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July 16, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:10
July 16, 2008, Wednesday, Hour #3
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Hi, how are you?
Welcome.
Unbelievable story coming up here, folks.
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
It's Rush Limbaugh, the most listened-to radio talk show in America, heard on over 600 great radio stations, coast to coast, helping to spread the truth.
Looking forward to talking to you in this hour.
Telephone number 800-282-2882.
Email address Elrushbow at EIBnet.com.
This is from, what is this?
Well, once again, I know the website what this is.
Oh, it's a Channel 6.
It's a television station somewhere.
Pinellas County, Florida is where the story is from.
I'm just going to read this story to you as it is written.
About 30 fish were spotted walking through a Florida neighborhood, shocking homeowners who said they've never seen anything like it.
It was like there's no way there's fish in the street, said homeowner Diana Fernandez.
And I kept going further and further, and I said fish everywhere in driveways.
I've never seen anything like it.
The walking catfish were spotted in a road near a Pinellas Park subdivision yesterday.
The fish used their pecturdal fins to walk or shuttle around the streets.
Video showed the fish moving through the neighborhood.
A scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said the catfish can travel on land as long as they stay moist.
One resident, Hannah Klein, said, we thought this was a prank at first.
Thought that maybe somebody dumped some fish, but then we realized that it was coming from the sewer.
We had so much rain last night.
Experts said that the type of fish spotted in the neighborhood likely hit land because of the large amounts of rain in the area.
Homeowners said, first time they've ever seen fish walking in their neighborhood.
And there's a still shot here of a fish walking slithering around there on a driveway, it looks like.
I just, I wanted to get this news to you, El Quicko, because it won't be long before this is blamed not on rains, be blamed on global warming.
And when the drive-bys get hold of this story, they will probably omit the fact that these fish can walk anyway, as long as they're moist, that there is actually a walking catfish.
So just be on the lookout, ladies and gentlemen.
You heard it here as you do most things first.
From the Associated Press, the remaining drive-by news organization that is a monopoly, the lone remaining drive-by news organization that is a monopoly.
And they've just had a policy change at AP where they are purposely now inserting the opinion of the reporter in stories because they think that opinion is what makes news and money in the media.
Doug Doug Doug Doug, what a weird last name.
I can't pronounce it.
G-Y-L-F-E.
Gilf.
Doug Gilf still can't afford to buy a home in Torrance, California, despite a 23% drop in prices.
And Congress isn't helping.
Yes, AP.
And just exactly what is Congress supposed to do?
In fact, could we not say, ladies and gentlemen, that the problems we're having in the sub-prime mortgage area are precisely due to Congress being involved and dictating that lenders lend money to people who couldn't pay it back.
In fact, I saw there was a story in the stack yesterday.
Revolutionary new concept in loaning money.
New standards are going to be implemented when making home loans.
And one of the things that is going to now be required is that the lenders verify income to make sure that the people borrowing the money can pay it back.
What I want to know is, I haven't borrowed any money in a long time.
When did they let that go lax?
Years ago?
Are you telling me that you can walk to a bank and say, I need $1,500 and get it without telling anything about yours?
Do you know what your income?
Oh, mortgages.
Mortgage brokers.
Mortgage brokers.
Okay.
All right.
So a revolutionary new concept here in the mortgage broker lending business, and that is going to be that you who will borrow money through a mortgage broker have to prove that you can pay it back.
Well, Shazam.
I know it's discriminatory.
It discriminates against people who can't pay it back.
But I mean, I guess we're in so much trouble that we're going to be now doing government-sanctioned discrimination.
We're going to go back to discriminating, and we're going to require people to prove they can pay it back, whereas some people can't.
If people are going to get loans because they can pay them back, that means other people who can't pay them back are not going to get loans.
That's government discrimination.
And some people have a harder time not verifying it, but proving it because they're in the all-cash business.
Is that what you're talking about?
They're under the table.
Some of them, some of them don't have any income.
Some of them don't have any income, and they still want to borrow money for a house.
And in the past, they've been able to do that because the government did not want to discriminate against people who didn't have any money.
But now we've got a big problem.
We've got a big problem.
People that borrowed money, couldn't pay it back, are now being foreclosed on and kicked out of their houses.
And that's discriminatory.
That's unfair.
And now we've got this big housing mess.
And so the government is going to fix this by making sure that if you borrow money from a mortgage broker to buy a house, you have to be able to prove you can pay it back.
I tell you, this government is heartless, isn't it?
Yes.
I warned you people about this.
I warned just absolutely heartless, cold-hearted, cruel SOBs.
You imagine requiring somebody to prove they can pay the loan back when everybody knows they're going to get bailed out if they don't pay it back anyway.
And now this, poor old Doug Gilf, still can't afford to buy a house in Torrance, California, despite the fact that there have been a 23% drop in home prices out there, and Congress isn't helping?
Man, oh man.
That's the dilemma this week for the nation's lawmakers and millions of Americans who are priced out of homeownership.
Any rescue policy to stem foreclosures could artificially prop up home prices and perpetuate the affordability crisis in many...
How many times can they put the word crisis in a sentence?
Affordability crisis in many major cities coast to coast.
Do you understand what's worrying about this is what got us into this mess?
Here we're in the middle of mess.
We're trying to fix the mess.
And here comes the AP with a sob story that essentially says we should repeat the steps that got us into the mess.
Congress isn't helping poor old Doug Gilf buy his house.
And so lawmakers are grappling with that this week to deal with the millions of Americans who are priced out of home ownership.
Isn't that how this all started?
We had millions of Americans who were priced out of home ownership.
And so I know, Tammy Mae, I know home's the top priority.
I don't get it.
It doesn't matter.
I don't get it.
I get it all too well.
If I didn't have such a great disposition, I'd be so mad at this.
I'm just looking at this.
I can't do anything but laugh.
This is sheer utter irresponsibility and stupidity from the Associated Press.
The very thing they are advocating here is what led to the circumstances that we are in now.
And so guess what?
Congress creates a problem.
They give people money to buy a house.
People can't pay it back.
They get foreclosed on.
All of a sudden, now there's a crisis because people are getting foreclosed on.
And all these mortgage bankers are going belly up because nobody's paying them back.
And Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are out of money and everybody, except, guess what?
You know something?
Guess who's been involved intimately with Fannie Mae?
The name Jamie Gorellik ring a bell, ladies.
This woman is everywhere.
And Jamie Gorellik got a $26 million payout when she left the place.
$26 million pay.
Jamie Gorelli got $26 million to leave.
One of Clinton's guys reigns, what was it, Franklin Reigns?
Franklin Reigns, he was kicked out after corrupting the place.
Yeah, he left shortly before everybody was taking his shorts, but he got out of there with no penalty whatsoever.
What is it with these Clinton people?
This is why we don't get any tell-all books on the Clinton administration because they were all set up in these sweetheart deals.
Money, I still can't get over this.
Congress is not helping poor old Doug Guilf.
So now we have millions of Americans who are priced out of homeownership, which is how this all started.
Any rescue policy to stem foreclosures could artificially prop up home prices and perpetuate the affordability crisis.
Yet, I'll guarantee them to you, if government did nothing and home prices continued to fall, then tomorrow the AP would write a story whining and moaning about the lack of asset value for people who still do own their houses.
We just can't win with these people.
Lawmakers, however, appear more focused on the negative economic consequences of falling home prices than the benefits.
Congress, in a way, is facing a real estate hydra, the declining home prices, rising foreclosures, tighter lending standards, higher interest rates, and industry layoffs.
Yet while trying to protect the economy and honest homeowners who are suckered into bad loans, Congress may cut off one of the serpent's heads only to see two serpent heads grow back.
Exactly right.
Liberalism.
This is what liberal Democrat activist government always, it's a great way to put it.
Okay, so we got a problem out there with poverty.
Fine, have the great society.
Bam, we cut off that serpent's heads, and then three more pop up.
We destroy the black family.
We destroy work incentive, and we destroy productivity among the people we're trying to help.
And Congress didn't get it right the first time, trying to protect the economy and honest homeowners who were suckered into bad loans.
You know what I think that means?
It means that somebody didn't define ARM for them.
Now, who in their right mind does not know what an adjustable rate mortgage is?
So now we got the predatory lender.
We got it all.
We've got it all wrapped up in this story.
And the headline says it all, at housing's bottom, many will be priced out.
I am going to start crying.
I am going to start crying at housing.
And people are going to think I'm harsh.
People are going to think I'm lacking in compassion.
At housing's bottom, many will be priced out.
What's the alternative?
How about we have a housing boom?
You're going to write the same headline.
At housing's boom, many will be priced out.
Hey, can I give you a little hint, AP?
At all times, good or bad, in the housing market, some aren't going to be able to afford one.
Damn it.
Senator McCain in Cincinnati today spoke to the NAA LCP convention, the National Association of Liberal Colored People.
And he went in there.
One of the things he talked about was education, the need for increased education.
Now, there are plenty of minority parents throughout the country who are terribly, terribly upset over the quality of education that their kids get.
But you're not going to find too many of them at the NAA LCP.
The NAA LCP has been fine and hunky-dory with all of the union control of the public school system, which includes many of their members as employees and so forth.
So that's kind of a, you know, education.
When do they care about it?
When did they ever care?
If the NAALCP cared about education in the inner city schools, and I guarantee you something would have been done about it a long time ago.
But then after talking to the NAA LCP about education, Senator McCain then said this.
Don't tell him I said this.
But he's an impressive fellow in many ways.
He's inspired a great many Americans, some of whom had wrongly believed that a political campaign could hold no purpose or meaning for them.
The success should make Americans, all Americans, proud.
Of course, I would prefer his success not to continue quite as long as he hopes, but it does make you and me proud to know the country I've loved and served all my life, still a work in progress and always improving.
Senator Obama talks about making history, and he's made quite a bit of it already.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen.
Senator McCain today in Cincinnati, the NAA LCP convention, practically endorsing Barack Obama for the presidency.
While all this is going on, Joe Biden and all these other libs are out there excoriating McCain, trying to destroy the integrity and the substance of his war record.
I've not seen anything like this.
I've not, I've not, no, Snerdley, I've not seen anything like this.
I really haven't.
There's a first time for everything.
Well, apparently this is what the McCain camp thinks.
You go out, you praise the opponent, you throw your own team under the bus whenever you have to.
You renounce, you denounce, you distance, you can, you fire, you throw all these people on your side, you humiliate them publicly, you throw them overboard, and you go to the NAA LCP convention and praise the opponent.
Why go there?
Why go there?
Obviously, if you're going there, you're seeking their votes.
Is anybody at the NAA LCP going to say, well, you know, Senator McCain came in here and he has such great things to say about Obama.
I think I'll vote for McCain.
I don't see how it works that way.
But still, Snerdley, all of that aside, it was a nice thing to do.
And you can't take that away from McCain.
It was a nice thing to do.
And with some people in this country who've been conditioned to conflict resolution and no confrontations whatsoever, and that we've all got to get along, there's some people who will look at Senator McCain here and think, wow, this is really.
I feel so good why the opponent of my candidate actually went to a meeting and praised my candidate.
Why I makes me feel he was such a nice guy.
Senator McCain, it's a very nice thing to do.
Right.
I know Julian Bond called Republicans a Taliban.
I understand all this.
But McCain, you're not going to go to the NAA LCP and say, do you remember when you called my party the Taliban?
You're not going to do that.
You know, this is the new campaign.
Like you've never, you've said you've never seen anything like it before, nor have I. Here's Brian of West Palm Beach across the bridge.
Brian, welcome to the program, sir.
Hello.
Hi, Raj.
Thanks for having me on the phone.
I appreciate it.
Yes, sir.
I just want to let you know I've submitted a request to the Make a Wish Foundation to play around in golf with you.
We'll let you know when we're notified by the Make a Wish Foundation.
Okay, I'm actually perfectly healthy, but someday I'll die.
I wanted to talk about Denver's beautification program with the homeless.
These are the very same people who they want to provide government assistance for, and I guess they're going to be an eyesore.
This, again, proves that they are elitists, true elitists, by doing this.
It's more elitist than a $300 haircut.
The homeless are fine as long as they are in somebody else's neighborhood.
Right.
But when a Democrat are going to show up for their big-time convention in Denver, can't have them anywhere.
Same thing in New York.
Just can't have those TV images.
Going to be bad enough for the Recreate 68 out there trying to cause all kinds of hijinks.
Yep, so they're going to give the homeless movie tickets in Denver the week.
I'm not making it up.
Movie tickets, a Democrat National Convention.
I was talking about Franklin Reigns a moment ago, a former Clinton administration official who ended up running Fannie Mae for a while.
The Washington Post has a very, a very sympathetic story regarding Mr. Reigns.
And again, I think this falls into the category of why we've never had tell-all books on the Clinton administration from members of that administration, because so many of them got wired into big money deals that would threaten those big money deals and appointments if they ever did the tell-all books.
In the four years since he stepped down as Fannie Mae's chief executive under the shadow of a $6.3 billion accounting scandal, Franklin Reigns has been quietly constructing a new life for himself.
He has shaved eight points off his golf handicap.
He's taken a corner office in Steve Case's D.C. conglomeration of finance, entertainment, and healthcare companies.
And more recently, he has taken calls from the Obama campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.
I just want to choke here.
This is a guy who presided over a fraudulent accounting setup at Fannie Mae to the tune of $6.3 billion, and the Obama people are asking him for advice.
And he's taken eight points off his golf handicap and he is in office with Steve Case.
And he's privately smoldered over the events of the past week when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were portrayed as being on the brink of disaster, prompting steep drops in their stocks and a federal intervention.
In his first interview in two years, Franklin Reigns remained insistent that the mortgage finance giant's problems are not rooted in the company, but rather stem from a time when the Bush administration and the Fed insisted the government-sponsored enterprise carried no explicit federal backing.
And it goes on and goes on.
Next two paragraphs.
Watching from outside the limelight has been frustrating, said Franklin Reigns, who has not spoken publicly about Fannie Mae since being charged by federal regulators with manipulating Fannie Mae earnings in 2006.
Rising from the working-class streets of Seattle to the highest levels of political and corporate life, Reigns for more than a decade enjoyed a bully pulpit in Washington, first as head of the White House Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton, and then as chief executive of Fannie Mae, where he was the first African-American chief executive of a Fortune 500 company.
This is such pap.
Fannie Mae, a Fortune 500 company, a government company, a government-run private sector business, which is an oxymoron.
Anyway, don't want to get distracted by that.
Franklin Reigns settled charges brought by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight by agreeing this spring to pay $2 million and forfeiting $22.7 million in stock and other benefits.
And though none of it will come out of his pocket, the payment was covered by insurance, he has not emerged unscathed.
He and his wife of more than 25 years, Wendy, are separated.
Their house, a 1910 colonial in northwest Washington, is for sale.
An old friend, former Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, describes Reigns as being in strong recovery mode.
Well, boo-hoo.
Here's a guy forced out, presided over a $6.3 billion accounting fraud, and we got a big sob story about how he is going to lose $2 million and forfeit $22.7 million other dollars, although he won't have to pay personally because he'll be covered by insurance.
This guy knows Ken Lay.
This guy knows Jeff Skilling.
And now he's playing golf and he's just trying to recover.
He's watching this from the silent.
He's so devastated.
Here is Elaine in Macomb, Michigan.
Elaine, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Like I did, Rash.
Thank you.
I'm a 15-year listener.
Agree with you 99.9% of the time.
Well, that's more than I'm right.
That's good.
I know that.
What I'm calling about is a state-of-the-art refinery that they were building or going to build, built, in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, across the Blue Router Bridge from Port Huron, Michigan.
Yes.
Well, it got panned by the environmentalists, decided that it wasn't quite safe enough, might pollute the St. Clair River.
And so that was taken right off the table.
And if anybody wants to have a reason for voting Republican in this next election, even regardless of McCain, take a look at the Great Lakes state, a great state of Michigan, and what happened since the Democrats took over this state.
This was one of the greatest, grandest states of the 50 states.
We almost won the Second World War with our manufacturing here, and now we have nothing.
Between Granholm and Kilpatrick, the state is nothing.
Everybody's leaving.
We have no young people here anymore.
There are no jobs.
And it kind of blew my...
I think you've summed it up, but as usual, you have incorrectly assigned blame.
All this is George Bush's fault because of the Iraq war.
Well, yeah, I forgot that part.
Oh, seriously.
I mean, this is what the Democrats try to tell you.
That people in Michigan got so depressed and so upset over the war that their productivity went south.
Look at, I've sounding this clarion call, asking this question for the longest time in a sane political world.
I don't see how the Democrat Party is even viable.
I don't see how they stand a chance for anything.
Now, I know the reality is that they've got a lot of people loyal to them, don't care what they stand for.
It goes back to the way they were raised, their families, class envy, a number of other things.
But you watch Michigan will go Obama.
Michigan will vote Democrat.
I know they're talking about it being in play for McCain, but you watch at the end of the day, who's left there?
You just described who's left there.
Well, we went through the whole thing with Kilpatrick.
Everything was in black and white.
We could see just the way it was printed out what he did, what was going on, everything.
All the perjury and everything that was going on.
And he was re-elected.
Yeah, but look at that.
But it doesn't make any difference.
Let me tell you why.
Let me tell you why.
You have, let's say the Kwame Kilpatrick voter base.
The way they look at things is they see that the white guys have been in power all those years and stealing money out of the public trough and getting fat deals for their buddies and so forth.
So it's their turn.
So they get Kwame Kilpatrick in there, and Kwame Kilpatrick, in their mind, is doing nothing different than all the white mayors and governors in the past did.
It's just their turn.
It was the same thing with General Dinkins in New York.
It was just their turn to get their hands on all the spoils and pass out all the patronage and do all the things that had been denied them because they were a minority.
So they don't look at Kwame Kilpatrick as corrupt.
They look at him as getting even.
Yeah.
Well, I have to tell you, too, that it kind of blew me your segment about a voice because I was going to close with, I think you've got the sexiest voice of all.
Well, it's true.
I know it's true.
And I just love the women that call up and breathe heavily into the phone.
Oh, you.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
You were going to try to call up and breathe heavily into the phone.
Yes.
Oh, I heard that too.
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, the difference between me and my sexy voice is that everybody knows I have a good face, a great face to go along with it.
But it's not true.
It's not true of a lot of people with good voices.
That's true.
Anyway, well, look, I don't mean to be a downer with you.
I'm trying to agree with you.
Michigan is a microcosm, just like New Orleans was.
Yeah.
A microcosm of what happens with unchecked unilateral liberal Democrat power and control.
And there are a lot of really good black people here.
Black people, politicians.
Well, of course there are.
They don't have a chance.
They just don't have a chance.
Why?
Because they're conservative?
Yes.
Because they're conservative.
I don't know.
That makes them traitors.
It does.
It makes them Uncle Bill's.
Uh-huh.
All right.
Well, Elaine, I appreciate the phone call.
Thanks.
Well, I appreciate your taking my call.
It's my pleasure.
We'll be back, ladies and gentlemen, after another windfall profit timeout.
Don't go away.
Little C, I told you so, ladies and gentlemen, it was back in 1996 when the Sierra Club first began its assault on the SUV in an attempt to eliminate the SUV from your choice of vehicles to purchase.
Demonized the SUV over the years.
I warned you at the outset.
They're going to come after your cart.
They don't want you driving it.
For whatever reason, you poo-pooed me.
Many of you did, not all.
Some of you were loyal.
Many of you poo-pooed me saying I was overreacting, that I was just looking for things.
I know these people.
And so last night on the news hour with Jim Olara, an essayist by the name of Ann Taylor Fleming gave us almost a eulogy for the SUV.
In lots like this, outside of my local Whole Foods, it used to be impossible to squeeze by or in between the Escalades and Navigators.
They were America writ large and thirsty.
Even the horror of September 11 didn't get us really talking about energy independence from the oil-rich countries that are not exactly friendly.
So it is easy to be cynical or cautious or some such thing.
And yet there are signs that the shift is genuine and that there will be no going back.
To see these lots now and see all these unsold giants is to feel already as if you are wandering in a kind of automotive theme park.
A museum almost.
A snapshot of entitled times past that will not come again.
Not in the same way anyway.
The SUV is about to become a thing of the past.
A swaggery relic of days gone by.
Can't wait till this woman is proven wrong.
I just cannot wait till she is proven wrong.
So now all these auto dealerships with SUVs is like a museum, like a theme park, a snapshot of entitled times past that will not come again.
Not in the same way anyway.
To see these lots is to be happy if you are a liberal.
To see these SUVs sitting idly is to be happy.
And so once again, the overall theme of the eulogy here on the McNeil era or the news hour with Jim Alera is America in a constant state of decline.
And their idea of entitlement is when you go out and buy what you want.
Our idea of entitlement is when they seek to make you and as many other people dependent as possible on them.
They look at entitlement as you having the independence and liberty from them to go buy what you want.
And they don't like that kind of entitlement.
They love the other kind of entitlement.
I told you this is going to happen.
I warned you people.
So America's in a permanent state of decline.
Thank you, she says.
She's happy about this.
All right, it's been a long 12 years, but we finally got rid of the SUV.
Interesting story.
Washington Post today.
The impassive bystander.
You and I were talking about this the other day, Snerdly, with the woman in the hospital that fell down and nobody gave her any attention.
A woman sits alone in a gray chair in a psychiatric ward in a Brooklyn Hospital.
When we first see her, we don't know how long she's been sitting there.
Suddenly, woman collapses on her face onto the dirty floor.
We watch through a surveillance camera.
She lies there, her blue gown above her knees, her legs convulsing.
We watch as a guard comes into the room, puts his hand on his hip, looks at the woman, looks up at the television hanging from the ceiling, and then the guard walks away.
We watch as two other patients sit across the room as the woman lies there.
We watch them watch her.
The impassive bystander.
Why?
What is happening to us?
Well, Wesley Perkins, professor of sociology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, says the larger question about the culture of indifference has a lot to do with bystander behavior.
The bystander phenomenon is generated by the perception that other people are not doing anything about it.
Therefore, I shouldn't do anything about it either.
Most of us do the right thing only when others are doing the right thing, it says here.
Real heroes are the ones who break out of the group norm.
The predominant cultural impulse is for people to transfer responsibility.
This is we actually, we don't know how common this is because there haven't been surveillance cameras all over the place in hospital showing us these things.
At least they haven't gotten out if they do.
But the situation in that Connecticut town, when a guy got hit with a car, hit and run, was out there on the ground in the middle of the street for a long period of time before a cop showed up.
Nobody in the street would do anything.
Do you think there's a reason for this?
All these societal cultural analysis trying to figure this out.
I think, among many other possibilities to explain this, is the fear of lawsuits.
I think the lesson is don't get involved.
And because if you get involved, you might get sued.
That woman falls over and you walk up and do something and she ends up being fine or maybe is a little bit injured because of her fall, but because you were there, you might be charged with doing something.
I think there's a big standoff attitude here simply because there's no desire to get sued by a tort lawyer, even from a patient in a mental hospital.
Quick time out.
We'll be back.
Stay with us.
Don't go away.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, I have bad news.
It's always bad news when I'm not going to be here.
I mean, and I understand it totally.
If I were in your shoes, it would depress me too.
I'll be out tomorrow.
I'm going to Washington for Tony Snow's funeral in the morning.
And Friday was a scheduled vacation day off.
I have a member guest golf tournament at a super secret location.
So who we got tomorrow?
We've got, that's right, Jed Babbin tomorrow, and Mark Davis from Dallas will be here holding down the fort on Friday.
I, of course, ladies and gentlemen, will be back to serve humanity once again on the following Monday.
So it's been, the Thursday thing with Tony at the funeral just came up, obviously, this week, and moved a lot of things around to be able to go to it.
And by the way, speaking of that, there is an address in a bank.
If you want to contribute to a trust that has been set up for the education and expenses of his children, it's at our website, rushlimbaugh.com.
And you can see where to send any amount that you can spare if you so desire.
Have a great next couple of days and weekend, and see you on Monday.
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