I've been wondering why things have been hot as volume-wise.
Volume's been too loud in here today.
Cleaning crew.
Volume on the console was all the way up.
I just now noticed it.
Anyway, greetings, my friends, and welcome back.
Rush.
Be thankful, Brian.
It's not your fault.
Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network on Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
Open Line Friday.
Yes, Mr. Stanley.
What's question?
You know, that's a great question.
And I forget this.
I haven't made any, I haven't made a football prediction all season.
What are we up to week 10?
Wow, we haven't even done any environmentalist wacko picks.
I've been sticking to the issues.
You know, it's a but that's what Open Line Friday is for.
That's a good point.
I'll have to get the schedule out and look at the schedule.
At any rate, Open Line Friday, folks.
That means we go to the phones.
You own the program.
The content is all yours.
You can discuss that, which you want to discuss.
800-282-2882 is the number.
Here's Dingy Harry announcing why the Congress is not going to give the president any more money for his damn war.
President got $470 billion this week.
We met with Secretary Gates.
He indicated to us there's 187,500 people in Iraq as we speak.
He said the Army is going to be just fine until the end of February.
The Marines okay till the middle of March.
I guess we expect too much from President Bush to recognize that this business that we're in of government is one that we're bound by the Constitution, that we have certain obligations and duties, one of which is to make sure that there are three separate and equal branches of government.
We're going to continue to do what we can for the troops, recognizing that we've been told by the Secretary of Defense that everything is fine until the end of February and with the Marines until the middle of March.
How much more could we do than say, Mr. President, if you need the money, here it is.
But just let us have a little accountability for the American people.
He said no.
Something here does not jibe with something I read earlier today, and that is that Gates said war funds are depleted.
Right here it is in the Washington Times.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday if Congress fails to approve war funds this week, combat troops and civilian personnel will face reductions in services and equipment.
The spending cuts would take effect next month if Congress doesn't pass an emergency war spending bill.
Basically says that they've got enough.
We can only move a total of 3.7 billion under general transfer authority, which only amounts to a little over one week's worth of war expenses.
So Gates says he's got a little more than enough necessary for a week.
Dingy Harry just said that Gates told him he's got enough money through February and March.
Now, what are we to make of this?
This is, in fact, you know, remember the facts I got from Duncan Hunter yesterday on this.
The provision in the House bill that would require, it failed, but it would require the president to give Congress 15 days' notice before moving troops around, reactionary troops, support troops.
It would basically hamstring the war effort.
It would make search and destroy, seek and destroy response to attacks impossible.
For people like Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, you have to prove it every 15 days or for a period of 15 days.
Now, Gates told the Army and the Marines to prepare to lay off 100,000 Defense Department workers and another 100,000 civilian workers.
If that's what he has to do in order to keep the war funded, well, good.
You know, let that fall down on the Democrats' shoulders as well.
Those workers will find out about it, both the Defense Department and civilian as well.
There's an all-out assault here on the U.S. military taking place in the drive-by meeting to set it up.
I want to go back to yesterday, CNN's American morning.
The co-host at Kieran Chetri talked with the president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister.
He said to him, people are very fed up about the price of oil, and you set out to explain to them what more about why we're seeing this rise in oil.
Well, it was more to listen, listen to Americans about their issues, their concerns, to see what could we possibly do about it.
And I tell you, I've come away with a very strong conclusion, and that conclusion is it's time for Americans to agitate their government to open up more oil and gas resources in this country.
We are slipping in our production of oil and gas in this country year over year.
We are prohibited from 85% of the outer continental shelf.
Most Americans don't know.
What you're saying is you can only do offshore drilling at about 15%.
15%.
That's it.
So we're pulling on exports from around the world into this country.
We have billions and billions of barrels of oil that we can't touch in this country by public policy.
It's time to tell our politicians, let's get more oil and gas in the short term so we can work on alternative energies over the longer term.
This is a drumbeat that we have been sounding on this program for I don't know how long.
And these people that are clamoring for the end to dependence on foreign oil, the environmentalist wackos, the Democrats, American leftists.
You just heard the number, 85%.
We can't get it.
I don't care whether it's an AND war, the Gulf, or off the left coast.
We can't get it by virtue of public policy.
And that means elected officials in both the federal government and state governments are stopping it on the basis of the fear of oil spills or accidents or whatever.
How often do you hear about this in an oil platform in the Gulf?
How often do these happen?
They don't.
They only happen is when some ship captain gets drunk and drives into a tanker bridge or something else.
But that's it.
It's part of the business anyway, to be quite honest with you.
But this has been one of the most frustrating things.
And this is part of portraying the whole image of the country today as doom and gloom.
We're heading into Thanksgiving.
We're supposed to be miserable.
Price of oil is going up.
Air travel is going to be jammed because the airports are so crowded and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Price of Turkey is going up.
The war news in Iraq is bad because they can't get the troops funded.
They're just doing everything they can to make you as miserable as possible.
And I implore you to not believe it.
This guy said he had to go out on a tour of the country.
The president of Shell Oil said he wanted to listen to people.
And what he heard shocked him.
They don't know how much oil is available to us domestically because they're not being told.
The second thing is the THICOMs are drilling with the Cubans in the Gulf right now.
The Mexicans have just found a huge field, and as did Brazil.
Eight and a half billion barrels Brazil just found, maybe more than that.
Everybody in the world, if they have oil as a resource, is doing what they can to get it except us.
We're talking about conservation, and we're talking about all these alternative sources like hybrids and natural gas-powered buffets for public transportation, which nobody wants to use, by the way, other than places where there's no choice like New York.
When's the last time you saw a light rail train full with anybody?
Nobody wants to ride that garbage.
But all these people want to get the projects built because they'll save the environment and it'll cost less per passenger to transport the Mithril Limbaugh to and from their worker jobs.
In the meantime, we are a growing economy.
Conservation is fine.
Not wasting is fine, but that does not constitute growth.
And I'm going to tell you, the American people, they may not know about all the oil that's left untapped, but what they do have is expectations that every year their lives are going to get better economically because they're Americans.
That's what it means to them to be Americans.
Life is going to get better.
It ain't if we stop growing.
We are a growth economy.
We always have been.
And that's exactly what's under assault with global warming, by the way.
One more soundbite here before we go to the break.
Karen Kieran, CNN, said, Well, should people start looking at ways to cut their usage, like buying smart cars, buying hybrids, trying to use less?
Well, everything that we can do to conserve helps in the short term.
Over the longer term, we need more energy.
The economy grows.
We need more energy.
People like their lifestyle.
They want to drive.
We want to help them drive.
Amen.
But yet big oil is the enemy.
And Hillary Clinton wants to take their profits.
Let me tell you how the Democrats and the American left look at this energy business.
The thing that you have to understand is it ain't about America.
All this talk about alternative energy and hybrids, that's not about making America better.
All this talk and conversation, not about making America cleaner.
The way they think power votes, getting as many people in their base to vote for them as possible, as many independents, by keeping the oil that we have, that we could drill and would decrease dependence on foreign oil, by keeping our oil in the ground and untapped, they become heroes to the environmentalist wackos.
Then when the shortages, the necessity to import, and that suppression of supply is depressed, what happens to price?
Look at the price of oil now.
Some of it's speculation, some of it's supply and demand.
And the price is going to continue to go up.
And what happens then?
When the low supply, the artificially low supply, there needn't be a low supply given our reserves that are untapped.
That low supply drives up the price.
They become the heroes of the poor and the freezing.
How do they do that?
Because they then attack big oil for gouging.
And of course, everybody hates big oil just like they hate the boss.
So you've got people in the Northeast who use home heating oil and the price is going up because we've got an artificially depressed supply thanks to Democrats.
Those people have to pay through the roof for their heating oil and the Democrats become their champions.
They don't solve any problem unless Hugo Chavez comes to the rescue and sells it cheap.
So the very people that are causing rising prices benefit twice from causing it.
A, the environmentalist wackos love them and give them lots of money.
And B, the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the freezing think the Democrats are the ones standing up for them.
That's the way they look at it.
They're not interested in improving America's lot in the world, particularly not when a Republican is in the White House.
Listen to this.
This is last night, actually, a couple nights ago on CNN, the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and the Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, on the military's use of oil.
If you think it's expensive to fill your gas tank, just consider what the military is going through right now.
From Iraq to the high seas, every day the U.S. military guzzles 340,000 barrels of oil in the tanks, ships, and planes it uses.
The week before the war in Iraq began, back in 2003, the cost of oil was just under $40 a barrel.
Now it's nearly $100 a barrel.
And the cost of all of this to Americans is about $124 billion.
Yeah, you see that.
Yes, they do that.
They did.
I told you there is an all-out assault on the U.S. military, including now with oil and fuel and how much they use and waste and so forth and how much it costs us.
That's only our freedom out there using this stuff.
How come, Ms. Starr, you don't go find out how much it's costing American taxpayers to fund Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the redundant children health programs out there.
Why don't you tell us how much that's costing taxpayers?
If it costs taxpayers $124 billion to fuel the military, that is cheap compared to the 65% of our budget, which is entitlements.
$124 billion is cheap investment given what that fuel is used for.
But now we've got to attack the military and how much it's costing Americans.
These people, the despicable.
And it's, you know, it's hard for me to not say that I detest these people and the way they think and the way they want to present news to people and the way they want to constantly make people mad and make them feel helpless and hopeless.
Doom and gloom and all of this.
Greatest country in the world.
And a drive-by meeting, a Democrat Party alliance designed to sabotage that.
Russell in Memphis, you're next, sir.
Thank you for waiting.
You're on Open Line Friday.
Hi.
Hey, Russ.
It's an honor to speak with you.
Thank you.
I wanted to say to the last caller, Kevin, we appreciate your service to this country.
And my question comment for you is: I was not around for the Reagan administration.
I'm 18.
From everything I've studied and looked at, he was a tremendous, tremendous president.
I'm also a big George W. Bush fan.
Aside from immigration, I've agreed with almost every single thing he's done.
My question for you is: where would you rank George W. Bush with Ronald Reagan?
Well, that's a tough comparison because they're not the same people.
Ronald Reagan was the leader of a movement.
He was a genuine leader of a conservative movement.
Every speech, every public appearance, Ronald Reagan was defining conservatism as it related to America.
He was defining America.
Did you hear Sarkozy's speech, the soundbites we played from Sarkozy's speech when he spoke to Congress last week?
No, sorry, I did not.
Well, I've got to get those back out of the archives.
Not today, Joe.
Well, Joe, if you can find a couple of them, get them to me, because they're just awesome.
That's what Reagan did.
The message that he sent every time he spoke was on the greatness and the potential of America.
He is a better communicator than Reagan.
I mean, Reagan is a better communicator than George W. Bush.
Yeah, but it's not just communication skills.
I'm talking about the message.
Now, Bush is a Republican.
He is conservative on some things, but he is not a conservative, and he doesn't view himself.
He doesn't want to be the leader of an ideological movement.
And so you can't really compare the two.
Now, if you want to talk about historical perspective, they're going to be looked at differently, but you have to understand the history of the Bush administration.
The accurate history will not be written until most of us are long gone.
The historians are going to write that history are not yet born.
The people writing the history of the Bush administration now and for the next 30, 40 years are going to be the people that detest Bush, hate Bush.
It's going to be filled with lies.
It's going to be filled with the distortions.
The textbooks in American high schools, junior high schools, and colleges are going to be filled with the same gunk.
But eventually, I think Bush is one of few presidents who has actually sought to transform America's place in the world out of necessity.
What with the 9-11 attacks?
He is a president that is attempting to establish a democratic-oriented beachhead in a part of the world where nobody thinks it's possible.
Now, we've had our arguments with him about doing that.
Should that be the priority or should it happen after victory?
There's some of us thought, yeah, I love the idea because, you know, his theory is that all human beings are the same.
We all have a yearning spirit to be free.
We don't like to be constrained.
And I agree with that 100%.
But I think focusing on that first rather than achieving victory first would maybe be a strategical blunder.
But if he pulls it off, if this happens, if Iraq becomes what his vision for it is, then the historians down the road are going to write tremendous things about Bush and the way he persisted.
Here he is, supposedly a lame duck president, and he is not acting like it at all.
He does not portray at any time that any of this stuff, personal attacks, the policy attacks, the opposition to his primary policy of the war on terror.
He never betrays that it bothers him personally.
He just keeps plugging away at it.
Some people say stubbornly, what have you.
But at least with Bush in this regard, in this one area of his administration, he has not wavered on it at all.
And I'll tell you, given where the Democrats have been, thank God he hasn't.
This could have been a disaster had a lesser president with the same policies caved in the middle of it.
We would have already been experiencing more terrorist attacks.
We have had none since 9-11.
Brief timeout, folks.
Back with much more right after this.
Hi, welcome back.
Great to have you.
Open line Friday rolls on.
Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Now, this I love.
You don't see this much.
The Nevada Appeal.
Conrad Vellen is the columnist.
Who is Conrad Vellen?
The Regional Finance Director for the Sierra Nevada Media Group, which includes the Nevada Appeal.
You can reach him at his email address.
Contrary to reports, the nation's economy is robust.
Just exactly his column is many of the things I've been saying.
It's just nice to see it in print and said by somebody else.
Here's the concluding paragraph.
Therefore, folks, despite all the gloom and doom being peddled to us by the mainstream media about this economy, the facts just don't support the hype.
Recent polls show that more than 60% of those polled think that the country is heading in the wrong direction and that President Bush has received poor marks for his handling of the economy.
So what's the right direction?
If the past seven years constitute a poor economy, I'd be very interested in learning what makes for a great economy.
Well, I can define a great economy for you.
It's when the Democrats run us into a recession, blame Republicans in the previous administration for it, and then tax the rich.
That's considered a great economy.
Here's Bill in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Bill, I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the program.
Hey, Rush.
Pleasure to talk to you, sir.
Thank you.
Just wanted to call and thank you for bringing on Mr. Levin today, touching on the wider end of the subject.
You know, your program is always about pretty serious issues, and I thank the good Lord for you and what you do.
And just wanted to say I had a blue healer.
His name was Boone.
I had it for 17 years.
And best dog a man could ever have.
And he passed away the same day that my oldest daughter was born.
He passed away in the morning.
She was born that night.
And talk about falling into a pile of dung and come out smelling like a rose.
And just wanted to thank him for his book, and you bringing him on, because I know you don't bring a lot of people on.
And in the chaotic dynamic the world is in today, Pets can definitely bring on an unspoken peace.
Well, I've been checking the email here, the Rush 24-7 subscriber account, and I'm getting it's voluminous with people describing that they were reduced to tears, and it was one of the best segments that they've ever heard on this program.
I thought that was a little bit excessive, but I'll take it.
Not everybody has a lot of the same sentiments that you have.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I really am.
Thank you, sir.
You bet.
Terry in Tacoma, Washington.
You're next on Open Line Friday.
Hello.
Hi, good morning.
Thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
I just first want to say that, you know, I years ago thought I had the answer.
I thought possibly the Democrats might even have the answer.
The coal woke me up.
I started listening to you and other conservative radio hosts, and I have been shown down the path by you guys.
I wanted to talk about what has happened in Olympia when our troops have been coming back.
This happened just last night and a few days ago.
Is this where the anti-war groups protested the returning troops and equipment?
That's right.
And they poured concrete over the railroad tracks?
They poured wet concrete on the tracks.
They were throwing objects in front of the moving convoy, laying down in front of the convoy.
And even some cockeyed councilman from the city of Olympia is criticizing Olympia Police Department and the State Patrol for their handling of these people who are trying to delay a military convoy.
That convoy belongs to you and me.
I want those people and that equipment back at Fort Lewis where they belong.
Right, they were coming home.
They're not even going to war.
And they didn't.
First, they protested them last year when they were leaving, and now they don't want them to come back.
You know, it sounds like Hillary, make up your mind.
Do you want them to go or do you want them to stay?
You know, do you want them to come back home or not?
You're looking at these people in the wrong way.
You're looking at irrational people, and you're trying to define them and understand them in a rational sense.
And that's not possible.
Irrationality to the degree these people out in Olympia, Washington have displayed.
And the anti-war movement has made up quite a few of this type of person.
They're just, their lives are miserable.
They want to get noticed.
They feel left out of mainstream society.
And so, you know, everybody wants to have meaning in their lives.
And everybody wants to make a difference.
And these poor people are just irrelevant to the functioning of this country.
And they know it.
So this is what they do, to call attention to themselves at the end of the day, to make themselves feel like they stood up for something important and to make themselves feel like they had courage and to make themselves feel like they were brave, when in fact they're just glittering jewels of colossal ignorance who have no contribution of any substance to make at all.
What really aggravated me about this when I heard about it uh, Terry, was that there aren't going to be any charges.
The local prosecutors out there are not going to charge them with it.
These people poured wet concrete over train tracks.
If that's that has to be a crime in anybody's world uh, plus the other things that they did.
But you know, if freedom of Petsmith or Limbaugh, if protest is what made America great, the thent, all that stuff yada yada, yada.
We have the Sarkozy bites, and this goes back to the call I got a minute ago wanting to know the difference between how does Bush stack up with Ronald Regan.
We played these bites the day that Sarkozy spoke, and maybe it was the day after he spoke, november the 7th.
He addressed a joint meeting of the House and the Senate and we've cut all the applause here.
It's been shortened for the uh constraints of time to deal with constraints of time.
But uh, I want you to, when you listen to these things, forget that it's a Frenchman.
But that that's.
That's marvelous and and and tremendous enough.
You should in fact, don't forget that ask yourself why, all of a sudden, in a world where we are told that we are hated and we have to rebuild our image, how come Pro-American conservative leaders are being elected in all these democracies like France, like Germany and a number of other places?
The Democrats can't get anything right, they can't tell the truth about anything, they just have.
But they have a, and it's anathema to them the truth.
So do keep in mind that it's a Frenchman.
But also, I want, as you listen to these four sound bites, ask yourself how you would feel if an American presidential candidate of any party happened to be saying these things to the millions of men and women who came from every country in the world and who, with their own hands, their intelligence and their hearts, built the greatest nation in the world.
America did not say come and everything will be given to you.
Rather, she said come, and the only limit to what you will be able to achieve will be those of your own courage talent, your boldness and your talent bite.
The America that we love throughout the world embodies this extraordinary ability to grant each and every person a second chance, another chance, because in America, failure is never the last word.
There is always another chance.
Here in your country, on this soil, both the humblest and the most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned.
That is what constitutes the moral value of America.
There were Democrats applauding this, but they would never say it.
Not enough Republicans say it, not enough citizens realize it anymore.
I heard these.
I was practically standing out of my chair here the first time I heard them.
Here's the next bite.
America liberated us and this is an eternal debt we owe America Every time, whenever an American soldier falls somewhere in the world, I think of what the American army did for France.
I think of them and I am sad as one is saddened to lose a member of one's family.
This is Nicholas Sarkozy, the new president of France.
You will not hear.
I do not like saying this either, ladies and gentlemen.
You will not hear an elected Democrat speak this way of the U.S. military today.
A Frenchman.
By the way, he's smart.
He has every reason to think this and feel it.
It just stuns me that there is so much understanding of the greatness and purpose and the reason this country is what it is outside our borders than there is inside among our elected officials.
Here's the final Sarkozy bite.
We need France to be stronger.
I am determined to carry through with the reforms that my country has put off for all too long.
I will not turn back.
I will implement all of them because France has turned back for all too long.
I have come to present to you today of France that comes out to meet America to renew the covenant of friendship and alliance that Washington and Lafayette sealed in Yorktown together.
Let us be true to their memories.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I say this to you on behalf of the French people.
Long live the United States of America.
Long live France.
Long live French American friendship.
Radeau, Radeau, Radeau.
Now, how does this even be when the Democrats and the drive-bys are out talking about how we're hated in the world and we've lost our standing, we've lost our reputation?
But when you listen to that, did you imagine how you'd feel if some American candidate, either party, how you'd feel if they were saying something things like this about this country?
Why has it become so hard for America?
You know why?
Because of pandering.
We've gotten the point where people are hurting, Mr. Limbaugh.
People are suffering, and they need their leaders to understand that.
So our leaders run around and talk about, I understand you're hurting, and I'm representing change, and I'm going to make sure that your pain is going to vanish.
Vote for me.
And so you end up pandering to people just to make them think that you care about them when the key to unlocking misery is with inside each and every one of us.
And it's the person in your life that can show you how to do that that becomes the best teacher you ever had.
And that was one of the multitudinous things about Ronald Reagan that had made him able to connect with people.
Back after this.
New York Governor Elliot Spitzer said at a private fundraiser that he wants a Democrat-controlled New York State Senate to legalize gay marriage as one of its first priorities in 2009.
A witness to the remarks told the New York Post, Spitzer is a gay marriage proponent.
He pledged to help Democrats next November win three Senate seats.
They need to gain the majority.
One of the first things we're going to do when Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith is the majority leader is gay marriage, the witness recounted Spitzer telling some 60 people who paid up to $10,000 each to attend the event in Greenwich Village on Wednesday night.
Everybody applauded when he said that, said the witness, who was among senators, Democrat activists and lobbyists at a fundraising event for the Senate Democrat Committee.
It was held in a library of the elegant West 13th Street home of HBO's Oz creator, Tom Fantana.
Two other witnesses, including an elected official, said they couldn't recall Spitzer's exact lingo, but added that the governor suggested that a Democrat-controlled state senate would follow the State Assembly's action this year in passing for the first time ever a gay marriage bill.
So, just had his lunch handed to him on driver's licenses for illegals.
Just had to get rid of the internet sales tax that he wanted to institute in December.
You're probably saying, what does he not get?
It isn't that he doesn't get it, folks.
It's that you don't matter.
Those driver's licenses, they're going to find a way to issue them.
And he's going to find a way to raise taxes.
And if he wants his gay marriage thing, he's going to find a way to get it done.
It doesn't matter.
You may be able to stop it temporarily, protests and what have you, but these guys, they're the smartest people in the room, you just don't understand.
And the issues are too complex.
And therefore, your opinions don't matter on this because you're just not fully briefed.
You're not sophisticated enough to understand.
Here is Dwayne, 17 years old in Northeast Ohio.
Nice to have you on the program, Wayne.
Hi, Rush.
I'd like to start off by saying I've been listening to you since I was three years old.
I'm quite the veteran here.
Hey, Rush baby.
Yeah, how about that, huh?
I'm calling to, I'd like to note the liberal influence on teenagers now because I watch MTV for the music, okay?
And they're all about, well, we need teenagers to vote, and we need this, that, and the other thing.
We need young people to vote and be politically active.
But there's no conservative influence.
There's no balance about it.
Nothing says nobody wants to say the conservatives have some good ideas to do.
Hey, Dwayne, you are 17.
Yes, sir.
I want to applaud you at your age noticing this.
What I also want to tell you is, I'm 56.
I remember when MTV started, back in 1980 or something.
And it's always been what it is.
These get out the vote efforts, these rock the votes and all.
They've been doing this probably since Clinton in 92.
Okay.
I'm glad you noticed that what you need to learn is that's who they are, and that's what it is, and it isn't going to change.
Did you see, did you happen to see the story yesterday that some people went out and talked to some students at New York University and asked them what they would take to give up the right to vote forever?
I've heard about that, an iPod touch or a free ride to college.
Okay.
Well, what was interesting about that, an iPod touch or for a free ride to college, any number of things to give up the right to vote.
That, Dwayne, the way to look at that is that is why these MTV rock the vote things never work.
They may register these young kids, but they don't go out and vote.
When you turn 18 and register and vote, you're going to be among the exceptions.
They get all excited about the civics of registering and so forth, but the election day, they don't show up in the same numbers that they've registered.
It always is a bust.
Last year, or 2004, the Democrat convention, Sean Diddy Combs, whatever, had a voter registration, vote or die was one on a t-shirt.
And these guys do it, again, just to get great press.
Look how much they care about the country, but the young demographic don't show up.
At least the Democrat side doesn't.
You'll be unique.
Thanks for the call.
I got to run real quick right after this.
All right, here's an NFL prediction for Sunday.
Take the points, Miami Dolphins, plus the points over the Philadelphia Eagles.
And don't be surprised if it's a Dolphins straight-up win.