Okay, we're back and we've got more broadcast excellence, ladies and gentlemen.
I am Rush Limbaugh, America's anchorman, America's truth detector, the doctor of democracy, general all-around good guy on Friday.
Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
Hey, we're live from New York.
We are high atop the EIB building in midtown Manhattan, one of the most frequently visited tourist sites.
In all of New York City, our telephone number on Open Line Friday is 800-282-2882.
And the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
Openline Friday, we suspend the rules Monday through Thursday.
As you know, I'm a benevolent dictator here.
There is no First Amendment on this show.
Nobody has the right to be heard.
Especially Monday through Thursday.
I only talk about things I care about on Friday.
When we go to the phones, the program's all yours.
You can discuss pretty much whatever you want.
It's right special announcement coming up in about a half hour, 1.33 this afternoon, after the break at the bottom of the hour.
A super special announcement that you're going to love.
But this is war, because I just learned at the top of the hour break that Al Gore has scheduled his reception remarks on a Nobel Peace Prize at the same time as my special announcement.
You can't convince me this is a coincidence.
We will not be joining any network broadcasts to follow Al Gore and his acceptance remarks because of our special super secret announcement coming up in mere moments.
By the way, the super secret announcement will be supported by audio and video, ladies and gentlemen.
You don't want to miss it.
Now, when I was flying up to Philadelphia yesterday, with the TV on, and I was watching Neil Cavuto's show on Fox in the afternoon, and the deficit numbers were released yesterday, and the White House went out and made a big deal about the deficit coming way, way down.
And let me give you the numbers, by the way, since the 2003 tax cuts, and that is an appropriate starting point for this.
Since the 2003 tax cuts took effect, the deficit, despite what's been spent on the war, despite the national disasters like Hurricane Katrina, despite the necessitated recovery after 9-11, despite all of the growing federal indictment or entitlement programs, since 2003, when the tax cuts went into effect,
the federal deficit has gone down by nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.
In February of this year, the budget deficit for 2007, this year, was projected to be $244 billion.
The numbers yesterday came in.
The budget deficit is now just $163 billion.
Now, it's interesting, is it just $163 billion?
That's a lot of money, but it's coming way, way down.
This is inarguable as to why.
It is the tax cuts.
They create jobs.
They create more taxpayers.
They create more economic activity, which leads to more taxing.
It's the old volume discount plan, folks.
It works.
You get more people paying smaller rates of taxes.
The small tax rates or the reduced tax rates, not small, but the reduced tax rates, create incentive to continue to earn dollars.
It's the Walmart strategy.
And that really irritates the left when you do that.
So I'm watching Cavuto show, and he had one of these usual television debates on there.
He had Al D'Amato speaking in favor of tax cuts.
And he had some babe from the Democrat National Committee, looked like a NAG member, by the way, National Association of Gals, who I guess was a lieutenant Howard Dean.
And so D'Amato's making a case for tax cuts pretty well.
And Cavuto goes to the babe.
And the babe says, well, there's no way the president can take credit for this.
There's absolutely no way.
The president has added to the debt irresponsibly.
Cavuto said, no, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
The debt is a total different thing than a deficit.
The national debt is the sum total of all the deficits in the history of the country.
The deficit, the annual budget deficit is how much the government spends, how much more it spends, and what it takes in.
And it's taking in a lot more than anybody projected because nobody dynamically scores the effects of tax cuts.
And the Democrat babe said, if Bush were really responsible for all of this, then he wouldn't have vetoed the health bill for children.
It's a total non-secretary.
The babe knew she had nowhere to go, so she had to go get political and attack Bush for this silly attack they're making on the S-CHIP expansion, which leads me to a couple of soundbites.
Yesterday's on CNN's American Morning, here's a montage of the anchor John Roberts and his report on a 12-year-old kid that the Democrats used to advance a falsehood about the president and the S-CHIP reauthorization.
12-year-old activist has become the center of the story.
Graham Frost was left with severe brain injuries from a near-fatal car crash.
But it hasn't stopped him from lobbying, working with Democrats to expand the state children's health insurance program known as S-CHIP.
Democrats even picked Graham to give their weekly radio address.
Conservative bloggers like Michelle Malkin pounced, claiming the Frost family is a fraud, too wealthy for government assistance.
One accusation, that Graham attends a $20,000 a year private school.
The family insists scholarships cover most of that bill.
Some of the accusations may be exaggerated or false.
But did the Democrats make a tactical error in holding up Graham as their poster child?
On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh continued the attacks.
Here's the dirty little secret.
The kid's a 12-year-old activist.
Somebody give me a break.
12 years old, he had to have what he said written for him or explained to him or what have you.
But here's what everybody seems to be forgetting.
Forget for a moment the family's economic or financial circumstances.
They are what they are, and there's probably a lot more about this that we don't know, but that's, to me, still not the point yet.
What the Democrats had little Graham Frost go out and do is explain his circumstance, car crash and all that, and then say he doesn't want the same thing happen to happen to other kids his age because President Bush doesn't want to increase the S-CHIP program.
So you got a little 12-year-old going out there telling a falsehood because the Frost family accessed the S-CHIP program as it is currently constituted.
We don't need to expand it in order for people like Graham Frost to be able to access it.
So to send him out there as a 12-year-old and to say that Bush wants to deny and the Republicans want to deny coverage to people like him is just incorrect.
It is a falsehood and it is a lie.
And they continue to use children as foils like this.
This program is exactly what, as it's currently constituted, the S-CHIP program is exactly what got Graham Frost and his sister their coverage.
And yet they send him out there to say that Bush wants to deny people like him coverage.
No, Bush is for increasing the coverage to poor children by $4 billion a year.
The Democrats want to increase coverage to children up to age 25 with Family of Four income levels at $83,000.
This prompted Mrs. Clinton to get in on the action on MSNBC, some show on whatever the stupid network is, a question that she was asked by somebody when the Democrats went to someone of that group, 12-year-old kid, to answer the president on the S-CHIP healthcare program to radio speeches.
This poor kid was eviscerated by the far right.
I was appalled at the way this young man and his family were treated.
And I said last night in Boston, you know, as someone who has been pretty used to taking the incoming fire from the right, I'm willing to take it.
I'm big enough.
I can keep going and, you know, not worry too much about it, as I've proven over the years.
But to turn on this young man and to impugn him and his family for telling their true story.
You know, I never cease to be amazed at the mean-spiritedness that you can find on the right.
But think carefully about this because what's happening here is that there are commercial, partisan, political, and ideological points that are being scored at the expense of this young man.
You blew it, Mrs. Clinton.
Your party blew it by using this young man.
It would have been one thing to go ahead and use him as an example of the greatness of the program and how it needs to continue.
But you put words in his mouth and you made him lie.
You made this little kid lie.
You and your party.
You made him tell people in a radio address that the president wanted to deny people like him and his sister health care coverage if they had some tragic accident.
And it was the very program that Republicans created in 1997 that led to the Frost family being able to get covered after this accident.
So if there's any deceit and if there's any lying going on and if there's any misrepresentation going on, Mrs. Clinton, as usual, it is coming straight from your party.
By the way, we have, you know, microphones are everywhere, and we have tape of a recent appearance with Mrs. Clinton exhibiting the decisiveness and the confidence that she is so well known for.
Okay, folks, special announcement coming up in less than 15 minutes.
Almost exactly 15 minutes.
Sit tight.
Be right back.
You know, folks, I am still sitting here fuming over what the Democrats in Congress are going to do with this resolution condemning a turkey, modern-day Turkey for the genocide of Armenians over 100 years ago.
These are the people, these are the Democrats who claim to be so worried about our image in the world.
They're so concerned what the world thinks of us.
What the hell is Turkey, an ally, going to think of us?
Having pulled their ambassador.
I said, I'm still fuming over this.
It's just, it's a gutless, cowardly way to try to secure defeat because they are scared to death.
We're on the verge of being able to say we are going to win this.
There's too much happening over there that's good for the country that's bad for them.
The Sunnis and the Shia getting together, rising up against Al-Qaeda.
The surge is working.
Al-Qaeda is fleeing.
They've been disbanded.
They're just a bunch of renegades and little actions here and there.
But the Iraqis are rising up against these people.
They're fed up with it.
And I just, they can't stand.
They're so invested in defeat and their defeat is so, or the continued illusion that we're losing is so politically important to them that they have to now pull this stunt.
Pelosi is going to bring this to the floor for a vote.
They almost let them do it.
They just like I told the people Philadelphia last night, they do not know because they get puff piece coverage from the media.
They do not know how they're coming across to average Americans.
Special announcement coming up, 1:33 this afternoon Eastern Time, mere moments from now.
Myrtle Beach and Charlene, welcome to the program.
Great to have you here.
Hello, Rush.
How are you?
Fine, very well.
Good.
Hey, Rush, I wanted to ask that you not get on Al Gore too badly about winning this Nobel Peace Prize because if you do, everybody's going to see the sour grapes.
And I'm tired of defending you.
Whoa.
Wait a second.
That's more important.
That's more important than your comment on the Al Gore.
What do you mean you're tired of defending me?
I defend you to a lot of people, even people in my family.
I understand.
I know this drill, but what do you mean you're getting tired of it?
It's just a speech.
It's just a phrase.
Oh, you don't mean it.
No.
Okay, good.
Because, like, I never got tired and still don't get tired of defending Ronald Reagan.
No, no, no, no.
So I, that's why I get.
Tell these people you're tired of the complaints.
Yes.
Tell them to grow up and listen and tell them to open their minds.
Now, your point about Gore, I have steadfastly refused to criticize Gore.
Gore didn't award himself the prize.
I did say that there was some unethical lobbying on behalf of Gore by Gore for this, and then I did consider issuing a challenge, but I decided not to do it.
And I said, the Nobel Committee is who's dishonored itself here and their prize.
This movie has nine factual errors in it.
It's found by a British judge, a liberal judge.
This movie can't be shown in Great Britain unless people, the students, are told that there are nine errors in it and has to be balanced.
This movie is about Gore, a lecture that Gore gave, a slideshow on global warming.
And in this movie, Al Gore actually advocates that the people of Western Africa and Calcutta be kept poor by not being able to use electricity and other modern advances to improve their lifestyle because those are the things that are destroying the planet and creating global warming.
Well, the Peace Prize is about elevating people from oppression, liberating people, doing things to educate and bring liberty and prosperity to people.
This does none of that.
So they've dishonored the award actually long before with Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arafat.
Gore, I haven't said much about him as I just illustrated to you here.
But I have no sour grapes about this.
Well, if that is what the Nobel Peace Prize is to be about, then you should have definitely won it.
Well, would you like to hear what it's about?
Yes.
I got a little piece here from John Burlow at the Burlow at theAmericanThinker.com.
Let me just read you some excerpts of his piece here.
His words here.
Al Gore does not care about humanity.
He only cares about the ecosystem.
He has said we need to save trees over cancer patients, among other things.
He's won the Peace Prize.
This choice, more than any other Nobel Committee selection, marks the end of a 105-year era.
In direct contradiction of Alfred Nobel's last will and testament, the selection of Gore essentially means the Peace Prize can no longer be said to be an award for improving the condition of mankind.
Looking at Gore's writing, it's far from clear that Gore even believes that humanity is his most important priority.
Not that there haven't been controversial or dubious selections before, but at the very least, the stated aims of Carter and even Arafat were the improvement of human life.
Gore, by contrast, does not even profess improving human condition as his fundamental goal.
Rather, his stated desire is to stop human activity that he sees as ruining what he calls the ecosystem.
A common theme of selection for the Nobel Peace Prize has been the use of science and technology to overcome problems afflicting humans, such as starvation and disease.
This fulfills the vision of the Swedish inventor and entrepreneur Nobel who pioneered the product of dynamite.
The Nobel Peace Prize is named after a guy who invented dynamite.
I have always found that funny.
The thing that has happened here is that Al Gore's movie advocates a rollback of lifestyles and a prevention of allowing poor people to advance their lifestyle using modern-day technology because his movie makes the claim it's modern-day technology that's destroying the planet.
Humans are destroying the planet.
Humans must be punished.
Humans must reduce their lifestyle.
Humans, therefore, must reverse all the work that previous Nobel Peace Prize nominees have been awarded for lifting people out of poverty.
Gore suggests poor people stay poor and the rich people get less rich by paying higher taxes to assuage the sin and the guilt for destroying the planet.
So Al Gore's Peace Prize has nothing to do with mankind.
It has everything to do with the religion of Gaia as the earth.
Special announcement coming next.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
It's special announcement time, ladies and gentlemen.
And this special announcement is going to play it for you in the form of an audio soundbite from last night's Rush to Excellence tour in Philadelphia.
The video of what you are going to hear is posted at rushlimbaugh.com at this moment, so you can actually see it as well as listen to it here on the radio.
So let's get the special announcement started with this excerpt of last night's Rush to Excellence performance in Philadelphia.
Stalin, are you back there?
This is my security guy.
One second.
Face the audience, please.
His name is Larry.
I hired him because he looks just like Stalin, which just irritates the hell out of libs.
Okay.
As you can see, this is a titanium briefcase.
He has it handcuffed to himself.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am holding here the original letter Harry Reid sent to the CEO of Clear Channel.
Here are the signatures of 41 Hillary Clinton on this page, first page.
People are asking, how come Hillary didn't weigh in in a limbo controversy?
She has.
She's recommended that a private citizen be censured or whatever by his own corporate partner.
And she wants to be president of the United States.
Screw that.
The CEO of Clear Channel, since they are my syndication partner, is a friend of mine.
He gave me the letter.
Here is what we are going to do with Senator Reed's letter.
Tomorrow at 1.30 in the afternoon in my award-winning program, I am going to announce that we are auctioning this letter on eBay.
The proceeds.
The proceeds of this letter will go to a charity of which I am a board member and have raised a lot of money for and have contributed, the Marine Corps, Law Enforcement Foundation.
Standing all happening here, folks.
We're right here on the broadcast complex.
I have in front of me the titanium briefcase containing the official real letter from Senator Reed signed by 41 Democrat senators to Mark Mays, the CEO of Clear Channel, my syndication partner.
This titanium case, I hold it up now for those of you in the Ditto Cam to see, is manufactured by Halliburton.
Inside the titanium case, I'm opening it here just as I did last night in Philadelphia.
This is the original letter.
There are four pages to this letter.
This letter is going to go to whoever bids the highest amount on eBay.
It is available now to be auctioned and to be bid upon.
Simply go to rushlimbaugh.com and there's a direct link from our website to the eBay page on which this is explained.
There are pictures of the four pages of the letter, official documentation of where the money is going and so forth.
The one thing that we are asking you to do, and I hope you understand this, when you place a bid on this auction, you will be asked before your bid is accepted to pre-qualify.
Now, the reason we're doing this is not to collect information on you.
We are doing this to make sure that no operative of Senator Reed nor the Democrat National Committee can attempt to buy back their own deceitful words here.
We want this letter to remain with somebody in the public, and we fully expect that operatives from Senator Reed's office of the Democrat National Committee will try to enter the auction and buy it back.
So the pre-qualification, there'll be no credit card information asked, anything like this.
The information on this page will be used for no other purpose other than to pre-qualify you to bid.
It'll be destroyed.
All the information you give will be destroyed at the end of the auction, which will go for next, until next Friday at this time.
The auction will be up for one week, and it'll end at 1.33, 1.30 Eastern Time next Friday, one week from now.
It's just a bunch of basic information so we can verify that people's bids are legitimate and so that we can make sure that now the case is included.
Of course, the titanium case included handcuffs worn by Stalin last night are not included because they're official law enforcement handcuffs and we are not allowed to distribute them beyond security personnel and law enforcement personnel.
So the handcuffs, now, now, now, now, now.
I had somebody from L.A. today ask me if they could buy the handcuffs separately.
They're just in there telling me that this rules out San Francisco.
I said, don't, it's not just San Francisco.
I had somebody from L.A. that wanted the handcuffs.
A girl.
Yes.
So don't go there.
Don't go there.
Don't get me distracted here.
Now, I want to explain to you who the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation is.
The Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation started actually pretty recently in the 90s.
I'm on the board.
We've raised close to $30 million.
And what it does establishes college scholarships for the children of Marines killed in action and in certain instances, other federal law enforcement personnel, such as the Oklahoma City bombing.
Almost 100% of what they raise goes.
Nobody makes any money on this.
The staff and administrators do it for practically nothing.
It's almost just a direct transfer from donations to recipients.
And it is a tremendous, tremendous charity that is doing tremendous work.
And it was started by a bunch of Marines from the Vietnam era who are now in New York in law enforcement and on Wall Street and various businesses like that.
And I feel very privileged to have gotten to know them.
I also would like to issue a challenge because how did this all come about?
This all came about as the result of a smear on the part of a so-called left-wing media watchdog group, which is really nothing more than a Hillary Clinton front organization, an attempt to smear me as, of all things, somebody critical of the U.S. military.
Anybody who has paid any attention to anything, I mean, I'm over the last 20 years, I've been called a chicken hawk.
I have been accused of being blindly supportive of the military.
Now, all of a sudden, I hate the military.
All of a sudden, I'm critical of soldiers who are critical of the war, which I have never done.
I don't want to go through it, but you all know it.
It leads to Harry Reid writing a letter and getting 41 senators to co-sign it, sent to the corporate partner, CEO, corporate partner of mine, Clear Channel, asking him to essentially censure me by making me apologize.
Well, I have the letter and we're going to auction it off on eBay.
All the proceeds, every dollar raised.
The expenses for this can be paid by the seller.
That's us.
Every dollar raised, however much it ends up being, is going to go to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
And I would like to issue this challenge to Senator Reed and the 41 senators who signed his letter.
You say you support the military.
You say you're big and you think it's patriotic and that I was unpatriotic.
Well, I would like for each of you, Senator Reed, and the 41 senators who signed to match whatever the winning bid is.
Show us your support for the U.S. military by all 41 of you pro-military people, Democrats in the Senate, match whatever the winning bid is and send that amount to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
Again, the link taking you to the eBay page is at rushlimbaugh.com right now.
The video of the unveiling of this last night in Philadelphia is also available.
It's about, what, 2:51?
The streaming video is about 2 minutes, 51 seconds, just as the audio link here was.
So go for it, folks.
The auction will be open for a full week.
Back in just a second.
Stay with us.
By the way, folks, I forgot something.
The shipping.
Whoever is the high bidder on the Harry Reid letter and the Halliburton titanium case, the Adashé case, the shipping is free.
The seller, I, I'm even going to pay that.
Now, I just checked the subscriber email, the Rush 24-7 email, and a couple people, not many, said, I don't see the link for eBay.
Folks, it's right there.
It's in the yellow banner.
It says eBay.
And okay, try refreshing your browser.
You might not have updated your browser since we posted.
We didn't put this up till one o'clock, like 45 minutes.
Refresh the browser, and then it'll be there.
Always, when in doubt, refresh.
Always, always refresh the browser.
We're back at 800-282-2882 on the Open Line Friday edition of the Rush Limbaugh program.
This is Lynn in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
I just want to thank you for an absolutely incredible time last night.
Although I was not lucky enough to be in the front row, if you know what I mean.
Now, that's little inside baseball.
You're making people wonder what happened to people in the front row.
Even Snerdley's in there going, What happened?
What's she talking about?
Well, you know what I mean, I think.
How do you know?
If you weren't in the front row, how do you know what went on?
Well, I was sitting sort of up in the balcony not too far from Michael Smirkanish and I saw the whole thing.
Okay, you can't do this.
This is you.
See, Snerdley's now shouting at you on the IFB.
What did I do?
You don't know.
You can't believe the kind of curiosity you've sparked.
You're going to have to tell them, Lynn, what this is.
You have to tell them because if I do, if I tell them, there's going to be some doubt because what happened is not that big a deal.
You've made it sound like something, a major thing happened, and they're going to think I'm underselling it if I'm the one that tells it.
So you, and frankly, I'm a little curious too, but what you think you saw.
Well, there was a major conservative in the front row, and she got a lot of attention.
A major conservative in the front row.
How do you know she was a conservative?
You're up in the balcony.
How can you possibly know this?
Well, you know, you're right.
She might have been one of the liberals to whom you referred, although I did not curiously see her exiting at five-minute intervals.
Curiously see her exiting at five minutes.
Okay, now you've got to go further here, Lynn.
You have to tell the audience what happened.
Well, no, what happened is you actually congratulated her at the end of your wonderful, breathtaking performance.
And I think she got her money's worth.
You are really good.
And you know what?
I think you're jealous.
You know, just a tad, just a tad.
I'm trying not to let it go.
There were 25 people since you've, since you've now, you've opened this barn door.
There were 25 people that were brought backstage.
They were friends of the radio station, advertisers, clients.
And this woman was in the group.
They came in groups of two for pictures.
And this woman came backstage and she was very effusive in her admiration for me.
She called me her hero and so forth.
And she was strikingly attractive.
Strikingly.
She was.
Strikingly attractive.
He said, Man, I'm sorry.
I noticed those things and I celebrate noticing those things.
Well, that's fine, Rush.
I can appreciate that.
Now, let me finish because you made it sound like something untoward might have happened at the end of this show.
She was in the front row, and I, you know, you can't help but see who's in the front row.
The spotlights in my face, I couldn't see a whole lot of people outside the first two or three rows, but I could see the front row.
And she was hopping up and down all night.
She was having a grand old time.
And so I decided, since she had been so kind and so effusive, so supportive during the performance, when it was over, you know, I've left the podium and I'm standing on the stage, I'm waving at people, and my eye caught her one last time, so I walked over and I just checked to see if she's married.
And that's all it was.
I was looking for a ring finger to see if it had a ring on it.
There was a ring check at the end, yes.
Yeah, there was, okay, well, that's all it was, was a ring check.
It's something we guys do.
Well, you know, Rush, I grew up in West Palm Beach, so I've seen men do that before, albeit not on stage.
Well, there hasn't been a me on stage before, then.
Well, this is true.
All right.
So you say, but you're just a tad jealous, and you admitted it.
I didn't.
Yeah, because this was innocent.
Is it Donnie Osmond innocent?
Nothing happened.
Is it bad form to do that from stage, Lynn?
I'm giving you the silent treatment, Rush.
You give this.
She's giving me the silent treatment.
Not even your husband.
Are you married?
Well, that's an interesting question, actually.
Legally, I am married, but I'm separated right now.
Well, that never stopped a lot of people.
No, no, it hasn't.
You have a great sounding voice.
Well, thank you.
And Chester County is not a bad place to live.
It's beautiful here.
I know that.
As is West Palm Beach.
No, it's not.
Well, Palm Beach, I should say.
Yes.
Yes.
But I was in the 1200s.
I'm just kidding.
West Palm Beach is my local Rio Linda.
You know, ever since the Florida elections after the aftermath of 2000.
Well, I spent my share of time on the island, so.
You have?
Oh, I have, yes.
Well, Lynn, you know, I'm giddy here because I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night.
I just, it sounds to me like you're making an application in a very refined and female way.
You're expressing disgust over what you think was a public display of a lack of manners and crudity that made you jealous.
And now you're letting me know that you sometimes are in my hood.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
Now, see, here's the thing.
I don't know your phone number.
None of us knows your phone number.
We don't know how to reach you.
Well, we could possibly talk about that.
Well, see, but if I do that, then I'm going to get a call from the, I'm going to get a call.
The next caller is going to say, well, how come you never asked me for my phone number?
Give me a little static for being unprofessional on the radio.
I'm probably going to get that as it is.
But I know you wouldn't let that stop you.
Auntie, you are young.
You are very, very wifey.
Well, I have a lot of experience.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, look at that.
Five emails from the North Carolina mistress just during this call.
Got to run.
Excuse me.
It's a hard break.
I cannot miss it.
Everyone wonders what it's like to be me.
You just heard what it's like to be me.
The only difference is it usually doesn't happen on the radio.