Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hey, folks, great to have you with us here as we get ready to launch, fully revved up here for three hours of broadcast excellence on the EIB network, hosted by me, Rush Limbaugh, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, all everything, maha rushy.
Our telephone number, 800-282.
I was just thinking I might not have time for calls today, but I will squeeze them in.
800-282-2882, email address, rusheibnet.com.
I kid you not.
Scientists have just discovered, and I will have details of this as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears today.
Scientists have just discovered that the primary chemical reaction they thought was happening in the atmosphere that resulted in the depletion of ozone is not happening at all, or it's 10 times less.
The bottom line is, just like the Oat Brand scare and the coffee scare, we're back to square one.
We have no idea what is causing ozone depletion.
In the meantime, we've gotten rid of CFCs.
We have gotten rid of Freon.
It's now a dangerous risk every time we launch the space shuttle, all to protect the ozone, and it was bogus.
It never, it was wrong.
We don't know diddly squat about it.
I'll have to tell you, we ought to also Jane Goodell, Goodall, you know, this is the babe that loves the gorillas.
She says that biofuel crops hurt the rainforests, and the race to grow crops for vehicle fuels is damaging rainforests in Asia, Africa, and South America.
Well, that means that's the end of ethanol, because when Jane Goodall speaks, she's like the queen.
All right, do you think, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, those of you that were listening to this program yesterday, do you remember the call from Jill in Ithaca in the first hour calling me a liar because I was interpreting correctly what Mrs. Clinton said Sunday on Stephanopoulos' show, in which she made it plain, there's no way I'm going to get out of Iraq if I'm president.
I don't know what I'm going to inherit in there.
I'll be irresponsible to get out of there.
You lie, she called.
I said, Jill, not only that, no Democrat who's elected president is going to pull us out of Iraq.
If they're in the White House, it ain't going to happen, Jill.
And furthermore, I said, Jill, if a Democrat wins the White House, there will no longer be any bring the troops home resolutions offered by Democrats on Capitol Hill because they're not going to want to embarrass.
You might have some wackle like Conyers do it, just for the sake of it, but there won't be any serious resolutions.
So last night, all of the top-tier Democrat candidates for president said, hell no, we can't pull out of there.
No way.
I will not commit to pulling the troops out when I'm elected president.
Do you think Jill from Ithaca is a little depressed today?
Snurdy shaking his head, no, because you may be right, because she probably heard it.
She probably watched it, doesn't believe it.
Didn't believe it.
She thinks they're just saying whatever they have to say.
Probably, she got to be mad.
See, this is the whole point.
They have been lying to their base.
They have been lying to the country.
And this is not just some meaningless little political issue.
This is national security.
They have divided the country over this for their purely political desires.
And now when they're getting ready for the rubber to hit the road, there's people thinking that one of them might actually have a chance to be elected.
Why, guess what?
When you talk as a future president, a hypothetical, as opposed to just a candidate, my how things change.
Here are the audio soundbites from last night.
The question basically from Tim Russert did a great job last night, by the way.
Really, it's coming up, too.
Just really nailed Hillary on a couple things.
She had her worst debate performance to date last night.
Question, Senator Obama, will you pledge that by January 2013, the end of your first term, more than five years from now, that there will be no troops, U.S. troops in Iraq?
I think it's hard to project four years from now, and I think it would be irresponsible.
We don't know what contingency will be out there.
Senator Clinton, you have said that you will not pledge to have all troops out by the end of your first term 2013.
Why not?
It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting.
We do not know, walking into the White House in January 2009, what we're going to find.
So, it's plain as day.
The next question, Senator Edwards, will you commit that at the end of your first term, 2013, that all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq?
I cannot make that commitment.
Now, I wonder how Code Pink is feeling today, along with Jill and Ithaca and all of the other, the moveon.org.
Code Pink, probably a little blue today, and moveon.org.
These people got to be fit to be tied.
I haven't checked because they're always fit to be tied.
They're always enraged.
But they can't be happy out there.
Now, this, ladies and gentlemen, this debate last night was like a Saturday night live skit.
Did you watch it, Mr. Snirdly?
You watch it again?
This was not a 180.
Let me tell you what happened last night with a Democrat debate.
We got some sound bites.
And I know you say, I don't want to hear these people.
You've got to hear them, Rush.
You've got to hear them because there's teachable moments here.
But this was a 360 followed by a backflip.
Then they did a handstand, a front flip, followed by a 180.
These people were so all over the board last night, it was comedic.
As you just heard, Russert asked, will you pledge to have all the troops out by the end of your first term?
Mrs. Clinton would not.
No surprise there.
She can say whatever suits her whenever it suits her.
Obama, the man who opposed the war before it started, said he will not pledge.
Mrs. Clinton did pledge a few short weeks ago to have the troops out.
But people have forgotten this.
The Brecht girl proudly changed his mind after he voted for the war, proudly changed his mind.
Said, I'm the only one who admits my vote was wrong, and even he is the one that's starting to change his mind again.
The only one who voted for the war, admitted my vote was wrong, and admitted that it's now wrong to pull out.
So Edwards' position is, and you need a highly trained broadcast specialist and a keen mind like mine to keep up with these people.
Edwards was first out there saying that he was the, he was proud to admit that he had made a mistake in voting for the war.
As is the only one who voted for the war who has admitted my vote was wrong.
And after voting for the war and proudly admitting that his vote was wrong, now he admits that to pull out is wrong.
Jill, Ithaca, are you following this?
I can't make it any plainer.
What's going on here, folks?
Seriously, how could Mrs. Clinton, a few short weeks ago, a few short, by the way, Jill and Ithaca and the rest of you Lib Democrats, I'm going to make a bold prediction to you right now.
Mark this down.
Eastern Time, 121336 on September 27th of 2007.
The general election in 2008 will not be about George W. Bush, nor will the general election in 2008 be about the Iraq war.
The election, presidential election in 2008 will be about the Democrat nominee, most likely Mrs. Clinton, but it's not too late for somebody to stop her.
We get caught up in all this conventional wisdom.
She can be stopped.
But regardless, whoever it is, the election in 2008 is going to be about the Democrat nominee because they're all a bunch of big government, tax-raising, freedom-threatening socialists versus a Republican nominee.
We don't know who it's going to be, but likely the Democrat nominee is going to be a typical inside-the-beltway D.C. insider.
And the Republican nominee is likely going to guess right now, likely be somebody that's not of D.C. Rudy, Mitt.
Thompson hadn't been there in a long time.
So you've got to have the classic setup.
You're going to have the classic big government, tax everything that you can see, take away as many individual freedoms, day-to-day freedoms as possible, versus a Washington outsider and the future of the country and what kind of country we want it to be.
And you left-wing activists out there, you anti-war activists, you're about to be swept under the rug in terms of your relevance and importance, other than your vote, in defining the issues that will make up the 2008 presidential campaign.
And when they realize this, I fully hope that they will show up at the Democrat convention in Denver and raise hell like they did in Chicago in 1968.
And they're getting ready, I'll tell you, with all these Democrat top-tier candidates committing to stay in Iraq.
And that's what they did.
They didn't just commit to pull out by then.
They committed to stay until 2013.
So, folks, fireworks are ahead and down the road.
But here's Mrs. Clinton.
Now, a few short weeks ago, days ago maybe, she makes a pledge.
She said, if President Bush won't pull the troops out, I will.
Yay!
Yay!
Some group that wanted to hear that.
Then in the debate last night, she does her impression of Jackie Gleason and the honeymooners.
That's how Jackie Gleason avoided dealing with anything.
Everybody watches the reruns of that show.
You watch reruns of that show, The Honeymooners?
Oh, I used to watch.
That's Alice to the moon.
Couldn't do that on TV today if you wanted to.
Now, what's caused these people to change their mind so publicly?
This is an interesting question, and we'll explore it after this timeout.
Stay with us.
Hi, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, living legend.
Not just a radio legend, as the Johnny Donovan promo says, but a genuine living legend, a national treasure, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and servant of humanity.
In fact, all mankind and animal kind.
And I accomplished this simply by showing up.
We're back at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
So, by the way, and I predicted this, I want to be, I'd love to do these.
See, I told you so.
Back in April, I remember my exact words, folks, a dirty little secret is whoever wins a Democrat nomination will not pull us out of Iraq.
They're not going to saddle themselves with defeat.
And now they make me look like the genius I am.
You would think they'd get together back there and say, you know, we cannot make Limbaugh look good.
We just can't continue to do this.
But obviously that meeting, if held, was ignored, probably not held.
So the question is, why change their minds?
What's the flip-flop?
There's got to be a reason.
There always is with these people.
Was it General Petraeus?
Was it the disdainful questions, the suspensions of disbelief?
Was it the polling data that said Mr. General Petraeus swamped those people, loved by the 61% of the American people?
Was it campaign polls?
Was it Move On and their ad, which bombed big time?
Was it all of the above?
Maybe it's the surge.
The surge of the surge, the improving conditions, the possibility of military victory.
Have you noticed how little news there is coming out of Iraq?
That means there's good news there.
And the drive-bys are ignoring it.
So the question I have, my friends, is this.
The one question yet to be asked, when will the real Democrat candidate come forward?
The man or woman who wants to lead the country.
We don't have candidates for leadership up there on that Democrat stage last night.
You know what those candidates were?
They were campaigning for a new title in the government called Navigator-in-Chief.
They were navigating all through the night, avoiding tough issues, maneuvering through tough questions and trying not to answer them, steering clear of any core beliefs, giving a wide berth to real issues, changing course every time a new poll comes out.
I mean, Mrs. Clinton's already a professional navigator.
Obama's getting a hang of it.
And Edwards, Ditto.
But leaders, any of them come off as leaders?
Would you entrust any of those people, if you watched this last night, with your family's health care?
That people are about to do it.
There's a sickening, depressing poll out.
Now, one of the sickening, depressing things about it is it tells me I'm not working hard enough.
And that's depressing.
And this is a Rasmussen poll.
Are you ready?
44% of American adults say that health care services should be made available for free to all Americans.
Rasmussen reports, National Telephone Survey found that 39% disagree.
17% are not sure.
52% say that reducing health care costs are a higher priority than making sure everybody's insured.
39% take the opposite view.
Most Democrats, 57%, say that providing insurance for everybody is a top priority.
Most Republicans, 71%.
And those not affiliated with either party, 52%, say reducing costs should be the priority.
Now, if you raise the ante on this, and if you ask the question, should beer be free for all Americans, 94% of the American people agree on this.
Mr. Rasmussen needs to ask some questions.
If you had to stand in line for six months in order to get your gallbladder removed, would you support a nationalized health care system that you think is free?
There are any number of questions like that can be asked to totally change this around.
But I'll tell you, I think this is actually being very selfish, ladies and gentlemen.
Why stop at Americans?
We're no better than anybody else.
Why not free health care for everybody globally at all times?
This is sort of like the minimum wage argument.
What is the minimum wage now?
Give me a ballpark, seven and a half.
Don't quote me on this.
I did give me a ballpark figure.
It doesn't matter, $7.50.
I just said it's what it is.
Well, why not $10?
Yeah, that's even better.
Limboy is a good idea.
Okay, well, I'm not drinking 15.
Whoa, that sounds cool, too.
I could live on that.
Screw that.
Let's just guarantee everybody an income of $100,000 a year in this country.
Oh, we can't do that.
Well, why?
Well, just, I mean, at some point, everybody reaches that level where they realize it's not possible.
And the simple thing about this is that whatever the number is, it's a flawed concept, this whole concept of the minimum wage.
So 44% favor free health care for all Americans.
I mean, we're getting close to the circumstance here, folks, where we're living under mob rule.
You let this number get over 50, 55%, and you can forget it.
You're going to be paying for all those people's free health care.
But why stop at Americans?
Free people.
Free health care for everybody on the globe.
Why stop at people?
After all, other species, very planet itself, have rights.
Why not free health care for every domesticated animal?
Free health care for every animal in the zoo.
Where does this stop?
And if we're going to grant free health care to all Americans, who the hell are we?
What right do we have to deny other peoples of the world free health care?
Let's see.
Let's grab a call here because I got two soundbites I want to play in the next segment.
I don't have time to play them both in the limited amount of time we have here.
So we'll go to Connecticut.
This is Ron.
Welcome to the EIB Network, sir.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Rush.
Hi.
So I've been a little anguished over the years listening to you and Sean and some of the others talking about liberals and anti-war movement, liberals and big government.
And I just, yesterday, I sort of had it when you were talking about the liberals against the war.
You know, there may be, I mean, there's a political sentiment on the left that I think political scientists called weenies.
But they aren't liberals.
And there are progressives, and they aren't liberals.
You know, the ultimate liberal was JFK.
You know, we will pay any price and bear any burden to assure the progress of liberty.
Right, I agree.
That was liberal.
Well, but was.
He ain't now alive, and that he believed will not be found coming out of the mouth of any elected Democrat today.
Well, that's, but just don't call them liberals.
You know, you can call them.
No, no, no, no.
Here we go.
I'm sorry.
I'm not going to be talked out of this.
A liberal today is a liberal.
If it doesn't fit you, then stop being a liberal.
Join us.
If you're a JFK liberal, you're a conservative.
Time you cross the aisle.
We have a home for you.
But I'm not going to sit here and change the definition of the term just so people don't get their feelings upset because there's no way in the world that anybody alive today liberalism associates it with JFK.
Reagan tax cuts.
When's the last time you heard a Democrat talking about tax cuts?
Serious rates in tax rates.
Reductions in tax rates.
It doesn't happen.
Now, I understand to be a liberal, that's why the term progressives invented our open-mindedness is to make sure that the term is not applied to you.
The truth is the truth.
And I'm sorry it offends.
We'll be back.
Stay with it.
Yeah, we're back.
Rush Limbaugh, half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
I don't need any more than that to deal with the libs that call on this program or even those who are listening.
In fact, I wish I could find a way to get the half my brain I'm not using into your hands, for example, and up the intelligence level significantly of the entire audience.
Sometimes I do wire up the whole thing, but you'll never know the difference.
Well, you might if you listen carefully.
About this Rasmussen poll on health care, Scott Rasmussen himself, 44% of the American people want free national health care.
44%.
Getting close to mob rule.
Now, Ras Mussom was on Fox News this morning talking about his poll.
And one of the things he said was fascinating.
He said, yeah, 44% of the American people want free health care, free national health care.
But he said, if you look in the internals of my poll, 70% of the American people are satisfied with their coverage.
Okay, now we've got a disconnect here.
70% are satisfied, yet 44% say they want free health care.
You know what this reminds me of?
It reminds me of polls always taken during the economy's downturns, or even in the good times.
What's your opinion on the future of the country?
It looks bad out there.
Why do you think, well, I'm doing okay, but my neighbors, I hear they're not doing too well, a housing slump and a credit card crunch and all that.
And well, how can that be?
How can you're doing okay, and so you feel bad that you're doing okay because you think everybody else is down and out?
Who's responsible for that?
Years and years, days and days, months and months, whatever you want to call it, however you want to characterize it, of negative coverage on the economy by the drive-bys.
And it's the same thing here with healthcare.
70% of the American people like their coverage and like the systems.
Don't mess with it.
Fix it within the confines of making it even better.
Anyway, more on that as the program unfolds.
We got two sound bites here, and you must hear them.
This is Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton.
Russert says, Senator Clinton, I have a proposal hypothetical to you.
You got the number three man in al-Qaeda.
We know there's a bomb about to go off.
We have three days.
We know this guy knows where it is.
Should there be a presidential exception to allow torture in that kind of situation?
Now, he reads her a quote from a guest on Meet the Press who says, yes, the president should ask for an exemption on this.
And by virtue of executive order, in an emergency, the ticking time bomb scenario, Russert's guests said, yes, the president should have that kind of authority.
Here's Mrs. Clinton's answer to the question, should there be a presidential exception to allow torture in that kind of situation?
As a matter of policy, it cannot be American policy, period.
In addition to the values that are so important for our country to exhibit, is that there is very little evidence that it works.
But these hypotheticals are very dangerous because they open a great big hole in what should be an attitude that our country and our president takes toward the appropriate treatment of everyone.
And I think it's dangerous to go down this path.
The guest who laid out this scenario for me with that proposed solution was William Jefferson Clinton last year.
So he disagreed with you.
Well, he's not standing here right now.
So there is a disagreement.
Well, I'll talk to him later.
Ooh.
Now, I was stunned.
You don't see Democrats set up like this in these debates.
You don't see Democrats tricked like this.
It was a setup.
Well, it was clever setup.
No, no, it was not a, it was not.
You can say it's a gotcha.
This is the exact kind of things they do with Republicans, but this doesn't happen when Democrats are in the midst of a debate.
Tim Russert.
Nope.
I'm going to ruin his reputation if I applaud him here.
I just will, I'll say no more about it than I have.
But that, yeah, you can call it a setup.
Tough question and rather CBS news.
Tough questions.
Whatever.
But do you folks, do you know the ice and the daggers?
I hope Russert got out of there with his testicles not in her lockbox because they've been in there for a while.
But obviously, he got them out of there somebody because they were on.
That was I did a double take.
Well, the person who told me this is your husband, William Jefferson Clinton.
So you disagree?
Well, he's not standing here right now.
And if he were, that's where my mind went.
What would happen to him?
We'll talk to him later.
Next, this is a battle that Russert and Hillary had.
Not going to set it up.
Just listen.
Senator Clinton, in 1981, the Israelis took out a nuclear reactor in Iraq.
On September 6th, to the best of our information, Israel attacked Syria because there was suspicion that perhaps North Korea had put some nuclear materials in Syria.
If Israel concluded that Iran's nuclear capability threatened Israel's security, would Israel be justified in launching an attack on Iran?
Tim, I think that's one of those hypotheticals that is better not addressed at this time.
What is real life is what apparently happened in Syria.
So let's take that one step at a time.
I know what the question is, but I think it's important to lay out what we know about Syria because we don't have as much information as I wish we did.
But what we think we know is that with North Korean help, both financial and technical and materiel, the Syrians apparently were putting together and perhaps over some period of years a nuclear facility.
And the Israelis took it out.
I strongly support that.
We don't have any more information than what I have just described.
It is highly classified.
It is not being shared.
But I don't want to go a step further and talk about what might or might not happen down the road with Iran.
But I think it is fair to say what happened in Syria, so far as we know, I support.
My question is, would the Israelis be justified if they felt their security was being threatened by the presence of a nuclear presence in Iran and they decided to take military action?
Would they be justified?
Well, Tim, I'm not going to answer that because what I understand is that there was evidence.
Well, let me just finish and then Mike and Dennis can answer.
But there was evidence of a North Korea freighter coming in with supplies.
There was intelligence and other kinds of verification.
So I don't think it's a question of if they feel it.
That is a much higher standard of proof.
Apparently, it was met with respect to Syria.
You will all be running against a Republican opponent, perhaps Rudy Giuliani.
This is what he said.
Iran is not going to be allowed to build a nuclear power.
If they get to a point where they're going to become in nuclear power, we will prevent them.
We will set them back eight to ten years.
That is not said as a threat.
That should be said as a promise.
Would you make a promise as a potential commander-in-chief that you will not allow Iran to become a nuclear power and will use any means to stop it?
Well, what I have said is that I will do everything I can to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, including the use of diplomacy, the use of economic sanctions, opening up direct talks.
We haven't even tried.
That's what is so discouraging about this.
So then you have the Republican candidates on the other side jumping to the kind of statements that you just read to us.
We need a concerted, comprehensive strategy to deal with Iran.
We haven't had it.
We need it, and I will provide it.
What's the lesson to be learned from this soundbite?
Who did Mrs. Clinton just blame for Iran's nuclear ideas and expansion?
She blamed us.
She blamed the United States.
This is the blame America first crowd, folks, and they haven't ever gone away.
They have just resurfaced.
She wouldn't answer a direct question about anything.
This business about Syria, by the way, I mentioned this yesterday.
This is more important than anybody knows for all this fawning media attention that Ahmedinezad got here.
He and Basher Assad are quaking in their boots, as are those mullahs, because the Israelis flew deep into Syria to make this attack, and the Syrians didn't know what had happened until afterwards.
They never knew that the Israelis were coming.
Now, what's interesting about this is they've got state-of-the-art detection systems installed by the Russians, and they failed.
They utterly, totally failed.
The Iranians probably have the same detection installations from Russia.
The Israelis were able to get deep in there.
This is not just a little sort penetration just over the border.
They went deep, and the Syrians never knew anything about it until the Israeli bombs went off.
Now, this is important because another great question that she wouldn't answer.
And finally, when she got down to what she really wanted to say about it, it's the fault of the United States of America.
Blame America first.
We haven't even tried to solve the Iranian crisis that we created, she didn't say, but meant.
And frankly, I'm getting fed up with blaming America for these people every damn day I hear it.
Righto, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Why couldn't Mrs. Clinton just say yes to the question, Israel has a right to defend itself?
Why couldn't she just say, well, no, wait, I raised this earlier.
We don't want to elect the navigator-in-chief.
We want to elect a leader.
And these Democrats are not being honest and upfront with us about what they would do in certain situations.
This is not confirmation hearings for Supreme Court judge where you can't talk about the cases that you're going to face.
This is President of the United States.
We are a great nation at risk in a dangerous world.
We're about to elect somebody new to lead us.
It's entirely within our rights to know how this person views the defense of this country.
Mrs. Clinton refuses to tell us.
She insists on blaming us for these problems, such as in, we haven't even talked to the Iranians directly yet.
By the way, wasn't it Mrs. Clinton who tried to make a mockery of Barack Obama for saying that we should?
When Obama said, hell, I'd talk to him directly, and I'd talk to Chavez, and I'd talk, wasn't it Mrs. Clinton who went out there and tried to make a fool out of him?
As though that was a very unpresidential thing to say?
What'd she say last night?
The same thing Obama has.
Well, we haven't even had direct talks yet.
Why?
We haven't even done it.
Why?
It's our fault.
It's a legitimate question, and Israel has the right to defend itself if threatened by Iran with nukes.
See, this is really not about whatever circumstances Bush leaves for Mrs. Clinton to inherit in 09 if she wins the presidency.
This is about her unwillingness to tell the public the truth about where she would go as president and what she would do.
And by the way, this business we haven't tried to talk to Iran hell's bells, folks.
Europe has.
The UN has put in place some weak sanctions.
Ahmadinezad said the other day that he is going to ignore the Security Council or whatever they tell him to do on his uranium enrichment project.
Iran is killing U.S. soldiers.
They're threatening to destroy Israel.
They are out there saying death to America.
Why can't she say, we can't allow Iran to get nukes, period?
Israel should defend itself if threatened.
Why can't she say that?
Why is she afraid of saying it?
It's too black and white.
She wants to be nuanced.
I'll tell you why, is because she wants to have wiggle room to get out of anything, and she can't if she makes a firm statement on something.
She doesn't want to have to stake anything.
This woman wants to be elected president with nobody knowing anything about her.
She flip-flops.
By the way, do you know, ladies and gentlemen, that back last year, 2006, New York Daily News, almost a year ago, October 16th, had a story.
Hillary Clinton did allow torture in a ticking time bomb scenario in a New York Daily News interview.
She said the ticking time bomb scenario represents a narrow exception to her opposition to torture as morally wrong, ineffective, and dangerous to American soldiers.
Quote, in the event we were ever confronted with having to interrogate a detainee with knowledge of an imminent threat to millions of Americans, then the decision to depart from standard international practices must be made by the president.
The president must be held accountable.
That very, very narrow exception within very, very limited circumstances is better than blasting a big hole in our entire law.
Yesterday's Daily News editorial board meeting, it emerged she's not actually against torture in all instances and that her dispute with McCain and Bush is largely procedural.
Asked about the ticking time bomb.
So this is October 12th of 2006, you know, four days before the previous story.
Yeah, she basically came out in favor in an editorial board interview with the New York Daily News, came out in favor of the ticking time bomb scenario for torture.
Last night, no way.
No way, Tim.
It's a hypothetical, not going to do.
Well, your husband says, well, he's not standing.
This woman is all over the board depending on who she thinks wants to hear what at that particular moment.
And that's best definition of dishonest I can give you.
I'll tell you what, you know, if you are a celebrity, pop culture icon, and you want to murder a woman, do it in LA.
You can get away with it.
Phil Spector, hung jury, 10-2 for conviction.
Do we need the other names to remind you of this fact?