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Aug. 31, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:03
August 31, 2007, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hey, hello, once again, everybody.
Jason Lewis here in for the vacationing Rush Limbaugh.
What an honor it is to be here once again high atop the EIB building in Midtown Manhattan, behind the golden EIB Mike and the Attila the Hun Chair of the Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
And guess what?
Even though Rush is gone today, it is still going to be an open line Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
That's right.
You get to decide.
You know, I mean, it's not as though you got a Trump rush today.
We got the lowly Jason Lewis in.
You ought to take control of this program.
Well, to a degree.
So anything you want to talk about, you can at 1 800-282-2882.
Speaking of the lowly Jason Lewis, I'm thinking, okay, here's the big New York City talk show host, filling in for the great one, El Rushbow.
And I'm going for a walk yesterday.
I'm over by the Plaza Hotel after the show, and it's under construction right now, right on the edge of Central Park there.
And I'm walking through, and it's a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, and all of a sudden something something's wet is on me.
It's not raining.
I'm going, what is going on?
I look up, and there is this impertinent pigeon mocking me.
The pigeon actually did his business on yours truly.
I could not believe it.
I looked at that pigeon.
He looks at me.
I he he Well, then I shot him.
You know, it's it's it's the least you can do.
I mean, concealed carry.
We talked about that yesterday.
And speaking of Central Park, had a great early morning jog in Central Park, uh, as I did the day before, did it today again, and I cannot believe, by the way, this morning I was out there so early I woke up most of my relatives, but I could not believe how many dogs are in that park.
Does everybody in Manhattan have a dog?
It's really remarkable.
And the animals were there too.
No, the dog, the number of dogs in Central Park, my goodness gracious, everybody and they got dog walkers and all of this.
Haven't seen that many dogs since the last now convention.
It was rather shocking.
Did you see the What Michael Vick?
Oh, no.
Michael Vick is the dog walker here in Manhattan.
I'm not certain if you folks know that.
And you got a dog, you don't have time.
Michael, over here.
Dog comes back with a little different disposition, but who cares?
I mean.
Here in New York, inspectors have found Iraqi chemical gas at the UN.
UN weapons inspectors stumbled upon evidence of Saddam Hussein's elusive weapons of mass destruction, a vial of lethal chemical gas on the banks of the East River in Turtle Bay.
Now get this, friends.
If you get a drop of this on your skin, it may kill you.
If you're exposed, according to one expert, your lungs would collapse immediately if you inhaled a substance.
This is the chemical gas recovered from Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons facility about a decade ago, the Mutana facility, as they say.
Now I'm confused here, friends, because uh I thought Saddam Hussein didn't have any chemical weapons.
Wasn't that the case?
That uh you know there was no weapon of mass destruction in all of Iraq.
Well, yeah, but this was ten years ago.
So he had him in 1996, but he didn't have him in 2003.
He got religion real quick.
As somebody was saying earlier, we're only a couple of years into the war.
We may discover these in a decade.
Who knows?
But the point here is there were always weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Ask the Kurds.
Uh so you know, it's weird how this premise got started.
There were weapons of mass destruction.
They may not have been nuclear, uh, but the fact is there were chemical weapons of mass.
He was in violation of 17 UN resolutions.
That's the UN.
You know, come to think of it.
Saddam Hussein had chemicals and had uh weapons of mass destruction, so we invaded.
Hmm.
Now the UN has them.
Attack.
Might not be a bad idea.
Rhetorically speaking, of course.
I don't want to be inflammatory here on the program.
Also, according to John Fund at the Wall Street Journal, uh, Hillary's pal Norman Shue may have fled the country.
The fugitive from justice, who is in the uh now infamous latex glove scandal.
Why doesn't that have the same ring to it as the Larry Craig thing?
Just doesn't have the same.
Larry Craig, the senator from Ohio, has a very, very wide stance, apparently, we all know since he goes to the bathroom with a wide stance.
What that just doesn't ring true like, or that rings more true, I guess, to the electronic media than Norman Shue and his latex glove Scandal.
Anyway, the fugitive from justice who funneled over a million dollars to the Hillary Clinton campaign and may have reimbursed other donors, which is clearly illegal, has apparently gone missing.
At least according to our old buddy John Fund at the Wall Street Journal.
Now, this is all reminiscent of the 1996 Clinton fundraising scandal when a total of 120 witnesses either fled the country, pled the fifth, or otherwise were unavailable for questioning.
As we told you yesterday, Hillary Clinton is not commenting on this.
She has two fundraisers today at a Buddhist temple.
So she doesn't have time to comment on this this sort of thing.
Why is this story not getting the sort of uh coverage has the other story?
The Craig story.
This is potentially much more of a much more import on the body politic than Larry Craig, one lowly senator in a bathroom.
New York Times today.
Clinton donor under a cloud of uh in the fraud case, excuse me, that was yesterday.
Today, they're trying to run cover.
New York Times today.
Use of bundlers raises new risks for campaign.
Wait a minute, I'm confused.
Believe it or not, and if you don't, you know, if you don't know if the world is ending, you will now.
When I ran for Congress all the way back in 1990, it was our responsibility to make certain the FEC reports were filed properly.
How does the New York Times headline make any sense when it says use of bundlers raises new risks for campaigns?
So they're the victims.
Hillary was a victim because her hillraiser was illegally funneling money, so the allegation goes.
No, I I don't think so.
I don't think so.
But here we go again.
It's happened so many times.
Here's Larry Craig's defense, the guy, you know, the Idaho Senator in trouble.
I got it down.
He needs to do this about twenty more times, and we'll get desensitized to it, like we have on the Hillary Clinton fundraising scandals, and nobody well, that's just Hillary.
That's the way they raise money.
It's just the Kennedys.
That's the way those guys are in that family when it comes to wives.
And it's just Larry Craig, that crazy knucklehead, what'll he do next?
This is restroom number 38.
Then people forget about it.
That's what you do.
But when it happens the first time, by the way, I do have something to say about Craig one more time, and I know it's getting boring, but uh gosh, the cable news channels last night.
You've got you've got potentially foreign money coming into the United States again.
You know why there's a ban on foreign money coming into campaigns?
It's called dual loyalty.
We don't want the government to be swayed by potential adversaries, which may or may not be the Chinese, hard to say.
That's an important story.
If campaigns are being bought off, if there's a potential for blackmail, and yet 24-7 Larry King on.
I don't know what it is, but something disturbs me about Larry King talking about a gay meeting in a restroom.
There's something just odd there.
The stall to stall coverage is snurvy puts it.
So anyway, Craig is getting pillardied.
The Republicans are throwing him under the uh the cars, they say, under the bus, under the semi in this particular case.
And the New York Times is having a field day here in New York.
They're saying, well, it just goes to show you how homophobic Republicans are.
They're they're, you know, look at Vitter down in Louisiana.
Oh, say or uh heterosexual scandal, no problem.
But Larry Craig, oh, they're homophobic.
Well, does that mean that the New York Times and the quasi defenders of Mr. Craig endorse public sex in a restroom?
Does that mean that's okay?
You know, there's a mayor, I think it's down in Fort Lauderdale, who's under fire because he's portraying City Park restrooms as popular gay sex spots, and he opposes a plan to house a gay book collection in a public library.
He insists on using the word homosexual because he says they aren't gay, they're unhappy.
And he wants to close down the bathhouses.
And he's catching hell for this down in Fort Lauderdale.
Now, I'm confused.
If you're saying that Republicans are treating uh Larry Craig unfairly because he was involved in a potential gay sting, does that mean you approve then of this sort of of anonymity when it comes to public sex that they ought to get together in any bathhouse they want, any park?
What is it?
I want to know.
That's what the disapproval is about, whether it's heterosexual or homosexual.
But there's another point to this, and that is the false premise of sainthood.
The liberal left believes that those people who have values and fall short, the moral majoritarians, if you will, are hypocrites.
They're inconsistent.
There's another family values Republican falling short.
You know what they do is they simply say, the Jerry Studs, the Barney Frank crowd, the mainstream media crowd, we're not inconsistent.
We fall short too, but we have no values.
So therefore, it's a little bit like somebody denying the reality of sin.
We're all sinners.
We're all going to fall short.
We all make mistakes.
That doesn't mean that sin isn't doesn't exist.
That doesn't mean you can deny the reality of sin.
I know what their little game is.
Their little game is to set these guys up for a fall.
The little little game is the false premise of sainthood.
Why, if you're a preacher or if you're a family values person, or dare we say, if you're opposed to gay marriage, you'd better be a saint or else.
Well, that's a setup.
Nobody's a saint.
They're gonna fall short.
That doesn't mean what they're preaching isn't true.
Just means they fell short.
What they say is we don't think there's sin at all.
We can do anything we want.
There's there's no sin in our secular world.
Therefore, when we do the very things that Larry Craig is accused of doing, we can be called hypocrites, so that makes it all right.
I think we call this punting, don't we?
1800, 282-2882, I'm Jason Lewis, in for the great one, Rush Limbaugh.
Your call's coming right up on open line Friday.
1800, 282-2882, open line Friday on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Great to be here on EIB.
I'm Jason Lewis from Minnesota and out in Los Angeles.
Uh let's go to Vermont first before we get to LA and Sean.
You're first up today on Open Line Friday High.
Hi, how are you today?
I'm wonderful, sir.
How are you?
Good.
I was listening to you, and I am I am a progressive or a liberal, whatever you like to say.
And I I think that both progressives and conservatives have values, and when you say they have no values, um I think it's wrong to say that.
Well, then why is it that Jerry Studs, as we talked about yesterday, gets a standing ovation after his little fling with a male page from the Democrats in the House?
Why is it Barney Frank after his roommate was running a brothel out of their town home?
Why is it that he's the chairman of a powerful committee in the House of Representatives?
Why is it that if you're you're open about these things, it's just fine, but if Larry Craig would rather not have this made public, assuming the the worst in all of these allegations, or if you've got a preacher involved in a sex scandal, you know, if you are the the the randiest lout in Hollywood, uh your sexual proclivities are hailed.
Why, it's just wonderful.
But if you are a preacher, why, and you you fall short.
Why the media has 24-7 coverage on Jimmy Swagger anybody else, which doesn't say it doesn't mean I approve of that.
What I say is it's a false premise.
What they're saying is, well, we're going to be harder on those who claim the mantle of values.
Why?
Because they sin.
Everybody sins.
Why aren't they harder on the Hollywood lout?
Well, because he's not claiming that it's a sin.
So it's okay if you deny the reality of sin, but if you say there is sin and I fall short, somehow that's bad.
That's that's a lack of values.
Are you done?
Well, I they do pay me for this, you know.
I do know, and you're doing fine.
I think that the the point is, and I can speak as one.
I feel very badly for this man.
I feel very badly for his family.
I think that, yes, he he set a very high bar, and seemingly you fell short of that bar, but I feel bad for his family.
And I think that, you know, listening to the news reports and and most of the people I talk to share my political persuasion, they're not taking any joy or satisfaction in this.
I think I feel very bad.
There's an inordinate amount of coverage on this vis-a-vis foreign money coming into the Clinton campaign again, for heaven's sakes.
Oh, but that's that's what do you want to talk about?
What do you think is more important to the country?
I don't think I think I don't think I think basically that the conservative media has made the Clinton issue a very well, I'd want you to tell the truth.
The conservative media, what would that be, by the way?
The LA Times?
I think nobody think you're but I'm saying what I'm saying is I think that it's made a big issue, and I think in some respects that listening to talk radio, they've made it a very big issue because it kind of it kind of overshadows this other thing.
I think both of these are are not good issues.
You know, the question is is that you're challenging, I guess, on the Clinton issue on the money is was there some surreptitious uh strategy or deceitful strategy?
And there's nothing that I've seen, nor apparently that anyone has seen.
Really?
Oh, so the so the the the family of a male carrier in Daily City, California, earning a modest income, surprise, surprise, donates two hundred grand to the Clinton machine and the Democratic machine out of the blue, and they have this relationship with Norman Shu.
Uh that doesn't surprise you at all.
And now apparently the guy's gone missing.
There's no history of this.
Can you say no controlling legal authority?
Buddhist fundraisers, can you say hard money and soft money?
I mean, there's a history of this, and it presents a much greater danger than Larry Craig's wide stance in a restroom stall.
And the point I'm making, Sean, is not to I said yesterday that Craig should resign.
I said he should have r resigned years ago.
But I'm saying what I'm saying is, last night on all of the cable stations, 24-7, it was what?
Larry Craig.
Now, why the inordinate amount of coverage?
Oh, I think it's I think it's titillating.
I listened to Larry King last night in his his one attorney said it's a titillating thing.
What are all the talkshows going to bring?
They're going to bring a thing that it's much easier to talk about sex than it is to talk about about money.
Sean, nice try, but that does not explain the editorial glee in the Times this morning across the country calling the Republicans homophobic because you know the family values guy bites the dust and they're gonna throw them under the bus uh because it was a homosexual scandal.
It's the sign of the Republican problem because they're homophobic.
So if you're if you're not homophobic again, apparently, if you're pro-gay rights in a very radical sense, then you can do anything you want in public.
But if you're not, well, well, then then there's a different standard for you.
That's my point.
Thanks for checking in in uh Tampa, Florida.
You're uh you're Mark, I should say.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hey, how are you this afternoon?
I'm fine, sir.
Uh I just had a little question uh in reference to the Larry Craig case.
Uh since when is it illegal to pick up somebody gay or straight in a restroom or anywhere else for that matter?
Snorley put you up to this, didn't he?
Now I now I know why we went to Mark near Tampa right off the bat.
There you go.
There is a fine line.
I'll be the first to admit.
I mean, the law is very subjective.
We convict people beyond a reasonable doubt.
What's reasonable?
People have to decide that.
And what's you know, what's reasonable about coming up to uh to a young woman and say, hey, I like your dress, uh, or something.
Well, you can't even do that anymore, I guess.
Of course, it could be a man, so you gotta watch that as well.
Nevertheless, the point is it is a i th there isn't this bright line there.
But once you start in a public restroom to play footsee with the guy in the next stall, you're lucky to get out of there without a broken nose, let alone getting busted by the cops.
That goes beyond hitting on somebody.
Is there a law against that?
Like, um, I I don't understand.
Uh there's no law that says you can't play footsee.
I just when is that illegal?
Well, there's a law against solicitation.
And a solicitation has various permutations.
Was it and rubbing your foot against mine while I'm trying to do my business is probably one of them.
Was there an exchange of uh was there a change of money or the mention of an exchange of money for for this?
Well, it wasn't a matter of prostitution, it was a matter of sex in a public place.
And even the first amendment doesn't cover that yet.
Somebody that to have sex, they don't have to agree.
It's not against what happens.
Yes, it is against the law.
I mean, I know obscenity when I see it to quote a Supreme Court justice.
And when you're having sex in a public display, as long as it's not funded by the NEA, it's illegal.
So Foot Footy is gay sex, thank.
Well, this restroom is a haven for this sort of thing, we are told, and that that along with the hand signs, apparently is the signal.
So they were getting ready to, according to the cop, according to the police report.
So if I wave at a lady and say, hey, you look at the wheel.
Well, let me just no, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Mark, let me ask you.
No, I didn't say wave at a lady.
Let me ask you.
You're going to the bathroom with your abnormally wide stance, and somebody, somebody starts to rub your foot.
What are you going to do?
I say, look, I ain't gay.
Stop rubbing my foot.
Move on.
And he'd say, Are you sure you're not latent?
All right, Mark, thanks.
Appreciate the call in LA where I spent one balushi-filled year out in Canoga Park.
Here's Jim.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program with me, Jason Lewis.
Hi.
Thanks, Jason.
Appreciate the taking my time.
My pleasure.
Taking your time.
Um I look at this as a very I don't want to say very good thing, but I think it's another defining moment for the Republicans.
And the Democrats, too.
This thing with um the double standard, it really isn't a double standard.
The Republicans have set the bar, and our bar is we're honest and we're up front, and we don't live double lifestyles and cheat on our wives.
And the remote area.
Well, Barney Frank.
Those things they don't care about.
So when we do it, you bet they jump on us.
Because they're they're pointing out the fact that our bay our line of fan is right here.
And when we cross it, they jump all over for it.
Well, that's true.
There is that double standard, but they don't necessarily have a double standard or lead secret lives.
Barney Frank's out in the open.
It's just a different view.
They since you don't claim to be a saint, you don't claim to have quote unquote family values.
Therefore, apparently that gives you carte blanche to do anything you want.
I think this is a cultural defining moment back after this.
Hey gang, don't fear.
Rush will be back on Tuesday.
Best of Rush on Monday.
You don't want to miss that.
I am Jason Lewis.
Great honor to be here on the Rush Limbaugh program talking about well the scandal everybody is talking about.
No, it's not the Clintons.
Surprise, surprise.
Is somebody covering up for uh I mean it's really all right, let me just put it to you this way.
If you don't think this is about the underlying values, then how do you people I mean the liberal left is defending Larry Craig?
Now I'm assuming, probably unfair to Mr. Craig, but I'm assuming some of the allegations are true.
The cop didn't know who he was when he got busted, so what would be his reason for going after a guy he didn't know was a senator if he was trying to rise up the ranks.
So the liberal left is defending Mr. Craig, so I'm assuming, I guess, that they think that public sex is okay, that they would be opposed to what the mayor of Fort Lauderdale is trying to do when he's trying to crack down on what's going on in their public parks, the park restrooms and everything else.
This guy's under assault down in Fort Lauderdale.
He proposed public bathrooms whose doors automatically unlock after a short time, a feature he said would discourage the sex acts.
So is is that what we're to believe, then?
All right, if you if you're saying that Larry Craig is being thrown under the bus because of homophobia, are you then in favor of this?
Now, Mark from Tampa makes some you know fairly good points on okay, where do you draw the line?
When does it become actual solicitation?
But above and beyond that, when it is actual fornication, either gonna be forward or against it.
And I guess I'm left to believe that some people are for it, and therefore if they get caught doing it, why it's okay because I was never against it at all.
That's sort of that sort of premise, what we call a false premise, uh uses or abuses the term consistency.
Is it better to to acknowledge sin and fall short, or is it better to deny that sin exists and do anything you want?
That's the cultural debate here.
That's why it's a cultural defining moment.
By the way, down in Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa, a state judge yesterday struck down Iowa's law banning same-sex marriage, or ordered the county recorder to permit the gay and lesbian couples there in Iowa, both of them, to marry.
How many gay and lesbian couples are at the Iowa State Fair this year?
Come on.
Nevertheless, this is what happened.
This is why some people want to amend their state constitutions.
It's not to protect them against a federal judge striking down the Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA so that someone could import it through the full faith and credit clause.
I mean, that was the fear.
I don't know if you're aware.
After Massachusetts, everybody was afraid people would go to Massachusetts, then they'd come back to their state, you'd have to recognize the marriage there because of something called the full faith and credit clause.
Now, granted, Congress invoked a public policy exception to that clause.
If my driver's license is good here, it's good in Alabama.
It's good in California.
That's the full faith and credit clause.
But there is a public policy exception right in the Constitution that says Congress may, by general laws, prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, or proceedings shall be proved and the effect thereof.
So Congress denied the full faith and credit application on this particular issue on people getting married in one state, gay marriage and being imported in another state when they pass DOMA with that Bill Clinton signed.
A federal judge might strike down DOMA, and then somebody could go to another state, get married, and your state would have to honor it.
But that doesn't do anything about state judges who miraculously find in the due process clause and the equal protection clause the right for gay marriage in Iowa.
The only thing that could stop that would be restoring sanity to the bench and or a state constitutional amendment.
What's fine fascinating about this is what these judges are doing are neutering the police power of the states.
They are neutering the police power of the states.
Remember what what what the police power is.
The Constitution was written to protect us from the central government.
It was written to protect the states and the individuals from the central government.
It wasn't written to tell the states which laws they should pass, which laws they could they could impose on behavior.
If that's the case, if only um marriage between heterosexuals is discriminatory, then I guess the Equal Protection Clause would ban laws against marijuana.
Laws against prostitution.
They clearly discriminate on the basis of behavior.
And the Equal Protection Clause, in its distorted view, says you got to treat everything equal.
Of course, that's not what the Equal Protection Clause meant.
The Equal Protection Clause came out of the 14th Amendment, the Civil War amendments that essentially said for at least the next a hundred years that states can make all sorts of laws under their police powers option, but they've got to apply them equally, black and white.
It doesn't tell the states which laws to make.
And so we've distorted the Equal Protection Clause.
We've told schools they've got to spend more money on that nonsense.
Now state judges are doing it.
And this is just the diminution, if you will, or the destruction of that old relic we used to call the Constitution.
1-800-282-2882.
I'm Jason Lewis in for Rush Limbaugh up in Guilford, Maine.
Here is Chris.
You're next up on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Hey, Jason.
I would say more the double standard thing in answer to your question about why they're covering it 24-7.
I mean, like I said to the call screener, you know, you don't have Republicans out there burning top-secret documents that they stole out of the National Archives, right?
But that didn't get even as much time already as this Larry Craig thing.
It's amazing.
It's amazing that, you know, Clinton pardoned terrorists who actually blew things up and killed cops in New York.
But, you know, Bush commutes a sentence to a guy that just forgot how he said something, you know.
I mean, remembering whether or not you had your tie on or not that day.
Don't give me going on the scooter Libby.
Talk about I mean, talk about a renegade prosecutor and Mr. Fitzgerald.
I mean, you here you have no underlying crime.
Why didn't Patrick Fitzgerald?
I'm sorry I digress here, but I got to get my two cents in.
Why didn't Fitzgerald charge anybody else, Mr. Armitage or anybody else, with an underlying crime?
I don't understand.
It's a total double standard.
Well, now let me let me finish.
Let me finish my point.
How then can Scooter Libby be accused of perjury over something that wasn't a crime?
I'd I That's called a perjury trap.
I know, that's what I don't understand, that the double standard that exists right now in the media for the Democrats and Republicans, I mean, all the people that he pardoned at the end of his sentence, I mean, at the end of his administration that Clinton pardoned, I mean, these guys, they're talking about Enron.
I mean, these guys were were Enron plus.
I mean, these huge, you know, rich.
Mark Rich in the game.
Well, you remember his wife was getting ready to run for the Senate in New York.
I mean, you gotta take a proactive stance here.
Come on.
Uh yeah, you're right.
It's it's horrible.
I mean, the greatest double standard recently here is the U.S. attorney scandal, which finally brought down Gonzalez.
I wasn't a big required all of them.
I wasn't a big fan of Gonzalez, but you're right.
Bill Clinton walks in there to get rid of the guy in Little Rock investigating Whitewater and maybe the guy investigating Rostinkowski in Chicago, too.
They clean house on all 93 sitting U.S. attorneys in 1993.
And you know, we like to see Bill Clinton projecting power, the power of the executive, like Hamilton said, energy in the executive.
Bush six years into his term or into his presidency, gets rid of what?
Six?
Eight, I thought.
Six or eight.
They're thinking about six or eight, apparently.
Same thing as the travel office.
I mean, they fired everybody in the travel office, right?
I mean, these guys are the worst people to have in there.
I can't even believe that they would even have a chance of getting back into the White House.
It's so unbelievable.
I mean, even stealing the stuff out of the White House, everything they did was low life.
And now they're absolutely apoplectic about the wireless tapping that's going on over terrorism.
We're going to spy on terrorists and they're going nuts over that.
Well, tell me again about those eleven hundred FBI files that somehow found their way to the White House.
Talk about a warrantless search.
Yeah, I think it could go on and on on this stuff, but you're right.
The double standard is deafening.
Bill in Fort Lauderdale, you're next up on EIB.
I'm Jason Lewis in for Rush Limbaugh today.
Hi.
Hi, uh, I'd like to invite uh Larry Craig to come down here and run for mayor.
I knew that was coming.
I knew that.
Well, don't forget your latex gloves.
They'll elect them.
I I would, you know, uh I I'm uh side of the fence, of course, but uh hey, they'd elect them hands down.
What do you mean you're on the other side of the fence?
You've got twice the chance of a date on Saturday night.
Is that what you're trying to say?
I'm a conservative.
I'll I'm uh, you know, I'm I'm not gonna side with these people trying to trying to uh politicize this issue mayor that that they differ with ideologically.
What is the popular view of Mayor Jim Noggle down there in uh Fort Lauderdale trying to rein in the the public sex acts?
Well, I mean, I I can't speak for for the general public, but I mean it just speaking as as an individual, he's he what he's saying is right.
You know, uh public sex in restrooms or anywhere against the law, whether it be homosexual or heterosexual, and it should be um spoken out against.
It should be the laws against it.
Are you sure it isn't symbolic speech?
You know, we have a why we have a wide latitude when it comes to First Amendment jurisprudence.
We need to be open.
We need to encourage this sort of and we need to fund it with an NEA grant.
Maybe they can build a few restrooms down there.
According to police reports, 92 arrests in two and a half years in Fort Lauderdale.
That's about three a month for a lewd and lascivious acts.
You know, this is this is a good example of how the bias in the media is palpable.
The fact of the matter is it can cover the Larry Craig story, but after a while, is there another news angle?
Yeah, the other news angle is gosh, what is the deal with this website that apparently shows 9,000 places where these things go on.
It's uh it's not a very well kept secret on the internet.
That would be a good news angle.
Well, look, okay, Larry Craig, we beat that to death.
Pardon the pun.
Uh let's go on to this other issue and talk about gee, is public sex really a problem.
Well, according to the mayor in Fort Lauderdale and many other places, it sure is.
Why isn't anybody talking about that?
I'm Jason Lewis, in for Rush Limbaugh.
Open line Friday continues when we return.
1800-282-2882, the contact line for the Rush Limbaugh program.
Even when he's taking a well deserved break, I am Jason Lewis filling in for Rush today.
He'll be back on Tuesday.
Best of rush on Monday.
You don't want to miss that.
Back to the phones we go in Wichita, Kansas, Debbie, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hello, Mr. Lewis.
How are you?
Um pretty good.
I'm sorry I've got a bad cell connection, but I just thought you should know that um these sexual acts go on in the schools.
The kids do it.
Um I just just tuned into your program and heard what you're talking about.
And um I've heard of incidences where my kids um there's group kids will group around and shelter the kids that are doing sexual acts behind the staircase, um, was one, and when I chaperone the dance, we had to keep breaking up circles because the kids will circle around and hide kids that are doing sexual acts in the middle.
Is this what they call hooking up?
I have no idea.
No idea.
I just know I chaperone that one dance.
Um I'm generally fairly sheltered from it.
So for me to have actually been exposed to it is kind of surprising.
Well, you know, those liberal parents in the suburbs of Wichita, they'll probably say, Oh, those knucklehead kids, those crazy cooks, what'll they do next?
That was not Wichita.
That was not in my um sorry, my um they're military and that was a different school system in Texas.
Don't want to degrade Wichita, do we?
Sorry, no, it wasn't their fault.
You know, it's funny.
With all of the you know, I want to get into this a little later in the program, John Edwards is now suggesting a federal ban on smoking.
I'm not making this up with all the emphasis on smoking.
Let me ask you a blunt question.
I've done this before to people.
If you've got a 13 or 14 or even a 15-year-old, and they're either going to A, try a cigarette, or B, try a little sex.
What would you have your young man or young woman try?
Well, I mean, this is this is kind of, you know, the lesser of two evils, obviously.
But if you had to choose as a parent, what would it be?
I'd say the long-term consequences of smoking are probably less.
Yeah, duh, you think?
You know, you take a drug.
I really do.
And yet, where is the outrage over this?
We are such a sex-filled culture.
I mean, where is the outrage?
And I you know, look, I I'm not gonna sit here on my on my uh holier than thou pedestal when I you when I was in college, they thought I was majoring in agriculture.
I was sowing so many oats.
But the the point here is that you look at all of the ramifications of this premature sex.
I mean, you've STDs are up, illegitimacy is still up, even despite the success of welfare reform.
What is more detrimental to the youth, and yet you would think some kid behind the barn smoking a drag for the first time at fifteen is the end all.
Is the the the end of the world as we know it?
And This is talk about a perverse sense of priorities.
Where where are all the nanny state liberals when it comes to that?
Oh, I agree.
I just I think I think it just comes down to just stripping our kids of their innocence.
It's just sad.
Yeah, it really it really is.
They have no innocence anymore.
It's called Primetime TV.
Yeah, you couldn't be more correct.
Debbie, thanks for checking in today down to uh beautiful Bryant, Texas, and Scott, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hey, Scott.
Hello, Jason.
Uh great show.
Uh great, great example, by the way, keeping things in perspective.
I'd like to change subject a little bit here, and I just like to uh say that that uh uh President Bush continues to justify this Iraq war under the auspices of protecting or creating a democracy and protecting freedom and all that sort of business.
A much easier way of doing so, it seems to me would have been to side with Taiwan instead of communist China in their bid for membership in the UN.
Well, now look, you've got to understand nobody was talking about invading Iraq before a little incident uh just a few miles south of where I am called 9-11.
Uh there was there a connection there?
Uh actually there wasn't a direct connection, but there is a regional connection, and that is if you if you the theory was, and I'm not saying he was definitely right or wrong.
I'm certainly not one of those, though, that will arbitrarily say, I know all the answers and is definitely wrong.
Things don't work out that cleanly.
What I'm saying is the theory was sound, and that was if we could establish a pro-Western Arab democracy in that part of the world, then perhaps we could give alternatives to the Muslim community other than radicalism.
Now, I I do you think those of you out there that are dead set against the Iraq conflict, what would you have done?
I mean, we did go into Afghanistan, routed the Taliban as much as we could, but if o Osama bin Laden is hiding in the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Musharif says no foreign troops in our country, uh, what would you have done?
Would you have gone into Pakistan?
No, the fact is you wouldn't have done anything.
And that's not much of an alternative, is it?
Well, I think that Saddam was actually very pro-Western, and until we more or less set him up with the Kuwait invasion, uh, you can look up April Gillasby on that.
And uh Scott, don't forget Scott Ritter.
Right.
I mean, look he was he was very much a useful person.
He wasn't a boy scout.
So he was invading Kuwait was just fine.
Well, uh actually, according to our uh representative, April, who said that uh we would not be involved in in Arab affairs when it's a very good thing.
Wait, no, no, you're begging the question.
In invading Kuwait was just fine.
Well, they were s he was accusing them of slant drilling into his oil fields, and he came to us.
You don't think he had he had look, there has been, and I gotta let you go, Scott, but there has been this view of pan-Arabism uh long before 1947 in the state of Israel, long before we got involved in the Middle East, and there's always been this competition among Arab leaders who would control the entire region.
And you're right, there's been this Sunni Sunni Shiite balancing act, but if somebody gets the upper hand, uh then you've got a real problem.
And whether it's it was Nasser or Nasser or anybody else, there's been this view of pan Arab that one ruler should control the entire region.
And if you allow that to happen, I don't think that's probably healthy for the West.
I'm Jason Lewis, got a break.
You're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Don't go away.
You know, pursuant to uh Scott from Texas, we'll have a different view next hour when Pete Heggseth of vets for freedom.
You hear a lot about these these uh military guys or a few generals that come out against the war, they get all the media attention.
What about the vast majority of military men and women that support the effort in Iraq?
Well, vets for freedom represents them, and Pete Heggseth, who's also an Iraqi vet, will join us uh next hour to give their view.
Speaking of the nanny state, I gotta get this in before the hours up, and that is back in uh Cedar Rabbids, Iowa.
Is there a race going on in Iowa?
Is there a caucus or something?
Oh, yes.
Back in Cedar Rabbits, Iowa, last Monday, John Edwards told a uh candidate's forum that he would favor a nationwide federal ban on smoking in public places.
Now remember, smoking in public places now means private property.
The number of places have sm smoking bans in public places that now, by the way, include it could be your car, it could be a restaurant, it could be your bar, it could be that's a private property.
You're paying the mortgage on that, not the government.
But by the way, just where in the Constitution, once again, Mr. Edwards does allow the federal government to ban smoking between two citizens of the same state?
Show me where that is in enumerated power.
Interstate commerce clause.
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