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June 10, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:33
June 10, 2008, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Hey Brian, you know, that's a really clever sign you have to remind me there.
Two handmade post-it notes reminding me of something I have to do during the programming format this hour.
I continue to be amazed at the lack of confidence my substaff has in my ability to do this.
Greetings, folks.
Welcome back.
Rush Limbaugh here behind the Golden EIB microphone, broadcast excellence, all yours, the fastest, three hours of media.
The telephone number is 800-282-2882 and the email address, if you want to go that route as El Rushbo at EIBnet.com.
If you're just joining us, I was going through a piece by Jeffrey Lord right before the end of the previous hour in the American Spectator today, the Americanspectator.org, about Obama and his ongoing theory that the jobless can't find work, that the sick cannot get well, that the oceans cannot be rolled back.
And only with his election and with his messianic talents can all of these problems plaguing our once great nation be fixed.
And Lord's point here is, wait a second, Obama, you have just insulted one of the Democrat Party's heroes, LBJ, who authored The Great Society and the War on Poverty for the express purpose of healing the sick, finding work for the jobless, making sure the environment stayed clean, and all of these things.
Now, this is not so much, my point in focusing on this is not so much to focus on Obama, because it's not a surprise that Obama, as a leftist, would be promoting big government, promoting the idea that America is in a permanent, constant state of decline.
That's who they are.
My point in focusing on this is to remind people just how much the government has spent, how many programs there are, and how ineffective they have been.
And yet here we have another election where the point from the libs is we're a heartless bunch of people.
We don't have any compassion.
We have major suffering, constant state of decline.
We need government to move in where the Bush administration has failed.
The government is what has failed.
And that's what's illustrated by Jeffrey Lord's piece.
It's sort of like this demagoguery that's going on with big oil.
I mean, let me just ask you people a question.
I know that you in this audience know this.
I would love to go onto a college campus into a history class, a science class, biology class, a political science class.
And I would like to ask these young skulls full of mush in there one question.
Could you name for me the organizations who are A, producing oil for you?
Could you name for me the organizations, companies or what have you, that are doing their best to make sure when you pull up to the gas station that there's something there for you to put in your tank?
And of course, you would hope that they would say, well, big oil.
To which I would then reply, well, then would you tell me why it is that your professors probably and the Democrats in the U.S. Congress are criticizing and trying to harm the only group of guys That's involved in trying to create supplies of oil for your use.
How does it figure?
Just a matter of common sense.
How does it figure that of the people who are responsible for making sure when you pull up, there's gasoline, when you get on the airplane or jet fuel in your airliner, when you need home heating oil, there it is.
The one group of guys doing anything to make this happen, we are trying to villainize.
Not trying, we have villainized.
We're trying to destroy these people.
It literally makes no sense.
Has any college professor made it possible for you to fill up?
Has any United States Senator or member of the House of Representatives made it possible for you to fill up?
Has the president, any president, made it possible for you to fill up?
No, quite the contrary, a combination of these people are standing in the way of more supply at a lower price so that you can fill up at a price that's not going to make you alter the rest of your life and the way you live it.
And yet who have you been told to be mad at?
The guys that are making it possible for you to get around.
And it's worked on so many people.
The hatred for big oil, the suspicion that there's some Oz behind this magic curtain that has the power to throw a switch and the price skyrockets.
And we have wizards in the media, even on our side, who do entire programs on trying to find out who this Oz is when there isn't an Oz.
It would be tantamount to you needing surgery.
Let's say you need your appendix out, and it's a crisis situation.
And you go to the hospital and you've listened to nothing but Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy and all the other Democrats complain, whine, and Hillary Clinton about health care.
And you're wheeled into the operating room, it's before that they have given you your sedation.
And you start complaining and whining and moaning at them about whatever it's going to cost to save your life.
Imagine the doctor says, okay, fine.
Call Hillary Clinton.
I'm going to go play golf.
You get her in here and have your appendix taken out.
Or call Barack Obama.
Now, back to Jeffrey Lord, the same principle here.
I went through a list of just 1963 and half of 1964 from LBJ's own memoir called Vantage Point.
Here are others.
Let's go to 1965.
Remember, there were four years of this.
Four years of the Great Society War on Poverty, blah, blah, blah.
1965.
Full listing.
Space does not permit a full listing.
This is a partial listing of what Obama seems to feel were LBJ's inadequacies in just not getting the job done.
Medicare, aid to education, higher education, four-year farm program, Department of Housing and Urban Development Creation, Housing Act, Social Security Increase, Fair Immigration Law, Older Americans, Heart Cancer Stroke Program.
Let me stop on that.
Just how many since 1965, when I was 14, I'm sitting here trying to remember how many times have I heard in a State of the Union speech, for example, or a response, we need to get started getting tough on cancer and heart disease.
Well, we've been doing that for most of our modern existence.
But seems like people forget it just isn't enough because people are still dying from cancer and heart disease.
And see, the Democrats lead people to believe that that's going to stop happening.
And so when people keep dying, we're just not doing enough.
We need government to do more.
We need government to do less.
Just like yesterday, Dianne Feinstein said, we've got to shut down the government-run Senate dining room.
It's losing money.
It needs a $250,000 infusion.
If we don't get it, our prices are going up 25%.
These are multi-millionaires serving in the Senate worried about already subsidized prices going up 25%.
So they're going to privatize it.
They can't run their own dining room.
They want to run health care.
They want to run the environment.
They want to run, you name it.
Let's keep going.
Drug controls, mental health facilities, medical libraries, vocational rehab, anti-poverty program.
Now, remember, we've already got in 1964 the war on poverty, which was its own program.
In 1965, we added to it with the anti-poverty program, arts and humanities foundation, aid to Appalachia.
To this day, Appalachia is what it is.
It's a cultural thing.
We've been trying to fix Appalachia.
Appalachia says, screw it.
We like who we are.
Just, I know, I know that there's a new program because Appalachia didn't vote for Obama.
So we're going to get a new program for Appalachia.
We had, what's her face?
What's her face?
Mrs. Greensman, Andrea Mitchell, referring to Appalachia and Southern Virginia types as rednecks.
And she had to apologize for it five days later.
Anyone get to that?
Water pollution control, 1965.
High-speed transit.
Oh, yeah.
All those late rail systems out there.
High-speed transit.
I don't know what it is.
Water Resources Council, water desalting.
That would be desalination, desalinization, juvenile delinquency control.
Retirement for public servants.
Now, Jeffrey Lord says, wait, Stop the list already.
Okay, but I warn you, we're not even done with 65 yet.
With 66, 67, and 68 still to go, I hate to leave out things like child nutrition, rent supplements, clean rivers, child safety, narcotics rehabilitation, water research, water for peace, air pollution control, education act, deaf-blind center, safe streets, wholesome poultry, school breakfasts, aircraft noise abatement, better housing, oil revenues for recreation, juvenile delinquency protection,
guaranteed student loans, gun controls, aid to handicap children, hazardous radiation protection, and dangerous drugs control.
Now, after hearing all this, is it any wonder that LBJ and his ghosts are fuming all of this and more, much more.
And suddenly, here comes this Obama guy insisting that only by electing him can America begin to provide care for the sick, good jobs for the jobless, and cite the Obama era as the time our planet began to heal.
He has just effectively admitted that his own party's great effort to fix all social ills has failed because we have to begin.
Now, obviously, Obama doesn't mean that.
This is just Democrat rhetoric.
It's built on the whole class envy business, built on the whole notion that they have tried to make as many Americans believe that we're in a constant state of decline, that despite our prosperity, you are not paying enough.
You are not contributing or investing enough to help your fellow citizens who are in dire need.
They're in dire need despite transfers.
You know what the total transfer now from the producers to non-producers, including the war on poverty and the great society, is over $6 trillion.
That has been transferred in the form of tax increases and benefits packages.
It hasn't worked.
I mean, the percentages of people in poverty are still the same.
And even if it had worked, the Democrats would still be clamoring for more, the leftists.
All of this can be placed underneath that umbrella, which was the big theme of yesterday's program, that there is a very casual but direct onslaught on the concept of individual liberty and freedom.
And it is being led by extreme advanced leftists who have now taken over the Democrat Party.
Joe Lieberman is a liberal and they've kicked him out.
It is extreme leftists who have hoped for, who have promoted the concept of America's defeat in Iraq, promoted the concept that America's heroes of today, the military, are criminals, rapists, liars, thugs, murderers.
It is those people who are doing everything they can to make you feel guilty enough that you'll give up a little liberty here and a little liberty there.
All of it based on a failed system of managing people in our politics and our affairs.
It's failed everywhere in the world.
It's been tried.
Everybody knows that it has failed.
And yet people can be captivated by a messianic like young figure, particularly when there's no opposition.
When the opposition, rather than fighting this and standing up for it, seeks to accept these premises and then tweak them a little bit, try to give a little conservative flavor to it, because they've bought the notion the American people have already bought into this.
They already think this is true.
It's a waste of time trying to educate them and tell them it's not.
But it's never too late to educate people, tell them that they're being lied to.
You don't have to revise conservatism.
It doesn't have to be adapted.
We don't have to get rid of Ronald Reagan.
The left never talks about getting rid of FDR.
They never say that FDR is over with.
The era of FDR is behind us.
They never do that, but our side does.
Our own intelligentsia, conservative intelligentsians.
Well, we got to get past Reagan.
We can't get past Reagan because the underlying foundation of Reagan was the concept that individual liberty and freedom never gets old.
It never has to be reformed.
It never has to be updated.
It never has to be adapted.
It has to be paid attention to because individual liberty and freedom is the root of all else that is conservatism.
Back in just a sec.
My sweet summer sweet music maestro, Barry White, and a love unlimited orchestra.
Here's the bottom line.
Conservatism is under siege.
It needs to be defended and it needs to go on offense.
And any Republican or any pseudo-conservative in our own media, in our own party running for office, any, Any Republican slash conservative who thinks we need to add to this list of things that LBJ did is not conservative.
Anybody who thinks we need a new program for unwed mothers, we got five.
Anybody who thinks we need a new program for the sick or for poverty, we've got 14.
And any Republican, any conservative in the media, in the party, who says we need more of these programs is not a conservative and should not be allowed to be called one because he or she is not.
Now, my North Carolina mistress just sent me an email.
Aside from telling me that the me she knows from yesterday is true to form.
She said, would you explain the difference between profit and windfall profit?
I will do my best as a lay person not formally educated in classical economics.
A windfall profit is a profit gained by a company for an activity in which they had no role in creating the activity.
There was no investment.
There was no work done.
There was no involvement whatsoever.
But something happened that caused that company to reap a windfall profit even though they had not made one investment in whatever that activity was.
Therefore, it is not possible, it is impossible for there to be said oil companies are making windfall profits because the price of oil is going up.
Because that's their job.
They produce it.
They invest it.
They have shareholders who are investing.
They're the people.
They're the one group of people trying to create oil and we're trying to destroy them.
The Democrats are trying to tax them out of business.
It's asinine and absurd.
But it's not possible for big oil to reap windfall profits in a business they are already engaged in.
They are investing.
They are drilling.
They are researching.
They're exploring.
When they find, they see if it makes sense to bring it up.
If they bring it up, there are all kinds of costs associated with this.
If later on down the road, the price of the product that they're bringing out of the ground goes way, way up, well, that's not a windfall profit.
They were involved in bringing it up in the first place.
They were involved in refining it.
So there can be no such thing as a windfall profit for big oil.
Now, maybe, let's say that, try to concoct something here off the top of my head.
Well, that's a good point.
It's a good point, Mr. Snerdley.
The true beneficiaries, the true agents of windfall profits would be your government, mine too.
What do they do?
Do they do one thing that has a direct result on gasoline being in your pump, oil coming out of the ground?
Nope.
They are obstacles.
The people that do bring the oil out of the ground and do ship it around the world and do refine it have to work through governments all over the world.
And after all of this work is done and you drive up to the friendly quick shop to the self-serve pump, old Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, George Bush, they're just sitting there and the cash register goes ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.
They haven't been involved in the production, distribution, creation, discovery of the product, and yet they're making gazillions.
That is a windfall profit.
We'll be back after this.
You know it, and I know it.
Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis.
This morning in Washington, D.C., the Republican standard-bearer, Senator McCain, spoke to the National Federation of Independent Business and eBay 2008 National Small Business Summit.
He said this to a business summit.
Americans are right to be offended when the extravagant salaries and severance deals of CEOs, in some cases the very same CEOs who help bring on these market troubles, bear no relation to the success of the company or the wishes of the stockholders.
Something is seriously wrong when the American people are left to bear the consequences of reckless corporate conduct while the offenders themselves are packed off with another 40 or 50 million for the road.
If I'm elected president, I intend to see that wrongdoing of this kind is called to account by federal prosecutors.
And under my reforms, all aspects of a CEO's pay, including any severance arrangements, must be approved by the shareholders.
That's our standard-bearer, folks.
Net?
That's John McCain.
I'm sure he's not talking about Charles Keating.
That never happened.
You don't bring that up on your show, Limbaugh.
You've been given your memo.
It never happened.
I was exonerated.
Exonerated.
Okay, fine.
Snerdley made me bring up Keating anyway.
I wasn't even thinking Keating.
That's better.
Don't ever say it again.
Okay, back off.
Bad enough.
I don't have to mention Keating.
You're talking to a bunch of business guys, telling them how they don't have a right to earn whatever the market will bear.
And that you as president are going to police it.
The last president I knew that tried this was William Jefferson Blythe Clinton.
You remember what Clinton did in 92, 93?
I'm sure you do, Limbaugh, because I don't question your man.
Let me just tell you what I did, because I'm here anyway.
I knew I had to get the favor of the little people.
They were in that recession.
There was a recession, but I made them think there was a recession.
It wasn't the worst economy in the last 50 years, but I made them think it was.
Now, bought it.
You remember that?
I remember how mad you were, Limbaugh.
Anyway, I said, we're going to tax anybody at a corporation that makes over $1 million.
That corporation cannot deduct anything more than what they pay that guy, $1 million.
And so we're going to reduce corporate pay, but I knew it wasn't going to happen.
I knew my corporate buddies were not going to get reduction in pay.
I just knew they was going to come up with a new way of paying, like bonuses and stock options.
And that's exactly what happened.
And look at God as well.
Now, everybody doesn't like stock options.
And by the way, Limbaugh, don't forget to remind him, I exempted athletes and actors.
My posse.
Exactly right.
The last time any president tried to get this involved in the private sector was Bill Clinton.
And Clinton, I don't think Clinton ever said it this forcefully or direct.
Now, in light of this, in light of McCain sounding just like Clinton, only worse, Obama got wind of this.
He was in St. Louis and he responded.
This is the web thing I was watching earlier.
I've said that John McCain is running to serve out a third Bush term.
But the truth is, when it comes to taxes, that's not being fair to George Bush.
Senator McCain wants to add $300 billion more in tax breaks and loopholes for big corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and he hasn't even explained how to pay for it.
It pays for itself.
Tax cuts pay for themselves, doofus.
This is this is, you know, I am convinced.
By the way, what was it that happened?
Oh, the Democrats are beside themselves that the guy Obama hired to vet his vice presidential possibilities, some guy named Johnson, has got all kinds of scandal problems and he's a lobbyist and all these things that Obama has washed his hands of.
Yeah, oh, that's right.
It's a sweetheart loan from countrywide.
And we all hate countrywide.
You know, the whole mortgage bunch and made sure everybody's now living in a tent.
We hate him.
And so Obama's gone out and gotten this guy to vet his vice presidential people.
And this guy, there's nothing new about this.
This guy has been around Washington for decades.
So I got a note from a good friend of mine.
I said, how in the world, how in the world does a guy like Obama go get this guy?
Make this kind of mistake.
And given how contradictory this guy's record is with what Obama states, that they're not going to be any lobbyists and PAC money and all that in his campaign.
I said, and I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I don't think that there's some magical oz behind the curtain running Obama, but I don't think running for president was totally his idea.
There's somebody behind this.
He's been in Washington three years.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
He doesn't know who to go out and hire to vet for vice versa.
This is a Democrat Party hack that he's somebody turned him on to this.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
He hasn't got enough experience.
All he can do is speak in platitudes written for him by David Axelrod.
But coming down to these nuts and bolts decisions, he goes back to the traditional Democrat Party hierarchy.
Somebody's behind this.
I don't mean in a sinister way because everybody has sponsors.
Reagan had his kitchen cabinet.
But there's somebody that went to Obama somewhere and said, son, you be a great front man for my idea to take over the country.
You can speak well.
You got a skin color that people can't afford to assail.
We got to get rid of Hillary and Bill Clinton once and for all.
And you are the one.
If we put the right words in your mouth, you can do it.
Especially after we test-marketed you with your speech at the 84 Democrat Convention.
So anyway, I just, I think that Obama here is just, something we don't know.
It's not a conspiracy.
It's politics as usual.
Don't misunderstand.
Now, after he said this, John McCain's running to serve out a third Bush term last night.
Let's see.
McCain was where was on?
He was on the nightly news last night.
And he's heard, he's had enough.
He doesn't like Obama saying that he's just going to be Bush too.
Well, before, let me go back to May 21st on this program.
That was three weeks ago.
And we will listen to me talking about the Obama presidency.
It's going to be Jimmy Carter's second term.
They don't care about ruining the country.
We're running against people who want doom and gloom to happen.
Last night in the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, oh, did you hear about his commencement address at Ohio State University?
You hear about Brian Williams' commencement address at Ohio State University?
He told the graduates, this country is broken.
He listed all the reasons, and we need you to fix it.
Brian?
Brian Williams, who I like.
Yeah, he didn't say government should fix it, but wait until you hear the whole thing.
And it's frustrating.
It's worse than frustrating.
Anyway, McCain, after I, on May 21st, said, This is Jimmy Carter's second term.
This is what McCain said last night to Williams.
Williams said, is it going to be tough to run with an incumbent party for the White House given this economic backdrop?
Senator Obama says that I'm running for Bush's third term.
seems to me he's running for jimmy carter second i'm sorry i just i can't i can't can't help it uh Finley, Jacksonville, North Carolina, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Finley, turn your radio down out there.
It's down, Rush.
Hang on a second.
Okay, Rush, it is so good to talk to you.
Thank you.
Listen, I enjoyed your comment earlier about the bonding and sex in the city and all that stuff.
But I suggest I'm a Vietnam-era, honest-to-God, United States Marine Corps combat veteran, and my two kids are both career Navy.
And I suggest that we do bond, especially in the military and more especially in combat.
There's no closer bond than that, brother.
Absolutely true.
Absolutely true.
And it's see, that's the kind of bonding that our liberal friends who think sex in the city is great don't like because what are you bonding in?
I mean, how are you guys portrayed in much of the media today?
You're just rapists, murderers, thugs.
No evidence.
And Jack Mirth will come out and accuse you of it.
Yeah, well, that happened in the 60s, too.
I remember it coming back from Vietnam in 68.
Same exact thing.
Well, God bless you guys because you don't.
I know you hear it.
It probably gets to you, but it doesn't deter you.
And that's the important thing.
No, it doesn't.
And Rush, can I say a big hello to my kids?
My son is Chief Petty Officer John Wollston.
He's Korea Navy.
He's a CB up in Virginia Beach.
And my daughter is Petty Officer First Class Amy Wollstone.
She's on a guide to missile cruiser out of Yakusu, Japan.
They listen to you every day.
Love you.
Well, thank you very much.
I welcome them to the program.
Nice to know that, Finley.
You've got to be a very proud father.
You betcha.
No kidding.
And my wife is career civil service working for the Marine Corps here at Camp La June.
So military family.
What are you doing now?
Actually, I'm retired.
I spent 15 in the Marine Corps and then seven.
Out of way.
And then spent seven in the Navy.
I retired out of the Navy as a senior chief petty officer.
I'm a working musician right now.
You are a working musician?
Yeah.
What are you doing?
Well, I'm a choral conductor and a church musician.
And you ready for this?
Don't get upset, but I'm a classical music announcer on public radio, too.
Why wouldn't that upset me?
I love classical music.
No, it's an NPR station.
All right, well, I love classical music, and wherever you go to get it announced, that's fine with me.
Everybody has to be somewhere.
And if NPR is as good as you can do, then that's.
Well, that's true.
I do classical music as a local program in Eastern North Carolina, and then listen to you on the way home when I get off the air.
I appreciate that.
Finley, thanks so much for the call.
You bet, brother.
Simplify dollars.
Take care.
God bless.
We'll be right back after this.
People ask me all the time.
I'm one of these people that I go anywhere, and people are always asking me questions because they think that I, and they're right, have all the answers.
And people say, how in the world is it that Barack Obama can come this far with no experience?
Starship, and nothing's going to stop us now.
Baltimore, Maryland, back to the phones.
This is Terry.
Great to have you with us.
Hello, sir.
How are you doing, Rush?
Never better, sir.
Thank you.
Tom Mort did us, by the way.
Real quick, Rush, prior to 1978, our old companies and with all their products and derivatives made a profit.
In 1978, the Carter administration and our Democratic controlled Congress placed all the products and derivatives on the commodity market.
My contention, Rush, unless you can teach me otherwise, is having this on the commodity market does the consumer no good, and I am one who is extremely tired of lining the traders' pockets with my money.
You are of the school of thought that the speculators have more to say about the price of oil than actual producers.
Rush, can you explain to me how I'm glad you mentioned this because it's a concept that's out there, and I really do not discuss things I don't know anything about.
And the reason that doesn't happen much is because there are very few things I don't know anything about.
But the speculation market, I mean, commodities marketers, speculating and so forth, futures contracts and so forth, their relationship to the actual price up and down.
I'm going to have to get some expert answer on this for you rather than do what most hosts would do is just try to BS their way through it and make you think they were really brilliant.
You already know I'm brilliant, so I'd have to fake an answer here.
No, I don't expect you to fake anything, Rush.
It's just that it is my contention that they are doing nothing since they do not even hold a contract in their hands when they go and trade in this market.
Well, I'll tell you something else about all this.
I did read something last week, and where I read it is escaped.
It might have been the Journal, might have been in the New York Sun.
But it was just somebody's theory that the recent spike in the price of oil after it had dropped $9 was due to the fact that people who normally buy and sell these oil futures contracts, people were holding onto them and not selling them within the standard frame of time that they usually do, and that that was causing the spike, which had nothing to do with supply and demand.
But again, that's something that I'm just recalling from my memory.
I also, you know, this is the way my mind works.
It wasn't long ago, George Soros, you know, they had these big Senate hearings before the Judiciary Committee, I think, on big oil and the price here.
And there's George Soros.
And George Soros is talking about, well, this is a bubble, which is what I have said.
The market cannot support.
If this goes to $150, folks, a barrel of oil, I mean, the market can't support that for very long because it just can't.
Certainly not $200.
Markets work.
Markets work if they are allowed to.
I know what you're saying is that the speculators are actually impacting the market in such a way that markets don't work, that they're affecting it.
Prior to 1978, the price of the barrel was around about $30, Rush.
Yeah, but look, just a year ago or two years ago, it was $60.
You know, normal inflationary.
So that's a $30 swing from 1978 until the real speculation got in.
I'm still lying in their pockets, aren't I?
I'm going to find out for you.
All I'm asking is it's a good question, but I'm going to have to get the answer.
I want to finish the George Soros point.
He's up there talking about a bubble, meaning this isn't real.
It's going to bottom out.
It's a top out.
It's going to plunge like the housing bubble and high-tech bubble and so forth.
Now, I know George Soros got wealthy selling short.
Makes me wonder if he's selling short in oil and doing what he can to affect this bubble concept so prices will eventually plummet.
I just did a quick check here.
Both Thomas Soule and Walter Williams say that speculators in the commodities market are a good thing.
I'll give you details on Walter Williams' explanation when we come back.
Won't be long.
Be here before you know it.
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