Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Yeah, it was two nights in a row.
I was dropping the F-bomb.
I was pounding my fist on the table.
These were supposedly, you know, social dinners, and I just, I lost it.
And these are with Republicans.
I just, I just, I mean, I was pounding my left hand on a table so hard one Saturday night that I knocked my watch off my wrist.
And then I tried to put it back on.
I thought that I had knocked a link out of it because it didn't fit.
I had reshaped it is what I had done.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm going to tell you all about it.
We've got a lot to do here today, folks.
I hope you had a great weekend.
This is a Rush Limbaugh program.
And here we are at the EIB Network, Broadcast Excellence, all yours for three hours, straight ahead.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program at 800-282-2882 and the email address ilrushbow at eibnet.com.
Well, what it was about, I just got sick and tired of hearing discussions about how China and India are going to wipe us out economically and that we're changing and we're changing forever and so forth.
And then I got sick and tired of hearing what the Republican version of cafe standards are.
That's what really, last night, that was the thing that blew me up.
I just started, I pounded the table, I started dropping the F-bomb.
I apologize to the hostess.
I said, would somebody explain to me why we are sitting here and accepting the premise of the liberal Democrat agenda and trying to come up with our own better way of doing what they want to do?
CAFE standards are a great example.
For those of you in Rio Linda, this is the gas mileage standards that the government is imposing on automobile manufacturers.
Now, it's fine for me.
If we want to have people that go out and drive little cars that get a lot of gas mileage, that's fine.
Produce them.
But at the same time, if we have people that want to drive hogs, produce them.
But we've got this massive little hoax going on about pollution and man-made global warming and so forth.
As a result, automobile manufacturers cannot make the cars they want to make.
You know, you probably saw over the weekend Bob Lutz, who's a friend of mine at General Motors, came out and said, global warming is a crock.
I met with Bob Lutz back in Michigan in Detroit last May.
He told me the same thing.
I quoted a highly placed GM official without mentioning his name to you, but he's out there saying it now.
And he's got a mock-up.
They wanted to make a giant 16-cylinder Cadillac, just a gorgeous car.
And they wanted it to compete.
They wanted to go into the, you know, compete with the Bentley and the Rolls-Royce sector.
It's not a whole lot of cars, but it's a high-prestige thing.
Can't do it.
Can't make it because the thing's not going to get enough gas mileage down the road according to the cafe standards.
And of course, we just sit around and we accept the premise of this and argue with them rather than inserting conservative principles and say, let these manufacturers build what they want and let the company public buy what they want and not buy what they don't want.
Let that shape the kind of cars that are made in this country rather than people like Al Gore and a bunch of liberals dictating what kind of automobiles we have to have.
I mean, it's a free market.
If you want to drive a little lawnmower with two seats on it, somebody will make it for you.
And it's fine and dandy if you do.
If you want to drive a hybrid, somebody will make it for you, buy it.
But if you want to drive a hog, if you want to drive a 12-cylinder little machine, it gets 12 miles to the gallon and is very safe, you ought to be able to do that too.
We can't allow that method.
Screw you.
I'm sick and tired of you liberals telling me what we can and cannot be allowed to do from the platitudes of big government.
I'm looking for conservative principles and leaders that are going to stand up for what we believe in, which is free market economics, free market entrepreneurism, particularly in energy.
Oh, man, I was just, I just, I got, I got sick of it.
I just, I was, I was sitting there, I was trying to entertain these discussions in the same intellectual light that they were being held.
And I popped out my question on Saturday.
And I said, okay, well, can I ask you two guys a question?
There's two guys going back and forth here on the intellectual dynamism of China and India.
And I finally, I said, do you guys realize that neither of those economies would be diddly squat without us?
What in the world are you sitting here wanting to diminish us for?
Were it not for us?
Those economies wouldn't be emerging.
Why we want to kill our own with a bunch of unnecessary regulations and guilt-ridden policies while those two countries, as you say, are going to start running rings around us and being able to hold us hostage to various things.
We are the engine of the free world.
You ever stop?
And I have popped it.
I love popping this question on people because I'm amazed at how few people ever stop to think of it.
Can you tell me how it's possible that a country of less than 300 million people in less than 230 years rules the world like no group of humanity ever has before?
Can you tell me this?
Can you get and you should hurt?
I don't even remember some of the answers, but the answers were the intellectual free flow of things.
I'm not putting down intellectuals, don't misunderstand it, but the whole concept of the question seemed to escape these guys, and this is why I was started pounding the fist and pounding the table.
I said, it's freedom and the inclusion in our founding documents.
That our freedom comes from God, not government, not man.
That's why we've outlasted every other civilization.
And somebody said, well, the Brits did a pretty good job.
Yeah, they gave it up.
The Brits gave up everything they had.
They threw in the towel.
They cashed in the chips.
Yeah, they did have a great empire at one time.
But they gave it up.
And we're in the process of acting like we need to do the same thing.
So we don't even have an empire.
It's just the nature of our existence that fuels the world.
And I get so sick and tired of hearing this country beat up.
It's one thing when liberals start beating the country up because you expect them to hate America.
But when people on our side start doing it, it's just frustrating.
You know, I finally said, you know, something?
All these wizards at the hedge funds and all these wizards on Wall Street and all these wizards out in Silicon Valley, that's all fine and anything that's not what makes the country work.
And the people in Washington are not what make the country work.
People that you never heard of laboring in anonymity, working every day, are the people that make this country work.
The entrepreneur is the creative genius that's out there that nobody ever knows or hears about until their product that they invent or their service happens to triumph.
The strength of this country is not in government policy.
It's not in anything that influences government policy.
All that does is end up putting restrictions or breaks on progress.
And these people that make the country work are out there in opposition to all that each and every day, fighting whatever they have to do to overcome the obstacles put in their way.
And thank God they do.
In most cases, overcome it all.
But it's one thing for liberals and Democrats to want to be able to put those obstacles there to create as many victims as possible in this country and have the government be their sole source of dependence for their needs in life.
But it ain't what we do.
It is not what conservatism is.
It's not what conservatism stands for.
It's not what free market entrepreneurialism is.
And when we accept the premises or the premises, policy premises of the left, I don't care healthcare, what to do about energy?
I mean, our energy program is absolutely absurd.
Our energy program is not based on growth at all.
Our energy is based on guilt.
We're destroying the world, polluting the world.
We've got to come up with a mythical replacement for fossil fuels.
There's nothing out there, but we're in the process of doing it, trying to.
In the meantime, same people whine and moan about our dependence on foreign oil don't even seem to know that most of our oil comes from Canada, next comes from Mexico, third comes from the Middle East.
But if you're worried about the oil that's coming from the Middle East, let's go get our own.
Oh, no, we can't do that, Mr. Lumbo.
Why?
Yeah, we can't do that, and we can't build the cars we want to build, and we can't build nuclear power plants.
We can't do anything that makes sense.
And so, because we can't, Republicans get into debates with these liberals on their premises to try to come up with a healthcare came up, and I said, You guys are, I'm going to boil over here again.
Why do we have to debate the concept of the government providing everybody insurance?
A Democrat idea.
Why don't we get serious?
There was a doctor at this female doctor at this dinner on Saturday night, surgeon from Miami.
I said, Stop.
I want to ask you one question.
You think of the American healthcare, not your practice, just the whole healthcare system.
What's the number one problem you think exists?
And she thought about it and came up with a couple things that I didn't think were accurate.
I said, How about cost?
Oh, yeah, yeah, cost.
That's right.
What are we doing to rein in cost?
Nothing.
We're not doing diddly squat.
We conservatives have an idea to reduce cost.
I said to her, You ever wonder why a hospital room costs four times what a hotel room is?
Why is it that the healthcare business all of a sudden is one business where the patient's ability to pay is not a factor in what it costs?
A hotel couldn't run that way.
Hotel chains, no other business in this country catering to a full market or a niche market could possibly exist if it weren't concerned that its customers would be able to pay the price that's being charged.
What's happened here in healthcare that has blown that out the window?
Whoa.
Says it's a government, the government, and the notion that insurance is going to pay for everything and somebody else is paying the cost for it.
And then we've got this idea given us by the liberals that everybody's entitled to this, whatever it is.
Your average checkup to something catastrophic, somebody else should pay for it.
It's a constitutional right.
We've allowed the liberals to dictate this line of thinking on it.
And so now we want to talk about the healthcare problem.
We come up with a better version of their idea, or we think it's a better version of their idea when their idea sucks and is wrong to begin with.
Universal health care coverage, take a look at any place they've got it, Canada, Great Britain, and tell me you want to emulate it.
Nobody in your right mind would.
But Rush, but Rush, where the United States we can do it better.
Socialism is socialism wherever you try it.
And one thing about socialism, it always fails.
It never works.
Cuba, Venezuela.
But the liberals admire these places.
And they admire these places because they are envious of the power that the thug dictators that run these little places have.
They want it for themselves.
I mean, it's more complicated than that.
But they're counting education.
Education.
I mean, we've had people on our side come up with brilliant ideas for school vouchers.
Who is it that stands in a way?
The people in charge of making sure education does not improve in this country.
Protecting their jobs, making sure that the education system's little indoctrination center for young little kids to be turned into nice little liberals.
A lot of stuff.
You know, these are serious issues that deal with the future of the country.
And I just have grown weary.
And I have, I tell you what, one thing that this weekend proved to me, and I've sensed this, and I don't want anybody to misunderstand this.
And I'm going to have to be very specific about this.
One thing this weekend showed me is I am not a Republican.
I ran into so many people last night.
This dinner was in a private room at a restaurant.
It was a buffet.
Had to go out in the buffet.
So many people, you got to support Cain.
You got to support McCain.
I know you have to.
You're Republican.
I'm looking at things a little bit differently than you are.
What are you for that?
No, I'm not for them.
What do you think?
I want to win.
It's like I sold an Eagle Burger.
I want to win.
I want the Democrat Party in as much trouble.
I want them fighting before the convention.
I want them fighting after the convention.
I want them fighting after the election.
I want them fighting constantly.
Look at it in a military context.
Your enemy is weakened when they're fighting each other.
I don't understand why everybody on our side is urging Hillary to get out.
Why?
For what reason?
We want Hillary to stay in.
We want Hillary to employ every tactic she can to try to win the nomination.
Tear that party apart.
It's about time Obama.
Can you believe Obama is now crying?
Poor Obama, Hillary is daring to challenge him.
This is kids' play.
Look at what the New York Times did to McCain.
That's serious stuff.
They wouldn't do that to a Clinton.
They wouldn't do that to an Obama.
And Obama's running around acting like he's been hurt here because Mrs. Clinton's being criticized.
He's just used to being idolized.
He's not Billy Graham running around out there.
I'll tell you, this guy better get a bigger, thicker skin than what he's got right now.
Because we have our official Obama criticizer here.
He was sworn in for duty last Friday, Mr. Bo Snerdley.
By the way, people love your picture up on the website.
Here, this is what Obama's all upset about.
This is Mrs. Clinton in Rhode Island's yesterday, Providence, Rhode Island, Rhode Island College.
And here's a portion of her remarks.
She's unloading here on the Messiah Obama.
Let's just get everybody together.
Let's get unified.
The sky will open.
The light will come down.
Celestial choirs will be singing.
And everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect.
Maybe I've just lived a little long, but I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be.
You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interest disappear.
Oh, such a vicious attack on poor little Obama.
You want celestial choirs, Mrs. Clinton?
We have.
Hi, it's Rush Limbaugh.
I have my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
Do you see the news over the weekend?
Richard Branson, the eccentric billionaire, owns Virgin Atlantic Airways, loaded up a 747 one engine, the fourth engine of a 747 with coconut oil and some nuts, some kind of wacko nuts from the rainforest out there, 20% of the jet fuel mixture with coconut oil and something else.
And he flew the other three engines, full-fledged kerosene, jet A.
He flew from empty airplane, flew from, where was it, London to Amsterdam or whatever it was, proclaimed a big, big success.
Folks, you realize how ridiculous this is?
You know what happens to coconut oil?
At room temperature, it will solidify.
I know because I've got gazillion packets of it with popcorn that I use in my theater.
Coconut oil will solidify.
You cannot put it in a jet fuel tank.
Especially at high altitude, it'll freeze.
But that's not the point.
The point was, they interviewed some environmentalist wackos after this miraculous test fight, which is going to revolutionize air travel.
And these Greenpeace idiots and all these other environmentalist wackos were upset at this.
And you know why they were upset?
We need to reduce airline travel.
We need to reduce the number of flights in the air.
That's the solution.
It is not any of their business to tell any of us where we can and can't go and how.
But too many of us have been suckered into this notion that we are creating great harm by virtue of our existence.
By virtue of our daily lives on this planet, we are harming it.
I reject it.
It's silly.
It is absurd.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
It's just plain stupid.
But yet these people are allowed to set the agenda.
And so we come up with an energy policy in response to it that includes some of what they want to do, but with not as many Draconian limits.
Our answer ought to be, have you noticed how many people are buying jets?
Have you noticed these giant jumbos that are being purchased all over by people in the oil-producing countries?
Do you think maybe they know something we don't, that there's going to be plenty of oil, A, and kerosene, refined jet fuel to fly around in?
This is the idea that the left in this country of the world gets to set the agenda is a result of our lack of confidence, our lack of a desire to fight for what we believe in, because we want to get along and to believe all these silly notions that we human beings are destroying this planet.
And you may, well, Rush, why are you so fired?
Because I'm getting tired of hearing Republicans talk this way.
I started to say in the last break, I have finally figured out I am not, quote unquote, a Republican.
I mean, I'm registered that way, and that's the party, but that's not how I think.
And it was just, I actually had somebody say to me last night, you know, you need to adjust your business a little bit so the Republican Party is where it's going because you've got to keep your audience.
I said, what?
Do you have the slightest idea how I have gotten where I am?
It just.
Anyway, folks, I am here to announce today that I am encouraging Hillary Clinton to fight on.
I want to encourage Barack Obama to fight on.
I want to encourage Ralph Nader to fight on.
I don't encourage Democrats to fight Democrats.
I want them to fight up to the convention.
I want them fighting during the convention.
I want them fighting after the convention.
And I want them fighting after the general election.
I want them to fight among themselves all the time.
The uglier, the better.
The better for my side, the better for my country if these people destroy themselves because clearly we don't have enough people on our side willing to defeat them.
That's all they want to do to us is defeat us, but we don't have anybody who wants to defeat them.
We're interested in walking across the aisle, reaching across the aisle, bipartisan solutions and so forth, which means their solutions.
So if we're not going to muster anybody who wants to defeat these people, then I am going to find a way for Hillary Clinton to keep attacking Obama so she can stay in the race and win some of these primaries so the Democrat Party can stay fractured if we're not willing to do it.
No, I'm quite serious, Mr. Snurdly.
I don't want Hillary Clinton getting out of the race.
I know a lot of people have this romantic notion, well, it'd be the end of the Clintons.
I can't wait for it to happen.
Yeah, I understand that.
But this party, this guy, Obama needs to be roughed up a little bit politically.
He's been getting a free ride.
He got a free ride because Bill Clinton's ham-handed racist approach to attacking him in those southern states rather than attacking him on his record, which is virtually non-existent, and on his campaign tactics.
Now, you might say they can't attack him on policy without discrediting themselves.
And they're the Clintons.
Surely they can come up with something here.
Obama's been free to define himself as some kind of uniting figure when in fact he's a blank slate.
There have to be a couple issues out there that Mrs. Clinton can cream him with.
Now she should have found them by now.
Now you might think, well, I go after Michelle Obama.
Michelle Obama's a rich target, by the way.
Michelle Obama is a rich, rich target.
Mrs. Clinton might not be able to go after Michelle Obama.
Because if she goes after Michelle Obama, who's she going after?
She's going after the wife of the candidate.
And of course, the same thing has happened to Hillary.
So she might be a little off-put there.
But in this, you know, this is what Hillary Clinton's lived for the last 35 years.
Everything's fair game.
She should have jumped on that patriotism issue.
I'm sitting around here, and I, frankly, I am stunned at the incompetence and the ineptitude of the Clinton campaign.
So you've got Michelle Obama out there talking about, for the first time in her life, she feels proud of her country.
Okay, if I'm a Democrat, if I'm Hillary Clinton, here's how I attack that.
Hillary should have jumped on this.
And whether she believed it or not, she should have said she's proud of the New Deal.
She's proud of the great society.
She's proud of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
She's proud of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
She could have cited every liberal achievement that these people think has been the greatest thing since sliced bread to talk about how great the country is from a liberal perspective.
But for some reason, didn't do that.
You know, there's, and she could say there's a lot more to do, too.
There's a lot more to do.
Many liberals and civil rights leaders have paid the price to get us where we are, blah, blah, blah.
There's any number of things that she could have said that the Obamas would have had no comeback for.
But she's got to find reasons and ways to attack him beyond form and beyond process.
You know, what Hillary said, this celestial choir business, I mean, that's nothing.
That's not even a little pinch.
At some point, and Hillary can take the lead on this, folks.
At some point, the public, some of the public, is going to demand that Obama actually put together a coherent case for national security, for homeland security, for economic growth, for entitlement reform, for family values.
We have to wait around for Hillary Clinton to demand it because she doesn't represent us either.
But we can.
But no, no, no, no.
Big story here in the stack today, Republican National Committee sending out memos how not to attack Obama.
Don't do it on a racist scale.
Don't do it on a sexist scale.
Look at the issues and so forth.
Kid gloves walking around in a defensive posture.
We're talking about the presidency of the United States, and we're letting liberals' creation of political correctness dictate to us how we're going to attack a McGovern-style liberal right out of 1972 if he gets a nomination, Barack Obama.
And the same thing with Mrs. Clinton.
We know who she is.
We know all about her.
And guess what?
Because we know so much about Mrs. Clinton, it's why 50% of the country can't stand her.
Got to do the same thing here about Obama.
She's the one that's got to do that.
She's the one best positioned to do that as the opponent in this campaign.
The media is not going to demand anything from Obama.
I mean, he campaigns around the country as if he's Billy Graham.
And they're sitting there and they're just idolizing him.
Drive-bys are just in all.
Well, there's some evidence that the blooms off the rose here in certain sectors of the drive-by media.
And that is all coming up.
But here's the bottom line here, folks.
We are a great country, a fabulous country, myriad responsibilities.
We cannot rely on Hillary and the media to educate us about Barack Obama.
She's proven herself incompetent at it.
The media running interference for him.
And in the midst of all this, a lot of people on our side are urging Hillary to drop out.
What in the hell for?
How does that make any sense to our side?
Mrs. Clinton should hammer away harder, take it to the convention if possible, fight over superdelegates, fight over seating Florida and Michigan.
And I think she will.
I don't want her to get out.
I don't want her to quit this.
This is her life.
This is what she's been living for.
She's not going to...
I'll be disappointed in Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton both if she quits.
If she gets out of the race, I'll be disappointed.
That will be their legacy, quitters.
They're looking for a legacy.
They'll get one.
They quit before their latest firewall states.
But you might be saying, well, Rush, why?
Because, folks, I want to see their party damaged.
I want to see their agenda damaged.
I want as many people as possible knowing just what that party stands for, what that party's already given us, and what their agenda for the future is.
I want as many people as possible knowing it.
That's why Obama must be unmasked.
We already know it about Hillary, as I say, which is why 50% of the country can't stand her.
I mean, this is serious stuff.
I want to see splits in all their coalitions.
I want to see the racial coalition split between the Obama supporters and the old guard John Lewis types, because that's going to make it more difficult for them to unite for the general.
I want to see the blood spill over into the congressional races.
I want this party imploding, and that's not going to happen if Mrs. Clinton quits.
And frankly, ladies and gentlemen, this is why politics is best practiced by those who understand it.
Not a bunch of navel-gazer intellectuals writing in journals of opinion inside the protected, special little beltway enclave they have.
An enemy divided is weak.
And I am seeing less and less evidence in our own party that we look at the other side as the enemy in a political sense.
They are.
They certainly look at us that way.
We have sat around and we have let them destroy Robert Bork.
We didn't sit around and let them destroy Clarence Thomas, but they've tried.
They have tried to destroy every conservative leader who has popped up from the judiciary appointments to attorney general appointments.
You name it.
They are out to destroy us politically.
They want us a perpetual non-factor minority.
We, on the other hand, want what?
Bipartisanship.
For all the sordid, sick psychological reasons.
We have an inferiority complex.
We feel we must show the country that we're not all these horrible things they say we are.
So we're going to be nice like Trent Lott did and give control of the Senate when the Republicans had won it to the Democrats and to Tom Puff Dashle.
And that engineered the switch of parties by jumping Jim Jeffords in Vermont.
And we thought we would get praise and accolades.
See, they're really going to like us now.
And the whole point was to make us inconsequential and ineffective.
And so this continuing resume enhancement that we somehow have the ability to reach across the aisle, come up with bipartisan solutions with these people when the bipartisan solution is always theirs and is always in their interest.
It'll look at this like it's a military operation.
If the enemy's breaking into factions that fight among themselves, who does that help?
Helps you, helps the good guys.
An enemy divided is weak.
So we need Mrs. Clinton to stay in this.
We need her to ratch up, ratchet up the criticisms of Obama.
Doubt that she will because can't criticize him on policy.
They're one and the same.
And I'm sick and tired of a party that wants to pick up the crumbs of the left's losing policy arguments and make them our own.
Be it cafe standards, be it energy policy, be it environmental policy, whatever.
And then after they do that, by the way, this is what really frosts me.
I was pounding the table both nights this weekend, Saturday, Sunday night, dropping the F-bombs, folks.
It wasn't pretty.
I apologize to both hostesses.
They said, don't be silly.
Your rants were the highlight of both nights.
I hope.
And we sit around and we pick up the little crumbs of their policy things, the establishment that they, the premises that they establish.
Cafe stand, you name it, whatever, can't drill and end war, what have you.
And then after all of that, we claim our conservative principles can't win elections when they aren't even tried, when they are abandoned.
And then the blue-blood country club types in the party say conservatism can't win.
You got to do it our way.
We got to join them halfway on gun control.
We're going to join them halfway on Cafe Standard, join them halfway.
Why?
If their way is destructive to our way of life, to the future of the country as we've known it, why meet them halfway?
Why not go all out and beat them like they're trying to do to us?
It's almost like we surrender without a fight and all this stuff.
And our demise is going to be self-fulfilling, folks.
That is, we are rejecting and smothering those elements of our society that make us stronger.
Capitalism, a bigger military.
Cafe, these standards are a perfect example.
It's a symbol.
Cafe standards are a symbol of our self-imposed decline.
Rather than have a bunch of bureaucrats who haven't run digitally squat in their lives in Washington, D.C. tell us what the products our experts in various fields of manufacture can and can't do, how big they can and can't be.
What we need to do is unleash the private sector.
We'll turn them loose.
It's always worked.
It's made this the greatest country in the history of the world.
Let the private sector do what it does best instead of dictating constraints under which it must operate, particularly under hoax premises and other such things.
Same thing with healthcare.
The whole liberal premise, you see, is a lie.
It's intended to achieve one thing and one thing only, and that's expanded government.
Pure and simple.
That's what liberalism exists for.
And for government to expand, people have to lose liberty.
That's liberalism.
And we're losing liberty.
You can't do as much with your property as you used to be able to do.
But your property taxes are going through the roof, aren't they?
You can't really drive the kind of car you want to drive, or you're soon not going to be able to.
You just had your light bulbs banned.
I mean, I could go on and on and on.
We are like the stupid frog that gets thrown in a pot of cold water, and then a liberal comes in and turns it on warm.
In a couple days, we're dead.
We never, if we're boiling water, we'll get thrown in.
So this creeps on us, creeps up on us.
Yeah, see, light bulb has been banned.
Where you can and can't smoke, don't get me started on this.
Some of the ridiculous, while they're trying to fund healthcare programs with the sales tax revenue from tobacco products.
And we just sit around and we let this happen.
In California, by the way, you got to go get solar panels.
They're trying to push solar energy, solar panels on your house.
Guess what?
If your neighbor has a redwood tree that blocks your solar panel, you can have your neighbor cut down his redwood tree.
That's been mandated.
Your redwood tree.
Redwood trees are I mean, you can't touch them except when your neighbor's redwood is getting in the way of your solar panel.
Some between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., what is it?
10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
If 20% of the sunlight's blocked by your tree, then you've got to go cut the tree.
This is not the solution to our energy problem.
It is nowhere near us.
Neither is changing out these stupid light bulbs.
Nor is turning off turtle lights five days from now when they're not even going to sh.
Ha, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone here, the EIB network.
Look at this.
This is how this stuff creeps.
Suicidal pets get antidepressants.
Pets at risk of self-harm are increasingly being prescribed antidepressants because they cannot discuss problems in their lives with others.
According to a leading veterinarian, one veterinarian says, because they can't tell us they're up, well, you know, I must have been wondering about this.
Pumpkin has been doing strange things lately.
Pumpkin's been trying to poke her nose into closet doors that she never cared about before.
Past five or six days, she jumped up on my sink when I'm in the process of going through the normal hygiene routine in the morning.
Today, she woke me up for no reason whatsoever.
Other times, I walk upstairs and she's sitting in her hammock looking depressed.
And now, wait a minute, and I say to myself, do you realize how silly you sound?
I say, you are an idiot.
You're looking at an animal.
And you're thinking the animal's depressed and sulking because you are humanizing.
You are projecting.
If you were laying in that hammock, you might be depressed.
Maybe the cat.
We don't know this stuff.
It's all based on birds plucking their feathers out.
Parrots seem to be the most susceptible to depression.
Cockatiels here also.
But tropical birds seem to have been most affected by depression.
Antidepressants were only used in the most extreme cases here, according to the vet.
Firstly, we will change the environment of the animal and make sure that it has more stimulation and toys.
When we have ruled out underlying medical problems, try to break the cycle by using Prozac, which is given to the parrots in liquid form.
It doesn't cure all animals, but around two-thirds respond to the treatment.
In a small number of cases, things will go well until we wean them off Prozac and the problems return.
We're talking little birds here.
We're turning them into drug addicts.
We're turning them into...
What's good to know, Snurdly?
What are you talking about?
What good.
What do you have birds?
Snurdley has birds.
Yeah, but they're depressed.
Or was it maybe the fact that they just don't like being confined in cages and in houses?
They're animals.
But see, here we are.
We're projecting.
I'll tell you where this is going to head.
We're projecting our own psychoses and our own neuroses, which we have had to invent in our generation, onto our animals.
It is the owners who are running around depressed with empty lives.
And probably because the owners are depressed, the birds sense it and they get worried something's going to happen to them when the owner is acting like a maniac.
And yet we run around and think, something wrong with the bird.
I don't know.
Is there suicide in the animal kingdom other than illness?
Have they documented mental illness?
An animal will get sick and it knows when to die.
I mean, they just do that.
Dogs, pets, when it's their time, they know it.
But is there actual suicide out there?
Lemmings.
Lemmings.
How could I have forgotten?
Damn lemmings.
I'm not saying they don't get attached, but it's hard for an animal that has no concept of its own awareness, of its own existence, to commit suicide.