Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
You know, this one's hard to explain, but Raelle Hunter, this is the woman who had the affair with John Edwards, now says she's a new ager.
Edwards had great karma, great energy, and that she's had previous lives.
Raelle Hunter's had previous lives.
Oddly enough, in every one of those lives, she had an affair with a Democratic presidential candidate.
Now, that you didn't see coming, but it could have happened.
You got, you know, Roosevelt, Clinton, Kennedy, John Edwards.
Hello, once again, everybody.
Jason Lewis here behind the golden EIB mic in the Attila the Hunt chair at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies in for El Rushbo today, taking a day off.
He's back tomorrow on Tuesday.
You can always check things out at rushlimbaugh.com, but this is, to say the least, a momentous Monday.
I mean, we've got the Ruskies on the move again.
We've got the Republicans holding firm in Washington, D.C. on energy exploration, needed now more than ever, given what Putin and Russia is doing.
And we've got John Edwards and the extramarital affair.
I don't want to be callous about this, but this is just the material involved here.
I mean, well, I read a story earlier today, and it said the U.S. Census Bureau came out with preliminary statistics on illegitimacy rates in the country for 2008, and they said they were going up.
However, if you take out John Edwards, they actually fell.
I mean, you can just see all of the jokes.
The two Americas.
Sure, there are two Americas, Mr. Edwards, who's never failed to chase an ambulance he's spotted.
There's the one America where we all go home to our wives, and then there's that other America.
Now, the Democrats are at this again, saying it's all about sex and that his obfuscation and mendacity was all about sex, and therefore we don't need to pay attention to this.
I am puzzled by this.
It is not about sex.
It's about lying to the American people.
What are we to do?
I mean, here's a guy, the former presidential candidate, John Edwards, who won nationwide praise and sympathy as he campaigned side by side with his cancer-stricken wife, Elizabeth, admitted on Friday, by the way, that was very, very late on Friday, that they had an affair.
He had an affair.
And the woman he hired produced videos, produced videos.
There's another joke in there, someplace.
Would you like to see?
Exactly, Snerdley.
What kind of videos are we talking about?
And so Paul Bogala is on on Friday saying, well, it's all about sex.
It's all about sex.
No, it's not all about sex.
And neither was the Clinton scandal all about sex.
And here we go again.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
People forget the charges against William Jefferson Clinton.
They had nothing to do with sex.
Everybody knew, by the way, everybody knew in 1992, after that famous 60 Minutes interview, that Clinton had, shall we say, twice the chance of a date on Saturday night.
Everybody knew he was a philanderer, and nobody talked about it in the 1992 election.
Nobody talked about it in the 1996 election.
It wasn't until he, oh, let's see.
Hmm.
He asked Vernon Jordan to get Monica Lewinsky a job.
He suggested that Monica Lewinsky sign an affidavit to avoid testifying in the Paula Jones case, I believe that was.
He obstructed the truth when Monica was subpoenaed as the witness.
It wasn't until he lied to a grand jury, was held in contempt of court.
It wasn't until he lied to the American people.
You see, the president's taken oath to faithfully execute the laws of the land.
If at the same time you are obstructing, you are obstructing a Department of Justice or independent counsel inquiry, it can hardly be said you are executing the law of the land.
That's when the Clinton case rose to the level of a criminal investigation or and or an impeachment anyway.
You know, I looked up something over the weekend because I knew what the Dems would do in this John Edwards situation.
I knew they would just bring out the old shibboleth.
It's just about sex.
Republicans are prudes.
They're just focused on sex.
Well, wait a minute here.
If you take a look at, in fact, I'm not going to tell you.
I'm just going to read them to you.
These are articles of impeachment.
I know what you're thinking.
There goes Rush, you know, fill-in, Jason Lewis.
There he goes.
Going back to Clinton's, everything's all Clinton.
Let me read you these articles of impeachment.
Making false statements to investigative officers, withholding relevant material from officers, counseling witnesses with respect to giving false testimony, interfering with the Department of Justice and FBI investigation.
Well, what are you talking about Clinton for, Jason?
What are you talking about?
I mean, Edwards wasn't in office, true, but that wasn't Clinton's articles of impeachment.
Those were the Nixon articles of impeachment in 1974, all of which applied to William Jefferson Clinton.
Now, what I'm getting at here is that the problem with Edwards and this whole sorted affair, now you can make your own judgments on if this is the proper way to treat Elizabeth and those personal mores that we all have to come to terms with.
But the issue here is his repeated denial.
His issue here is he misled the campaign, his own Democrat constituents.
He misled the country.
He misled the media.
The issue is truthfulness.
The issue is violating an oath.
In Clinton's case, a legal oath.
In Edwards' case, a would-be legal oath.
That's the issue.
And that's the issue about all of these so-called personal transgressions.
Well, they have no bearing on, well, they sure do.
They sure do have a bearing.
Can you say blackmail?
I mean, if somebody is involved, if they're president 24-7, and they could be blackmailed, then all of a sudden the personal does become public.
But I don't want to focus on the personal.
I want to focus on the fundamental aspect to the old Edwards hypocrisy.
And that is, here's the trial lawyer in chief, the guy who would rake any corporation over the coals for obfuscating and lying, doing the very same thing in spades.
I mean, what's next?
Dickie Scruggs, the tobacco tort king from Mississippi, going to jail for, oh, wait a minute.
That's already happened.
What is it about these trial lawyers?
Now, I don't want to hear from you trial lawyers.
I like trial lawyers.
It's just the plaintiff's bar I can't stand.
Anyway, the Edwards case keeps going on and on, and it's not going to go away.
This woman is, well, this woman is rather odd.
That's not her real name, by the way, Riel Hunter, I guess.
But she now says she's into this new age stuff, spirituality, and John Edwards was going to be Mahatma Gandhi.
He wasn't exploiting all his chakras, I think is something she said.
He had this energy out there.
You know, come to think of it, I'm thinking here, NASA just said there's water on Mars.
How do they know?
Well, let's ask Riel Hunter.
She probably brought some back.
This is not going to go away.
Now, Edwards is saying, look, I did have the affair in 2006, and before the last presidential campaign, this was after the initial bout of cancer with Elizabeth.
After the initial campaign, I told my wife, that is with Kerry, told my wife, and then we started the second presidential run or sweepstakes anyway, not the second presidential run, but his run for presidency.
And it's all over.
But the baby was born, I believe, what, five, six months ago?
He's saying, I am not the father of that baby.
And he says, I'll take a paternity test.
And Riel Hunter says, no paternity test wanted.
And one could give Edwards the benefit of the doubt.
He had the extramarital affair.
He lied about it to the media, to the public, to the Democrats.
One could give him the benefit of the doubt.
But then here's the fundamental question.
Why was he at the Beverly?
Was it the Beverly Hills Hotel, I believe?
Why was he there when the National Inquirer caught him?
By the way, why is it always the National Inquirer or some new alternative media online that catches Democrats in these scandals?
Why isn't the mainstream media all over this like Woodward and Bernstein?
Oh, yeah, it's only lying about sex.
Remember, when you go home tonight, you tell your little Johnny and Susie.
If they lie about brushing their teeth, say, don't worry about it.
It's only lying about brushing your teeth.
See, if you lie, it really doesn't matter depending upon what you are trying to cover up.
That is the new morality from the new Democrat politicians, I guess.
Let us also disabuse ourselves of this notion that, oh, the Bush administration and Halliburton filled with scandal and how Vice President Cheney had this conflict of interest with these war contracts and Halliburton, even though he'd already bought insurance for his compensation, his deferred comp.
It wouldn't have mattered whether Halliburton had gone bankrupt or made a zillion bucks.
Cheney's compensation wouldn't have changed, even though that's true.
They kept trying to make the Bush administration scandal one.
Could we just disabuse ourselves of this notion that the Democrat Party, as the mainstream media would have you believe, is this lily white virgin party of innocence?
Can you say, well, we've got the Baltimore mayor now in trouble for apparently doling out some suspect contracts.
We've got the Detroit mayor, who's, what, back in jail for violating his release.
We've got Sandy Berger.
We've got William Jefferson.
We've got Representative Barney Frank.
Remember that little apartment he had?
We've got Representative Fred Richmond, Jerry Studs, Mel Reynolds.
Oh, did I mention Bill Clinton?
Did I mention Al Gore and Buddhist fundraising?
I did mention Sandy Berger.
Did I Norman Shu and the financing?
All I'm saying is two wrongs do not make a right, but I'm so tired of this media template that, oh, Republicans scandalous.
You can't trust them.
They lied about the war.
They lied about this.
Oh, what did John Edwards lie about?
What did the Detroit mayor lie about?
Maybe the Baltimore mayor.
We don't know that yet.
Sandy Berger, Norman Shu, Bill Clinton, Hillary and the Rose law firm billing records vanished.
Let us just drop the New Jersey mayor, Snerley reminds me.
Let us drop the notion that the Democrats have a monopoly on virtue.
How many scandals is it going to take?
How many lies is it going to take before we drop that media template?
Oh, he's going on.
Snerdy's going on and on.
I mean, I know the list is too long to recite, Snerdy, but we've got time limits even when El Rushbo is gone.
Anyway, we'll take a quick pause.
I want to come back on this momentous Monday and talk about the next Cold War.
The Russian tanks are on the move and not just in this breakaway province, Ossetia.
Now they're going into Georgia.
This is a big story, and we'll give you the latest when we come back right here on the Rush Limbaugh program.
I'm Jason Lewis, talent on loan from Rush today on the Excellence and Broadcasting Network.
And greetings, conversationalists across the fruited plain.
Jason Lewis, Minnesota's Mr. Wright, in for El Rushbo.
He is back tomorrow.
In the meantime, though, the number stays the same.
1-800-282-2882 on this momentous Monday.
Big weekend.
I mean, big weekend.
You had the Olympics.
Snerley was going on and on about the opening ceremonies.
China really is putting on a show over there.
I don't know about you, though.
I was watching the PGA yesterday.
And Padrick Harrington, can you believe this guy?
And Sergio played great.
It was a big weekend when it came to entertainment, but also in a more serious vein, with what's going on with Vladimir Putin.
And let there be no mistake, he is the head of Russia.
That move into Georgia.
I want to focus on that a little bit.
I want to focus on the Republicans finally getting their act together on energy, although there are some that still need to be convinced.
They'll be kicking and screaming all the way into the 21st century on this idea that guess what?
Alternatives don't work.
That's why we have to subsidize them.
Good old-fashioned petroleum and coal and natural gas work just fine.
That's why they can be taxed and still produce.
Mike Pance is leading the charge along with a few Republicans.
We'll talk to the congressman from Indiana coming up shortly.
Oh, by the way, I did, as Mike reminded me as well, I did forget to mention Elliot Spitzer in the Democratic list of wrongdoers.
Mr. McGreevy of New Jersey, forgot to mention that one.
I mean, I'm not trying to be flippant here.
I'm just trying to, for once, point out that the next time someone dare call the GOP, and don't get me wrong, gang, I am no GOP cheerleader.
I'm not a Republican Party reptile here.
I think the party has been like Russia in many ways.
I think the party has been woefully unconservative, especially on the environment.
And they're getting their comeuppance.
They got it in 2006.
And if they don't get religion on energy right now, as the saying goes, drill here, drill now, pay less, they're going to get it again in 08.
So I'm not an apologist, but I am sick and tired of the double standard when it comes to personal mores and oh, the horrible things about Newt Gingrich and William Living the congressman from Louisiana was at Livingston.
And of course, this administration, the most scandalous in history, just go down the list, gang.
Anybody say Gulf of Tonkin when LBJ lied about that incident in the Vietnam?
I mean, you could go right down the list.
I don't want to do it.
I don't want to focus on that.
All I'm saying is don't let anybody pull the wool over your eyes on which party is virtuous and which one is not.
Now, on to these troubling, this troubling intervention, if you will, as Russia widens its attacks on Georgia, they are now going far beyond, from what we can gather from media reports, South Ossetia.
This is the breakaway province in Georgia.
Let me give you a little background on this.
When the Soviet Union dissolved, Georgia won its independence.
It is in a geopolitical, geopolitically, it is in a strategic position because there is a crucial, I mean absolutely crucial, transit route for oil heading west from the Caspian Sea, this oil pipeline.
Now, that is important to the West as it offsets Russia's growing alliance with Iran and their oil flows.
And some say, I can't remember if I read where the pipeline has been bombed as well.
That's why it has strategic interest for the West.
That's why John McCain today said that the G7, he's not including Russia anymore, used to be the G8.
Actually, prior to that, Russia was excluded.
Now they're included.
And now McCain says they ought to be excluded.
But he says that we ought to accept Georgia into NATO and start this tripwire that we had with Western Europe going back to the Cold War.
So when the Soviet Union dissolves and Georgia wins independence, South Ossetia never really liked that.
This is this province in Georgia.
And so they wanted to secede and they wanted to join Russia.
And there's been this tension ever since.
Now, one would think this would be a Georgia problem.
One would think that the Georgians ought to handle this, and that's the end of the story.
But now Russia decides, as we all know by now, to basically invade, for lack of a better description.
And what everybody thought would happen at first is they'd go in and they'd protect this breakaway province.
Now we're getting word they're going beyond that.
And the $64,000 question here is, and I don't want to be inflammatory here.
I don't want to engage in hyperbole, but let's be clear about this.
Some Cold Warriors, I mean, if Ronald Reagan were around, he might be saying, well, there you go again.
Some Cold Warriors never get the lesson.
And some have suggested that the former KGB agent, the KBG chief, Mr. Putin, has expansionist aims.
Now, others say we should let them do what they want.
We can't be policing the world.
The question with Georgia is simply this.
Are they going to go back and take back a province that won its independence in 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved, when the Cold War was ostensibly won?
And if they take back that province, what's next?
Estonia?
Latvia?
Eastern Europe?
Remember now, this has especially great import because there's a great debate between Russia and the United States as to where we can put a planned radar.
The United States wants to put it in the Czech Republic.
And this radar would, this is kind of a strategic defense initiative, as the Gipper talked about back in 1983.
They pejoratively called it Star Wars.
But of course, strategic defense has been under plan since the Kennedy administration.
And the idea was if you put a radar there in the Czech Republic, started building strategic defense against, strategic means intercontinental ballistic missiles.
It's not a theater defense.
It's a strategic defense.
We might be able to detect a rogue nation firing an ICBM with chemical or nuclear warheads at us.
So that location in the Czech Republic is crucial.
Russia has said effectively, don't you dare put it there.
If you do, there may be military consequences.
So we've got that tension there as well.
What we're finding out is the old bear dies hard.
You know, there are a couple of things that come to mind over this.
And everybody's wondering what the United States should do.
I mean, can we go in there and defend Georgia?
They're demanding that we do this.
Georgia's saying we sent troops to Iraq.
You've got to defend us against this massive Russian army that now we've got, what, 2,000 deaths already?
Their eyes aren't just on this breakaway province, Ossetia.
Their eyes are on the entire independent nation of Georgia.
We need help from the West.
Should we go in?
And if we don't go in, because, look, we can't police the world.
We can't set up another tripwire that if we start putting up, you know, putting in these guarantees like we did, say, for like the West did for Poland in World War II, and then once Hitler invaded Poland, we had to engage the war.
If we start putting in these guarantees in Eastern Europe, what happens if Russia challenges us?
Then do we go to war with Russia?
But then again, if we don't, we sit back.
What do we do?
We sit back and we watch Russia expand, possibly?
Look, Putin's in charge of this.
The prime minister is eclipsing the president, Medvedev.
And the other thing that came to my mind was simply this.
Where is the UN when we really need them?
Is this not a test of that much-vaunted agency, international peacekeeper?
Don't hold your breath.
We are back live, of course, on the Russia Limbaugh program.
Jason Lewis here.
You know, I want to get back to this Russian invasion of Georgia.
I want to talk about the Edwards scandal.
But as you know, the Republicans in Washington, D.C. as well have been holding firm on this energy issue, demanding the Democrats not adjourn, they did anyway, taking the floor, and the Democrats turning out the lights, turning off the mics, all of this, and really latching on to an issue that is not only good public policy, but good politics.
One of the guys, one of the brain trusts behind this is the true blue conservative, Representative Mike Pence from Indiana.
He joins us now.
Representative Pence, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program with me, Jason Lewis.
Jason, it's great to be on the Rush Limbaugh show, and I'm coming to you from the floor of the United States House of Representatives.
You guys are still at it.
Somehow I darkened.
The lights are dimmed.
The cameras are off.
The speakers are off.
But for the last 10 days, House Republicans have taken this hill and are consistently, day in and day out, demanding that Speaker Nancy Pelosi call this Congress back into session and give the bipartisan majority that would support an energy bill that allowed more drilling, an up or down vote.
You know, it's really quite amazing.
We've got this conflict now in Georgia, which has a crucial oil pipeline.
We've got trouble in Nigeria, trouble in the Middle East, as we all know.
Can you ever think of a more opportune time than to shore up our own domestic reserves?
Even if they're not going to be kept here, it would increase the world's supply, which obviously is going to bring the price down.
In fact, before I let you answer that, Representative Pence, I would argue the president lifting the executive order that his dad put down on ANWAR, your particular seriousness about drilling domestically, has already encouraged speculation to bring the price of oil down.
Well, whatever the cause, and I think you're exactly right, Jason, and Rush said this before, that I think when the President took what is in fact a half measure and lifted the historic ban on offshore drilling as an executive order, we saw the biggest two-day drop in the cost of oil per barrel in 20 years.
Imagine, if you will, if the Congress was called back into session tomorrow by Speaker Pelosi and that we actually passed a comprehensive energy bill that included more access to American oil, I believe that we would see the futures market respond, oil prices would respond, even in the midst of the crisis of the Russian invasion of Georgia, I think you'd see oil prices go down and gasoline relief at the pump.
And really, that's what we're about here, Jason.
I mean, what we're really about, the reason why you've seen by the end of this week over 100 Republican members of Congress leave behind family and hearth and home and come back to Washington, D.C., why you've seen Republicans doing town hall meetings all over America, is because we know the American people are hurting.
Small business owners, family farmers, people, lower-income Americans, seniors on fixed incomes are struggling under the weight of high gasoline prices, and they're not going to get a vacation from high gas prices.
So Congress should not be taking a five-week paid vacation until we come to this floor and we take a vote giving the American people more access to American oil.
Well, what are Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi afraid of?
I mean, I can tell you what Nancy Pelosi is afraid of.
It's a rhetorical question.
She's afraid of the vote would pass to release the offshore drilling ban and maybe even Anwar.
Well, I got to tell you that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a congresswoman from San Francisco, has every right to oppose any additional domestic drilling.
She can have her own opinion.
What we're frustrated about is that clearly, Jason, there is a bipartisan majority here on the floor of the House of Representatives that, if given the opportunity, would pass an energy bill that it would do all of the above.
It would do conservation.
It would do solar, wind, nuclear, efficiency standards, but it would also give the American people more access to our vast natural resources through drilling.
Nancy Pelosi is entitled to her opinion, but I don't believe in my heart of hearts that the Speaker of the House should impose her liberal views on drilling on a clear majority in the Congress.
That's what I'm saying.
Well, that's really the key.
That's really the key, isn't it, Congressman?
If, in fact, there was no chance of passage, one might be able to portray this as a stunt.
But when you've got now just the leadership and not members of her own party blocking a vote that might probably would pass, you have somebody obstructing the will of one could say the will of the people here.
Especially considering that agencies like the Minerals Management Service and others say all of our reserves, if you take a look at recoverable oil offshore, and we're talking 50 miles to 200 miles, you're taking a look at 2,000 acres out of 19 million accessible in Anwar, all of that combined would be about 124 billion barrels of recoverable oil.
That's more than the proven reserves of Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Venezuela, and Mexico.
Well, that's exactly right, Jason, and that's why the Twin Cities love you, man.
I mean, really, look, these are uncertain times.
Our economy is struggling.
Now we have a Russian invasion in Georgia, and we just think now's the time.
We have a bipartisan majority.
We can get a vote to give the American people more access to American oil.
But, Jason, not if we're here.
Not if we're not here.
We need to see the Speaker of the House call this House back into session and bring a comprehensive energy bill to the floor that includes more access to American oil.
And right now, we're challenging tens of millions of listeners of the Rush Limbaugh show to pick up the phone and don't worry about calling Republicans on the Hill.
We've gotten plenty of those calls in the last week.
Don't worry about calling Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Her voicemail gets filled up pretty quick.
But call 202-224-3121 and call a Democrat member of Congress from your state.
I really do believe, Jason, that if the millions of Americans who listen to the Rush Limbaugh show, who want to see America have more access to American oil, would pick up the phone and make a respectful call to a Democrat member of Congress from their own state, that those Democrat members of Congress would call their speaker.
We'd bring this Congress back into session, and we'd bring legislation to the floor that would bring energy independence and real relief at the pump to millions of Americans.
Don from Rochester Hills, Michigan, wants to talk with you, Congressman Spence, or Pence, I should say, so let us go to him in Michigan.
Don, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program with Congressman Mike Pence.
Yes, hi, Jason.
Hi, Congressman.
Hey, Don.
I have a suggestion.
I'd like to propose that you publish a list of all the Democrats that walked out of the House and shut the lights off.
I think perhaps this might bring them to task to have them maybe perhaps shame them into coming back, but calling Nancy Pelosi, they'll probably just ignore us.
But I think let the public know who all these people are that just walked out at this particular time when we need to get some direction as far as drilling offshore.
Don, I think it's a terrific point.
And the truth is there were, I think, a dozen or so Democrats that voted against adjourning, but the majority of the Congress, all Democrats voted, all the remaining Democrats rather, voted to adjourn the House.
But that's why I'm saying, I just said to Jason, I think if the millions of people who listen to this show, many of whom have sent emails to people like me and others on Capitol Hill urging us on, many of whom have called the Speaker of the House, if people will call 202-224-3121 and ask to speak to a Democrat member of Congress from their state,
I assure you that's going to be the most effective way to send a message to the Democrats and to Speaker Nancy Pelosi that we want this Congress to go back to work right now and bring a bill to the floor that's comprehensive, includes all of the above, but also gives the American people more access to American oil.
All right, final question for Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, true blue conservative.
My choice for the vice presidential sweepstakes, by the way, Mike.
Thank you, Jason.
Which means you have no chance of getting it.
But let me give you the nuclear option, as it were.
Are you going to come back?
The Democrats have, what, one appropriation bill done for the October fiscal year that starts in a month and a half?
I think they passed one.
Yep.
One.
All right.
So we're not going to get the 12 or 13 we need, obviously.
There's going to be a CR, continuing resolution.
Why don't the Republican Study Committee that seems to be leading on this, and you conservatives in the House, go up to the President and the President meet with you and say, look, Mr. President, tell the Democrats, unless they give us an option to vote on energy and domestic exploration, he's not going to sign a continuing resolution.
And that really would put the pressure on him, would it not?
Jason, I think it's a terrific point.
And let me thank you for acknowledging our role in this, but let me also be clear.
Folks ought to understand the 50 House Republicans who took this hill 10 days ago, included Republican leader John Boehner and Roy Blunt.
It's been those Republican leaders that took what probably was a political stunt the first day and turned it into a cause.
And it's precisely those leaders who are going to lead the effort for this demonstration.
We either get this Congress back in special session this August like we should, we get a vote on an energy bill that includes more drilling, or we'll fight for that in September.
And if we don't get it, I'm 100% agreement with you, Jason.
We should not pass a resolution that continues to fund the government that renews our ban on drilling in the outer continental shelf.
We're going to dig in on that.
If it means the government's shutdown, I know Republican leaders in the House, rank-and-file guys like me, are ready to fight because this isn't a Republican issue.
It's not a Democrat issue.
This is an American issue.
And we're fighting for energy independence.
But I hope your millions of listeners out there, Russia's millions of listeners, will know, make a respectful call to a Democrat member of Congress from your state this week, and we can bring this Congress back into session and take a decisive step toward energy independence in the 21st century.
That is great advice.
Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana, thanks so much, Congressman.
And be firm out there in the House.
We'll stand firm, Jason, with your help and Russia's help.
God bless you all.
All right.
Back after this on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed.
I am Jason Lewis, Minnesota's Mr. Wright, in for El Rushbo.
He's back tomorrow.
In the meantime, don't forget rushlimbaugh.com.
Everything you need is right there.
1-800-282-2882 to the phones we go on this momentous Monday in beautiful southern Minnesota.
Of all places, the first call from Bill, fire away on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Hey, Jason, Megadillos, you're doing a great job.
See, I got a nice shorthand way of referring to the media hypocrisy on the Senator Edwards thing.
Start accusing him of having a wide stance in the Minneapolis airport, right?
There you go.
See, I was just going to say, have you ever had Michelle Bachman on when you're guesting for Rush?
No, but Congresswoman Bachman from the 6th District here in Minnesota is one of those Mike Pence serious conservatives, and that's what's going to lead the Republicans out of their abyss, if you will.
You've still got the Senate Liberals.
You've still got the National Republican Governors Association.
You still have a number of Republican consultants and former Bush speechwriters like Michael Gerson that just don't get it.
They still think the way to defeat the Democrats is to be a Democrat.
And, you know, they look at this as a contest.
How many Rs can we win this November?
It's more than a contest.
It's life.
You need to look at this as you're not following the polls, but you're going to change the polls and educate people.
And that's why, by the way, let me give you a perfect example.
You go back a few months ago, Bill, and you'll find people, well, I don't think we should drill in America offshore.
I don't think we should drill in ANWAR because of the leadership on the part of Rush and Talk Radio, but primarily elected officeholders in the House of Representatives.
Because of that leadership, they educated, they moved the polls instead of followed the polls.
Now the majority say, darn right we should drill.
The issue is all of a sudden ours.
We own the issue.
That's the sort of leadership as opposed to this obsequious idolatry over windmills and solar panels and biofuels and ethanol, all of which cannot survive without government propping them up.
You know, it's an absolute, it's axiomatic, my friends.
No unviable or no particular industry or product that's not viable will be so if government intervenes.
And no amount of government intervention will make it viable.
So we've got a situation here where ExxonMobil pays $30 billion in taxes in 2007.
And Barack Obama says, I know what we need.
We need to tax them further so we can hand out another stimulus check, which has failed to do much of anything.
And so we can have alternative energy subsidies.
This is a bizarre, bizarre, wrong-headed approach to energy.
This whole energy crisis is a manufactured energy crisis by government.
We threaten to tax the oil companies even more.
By the way, according to the SEC, they pay 41% of their income in taxes, the big three.
41%.
It's actually higher than the statutory rate, probably because they removed some deductions in credits.
That doesn't even account for the federal gasoline tax and the state gasoline taxes, which have more than surpassed over the years any oil company profits.
So they're paying billions in profits, and ethanol and solar and wind pay zip.
They've got to get a net subsidy from the government.
We've got to have a $300 billion farm bill.
On top of that, ethanol mandates, renewable energy mandates in Minnesota and the country.
Why is it these industries can't survive without a mandate?
Because they are not economically viable.
So we have created this energy crunch.
We have created the spike in food prices because of biofuels and ethanol.
Even the World Bank and the IMF admit that, as does Purdue University and a number of agricultural universities.
We've created the crisis in food inflation.
We've created the crisis at the pump.
We've created the crisis in the housing bubble by debasing our currency, inflating the dollar, and encouraging these sorts of questionable loans.
And now we're bailing out Bear Stearns.
We're bailing out Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
We're doing it all over again.
The point I'm getting to is none of this is market failure.
It is government failure in the extreme.
Ruth in Scranton, Pennsylvania, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program with me, Jason Lewis.
Hi.
Jason, it's an honor.
I've been trying to get through to Russia's show for about 20 years, literally.
I'm sorry Rush isn't here for you, but you'll have to settle for the fill-in.
Well, I'm very happy to speak to you, sir.
What I wanted to mention is I think we just have to keep in mind that Edwards and all these people, the problem is that the standards of the left don't exist.
They have no standards.
They are the height of immoral.
They have no morals.
And they're just, you know, if you have no standards, if you have no morals, then there are no laws and rules that can be broken.
And I think that's really what we have to keep in mind.
Peter Schweitzer has a new book out called Makers and Takers.
Oh, yeah.
Peter Schweitzer is a great guy.
You bet.
He's a really great guy.
And he spoke last week at Young America's Conference.
I was there.
And it really exemplified to me that we just need to keep this in mind.
All the talking heads of the left, Barack Obama, the Kennedys, every single one of them, Michael Moore, they go around talking about being moral and being good.
And when we really find out who they are, they're hypocrisy.
I'm up against the clock.
I'm up against the clock, but you're on to something very important.
We'll talk about it when we come back on the Russell and Ball program.
You know, Ruth came up with a really good point last segment about the Democrats, or should we say liberals, denial of the reality of sin.
That is to say, look, a lot of conservatives fall short.
A lot of Republicans fall short.
But no one suggests that, well, because I fall short, therefore what I did wasn't a transgression.
This is kind of the false premise of the sainthood crowd.
The media and their friends in the Liberal Democrat Party say, well, look, unless you are perfect, you can't preach.
Well, nobody's perfect.
Nobody's a saint.
So that means we can have no particular moral compass whatsoever or tell our kids anything or tell the world anything because we're not perfect.
What the transgressors on the left say was, well, I never said I was perfect.