Okay, yeah, I know the views expressed by the host on this show make more sense than anything anybody else out there happens to be saying because the views expressed by the host on this show are rooted in a daily relentless unstoppable pursuit of the truth.
It is Friday, so let's go.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday.
And as you can tell by listening on Open Line Friday, pretty much whatever you want to talk about is what we talk about.
The great career risk taken by me, Ella Rushbo, the all-knowing, all-caring, all-sensing, all-feeling, all-concerned, maha-rushi.
So whatever it is, when we go to the phones, you own the program.
So be creative out there.
Telephone number if you want to join us, 1-800-282-2882.
And the email address is rush at eibnet.com.
I want to tell you this again in case you just, if you weren't listening toward the end of the hour, you know, this, we need to really go back and chronicle all of the instances of this substance like coffee is going to kill you.
Oat bran is going to rejuvenate you.
All of these things that they have said medically over the years.
They're either going to kill you or make you more prone to certain illnesses.
They really have no clue what they are talking about.
The headline here, cholesterol seen tied to heart disease, not stroke.
Researchers aiming to establish whether high cholesterol raises the risk of stroke said yesterday that they were baffled.
Baffled.
Stunned and surprised for those of you in Riolinda by findings indicating lower cholesterol levels were not linked to reduced stroke deaths.
They said their analysis of 61 previous studies involving almost 900,000 adults.
Why are you sucking your thumb, Dawn?
She looked like a little Barbie doll.
Why are you sucking your thumb?
It looks so cute.
You're sucking your thumb.
Pardon the distraction, folks, but I have not lost my place.
900,000 adults conducted mostly in Western Europe and North America clearly show that people with lower total blood cholesterol levels had a lower heart disease death rate.
But the researchers found no relationship between total cholesterol levels and risk of stroke death, especially at older ages and among people with higher blood pressure.
Dr. Sarah Lewington of the University of Oxford in Britain, one of the researchers, stressed that definitive previous research established that drugs called statins, which lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, also called LDL or bad cholesterol, substantially reduce stroke risk.
I think we can all say is that we don't really understand what's going on here, and we need to know more about cholesterol and more about stroke subtypes to find out what's going on.
It really does sound like a blow to scientific consensus here and a lot of other things.
What do you think the foundation, besides the quest for human knowledge, what do you think the foundation for all of these studies and all this research is really all about?
I have a theory about it, and it is this.
I think people have, in the science and research community and any number of other places, really have this That we can cheat death.
And everybody wants to live, of course.
And so anytime you hear from science or medicine that stopping doing this activity or reducing the amount of that particular food that you eat or taking this particular medication will prolong your life.
All well and good if it's true, but we keep learning more and more that none of what is suspected, i.e. consensus, in science actually pans out.
And it's also predicated on the belief that we're all the same, which we're not.
We've all got unique DNA and we all have a different, we all have different genetic traits.
And we're all going to die at some point.
Nobody has disproven that yet.
But this notion that we can somehow cheat death or extend life with these kinds of things, all well and good, I mean, for people trying to do it, but the belief behind it is to me what's unrealistic.
You know, I just had to go get a physical the other day.
And everybody, they were stunned.
I don't mind admitting this.
Blood pressure 120 over 70.
Well, that can't be.
Rush, you don't exercise.
Well, it's what it was.
But you don't exercise.
I know, I say happily.
Stress EKG.
Get on the thing, a treadmill, and they hook you up to all the electrodes and so forth.
Doctor says, if you start feeling faint, you start, yummy, not, you tell me real quick.
Average length of time, most people spend on this thing, three minutes.
And that's fine.
We want to try to get your heart rate up to 139.
We want to keep there for as long as we can.
But if you have the slightest bit of disc, I want you to tell me we're going to stop.
I said, okay, Doc.
Eight minutes later, with the heartbeat at 149, the doctor says, okay, that's enough.
I want you to sit down.
I want to see what happens to your heart rate after three minutes.
You got down to 75 beats.
He said, it's not possible.
Well, you're the doctor.
It's what it says.
But it's not possible because you don't exercise.
I said, I know, proudly.
I just don't like it.
If I felt good doing it, I would do it, but I don't.
I've hated exercise since I could walk.
Wish I could still crawl, in fact.
But it wouldn't look good.
So then it was on to other things.
It was on a blood test and all this stuff.
Cholesterol.
Normal.
That can't be.
Rush.
You're a little overweight.
You're the doctor.
You run the lab.
It is what it is.
My point here, ladies and gentlemen, not to brag, is that by all that everybody thinks I should have a foot in the grave right now because I don't exercise because my weight has fluctuated and I've yo-yoed and I've lost a lot and I've gained a lot.
But it's based primarily on the fact that I don't exercise.
I said, well, you know, my grandfather lived to be 104 and he worked until he was 102.
And my uncle, still a practicing federal judge, is going to be 80 and looks 65.
We've got some pretty good longevity genes in the family.
Not everybody, but they're enough to know that there might be a trend there.
Well, the genes definitely count, the doctor said.
Oh, they do.
That's a hell of an admission.
Genes count.
Some people are not as fortunate.
Some people end up with type 2 diabetes when they're five pounds overweight.
Some people take 20.
Some people don't take any being overweight, just getting old.
Some people have type 1.
Have to shoot up insulin.
Some people are naturally born with a problem toward heart disease, coronary artery disease, what have you.
We're all going to get something.
Something is going to happen to all of us, whether we eat oat bran, whether we take these statins or what have you.
I am not advocating not taking care of yourself, folks.
I'm not suggesting that at all.
I'm only suggesting that for me, because not taking care of myself has proved extremely beneficial.
We'll be back.
Rush Limbaugh, the most dangerous man in America here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Open Line Friday.
How can this be?
Oil prices fell today to below $90 a barrel on expectations that OPEC will decide to increase output at its meeting next week and as concerns of a supply disruption from a U.S. pipeline fire abated.
Well, this is good news.
Oil's going, this is not supposed to happen.
Oil is supposed to keep going on.
People were talking about $100 a barrel, $200 a barrel.
But crude prices are coming down.
I fully expect, folks, that by the time you leave work this afternoon, a full 25 cents will be off the pump price from when you left home this morning.
Just kidding.
But remember, when the price was shooting up, and the oil price was shooting up, the gasoline price held steady for a while.
And that was because of market forces as well.
Now, we talked about this when it happened not long ago.
Remember, the scientists discovered a way to create the equivalent of embryonic stem cells without having to create and destroy embryos.
And this is wonderful news.
It's absolutely fabulous, fabulous news.
And yet, the embryonic stem cell crowd is not happy.
Michael Kinsley today in a column warns all of us: if you think this issue is going away, you got another thing coming.
This issue isn't going to go away, meaning using embryos for embryonic stem cell research when it isn't necessary.
It isn't going to go away.
Because he doesn't admit this, the reason it's not going to go away is because the whole issue is not about embryonic stem cells.
And I'm sorry, Mr. Fox, it's not about Parkinson's disease, not about anything else, about abortion.
It's about women's rights, and it's about making sure that nobody can tell a woman what she can or can't do.
And it's also about cheapening life because this is what the left is interested in where abortion is concerned.
You can't say it is anything else.
But if you don't need embryos, if you don't need to create and destroy embryos to get embryonic stem cells, why should the issue not just go away?
And by the way, if I may be self-indulgent for a moment, and I know you'll accept this because I very rarely am self-indulgent.
I want to take you back to the Michael J. Fox television commercials during the 06 congressional campaign.
I refused, even during that hubbub and that flap, to let the critics, my critics, shut me up on this two things, on the concept of embryonic stem cells being, you know, one of these.
It's just like high cholesterol will give you a stroke.
Now we're being told that only embryonic stem cells can cure people like Christopher Reeve, whoever else.
Remember what that was all about?
It was about two things.
It was about protecting the sanctity of life and making sure also that people, when they enter the political arena, don't get away with making claims that aren't true because they're sick or what have you.
So principles are principles.
Instincts are instincts.
Always trust both.
Really, folks, unless your instincts are, well, no, trust them.
Try it.
Try trusting your.
You know what your instincts are?
Your instincts are that little inner voice.
Your conscience or what have you.
Always trust your instincts.
Try it.
Most people don't have the gust to trust themselves.
They want to go ask other people what they think they ought to do.
Try trusting your instincts once.
And once you find out it works, you'll find out you don't have to listen to as many people to find out what you ought to do or say or think.
Judy in Silex, Missouri.
Nice to have you on the EIB network.
Yes, Fresh, thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
I am the ultimate conservative, as are all my children.
Thank you.
I have four of them.
I wanted to talk about taxing the rich.
It may be worse than you even imagine.
Since you have no children, you may not be aware that after you earn a certain amount, you can no longer claim your dependence.
Well, I'm aware of it.
I have a son who started his own business.
He's been very successful.
I don't know exactly how much he makes, but he says he pays hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes.
He has four children and a wife with an incurable disease, yet he's not allowed to claim any of them as dependents.
And, you know, once you pass a certain income threshold, it's the same thing with a lot of other deductions as well.
Charitable deductions, the percentage you're allowed to take, interest deductions.
For example, nobody's going to have any sympathy with this, which is why nobody talks about it, Judy.
I'll never forget Andy Grove, who was the CEO of Intel at the time Clinton proposed a cap of the deductibility of $1 million on CEO salaries.
He was on this week with David Brinkley, and he was asked about it.
I don't want to answer these social questions, so it's not why he didn't want to talk about these kinds of things because he knew that nobody's going to have any sympathy.
But for example, I don't know how much money you're talking about here in terms of what you earn and what your son earns and so forth.
Well, I'll tell you this.
He made his own way because my husband and I, who I lost about three months ago, never earned over $50,000 between the two of us.
Right.
And we raised four children on that.
They all worked their way through college, working several jobs.
You're from Missouri, and I totally understand it.
But just to give you an example, and again, I don't expect, this is not a personal example of mine.
I'm just going to give you an example of the tax code.
I don't expect anybody to be sympathetic to it.
I just want to tell you about it to inform you.
If you happen to have enough money to want to go out and buy, say, a $10 million house, but you have to borrow some to buy it, or even a $5 million, let's say a $5 million house.
And let's say you put down a million and you borrow four.
You can only deduct $1 million on your mortgage.
Once you reach, maybe a little higher, you're only allowed to deduct $1 million, not your whole mortgage, not the interest on what you're paying.
So if you put down a million to buy something, it costs $5, and you're therefore paying off $4 million, you can only get a so-called tax deduction on $1 million of it.
Charitable donations.
Something, it's a sliding scale.
The max you get is 50%.
It slides down after that.
So, no, this is things are not well known because there aren't a whole lot of people in these brackets at this kind of income paying this.
But I'll bet you the income threshold for your son to lose the standard deduction for the exemption for his children, for dependents, is not really that much, right?
No.
I think it's around a million dollars.
Gross.
Yes.
That means actually something like just on federal that he's looking at something like 64 net, something like that, $640,000 net, and then the state taxes and then all the other taxes, property taxes and so forth.
So he's probably down.
That million gross is probably just over a little half million, and he can't claim his four kids as dependents.
Like I said, he's got a wife with an incurable disease.
Right.
A lot of medical bills, and he can look forward to no help at all, no loans, no credits for his kids to go to college or anything.
Look, I appreciate your calling and telling me this.
Now, I want to draw a distinction here.
This is making an assumption.
Judy here is not crying over spilt milk.
This is money that her son is earning.
And he's so much of it is already being taxed.
But because he earns gross X amount, he doesn't get the deductions for the dependents, his kids, and so forth.
Nobody's asking if this is not fair.
We need to make this right.
Not a charity case here.
This is a clear example of how somebody who's earning it is having it taken away by government, who at the same time is saying he doesn't need.
He's got more than he needs.
And he needs to even be paying higher taxes.
And because his tax cuts have been granted to him since Bush enacted them, that poor people are staying poor.
So your son, while being savaged by the U.S. tax code, at the same time is being blamed for not paying enough, for getting unfair tax breaks, and for denying others who have less a chance to earn more.
So people like your son are enemies.
Class envy.
There are people in the country who look at people like your son without knowing the specifics and think, this guy needs to be gotten even with.
It's not fair.
And so when people talk about raising taxes on people like your son, they're all for it.
Back in a second.
Okay, a couple volunteers are being held by an armed man at Clinton headquarters in Rochester, New Hampshire.
Lots of stuff being reported.
Got a bomb, what looks like a bomb, strapped to himself and is demanding to speak to Mrs. Clinton.
Now, this would be a great opportunity for the lessons of diplomacy to be taught and illustrated.
Negotiations.
And of course, Mrs. Clinton is the authority figure.
She's an American.
Obviously, this is her fault.
Well, I mean, every enemy of ours, it's our fault that they hate us.
And so Mrs. Clinton needs to get on the phone with this guy and ask him, why do you hate me?
Or why do you hate us?
What can I do to make you like me?
I mean, this is what we're told the Democrats want to do in foreign policy.
Let's see if it works in practical applications.
Here's Rick Frostburg, Maryland.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
All right, Rush.
Hey.
Thanks for taking my call.
You bet.
I got a question or a comment to make on a dog and Tony show in New York the other night.
They bit that Christmas tree up.
They have an 84-foot Christmas tree, and they make a big deal about it being a green tree.
Of course, it's a Christmas tree.
It might be green anyway.
But anyway, wait, You talk about the Rock Center tree?
Yeah, the Rock Center tree, yeah.
Okay.
And they make such a big deal about it.
They cut it down by hand, but they didn't say anything about the 50-ton train that was probably holding it up, burning diesel fuel, Aggie Yang Yang.
So how much do you think they saved by making all that noise about this news?
Well, you know, this is what's so acidine.
What's a green tree?
What really is a green tree that this is just I've got a global warming stack.
You are.
In fact, you are going to be the catalyst for me getting into it.
Because it took a lot of carbon footprint to transport that green tree to Rockefeller Center.
It took a lot of electricity to hang that green tree, to put it up.
It's going to take a lot of electricity for the lights in that green tree.
So however green the tree was has been canceled out with a massive footprint to get it there and to make it look like a Christmas tree at the Rock Center skating rink.
So let's just go to the global warming stack.
I know we had these 600 reasons yesterday.
It is just ridiculous.
If I were you and you believed in global warming, man-made global warming, I would be embarrassed to admit it.
Let me just give you the headlines.
This is from theinquirer.net.
It's from Brazil.
UN world has only 10 years to fix climate.
Wait a minute.
It was just two weeks ago we had a story from the UN that it's irreversible already.
And six months before that, we had a story it was irreversible.
And in 1988, Ted Danson told us we only had 10 years to fix the oceans.
In 1984, Michael Oppenheimer on this week with Brinkley said we only got 20 years to solve global warming.
Well, that was 23 years ago.
It's always 10 years.
It's always, we've only got 10 years.
Here's another one.
As climate alarmists around the world head to a tropical paradise on Bali next week to discuss.
Oh, can I tell you how this is going to work?
There's a UN conference on the environment, Kyoto and so forth, and they're doing it in Bali.
Bali Hai.
They're all going to fly there on their corporate jets.
Now, there's nothing wrong with that.
Well, there is.
They're hypocrites.
They're going to fly there on their corporate jets.
Now, wait.
There is only parking space at the airport in Bali for 15 of them.
So most of the private jets from around the world, from all these people that care so much about the environment, are going to have to be ferried.
I mean, the term is when you fly an airplane empty, deadhead it.
You have to deadhead that plane to a nearby island where they have an airport with larger parking space, which means if nobody is on that plane except the crew, you've got to deadhead over, and then for as long as the conference is keep it over there, then you've got to deadhead back to pick up your rich passenger owner.
You are burning fossil fuels, jet fuel, for no reason.
Nobody aboard.
You're not transporting anybody.
They are making a mockery of all this.
They criticize all these people and their carbon footprint.
And then, of course, they've got to house the crews of all their planes over at the other airport.
And their bodyguards and their staff and all this.
Well, in this case, just the crew.
So it's an absolute joke when they can go into a place that holds 15 parking space, you know, a ramp big enough for 15 jets.
And this island is, I think it's, you know, it's enough that it's how far away?
Oh, and the worst thing you can do on an airplane is what's called a short cycle.
Well, it's not the worst thing you can do, but the last thing you want to do is have a little jump that is 30 minutes, 30 miles, or whatever, because a takeoff and landing is a cycle.
The plane goes through pressurization or not pressurization, depending on altitude, and that to put stress on the airframe and so forth.
So, you like long hauls, you like coast-to-coast hauls for a cycle and so forth, and efficiency.
They're going to burn so much fuel because they're not going to get to altitude because this jump's not that far away, but still, they're going to be deadheading all these airplanes.
I mean, something 75 or 80 airplanes are going to be deadheading to this other island, empty.
Anyway, as climate alarmists around the world head to a tropical paradise next week to discuss how developed nations should pay to solve global warming, an inconvenient truth has emerged.
Many countries that are part of the Kyoto Protocol are going to dramatically overshoot their greenhouse gas emissions limits, meaning none of them are going to make the Kyoto limits that they've signed on to.
While it seems a metaphysical certitude that America's green media will largely boycott such relevations so as not to put a damper on the hysterical proceedings in Bali, the fact that taxpayers in countries missing these targets will end up footing the bill also appears likely to be ignored.
As reported by Bloomberg, Japan, Italy, and Spain face fines of as much as $33 billion combined for failing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as promised under the Kyoto Treaty.
You understand what this is.
The Kyoto Accord from the get-go has been a fleece.
Put emissions standards that are impossible for an industrialized, growing economy to meet.
When they don't meet them, fine them.
That makes it all better.
But who's paying the fine?
Taxes are going to go up in Japan, Italy, and Spain to pay for this.
And I hope the citizens over there who are green and think they're really helping the planet feel good about the taxes are going to be UN fleecing Western democracies and productive nations.
$33 billion just from those three countries.
You imagine what our fine would be if we were a member of Kyoto.
If nothing is done to combat global warming, two of Florida's nuclear power plants, three of its prisons, and 1,362 hotels, motels, and inns will be underwater by 2100.
A study released on Wednesday said.
In all, Florida could stand to lose $345 billion a year in projected economic activity by 2100 if nothing is done to reduce emissions that are viewed as the main human contribution to rising global temperatures, according to the Tufts University study.
So to put this in perspective, let me put this in perspective for you.
93 years ago, Woodrow Wilson was in his first term.
Woodrow Wilson, I know many of you, who?
Woodrow Wilson, not to mention the Soviet Union and commercial radio had yet to come into existence.
100 years from now, 93 years from now, they have no clue what they are talking about.
This is and the formulaic nature of perpetuating the myth and the hoax.
You know, Florida's got a much bigger problem right now than global warming.
You know what it is?
You know what you got?
You're all Floridians there.
You know what Florida's biggest problem right now?
Not lack of water.
That's number two.
And that's only in South Florida.
The biggest problem, Florida, if you're on the verge of real economic problems because of the property tax structure in this state, our property taxes are very high, but the snowbirds, the people who live here half the year or less, their property taxes skyrocket.
And they're refusing to come because they can't afford it anymore.
You travel around this state and you'll find restaurants shuttered this time of year in the season.
I had a friend in this morning.
He says, I was down at Fort Lauderdale.
I could not believe hotels were shut.
I could not believe it.
That's property tax.
People just aren't showing up.
There was an exodus.
There was an exodus from the Northeast.
What are you laughing at in there?
What are you laughing at?
Well, the friend was in Fort Lauderdale, too.
The friendsman Travin had a dinner down there at a restaurant in Fort Lauderdale.
If a friend gets around at any rate, there was an exodus in the Northeast and all the 800 people a day moving in.
That's dried up.
That's far more immediate concern than 100 years or 93 years from now, global warming?
Closing all these hotels?
UN, climate change threatens millions of poor people.
Floods, droughts, and other climate disasters will rob millions of children of the decent meals and schools they need unless rich nations, i.e., the United States, pony up $86 billion by 2015 to help the poor adapt to global warming.
This is journalistic malpractice.
This is an AP story.
If you want to help the poor adapt to global warming, put them on the path to becoming wealthy.
Let them build cleaning plants and transition systems that help them go from being poor to wealthy instead of making them continue to live in squalor.
But see, $86 billion from us will rob millions of children.
You know what's robbing millions of children of the decent meals and schools they need?
Liberalism, dictatorships, socialism.
People like Robert Ugabe and Hugo Chavez.
That's who's robbing children in the world today, not the United States.
Study.
Canadian beer drinkers threaten planet.
The government commission study says the old inefficient beer refrigerators that one in three Canadian households use to store their beer contribute significantly to global warming by guzzling gas and coal-fired electricity.
Welcome back.
Jack Murtha has clarified his remarks, ladies and gentlemen.
Let's go back to the audio tape.
This yesterday, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Murtha held a video conference with reporters to talk about his recent trip to Iraq.
I think the surge is working.
House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee Chairman Murtha has taken the unusual step of publicly clarifying his remark that the surge is working in Iraq now.
I knew this is, you know, you just know that Nancy Pelosi had steam and smoke coming out of her ears.
The clarification came after House Republicans circulated an article about Murthy's comments written in Friday's edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after the teleconference from Murtha's Johnstown office.
In addition to saying the surge is working, Murthy called the Iraqi government dysfunctional and said the thing that has to happen is the Iraqis have to do this themselves.
We can't win it for them.
This morning, Mirtha issued the following statement through a spokesman.
The military surge has created a window of opportunity for the Iraqi government.
Unfortunately, the sacrifice of our troops has not been met by the Iraqi government, and they have failed to capitalize on the political and diplomatic steps that the surge was designed to provide.
The fact remains the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily, and that we must begin an orderly redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq as soon as practicable.
Play number seven again, Mr. Broadcast Engineer.
I think the surge is working.
That just can't stand in the Democrat Party.
I mean, some Democrats might be able to say it and not have Nancy Pelosi go nuts.
When Mirtha says it, he has to clarify.
So he's made a pointed effort to get this clarification out, and he's done so.
And there will be nobody convinced me otherwise that somebody, he was taken to the woodshed.
He was taken to the woodshed by Pelosi and her minions in there in the speaker's office.
Brad in Topeka, Kansas, welcome to the EIB network.
It's an honor to talk to you, Rush.
Thank you.
I was wondering, when did you first use the phrase drive-by media and for what reason?
Where did you come up with that?
When did I first, gosh, I don't know.
It's been probably over a year now.
Drive-by, it's the perfect illustration of what they do.
Right.
You know what a drive-by shooting is?
Sure.
You got a bunch of renegades in a car and they drive into a crowd and they start spraying bullets around.
And then they head on down the highway.
They make a total mess of things.
They ruin some people.
They kill some people in the case of drive-by shootings.
They head on down the highway and they do it again.
Meanwhile, other people have to clean up the mess.
Drive-by media is the same way.
They come in with their cameras and their microphones and their news reporting, and they create an absolute mess.
They scare the hell out of people.
They literally cause carnage.
Their actions sometimes are destructive and ruinous to individuals.
They kill the reputations of people or try to.
And then they head on, they get in a convertible, they head on down the highway, and they find the next group of people to do the same thing to.
While there are those of us who have to go in and clean up the mess.
Okay, well, I completely agree with you.
I was just, I was curious the origin or when you first started using that, but that answers my question.
Why?
Has somebody stolen it from me?
Oh, no, no.
No way.
Well, just checking.
I'm not sure when I started.
I mean, it could have been a year and a half ago.
Time flying.
Right.
Okay, but I'll agree.
No, it was before.
It was before.
Well, I'll give you a, I don't know.
Katrina's a great example of it.
Katrina is a great example of drive-by media.
Go in there.
What did you say, HR?
All of the rapes, all the murders, all the destruction inside the superdome that didn't happen, all the rescues that weren't taking place.
Great example there of drive-by media.
And that's pretty much what they do in every instance.
I just don't remember exactly when it started.
Creativity on this program is spontaneous in many cases.
And I don't sit around at home and dream this stuff up.
It just pops out of there.
And sometimes something strikes to me when I'm doing show prep at home and so forth.
For the most part, it just pops out.
By the way, before we have to take a break, I just have to say one thing.
MU, Oklahoma, tomorrow night for the national championship game for MU.
Go Tigers.
Mrs. Clinton, by the way, is at her home in Washington.
She's not in New Hampshire.
The gunman, the bomber, whatever the hostage taker is demanding to speak to her in New Hampshire.