House of Representatives would be voting to require that all U.S. combat troops leave Iraq by August of 08, regardless of what happens during the next 17 months or whether U.S. commanders believe a pull out at that moment protects or endangers U.S. national security, not to mention the thousands of American trainers and special forces troops who would remain behind.
The Democrats claim to have a mandate from voters to reverse the Bush administration's policy in Iraq.
The legislation could shape the future of the Middle East for decades.
Congress can and should play a major role determining how and when the war ends.
Political benchmarks for the Iraqi government are important, uh, provided they're not unrealistic or inflexible.
Even dates for troop withdrawals might be helpful if they are cast as goals rather than requirements, and if the timing derives from the needs of Iraq, not the U.S. election cycle.
As it is, House Democrats are pressing a bill that has the endorsement of move on.org but excludes the judgment of U.S. commanders who would have to execute the retreat that the bill mandates while provoking constitutional fight with the White House that could block the funding to equip troops in the field.
Democrats who want to force a withdrawal should vote against war appropriations.
They should not seek an unconditional retreat that the majority does not support.
And this makes the point that I have been making all over if the Democrats had the votes, if they were if if the American people were indeed in a in a majority basis, ready to pull out of Iraq now, as the Democrats claim their November election mandate is, then there wouldn't be any debate.
These Democrats in the House would have no trouble securing the votes and probably a decent number of Republicans to go along with them.
But that's not what the election results of November meant.
And the Washington Post here now warning the Democrats to be really careful here.
They don't think there should be a pull-out-now mandate from Iraq.
And it's interesting too that the Washington Post, this is an editorial, that they uh they think the commanders ought to be listened to.
And of course, that's an ethymate of Jack Mertha and his crown.
Don't listen to commanders, they're just a bunch of propagandists, can't ever trust the military, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So bottom line of all this is that uh regardless how the vote goes today, and then they think they've got the votes.
Make no mistake, this Democrat House caucus is in disarray.
They have to use bribery to get the votes from the anti-war caucus in their own party.
Uh it's cost them a lot here, and they've put it on display for everybody, just how ununified or disunified they are.
Uh and and they've they've they're they're running into criticism even from uh the usual uh allies that they have, such as the uh Washington Post.
All right, to the phones, we go a little earlier because it's open line Friday.
This is Uriah in Jacksonville, North Carolina.
Greetings, sir, nice to have you with us.
Hey, Mr. Raj, how are you, sir?
Uh just want to say um I really appreciate what you do uh as far as conservatism and uh the right things for our country.
But there's just there's one thing that I I've uh I have a question about.
The other day you uh played a song um with Al Sharp and Sharpton uh portraying uh actually singing in the studio uh against Barack Obama.
Uh I'm my my point is is that the term Negro that was used in that song I found to be very offensive.
Um the reason why, because uh I feel like the term Negro is such an archaic term, and in a society as prosperous as America that's pressing and excelling forward, um, you know, uh throughout this throughout the world, I think that to use a term like that is a term that is actually turning us around.
You might you you must be talking about uh the uh very popular parody, uh uh Barack the Magic Negro, as sung by Al Sharpton through the bullhorn, is that the one?
Yes, sir.
Yeah, I and well, let me tell you about the uh the roots of this.
Uh there was a columnist in the Los Angeles Times named David Ehrenstein, and either on Sunday or Monday he wrote a piece, I think it was Sunday about Barack is the magic Negro.
And he claimed that there is uh in the black culture this term, black a magic negro.
And and his point is that in this column was that Barack Obama is is not authentic.
He hasn't been down for the struggle.
And people voting and and plus he's not been around long enough for people to know what he actually stands for, substance-wise, and uh and so white people who are supporting Barack are simply doing so to assuage their white guilt over the transgressions in the past in this country, such as slavery and and so forth.
And so his theory is that uh Barack coming along, he's black, and that's all that matters.
Nobody cares what he stands for, nobody knows what he stands for.
And when white people it was a column essentially accusing white people supporting Obama being racist, because they don't care what he stands for, don't care what he's gonna do.
The fact that he's black is enough for them to make them not feel guilty as long as they say they support him, and that was the definition of black Negro.
Now, on this program, we made it a big point to point out that it was, and this columnist is black, by the way.
David Erinstein's black.
And he used the term, which is why it says so in the lyric line of the song.
So we're just highlighting what the left says.
I believe they're the true racists.
I believe they're the ones that look at people and notice whatever is different about them from white liberals.
Either they're black or they're gay or they're Hispanic, uh, or whatever.
They they they immediately group people.
Uh, and most of them happen to be victims, and yet we conservatives are the ones, Uriah, who get tarred and feathered with these allegations.
Yes, sir.
So this song is to illustrate that point.
Okay, I I just you know, and and and that's the first time I've actually ever heard the term magic Negro, and I uh Well, me too.
I never heard of it, but this guy says it's out there as part of black folklore.
Okay, yes, sir.
Well, I I was that was my question there.
Uh, you know, I just uh I feel like uh, you know, as a country, uh that we should you know definitely be propelling forward and in this generation and not uh and and and and bringing uh uh light for the rest of the world.
Well, I can tell you think the term Negro is inappropriate, that its old hat shouldn't be used, it's uh uh divisive and uh and this sort of thing.
And you you you may have a point, but remember what we do on this program, we illustrate absurdity by being absurd, and the other element of this is that Sharpton has been quoted in the New York Pi Post as being jealous uh that that Obama's getting all his support as a black presidential candidate.
Remember Joe Biden said, hey, we got the first clean articulate uh intelligent black guy running for how do you think that's gonna make Sharpton feel?
He's run for president what, twice?
And gonna make the Reverend Jacks feel.
So the story was that the little jealousy out there uh and uh so this these two things just fit together.
I mean, it couldn't it just it was like a harmonic convergence here on this year, and now that you know the context and the details, let's listen together to Al Sharpton and Barack the Magic Negro.
Don't vote for Barack.
I won't have anything after all these years of sacrifice.
Justice and injustice.
Stop singing, the chorus keeps singing.
Al Sharp did abandoning the lyric lane.
By the way, I understand there are many people uh probably uh don't know the historical uh facts about this term magic Negro.
I didn't either.
But who am I to dispute the LA Times and one of their steamed columnists David Ehrenstein?
But I mean, if you're gonna complain about that, isn't it time to change the name of the United Negro College Fund?
Uh I mean it w some things are just out of proportion and have no consistency here, folks, and we're happy and eager to point them out.
And welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, highly trained broadcast specialist.
Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis on open line Friday, drive by media orgasming.
The uh House Democrats have passed their bill that uh authorizes funding for the Iraq War, but has the mandatory pull-out date of March of 2008.
It has the twenty-four billion dollars of pork in it, the bribery that was necessary to get the out of Iraq caucus to support this.
Uh because they were um they they they didn't they didn't want the funding, folks.
This you have to the out of Iraq caucus doesn't want to give any more money to this bunch.
The president of the war or anything else, they want him out of there.
And uh so it's passed.
It'll be interesting to see now what happens in the Senate.
Jeff in Pleasant Hill, Missouri.
You are next on Open Line Friday.
Hello.
Hi.
Hi.
Megadiddos, I wanted to give you an award, first of all, if you got time for that.
Yeah.
It's the first time I've heard the first commandment explained properly on in any media, whatever.
And when you talk about global warming, you did some quotes that were very similar to the large catechism of Lutheran Church.
I'm a Lutheran pastor.
And it's first time I've heard that.
So Megadiddos for that.
Thank you.
When when did you hear that?
Uh it was a couple weeks ago.
Yeah, yeah, the when I was okay, the uh the whole concept of God and how can we think that we have the power to destroy all.
Yeah, I remember.
Well, thank you, sir.
I'm I'm happy to receive any award I get.
Okay.
Um my question is about something I heard on NPR last night.
Somebody from the Pew Institute says that um in America it's at record levels now that people think that the government should take care of people who cannot take care of themselves, and I wanted to know uh what your truth detector said about that.
Well, I uh I I pr you know the it's a Pew Research Center poll, and I have that story right here in my formerly nicotine fingers nicotine-stained fingers.
So let me go through this for you.
Because I can explain this.
Let's just let's f for a moment here, let's hypothetically just accept the survey data, and here are the uh the basic details.
Public allegiance to the Republican Party is plunged during the Bush presidency.
Attitudes have edged away from some of the conservative values that fueled Republican political victories.
A major survey is found.
The survey by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found a dramatic shift in political party identification since 2002 when Republicans and Democrats were at rough parity.
Now, 50% of those surveyed identified with or leaned toward Democrats, whereas 35% aligned with uh with Republicans.
I've always said that one of the things that happened in the last election, the November election, was that Republicans lost the so-called center, the uh undecided.
Uh, and I think that is what's the partial explanation for this, but there's more.
Uh, the survey found public attitudes are drifting toward Democrat values.
Support for government aid to the disadvantaged has grown since the mid-90s.
Skepticism about the use of military forces increased, and support for traditional family values is decreased.
The findings suggest that the challenges for the GOP reach beyond the unpopularity of the war in Iraq and George W. Bush.
Let me tell you something, Jeff.
There's no surprise in this to me.
This is I've been saying this for I don't know how long.
When you have a president who will not articulate conservative principles, who will not lead a conservative movement as Reagan did, this is what you get.
When there is no elected conservative leadership in Washington articulating conservative.
There's a there's a there's a bylaw.
If something isn't conservative, it by definition will become liberal.
That's the power and pervasiveness of liberalism.
Conservatism must be constantly articulated.
It must be used as an inspiration, and something as a leadership tool, and it hasn't been for the longest time throughout the Republican Party.
You know, the support for government aid of the disadvantaged, well, this is you see stories every day about people dying in Hurricane Curtina, nobody caring about it, and the Oprahization of America, uh, and everybody going forth with their feelings and so forth, trying to assuage them, answering questions in this poll.
It's terrible.
I think we ought to do more to open makes perfect sense to me.
Get some articulated conservative leadership up there, and it's going to change dramatically, as it always.
A drive-by caller has a question.
How many elderly Americans are sick or have died from the poisoning of this dog and cat food out there?
It's a good question.
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