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Dec. 7, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:16
December 7, 2007, Friday, Hour #3
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Ha just made it back to the broadcast complex here in the nick of time.
It's back in Snerdley's office telling him some jokes.
Greetings, may you still laughing.
I can't tell you on the air.
Greetings, welcome back.
Open Line Friday moves right on.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
When we go to the phones, ladies and gentlemen, you own the program.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, and the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
Where is it?
Oh, yeah.
Christmas causes global warming.
Hell, what doesn't cause global warming?
I don't even care anymore.
Look at it.
Saudi Arabia and the United States named the world's worst climate sinners by environmentalist wackos.
Confirms what I've always told you, ladies and gentlemen.
That is global warming is its own religion.
Other items in the stack of stuff today.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says a swipe that Vice President Cheney took at Democrat House leaders is beneath the dignity of his office.
Capitol Hill was a buzz yesterday with discussion of the vice president's assertion in an interview with Politico.com that House Democrat leaders have been surprisingly supine.
They're not carrying the big sticks I would have expected, Cheney said.
Boy, that's open to interpretation.
Cheney added that when he served in the House, we wouldn't have had a speaker who, from my perspective, is that far out of the mainstream.
She's a San Francisco Democrat, certainly entitled to reviews, but able to dictate policy as effectively as she apparently does to the rest of the caucus.
But the point is they're not getting anything done.
They are as incompetent and inept as Mrs. Clinton is.
But they're not carrying the big sticks.
The speaker said, telling you the truth, I've really been busy the last 24 hours.
How can I say this with the dignity of the office that I hold and especially the dignity of the office the vice president holds?
It's so beneath the dignity of his office and mine, I don't even want to address it.
Of course I have the responsibility at the end of the day, but I'm very respectful of their read on the situation.
Those people are our distinguished chairman.
I have enormous respect for their knowledge of the subject.
This was discussed yesterday on PMS NBC.
Nora O'Donnell spoke with their correspondent Mike Vicara about Cheney's comments suggesting that Democrats who rubber stamp Pelosi's agenda are lacking a spine.
Here's a.
It is.
It's the chickification of everything.
Here is the exchange or a portion thereof.
He knows these guys.
He knows what gets under their skin, intimating that Nancy Pelosi has somehow emasculated these two old bulls, as they called them around here.
It's interesting that you use that word emasculated, that these are following me.
Yeah, following a woman, you know, Nancy Pelosi up there on the hill.
I mean, saying these Dems don't care around big sticks anymore.
It's so easy to get under their skin with the truth.
The two old bulls, of course, would be who?
Dingy Harry and Stenny Hoyer.
Harry and Murtha.
Oh, yeah, we're talking to the House.
Absolutely true.
Illegal aliens are a net drain on state and local governments, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that found the federal government does not do enough to help offset those costs.
The tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants, the CBO said in its review released yesterday.
Well, really, is that surprising to any of us?
But remember, this is from the CBO, and the CBO is golden as far as liberal Democrats are concerned.
It's non-partisan, ladies and gentlemen.
Trying to find a way out.
I mentioned this earlier, but I want to read the details to you from the New York Times.
Trying to find a way out of a sticky tax problem.
The Senate on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to prevent the alternative minimum tax from hitting millions of middle-class Americans without replacing the $50 billion that would be lost.
The move represented a bitter retreat for Senate Democrats who, in taking over Congress this year, pledged to pay for new tax cuts or programs rather than add to the federal deficit.
But with Republicans refusing to go along, most Democrats joined the Republicans in endorsing a temporary fix of the ATM without corresponding offsets rather than be held responsible for a surprise tax burden falling on 19 million taxpayers.
Bitter retreat?
This is worse than a retreat, folks.
Another Bush tax cut with a Democrat-controlled Congress.
The Democrats essentially were told to bend over and grab the ankles.
The Republicans said, look, you want to be responsible in election year for people's taxes going up?
Go right ahead.
We got the ads ready to roll out.
Now, what's going to happen when revenues go up after this tax cut?
You have to love this.
And by the way, listen to this.
Experts say that the tax cuts approved in the early days of the Bush administration have also pushed more people under the tax into the AMT.
The Treasury Department estimates that without a change in law, a total of 23 million people would have to pay the alternative tax on their 2006 taxes at an average of about $2,000 additional each.
The tax could reach some Americans earning $50,000 a less.
I thought only the rich got tax cuts.
And by the way, if the Bush tax cuts helped move people up to a different tax bracket, I thought only the rich benefited from Bush's tax cuts.
Now we've got a tax cut here in effect with the AMT being temporarily suspended.
And so people of 50 grand or less or more, right around that, are going to end up getting a tax cut.
And I thought that was not possible because that's just not what the Democrats say.
Only the rich get tax cuts.
Speaking of Dingy Harry, this is a great editorial in the Investors Business Daily from yesterday.
It's entitled Harry Reid's Deficit of Leadership.
It is a superb illustration of how devoid of anything Harry Reid is.
It's about a little-known, little-talked-about trade deal with little old Peru and how he blew it.
It's a long piece.
I don't have time to go through the whole thing.
But here's how it starts.
Arlen Specter on Wednesday decried Harry Reed's vindictive leadership premised on his hatred of President Bush.
It's part of a pattern.
Reed's no vote on Peru free trade reflected the same pathos.
Reed, who didn't let President Ford's funeral interrupt his junket to Peru's ruins in January, managed to lead only a tiny percentage of the Senate against free trade for our Peruvian ally on Tuesday as the Pact won 77 to 18.
Reed's stance not only showed how bad his judgment is, but how out of touch he is even with his own party.
Peru was supposed to be the easiest of all trade agreements for Congress to approve.
The AFL-CIA CIO did not oppose it.
Peru accepted changes without complaint to ensure its passage.
There was no good reason not to support it, but Reed voted no anyway and justified it in an 883-word diatribe blaming Bush.
I support engagement with Latin America.
I strongly support being a better neighbor, but I do not support this narrow policy tool that the Bush administration has fixated on.
They go on to describe the details of this deal.
And then this.
This is the whole problem with Reed's leadership.
After he called GOP Senators Bush's 49 parrots, Specter was infuriated.
I wonder if he's up to the job when he resorts to that kind of statement, which only furthers the level of rancor and insults and animosity, Specter said from the Senate floor.
Some Capitol Hill insiders think that Reed himself may find his leadership challenged in the Senate over this Peruvian deal by more ambitious Democrats in 2009, including Barack Obama, who, though he was away for the vote, publicly stated that he was with the bipartisan majority.
If Bush cannot escape his Bush derangement syndrome to start accomplishing bipartisan objectives to do good things such as extend free trade, he shouldn't be surprised if he's out on his ear.
The only thing about this, well, one curious thing about this is if Obama, if Obama's telling insiders that he's thinking about running for the Senate majority leadership in 2009, it must mean that he expects to lose the presidential primary race to Mrs. Clinton, doesn't it?
Back to the phones.
Open Line Friday, Waterloo, Iowa.
This is Sam.
Nice to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Hi.
Thank you, Professor, for allowing me our front row seat in your classroom for many years.
I appreciate that.
Say, are you aware that the UAW is holding mock elections in every union shop clear across the country?
Frankly, no, wasn't aware of that.
Well, we just had ours.
Now, we have a few hundred members that can vote.
And I thought you might be delighted to know that the lady with the testicle lockbox did not get one vote.
Wait a second.
You're a member of the UAW.
Yeah.
And how many voted in your whatever local?
320.
320 votes in your UAW local in Iowa and Waterloo.
Right.
And Mrs. Clinton didn't get one vote in these mock elections?
That's right.
John Edwards came in first.
Now it gets even better.
The UAW also had a school for community action program in Des Moines, and there were 540 of us down there.
And we had our own mock election.
And down there, that woman, what's her name, only got 35 votes.
Well, now, what do you make of this?
This can't possibly tell us anything about the Hawkeye Caucasi.
I mean, the Hawkeye Corkai are pretty close with, you know, the lead goes back and forth depending on the poll between Obama and Mrs. Clinton.
Well, she is not doing well in rural Iowa.
All you need to do is drive down the country roads and take a mental census of what signs you see.
And we see less her signs than anybody else.
What I love these anecdotal stories.
I don't quite know what to make of this.
I guess all we can make of it here is that within these UAW votes, she not liked.
I guess not.
Do they know?
Who did you vote for?
Well, I didn't vote for the Democratic side, of course.
I voted on the other side.
Oh, by the way, on the Republican side, Rod Paul came in first, and it was a three-way tie between Huckabee, Romney, and Thompson.
Rudy was nowhere near it, huh?
No, I'm sorry to say.
Well, Rudy's not even focusing on Iowa, though.
That's the thing.
Rudy's strategy kicks off in New Hampshire, and Florida is going to be key.
Well, you seem maybe that makes sense because, you know, there's more people live in Chicago than live in the whole state of Iowa.
Yeah, but Iowa does have its importance, as we all know.
Well, that's interesting, Sam.
I'm glad that you were on the scene there and reporting these results for me.
Thanks very much.
Good afternoon.
You have a great day.
All right, folks, I have some more dingy hairy news here.
And I'm going to go back.
It's been a long time since we heard this.
Since it goes back to the Dingy Harry smear letter of me that you remember we auctioned off on eBay at $2.1 million.
I matched it, $4.2 million.
It goes to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
By the way, they have the money.
Our high bidder wired the money that day.
I matched later in the next week.
The MCLEF has the money.
Betty Casey, who owns Patrick Henry's homestead, is in the process of refurbishing it, turning it into a little museum.
And she is, when the reverberations are done, the renovations are done, the Dingy Harry Smear Letter will be posted in Patrick Henry's homestead or museum.
So with the, it is very cool.
The original Dingy Harry smear letter and the Halliburton attaché are currently secreted away in a bank vault protecting that letter and the Halliburton attache from any theft or damage whatsoever.
But I thought, we'll just use the letter, the little song that Paul Shanklin did as Dingy Harry is sort of an update theme for the rest of the dingy hairy news that we have today.
So here it is again.
Give me an aspirin for this migraine.
And I won't care what Media Matter says again.
Reputation's gone.
They hate me back at home.
I shouldn't have written the letter.
How could I know it would make Limbaugh's day?
I just wanted to lean a little bit on Mark May.
Reputation's gone.
They hate me back at home.
I shouldn't have written the letter.
Where I wrote him a letter, said I shouldn't be on the radio.
No.
Then he auctioned it for charity, made a fool of me, and he raised a lot of dough.
Anyway, yeah.
I won't care what Media Matters says again.
Reputations come.
They paid me back at home.
I shouldn't have written the letter.
Paul Shanklin as dingy Harry and the letter.
From the New York Times today, all the makings of a carnival except the fun.
As if there was any doubt that Congress was on the verge of devolving into a carnival atmosphere, Senator Dingy Harry Reed, the Democrat majority leader, on Thursday proposed doing cartwheels down the center of the Senate chamber to draw attention to Republican efforts to block legislation.
Here in the Cirque de Senate, there is trash talking, there's whining, finger-pointing, bickering, occasionally brief flashes of serious disagreement on policy.
But with the clock ticking swiftly toward the end of the year and a stack of stalled legislation piling up, little is getting done in the Senate these days, and tempers are starting to boil over.
Mr. Reed, who turns 68 on Sunday and power walks four miles a day, big deal, ultimately did not perform any gymnastics.
He didn't do the cartwheels.
But his fury, his fury over the inability to move Democrats' legislative agenda seemed to have deepened since Tuesday when he accused President Bush of pulling the strings on the 49 puppets he has here in the Senate.
And that, of course, caused Arnold Specter to just jump up and accuse Reed of violating a rule prohibiting senators from imputing any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.
Specter said, in my view, that being called a puppet is in direct violation of the rule.
Come on.
He called me a puppet.
Did you hear that?
He called me a puppet.
Dingy Harry can go to the floor of the Senate and lie about me and smear something about me and demand that my corporate partner censor me and nobody in the Senate says anything about it.
Harry Reed calls 49 Republicans puppets and they act like Jackson the box instead and they all pop up.
He can't call me a puppet.
You can't call me a puppet.
That can be coming in kind of.
I know the decorum and all of this.
At any rate, he just can't get anything done.
They just can't, and he's just mad as he can be about it.
In roll call, headline, Reed hopeful for 2008 legislative success, eager not to be face of the party.
The story is all about his battles with Bush.
But you know, it's not just his battles with Bush.
Reed versus Limbaugh, Reed versus Class, Reed versus the taxpayers.
It's Dingy Harry versus America, folks, and he is losing.
We welcome thinkers on this program.
I am fascinated by how people think and what they think.
That's why we do Open Line Friday, 800-282-2882.
From Reuters, Democrats fury...
They're furies.
Harry Reid's furious.
Democrats at large are furious.
They're not acting like winners at all, folks.
They're not acting like winners at all.
They run the House.
They run the Senate.
They can't get anything done.
Can't do anything right.
Democrats' fury grows over destroyed CIA tapes.
Congressional Democrats reacted furiously on Friday to the CIA's disclosure that it had made and destroyed videotapes of terrorism interrogations as leading lawmakers called for a Justice Department inquiry.
Assistant Senate Democratic leader Dick Turbin of Illinois wrote the Attorney General to request an investigation into whether the CIA violated obstruction of justice laws by destroying the tapes.
The tapes recorded interrogations using techniques that many critics have described as torture.
Turbin said in his letter, the CIA apparently withheld information about the existence of these tapes from official proceedings, including a 9-11 commission and a federal court.
It is the Justice Department's role to determine whether the law was violated.
Now, may I ask a very simple question: Do you find it strange that when the non-covert Valerie Plame was outed, the Democrats went ballistic.
They just had a fit.
You are threatening this woman's life.
You are destroying her career.
Somebody must be frog-marched out of the White House to pay for this.
Who do you Republicans think you are?
This is a what prior to this.
Democrats never gave a rat's rear end about CIA or anybody in it.
By the way, now all of a sudden they're so concerned for the safety and the future of a brilliant non-covert operative Valerie Plame.
Now that the CIA tries to prevent real covert agents from being unmasked, they go ballistic over that too.
Are you confused by this, ladies and gentlemen?
It seems rather what?
Contradictory to be so concerned about the identity of a non-covert desk analyst being outed, and yet they want to know who the hell these operatives were.
That's what they want to know.
And the CIA said, look.
And there's a third question here.
This is the CIA.
Their job is to learn and keep secrets.
And they are not a production, video production house for either Senate or House Democrats or the American TV networks.
Very strange indeed, ladies and gentlemen.
By the way, if you people in Michigan, I have some of the best news that you have heard in a long time.
The best news since you last heard I was coming to Michigan last spring.
And it is this: Governor Jennifer Granholm says the most important thing she learned this year is that she's never going to raise taxes again to deal with any budget shortfalls.
A Democrat governor told the AP that she'll be looking at cuts and reforms to deal with the budget during her remaining three years in office.
The Grand Holm administration still is asking for fee increases.
That's also known as taxes.
Fee increases to help fund the State Departments of Natural Resources and Environmental Quality.
But she regrets that infighting over a compromise triggered a government shutdown into budget deadline extensions before the work was done.
So you, you know, Merry Christmas, those of you in Michigan, the governor says she won't raise taxes again.
Got to go.
It's election season, and I'm sure she's hearing about it up there.
Dick in Macedonia, Ohio.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Rush an honor and a privilege.
I wanted to take a stab at explaining why it's absolutely essential in a constitutional republic to have either a Judeo-Christian ethic restraining our behavior or something very like it.
The framers of the Constitution had a very decided Christian worldview.
Part of that worldview is recognition of the fact that we are flawed from the garden.
We have a basic tendency towards evil.
With the freedom that we enjoy in a constitutional republic, and especially now with all the wealth that we have, we have the opportunity and the means to indulge our dark side.
And without the voluntary self-imposition of some type of behavioral restraints, we become and do evil.
And that's why it's essential.
Even with those, some of us do evil.
Absolutely.
But without it, and it certainly is what you're saying is something I've said this before, if I'm interpreting you correctly.
What you're saying is something I have gotten tarred in feather over every time I've said it in the 20-year history of this program, and that is that morality, the life's guardrails, whatever, derive descend from religion.
It's the only source.
Well, just be good, thankful, you are not the host.
Because if you were, you would get emails, hateful emails, telling you you don't know what you're talking about.
You haven't the slightest understanding of religion or morality.
And besides, who are you to be defining anybody's morality for them anyway?
It explains why now we have to have surveillance cameras every 200 to 300 feet in the major cities because our behavior has deteriorated to the point that we must keep each other under surveillance in order to achieve any level of order.
I understand that, but you know, I just read a piece and I just interviewed one of the authors of a piece, Pete Wayner, and Yuval Levant have written a piece that they've looked at the data over the last 15 years.
Crime statistics are improving.
All kinds of things are getting better.
The test scores for high schools and math and science are getting better.
They're not improving against the rest of the world, but they're improving against their own benchmark.
All these cultural indicators are getting better.
A lot of people think these surveillance cameras are just the natural evolution toward large government and big brotherism.
Well, absolutely.
Absolutely.
But then let's take them down if all these behavioral indicators are improving.
Well, ain't going to happen.
Once they go up, once those cameras are up, hell, I spotted them here in our little town the other day at one of the intersections.
The primary thing, well, we're going to make sure that we catch everybody that makes a traffic infraction or whatever the word traffic that runs a red light or whatever.
But, you know, let me throw another theory out at you.
For those, you conspiracy theorists out there will eat this up.
There's another report, this time I think it's from Israel, that cell phone use, regular cell phone use, will lead to brain tumors.
All right.
Now, I have a question.
This comes up at least twice a year.
You get research.
No, it doesn't.
Yes, it does.
No, it doesn't.
Yes, it does.
We've got evidence.
Cell phones used by mice have led to brain tumors in mice.
People go, wow, I didn't know that.
How do we test everything else on mice?
Now, here's the question: does it seem to you?
I'll ask you this, Dick, since you're on the phone here, along with the rest of the world.
Does it seem to you that somebody's hell-bent on getting us to stop using cell phones?
You can't use them in the car now.
You can't hold them more and more raw against laws against hands-free use of the cell phone.
Even that, and people getting mad when they ring in the opera, when they ring in church.
So do you get the impression that there's some people that try to get us not to use them?
It would appear that way.
Why would that be?
Why would it be?
I'm not sure.
Perhaps they're opposed to us having the level of communication ability that we do.
I think you may be on to something.
I think you may be on to something.
For example, just to posit this thought, just a little, just a teachable, thinkable moment.
One of the things, and my theory about liberalism is that they're all about control.
In order for liberalism to thrive, they have to be able to, A, control a government, be in charge of it, and control as much of life as possible.
With so many millions of Americans, the hundreds of millions of Americans referred to by some Democrat yesterday, might have been Hillary Clinton, hundreds of millions of Americans, so easily able to access all kinds of information.
Do you know how hard it is to control a population that has all kinds of access and communication ability to get information from anywhere?
The internet's a big enough threat as it is.
How are they going to shut that down?
So that I don't know.
I'm not a computer guy.
Well, they can't.
All they can do is come up with find a way to make it expensive to use it.
But it just, look at folks, I'm not suggesting it.
This cell phone business, I'm just starting to ask, why are they so eager to get us to stop using it?
I refuse to believe it's actually because they think we're going to get brain cancer.
I just don't think that's it.
Now, I know you got a bunch of mealy-mouthed scientists and researchers out there desperate for grants and all the ingredients that go into this stuff.
And I know that there are probably some people in the cell phone that are not in the cell phone business, would love to damage it.
I know about corporate competition and all that.
But something about this, how long has it been postulated that cell phone usage causes cancer?
It's way too long.
There's a reason they're trying to scare people right now into not using them.
Ain't going to work.
People are never going to shut up, except me.
I hate talking when this show's over.
For example, I don't say another 10 words the rest of the day.
I don't believe this.
I really don't believe.
I don't have time to read it.
I'm going to have to save this for Monday.
It's a column today by a guy named Dick Simpson in the Chicago Sun-Times.
Can we revive 60s-era ideals?
He says.
Those of us who came of age in the 1960s were optimistic.
We actually believed that peace, democracy, and justice could be achieved.
We naively thought it would only take a few years of dedicated struggle.
None of us in the movement believe that 40 years later we would be fighting about another disastrous war abroad, fighting yet another imperial president, one who spies on American citizens, and living in a, well, their beloved Robert Kennedy was wiretapping Martin Luther King.
And living in a country in which minorities are still not equal.
In the 60s, though, we didn't really worry about getting a job, about finding health insurance, or about saving for retirement.
We weren't fearful of crime walking our city streets.
We felt free to demonstrate, to protest, to work inside and outside the system for our idealistic goals.
Some of my fellow 60s activists have dropped out over the last 40 years, but there's still a hard core of us in human services, mid-level government positions, the halls of Congress, foundations, and other places in society.
We've not lost our zeal for us.
The question is whether today's youth can overcome their own generation's doubts and current cynicism.
Peace, democracy, and justice still demand the same noisy protests as they did then.
Our hope is that the spirit of the 60s still lives or may be reborn.
If so, we will achieve more progress this time around if we learn the 60s hard lessons.
It still must be the youth who provide the energy and a leadership.
We all need to rediscover the idealism and the determination we had back then.
Yeah, Dick, you guys have come close to destroying a country, and you haven't gone away.
What do you think?
Who do you think is leading the Democrat Party's presidential nomination race, Dick?
A 60s radical.
Hillary Clinton with her husband Bill, and it is their last gasp.
This is your 60s-era generation anti-war left last gasp, Dick, to embrace, get your arms around this country and bend it, shape it, form it, and flake it in whatever image you want.
Because after this election, even if Mrs. Clinton wins, serves two terms.
After that, the baby boomers are out.
In fact, she may not make it beyond a first term, given what she's going to do to the country.
That is, we still have the right to vote after her first term.
Here's Ruth in Brooklyn.
Thank you for waiting, Ruth.
Nice to have you with us on the EIB network.
Wow, this is a real treat, Rush.
And I'm nervous.
I'm going to try and speak succinctly because I know your time is table and it is a treat to be able to speak to you.
But, you know, I heard you for the first time in 1999.
I heard you on the radio.
And I thought, oh, my gosh, who is this guy?
I love the way he thinks.
This is how I think.
And over the years, listening to your program, listening to you teach and explain modern-day events and all the hidden agendas underneath, lifting back those covers and exposing that stuff, you've really, it's not like you have converted me.
It's like you've been a catalyst to help me to think for myself and to get in touch.
Unlike the Democrats who want me to be dependent on them, actually you make me more independent and a more analytical and a sharper thinker.
And I think what you're hearing from your callers is, you know, it's a lot of gratitude and respect.
And, you know, you're larger than life.
You're what we need in this country to help us switch through all the stuff that comes through the drive-by media.
Did you by any chance grow up a Democrat or a liberal?
Yes.
Yeah, because, see, this, I can tell.
I just knew because this realization that you've experienced, this revelation, this rebirth since 1999, has been profound to you.
It's changed my life.
And you know what?
I raised my two girls to listen to you.
And let me tell you, they are sharp, and they are great thinkers, and you can't put much past them.
And they require more of the men in their life because of you.
And I'll tell you, you are very articulate about religion and its proper role in politics.
And there's no way that you can separate the two because people, you know, politics is really the study of people and their issues.
And people who believe in God, they live out of the center of their heart.
Those issues motivate everything they do.
And so anyway, I just can't thank you enough for what I have.
You just made my life so much richer, smarter.
And you know what?
When I have to go do something and I can't pay attention to events, I know you're there.
And I'm able to give my full attention to my projects.
And I really appreciate that.
And I really appreciate you addressing the Mitt Romney situation.
Thank you very much.
All this is mutual.
You and everybody else in the audience mean as much to me.
You mean more to me than whatever it is I mean to you.
And I'm not trying to diminish what you said.
I know I'm a force of nature.
Thank you very much.
We'll be back.
Have a great weekend, folks.
Couple Christmas parties for the kid over the weekend.
And then the Steelers and Patriots at 4.15 Sunday afternoon on CBS.
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