In case you missed it, ladies and gentlemen, Columbus Dispatch early this morning posted on their website, Limbaugh Safe from Voter Fraud Charges.
Radio host encouraged fans to vote Democratic, but Ohio election and legal officials doubt any action will be taken.
We knew this would be the case.
Greetings, Rush Limbaugh, the Open Line Friday edition of our program is now.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday.
And we're going to get to your phone calls El Quicko in this hour.
We still have Obama on the view this morning.
No sound bites.
The arousal gap is back, folks.
It's sickening.
800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program, remember when we go to the phones on Friday, you own the program.
You can pretty much talk about whatever you wish.
The number 800-282-2882, the email address is LRushbo at EIBNet.com.
I want to continue this discussion about oil and alternative fuel sources and so forth and the whole notion of a free market, entrepreneurism, zero-sum games.
Way too many of you, because of the effort to demonize oil, not just because the mistaken notion that our purchases of oil are funding terrorism, but that is ridiculous.
Terrorists are not using oil revenues to be funded.
But even that aside, oil has been successfully demonized in this country to the point that otherwise intelligent, educated people think we can just get rid of it tomorrow.
And they're operating under the assumption that there is an alternative energy already out there.
We just refuse to use it because big oil and big lobbyists and big Republicans are keeping us from this alternative energy.
Let me tell you, look at me, folks.
Look at me.
The only alternative energy that we have right now, or for the next 20 or 30 years, is the energy we refuse to drill for in Anvar.
Oil.
The only alternative energy we have for the next 20 or 30 years is oil in the Gulf of Mexico that we refuse to drill for, but the ShiComs and the Cubans are drilling for it in the Gulf, and the Mexicans are.
We did lay claim to a huge field up in the Arctic Circle recently.
But the Liberal Democrats will not let our country pursue this alternative energy.
They will not let us drill for it.
They will not let us refine it.
They will not allow it to happen.
Above and beyond that, this zero-sum game aspect, the idea that we can just get rid of oil tomorrow or next year or five years from now and replace it with something that's just as productive, efficient, and economical is absurd.
It is just intellectually absurd.
So is the notion that oil is evil.
So is the notion that it has been so demonized.
Oil is not evil.
Oil is our friend.
It is one of our best friends.
It is one of our most valuable friends.
But above and beyond that, can I ask you a question or two?
As Americans, what today are you proud of in your country?
Are you proud of our insurance industry?
I bet not.
And demonized people hate insurance agents, hate insurance companies, a bunch of crooks.
How about our financial institutions?
Wall Street, your bank, your savings and loan, your credit union.
Are you proud of that?
No.
That's been demonized too.
Just a bunch of crooks.
Don't care about you.
How about our automobile industry?
You proud of the automobile industry?
No, you're not proud of it.
They're getting skunked by the Japanese.
Besides, they make products that use oil.
And they make products that are destroying the world.
Hell no, we hate the auto industry.
Are you proud of your pharmaceutical industry?
Hell no.
You're not proud of the people that rape you at the drugstores with these exorbitant drug prices when you think you can get them cheaper from Canada.
You know they're running ads on TV for all these different drugs.
They're just trying to get you to go to the doctor and get some.
They don't care about curing you.
They don't care about making you well.
They just want to soak you.
Let's see.
Are you proud of the U.S. military?
No, you're not proud of the U.S. military.
The military kills babies and innocent civilians.
The U.S. military tortures people at Abu Ghrab and Guantanamo Bay.
I know because John McCain tells us so, along with the Liberal Democrats.
Let's see.
Are you proud of anything?
Are you proud of the home building industry?
No.
You hate the home because they build cheap stuff and they overcharge you for it and it doesn't work and you can't end up paying for it.
No.
You're not proud of it.
Are you proud of the airline?
Hell no, you're not proud of the airline.
Hell, you hate flying.
No peanuts anymore.
Seats are sitting in there.
You're sardine and planes are always late.
They're never on time.
You can't get where you're going comfortably when you want to get there.
Well, let's see.
Do you like government?
Oh, yes.
Oh, yes.
Government cares for me.
Government loves me.
Government wants me to have health care that I don't have to pay for.
And government wants me to be safe from storms.
And government wants me to not have to pay taxes.
Government only wants the rich to pay taxes.
Oh, we love government.
We are really proud of our government in America.
America, are you, let's see.
Are you proud of the retailing industry?
No, we hate Walmart.
Walmart, why, they're mean to unions.
We love unions.
We are really proud of our unions in America.
But we hate Walmart.
And we hate Kmart.
And we hate Jacques Penay.
And we hate the malls.
See, are you proud of our schools?
Well, we're proud of the public education system.
Are you proud that your kids aren't learning anything?
Well, we're trying.
But we need more money for our public schools.
If we just had more money, then we could be proud of our public school system.
Let's see.
Are you proud of the shipping industry?
FedEx, UPS, ocean-going vessels?
No.
They pollute.
They don't get my packages here on time.
And they're just out to shaft me.
They're just a bunch of crooks just like the people on Wall Street, just like the people at the banks.
But we love our government.
Now, this is an illustration.
I just ask you, what in this country are you proud of versus 30, 40 years ago, what were we proud of?
We were proud of all of this.
We were puffed up with pride about all of this.
We were proud of our achievements.
We were proud of our accomplishments.
We were appreciative of our freedom.
But now look at what they've made us hate.
Look at what they've made us detest.
Look at the absolute BS that they have more and more educated people believing that oil is just a conspiracy, that there is a replacement.
There's alternative fuels out there, but they don't want to release them because big oil and big Republicans and Halliburton, Cheney, Bush, they're all conspiracy to keep it from threatening their own investments in oil.
Is it not shocking, ladies and gentlemen, to realize just how few educated Americans understand how the world works?
More than that, isn't it scary to understand how few educated Americans understand how their own country works?
Forget the world.
But we love our government and we love our politicians.
And we love a small portion of the media, the drive-bys.
In fact, you know, do we like our churches?
Nope.
Those damn priests, look what they're doing with those little boys.
We hate the Pope.
The Pope.
Why?
The Pope is restrictive.
The Pope is unbending.
He's not tolerant yet.
We are supposed to understand the Reverend Jeremiah Wright and people like him.
Oh, we are proud of the porn industry.
We wait for the porn industry to decide whether the Blu-ray or HD DVD format war is going to be won.
We love the porn industry, and we really, really, really want to do everything we can to protect people's freedom to engage in these kinds of private things in their homes.
We love the porn industry.
We love government.
We like most of our politicians because they care about us, Mr. Limbaugh, unlike you.
They care about us.
I want us to health care, Mr. Limbaugh.
What are you proud of about your country anymore?
Really think you ought to take some time to think about it because I maintain to you, if you have any agreement with things that I have exaggerated here,
if you do hate the automobile industry, if you hate Wall Street, if you hate the banks, if you hate the financial industry, if you hate the airline industry, if you hate the pharmaceutical, if you hate retail, if you have resentments for all these industries and think that your only protection is government, you really, really need to ask yourself, you need to grab yourself by the wrist as hard as you can.
What the hell happened to you and who made you feel this way?
The one area of the media that people respect and like in conjunction with American liberals and socialists have made you feel this way.
You hate oil?
Is it rational?
What the hell, folks?
That's right, Mr. Limbaugh.
$5 in California, $4 elsewhere, $3.
It's not right.
Somebody's gouging us.
Wait a minute.
I thought you guys were all hoping for high prices down the road so it would lead to conservation.
You can't make liberals happy no matter what they get.
Even if it's what they want, it's never enough.
There's a political party and its allies who feed off of your paranoia, feed off of your hatred for all things great in America.
Feed off of your rage that they have made you believe.
Things like you are getting shafted by everybody else, and only government can protect you and make these wrongs right.
You need to get hold of yourselves.
Take a look around your great country and ask yourself why you're no longer proud of it when you used to be, because there's no reason for anybody not to be proud of this country.
You all live here.
You all are seeking your best performance opportunity because you know your country provides it.
Some of you, not you, but you know people.
I know you people are not of this mindset, but so many Americans seem to be, and so they're trying to do something positive while feeling absolutely enraged all the time.
Hatred for America is real.
You've seen it, you've heard it, you've read it.
It's out there and it's in larger numbers than you know.
And the people who hate this country are the genuine mind-numbed robots.
They have been talked into it years and years and years of propaganda.
Just ask yourself when you have a free moment maybe bring it up at dinner if you have a family still eats together now and then ask them, what are you proud of in America?
Don't lead them anywhere.
Just say, what are you proud of when you think about America, what are you proud of?
And then deal with what you get.
It will be interesting back in a second operation.
Chaos continues.
Ladies and gentlemen, on Vermont Public Redis Audio Summit number 21, Mike Vermont Public Radio Senator Pat Leahy said this.
There is no way that Senator Clinton is going to win enough delegates to get the nomination.
She ought to withdraw and she ought to be backing Senator Obama.
Senator DePenz, Pat Leakey Leahy says there's no way she is going to win enough delegates.
Senator Leahy, you don't know the Clintons.
That doesn't matter to them.
That literally what you just said, there's no way they can win enough delegates, doesn't matter to them right now.
They are not of that mindset.
They do not believe anything of that nature.
Let's see, Obama on chaos.
Now we're back to audio soundbites.
We'll get here.
Eight, nine.
Yeah, eight, nine, and ten at least.
Here is Obama on the CBS Ed News last night.
Harry Smith said several people have written that even in the best case scenario, Hillary Clinton's chances of getting a nomination for the Democrat Party about 5%.
When is it time for her to leave?
Oh, I think that is something that she's got to make a decision about.
If you are the presumptive candidate here, isn't it time that you say with some severity that we can't go on like this?
Well, no.
At the cost of losing the general election?
I don't think so.
I think that what's going to happen is that as soon as the nominee is determined, whether that is two weeks from now or in early June, that there will be some Bruce feelings.
People are going to have to patch things together.
And we Democrats have to get our act together and win this election.
So this is Harry Smith begging Barack Obama to tell Hillary to get the hell out.
By the way, Howard Dean, if you missed his, Howard Dean's always super delegates, they're going to vote.
They're going to vote by July 1st.
He said something else fascinating.
Grab number four real quick.
You've got to hear this.
Let me finish my Obama point.
Smith begging him, just begging him to tell Hillary to get out.
He said, no, I want Bruce Feelings.
Doesn't want Bruce Feelings.
Also on the early show today, Harry Smith talking to Howard Dean, the chairman of Democrats.
And he said, look, when the primary season's over, do you want superdelegates to have some sort of vote immediately so that you'll know months in advance of the convention what the outcome is?
Well, I think the superdelegates have already been weighing in.
I think there's 800 of them and 450 have already said who they're for.
I'd like the other 350 to say who they're for at some point between now and the 1st of July so we don't have to take this into the convention.
Howard Dean, Howard Dean, do you realize 450 have already said who they're for?
Have those 450 voted, Howard?
Can they not change their minds between now and then, Howard?
None of them have voted, and yet Howard Dean is claiming to know that 450 of the 800 superdelegates have already pledged.
They haven't.
And ask John Lewis.
John Lewis, he was in the Clinton camp, and then the Obama magic started happening, and the people started fainting at the rallies and a number of other things.
And John Lewis from Georgia, superdelegate, it's the toughest thing he'd ever done, but he had to leave the Clintons.
And who's to say that this stuff can't happen in reverse?
Operation Chaos Russell in Memphis, Tennessee.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
Fine.
I had a quick history question for you.
Right.
Ronald Reagan, why did he never respond to the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983?
Why are you interested in that?
I'm curious.
Well, I was reading a book about him when Character was king, and then I started doing some more research on Reagan.
And everything I found said we never responded to that terrorist attack.
Are you trying to draw some equivalence between Reagan and today?
Yeah, a little bit because.
Yeah, I mean, I am a conservative.
Right.
But you hear people say that, you know, Clinton left.
See, my friends, these nice guys think they can smoke me out.
You can't trick the host.
You can't trick.
I knew this is a trick question because it matters only to liberals.
It's totally irrelevant to anything happening today.
See you in a minute.
By the way, to answer the guy's question, why didn't Reagan respond?
He did.
It's one of the most underreported aspects of worldled history.
Amir Tahari wrote about it in April 18, 2007, in a story publication called Gulf News.
And basically, Reagan sunk Iran's Navy.
If I could just sum this up, we sunk Iran because, I mean, the attacks from Lebanon came from Iran, as they still do to this day.
We sunk Iran's Navy.
But we didn't talk about it much then because that would have made us look mean.
And the Mullahs didn't talk about it because they didn't want the world to know their Navy had been sunk.
But it happened.
What was I going to say?
There was one thing I was going to.
Darn it.
Darn it.
There was one thing on my mind before I went back to the phones.
Well, it'll come to me.
Judy in the Keys, somewhere in the Keys in Florida.
Great to have you with us on the EIB network.
Hello.
Oh, thank you for taking that call, Rush.
It's truly a pleasure to talk with you.
We try to listen every day.
You make us smile and give us hope.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate that.
Yeah.
And you're the last man I think about every night before I go to sleep because I joined Rush 24-7 and I drank a cup of tea from my cup every night before I go to sleep.
How sweet you are.
How sweet you are.
But my question is, if McCain likes independents and Democrats so much, why aren't they contributing to his campaign such that he has record-setting campaign amounts?
Why isn't his campaign coffers overflowing?
Why is he struggling for money to run his campaign?
That's an excellent question out there.
There are some fundraising challenges President McCain or John McCain has, Senator McCain.
He is in trouble.
Well, you know, I have a follow-up.
I'm a conservative, and I contributed to Thompson and then to Romney.
But I haven't been able to send my money to McCain yet.
Do you think there's a lot of conservatives out there struggling with the same thing that I'm struggling with?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, I can only guess.
I mean, there has to be a reason why he's not generating right now a whole lot of money.
He has had a pretty successful fundraising week last week and this week, too.
But I haven't seen any of the latest figures.
Look, all of this would just be wild guess on my part.
I think a lot of it just people on the Republican side are waiting to see some life from anybody in the Republican Party.
I think that's very true, and I think that's what my husband and I are waiting for as well.
We want so badly to have a reason to get behind somebody.
I know it's a leadership thing, isn't it, out there, Judy?
It's a leadership thing.
They're just doesn't seem to be any.
I mean, anywhere.
I mean, even on the Democrats, those two clowns, they're nothing remotely like leadership from them.
I know people think Obama is exhibiting leadership, but he's not.
I mean, what he's engaged in, he's got cult.
I mean, this is not principled leadership going on with Obama.
Hillary, she doesn't even want to be a leader.
She wants to be a dictator.
So she's not even interested in leading.
McCain thinks he's a leader because of his integrity and character.
That's right, Limboy.
I got more leadership in my little finger than you'll have in your whole casket when you die.
Well, maybe so, but we're waiting to see.
It's been a long week.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you, Judy.
Back to the audio soundbites.
James Carville and Larry King alive last night.
Larry King said, James, do you have anything to add on the Bill Richardson story?
My phone has been ringing off the hook with people, major donors in the Democratic Party, telling me that he made representations to them that were not true.
I'm obviously not at liberty to say their names, but their initials are Elizabeth Bagley, Him Sabone, Adam Patrickoff, people like that, who are very, very senior people who Governor Richardson was not candid with.
There are many other people that tell me the same thing, and I'll allow their initials out at some future date.
I think what the governor needs to do is say that he hadn't handled this very well and was not candid and frank with people, and I think this whole thing will go away.
But I think he owes a lot of people in this party an apology.
James Carville on Larry King Alive last night, Larry doesn't quite understand the answer.
And Carville has to repeat it for him.
Help me a second quickly.
What did he do?
He made misrepresentations.
He told people that he was going to endorse Senator Clinton, that he couldn't endorse someone else.
And then at the same time, apparently he was doing something else.
And people are justifiably and understandably furious about this.
And by the way, I have never attacked any other supporter of Senator Obama.
Many of them are dear friends of mine.
Some of them are some of my best friends.
I thought that this was an exceptional case that that merited special consideration.
So, okay, just summing up, you're saying he told people that he was going to support Hillary Clinton.
He certainly did.
He certainly did, and he's not doing it.
And Carville is Judas.
He's Judas, and he's not taking it back.
Let's jump.
Forget what I just told you, Mike.
Let's jump to audio sound 14, 15.
Yep, 14, 15, and 16.
Yesterday on CNBC, Maria Bartiromo interviewed Barack Obama.
It was scary economically.
Bartiromo says, how do you plan to change a tax code when it comes to capital gains?
How high will that 15% cap gains rate go?
I think that we can have a capital gains rate that is higher than 15%.
And if it, you know, when I talk to people like Warren Buffett or others and I ask them, you know, how much of a difference is it going to be if it's 20 or 25 percent, they say, look, if it's within that range, then it's not going to distort, I think, economic decision making.
Oh, my God.
This is good God Almighty is right.
We are going to get hosed.
The markets are going to get hosed.
The economy is going to get hosed.
Capital gains is not income.
It's simply what people invest in.
And if there is a return on it, the 15% cap gains rate is the equivalent of not punishing achievement from people who took a risk.
He's got to ask Warren Buffett.
No, he doesn't know.
He's a liberal Democrat.
He doesn't care here what the effect is going to be, raising the rate to be fair and a pander to the vast majority of people.
Now, Barta Romo, she's shocked as we are by this.
Of course, she's a journalist.
She can't really exhibit it.
But she can't believe her ears here.
Listen to this exchange.
Well, let's hypothetically say the cap gains tax goes from 15% to 25%.
You're impacting a lot of people.
100 million Americans own stocks today, so it's not just the rich.
No, no, no, absolutely.
And that's why I think that it may be, for example, that you could structure something in which people of certain incomes were exempted from this increase and it would stay at 15.
The broader principle that I'm interested in is just making sure that we've got a tax code that is fair for all Americans.
Look, this is economic illiteracy.
A tax code that's fair for all Americans.
He's going to exempt some people from not paying the cap.
The people he's going to exempt don't pay it now.
The people that he's going to exempt do not have investments.
They don't yet have the money to have investments.
And so he's going to.
It's just about fairness.
It's making sure that everybody's taxed.
Let's make sure the rich are taxed.
This is just.
One more.
Barta Romo says, why raise taxes at all in an economic slowdown?
Isn't that going to put further strain on people?
Well, look, there's no doubt that anything I do is going to be premised on what the economic situation is when I take office.
The thing you can be assured of is that I'm not going to be making these decisions based on ideology.
I'm not a dogmatist.
I know that some my opponents to the right would like to paint me as this woolly-eyed liberal or whatever.
You're not a liberal?
But my attitude is that I believe in the market.
You don't.
I believe in entrepreneurship.
I believe in opportunity.
I believe in capitalism.
You don't.
And I want to do what works.
But what I want to make sure of is it works for all America and not just a small sliver of America.
And every what that last comment just cancels out everything he said before it.
That's socialism.
Make sure it works for all.
And who, of course, is going to do that?
Why, our benevolent government and president, Barack Obama, because we hate all the other instruments and elements and businesses in the free market.
We've been conditioned to that.
This is scary.
Hey, Limbaugh.
Yeah?
What is it, Senator McCain?
Look it.
I hear people calling your show and making fun of the fact I haven't raised any money.
Well, you know what you ought to say?
You know what you ought to say?
I can do your job, Limba.
I can do yours too.
What you ought to say is this, Senator McCain.
Senator McCain, you're the one who said that you want to get the money out of politics.
Well, you should be happy.
You don't have any money and you want to dare and that makes you honorable.
See, Limber, if I was doing your job, that's what I would have said.
You're slipping.
You're slipping, buddy.
Big time.
All right.
We're back here.
Closing moments of Open Line Friday in our busy broadcast week.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is apparent to me and probably to many of you that Barack Obama is clueless.
I think he's vamping in his answers.
I don't think he has the slightest idea of capital gains tax.
I don't think he understands how it works.
I don't think he understands the basic elements of the U.S. economy.
How can he?
He's been listening to Jeremiah Wright for 20 years.
I don't mean that lightly.
You laugh at it all you want, but I mean I'm dead serious about it.
Jeremiah Wright understands because he's figured out how to get the church to buy him a $1.6 million house with $10 million left over to furnish the thing while telling everybody else to avoid middle classness.
But he just, you know, he vamps, gets a question, says whatever he thinks he has to say, whatever sounds good.
Let's go to the view.
He was on the view today.
The arousal gap is back.
The view gals are just swooning over Obama today, telling him he's sexy like Brad Pitt.
Joy Behar said, I have to say just one other thing, Bad, before we go to the serious stuff.
I understand that you're related to Brad Pitt in some way.
How are you related to Brad Pitt?
I guess we're ninth cousins, something removed or something.
Fascinating stuff.
I mean, I think he got the better looking side of the gene pool.
I was saying just before you came out, maybe we shouldn't say this, but we thought you were very sexy looking.
Oh, I see this.
I told you, arousal gap is back.
That was Barbara Walters on the view today.
Barbara Walters then said, look, if Reverend Wright is still there, would you then have left the church or have said, I just can't have anything to do with him?
Had the Reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country for all its flaws.
Then I wouldn't have felt comfortable staying there at the church.
For all its flaws.
For all its flaws.
I don't believe any of this.
He wouldn't have.
He put the guy on his campaign.
He was an advisor to his campaign, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the person who you chose time and time again to be your spiritual advisor, when he says and characterizes the USA, as you said wrongly, U.S. of KKKA, that the chickens are coming home to roost after 9-11, suggesting that we got what we deserved, you chose him again to marry you, to baptize your children.
You named a book after one of his speeches for 20 years.
Would you think it somehow suggested there was a lack of judgment in the man?
You had no idea.
You never heard about these sermons.
You've been seeing is a snippet of a man.
Imagine if somebody compiled the five stupidest things you'd ever said and put them in a 30-second loop that was played every day for two weeks.
These are sold on the DVD at the church.
Well, I understand, but I don't purchase all the DVDs.
And I didn't read all the church bulletins.
It's not to excuse it.
There were some things, as I said, that I disagreed with him on.
But I didn't see some of the things that were said that I would have taken offense to.
Wait a minute.
He just gave a speech where he said he did.
Didn't he?
He just.
Well, no, it's a different.
We're looking at.
This is a carnival barker.
You know what?
This is a carney.
This is a guy who'll say whatever he thinks the people at the group at the time want to hear without regard for what he said the day before, the hour before, the week before.
Here is what Obama's talking.
How many of you out there have said five things this racist, this hateful, and this stupid?
Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people.
Hillary ain't never been called a nigger.
Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky.
He was riding dirty in white America, US of KKKA.
Black men turning on black men.
I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it.
Not God bless America.
God damn that.
God d'I America.
And now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards.
America's chickens are coming home to roost.
Yeah, there's just five things here.
We're going to loop and play them over and over again.
And I don't buy all the DVDs.
Insulting our intelligence, I think these are the only things that this guy has been saying.
Elizabeth Hasselbeck said to Barack Obama, Do you have a relationship with the Reverend right now?
I talked to him after this episode.
He had come back from a cruise, and, you know, I think he's saddened by what's happened.
Bull.
And I told him, look, I feel badly that he has been characterized just in this one way.
People are winning.
This broader aspect of him.
But he was my pastor.
You know, one of the things that I think people overstate is this notion of mentor or spiritual advisor.
He's a pastor in the sense that he's somebody where you go to church, you talk to him about my faith and Jesus.
Look at Barack.
We have it.
It's in the record.
You're talking to Jeremiah Wright, and you said to him, you and I know, I'd have to throw you under the bus, bro.
You know, at some point, your sermons are way out there.
I'm going to have to, you know, this day has come.
They've talked about it.
This was a strategeric plan.
We're screwed.
It doesn't matter.
None of this matters because we're just screwed.
All right, have to skate out of here, folks.
Have to fly out to the left coast.
Couple days of golf, sandwiched speech tomorrow night, private speech, super secret location, some big-time poo-buzz.