The views expressed by the host on this show, now documented to be almost always right, 99.
No, 98.
Wait a minute now.
It's 98.9.
That's right, 98.9% of the time.
I did what?
Oh, that's right.
I did make it up to, I forgot the latest opinion on it 99% of the time.
Documented to be almost always right 99% of the time, according to the latest opinion audit from our official opinion auditing firm in Sacramento, the Sullivan Group.
Great to have you back.
El Rushball behind the golden EIB microphone serving humanity simply by showing up.
Big party tonight at the White House.
Huge party.
Big St. Patrick's Day party.
Hundreds of people invited to partake in the festivities in the midst of a recession heading toward depression, the White House partying big time under the tutelage of President Obama.
I think people will, well, I don't know how many people outside of town are going to be there, but I'm sure people, if they're, yeah, they'll be flying into their private jets.
I'm sure so.
And also that I bet you even some of these Wall Street execs whose reputations are being destroyed by President Obama's teleprompter, when the teleprompter tells him to say that they're greedy and selfish and all that, they'll be there.
I mean, these guys, just like the big oil execs, they know this is the price for having the job.
You got to have the government yipping at your heels now and then, sometimes actually hurting you.
Cost of doing business.
Hybrid sales, ladies and gentlemen, have gone from 60 to zero at breakneck speed.
Oh, speaking of which, before we get to that, I got to find this.
Let's see here.
Well, I don't need to find it in order to tell you about it, but the CEO of Ford Motor Company, Alan Malali, or Malally.
Ah, I found it.
I have it here right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
Alan Millally has suggested that we need to raise taxes on gasoline.
Now, I want you to stop and think about this.
If you ran a business, would you ask the government to raise taxes on any element of it?
Let's say you run a bakery.
Would you ask the government to raise taxes on flour and wheat?
Mr. Millally thinks that we need to raise taxes on gasoline.
You know why?
Take a guess as to why.
Nope, not global warming.
Let's be HR close to the truth.
He's not building green cars.
He's built them.
And they're not selling because gasoline's got too cheap.
And Malally says the American people want big cars.
So he wants a tax on gas, a floating tax that keeps the floor on gasoline at $4 a gallon just so he can sell his inventory of cars that Ford made that people have said they don't want.
Michael Jackson, who's the CEO of Auto Nation, which is the largest automobile dealer in the country, agrees because he's got a bunch of these small cars sitting.
He can't give them away, he says in this story in the Wall Street Journal.
So we have government policy, cafe standards, all of these things which have forced the auto companies to build cars that people don't want.
The Ford and Honda hybrids due out this month are among dozens planned for the coming years as automakers try to meet new fuel efficiency standards and please politicians overseeing the industry's multi-billion dollar bailout.
Unfortunately for the automakers, hybrids are a tough sell.
This is from the LA Times.
Americans have cut back on buying vehicles of all types, but the slowdown has been particularly brutal for hybrids, which use electricity and gasoline as power sources.
They were the industry's darling last summer.
Sales have collapsed as consumers refuse to pay a premium for a fuel-efficient vehicle now that the average price of a gallon of gasoline nationally has slipped to $2.
So another totally wrong business decision forced by government.
Make a bunch of cars that the majority of Americans do not want.
The proof is on dealership showrooms and lots.
It's gotten so bad that auto dealerships and manufacturers are now suggesting we need to raise taxes on gasoline in order to sell their products.
How asinine.
Everything's upside down here.
I am just stunned.
The American people don't want these cars.
I mean, you've got a few who do.
I mean, you have a population as large and diverse as ours.
Statistically, you're going to have some cupod balls who are going to want to drive these things around because they're symbols.
Look at me.
I care more about the environment because I'm driving this little puddle jumper around here.
It's a hybrid.
I'm better than you.
So now we've got to raise taxes on gasoline.
That's the proposal.
And by the way, when somebody comes along outside government and says, I think you need to raise our taxes, they hear you in Washington.
And they are eager to comply.
There's something blowing in the wind, ladies and gentlemen, in Malibu.
It's coming from Bob Dylan's compound, and his neighbors do not like it.
The song is not starting.
How can that possibly be?
The song isn't starting.
The song is the song.
When you hit the start button, it should start.
Well, what are you playing it from?
Are you playing it straight from the profit?
Well, then maybe it's not really there.
Maybe it just says it's there, but check the gigabyte content.
See if there's actually any song there.
I'll twiddle my thumbs while you find out.
We just had a great bit that's been blown sky high.
I'm using my professionalism to vamp here while engineers try to figure out how to play a song on the radio.
Imagine something like that not working.
Says it's there.
Well, hit the start button again.
Or do you have any Dylan song?
Go get Lay Lady Lay.
That'll work.
Find Layla just find a Dylan.
When you find one, just hit the start button.
In three, two, one.
All right, what is this one?
This is knocking on heaven's door.
I was going to say, it's not Lay Lady Lay.
I'd know Lay Lady Lay anywhere I saw a bed.
Knock, knock, knocking on toilet door.
That's about this story.
Knock, knock, knocking on my toilet door.
Start singing, Bob.
Come on, I got to get moving on this song.
Dylan's song, refuse to play.
It's like Obama's teleprompter refusing to speak.
No, knock, knock, knocking on a toilet door is what this is about.
Who wrote the lyrics to this?
This real challenge to write that.
Hell, I could have done that.
Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door five times in a row.
Yes, I'm agitated.
Blow it in the wind, refuse to play.
It makes me mad.
Knock, knock, knocking on the toilet door.
Knock, knock, knocking on the toilet dome.
Okay, here's the news.
It's out of Malibu, California, where Bob Dylan has a compound.
And some of his neighbors are charging in an increasingly odoriferous dispute that he's got a portable toilet outside the house.
And it is the odors coming from this estate, which is a point doom, are got to the point that they're intolerable.
Residents contend that the nighttime sea breeze sends a noxious odor from a portable toilet on Dylan's property wafting into their homes.
The stench has made members of one family sick, has forced them to abandon their bedrooms on warm nights.
For more than six months, Bob Dylan has ignored their complaints in their pleas to remove the outhouse.
It's a scandal, said David Emminger, whose home is directly behind the outhouse.
He said, Mr. Civil Rights is killing our civil rights.
Now, the outhouse, you may be wondering, what the hell is Bob Dylan doing with an outhouse?
Isn't he an environmentalist wacko?
And isn't this how environmentalists want us all to live?
Doing all this enachiral out in the woods and so forth?
They don't like this in Malibu.
They probably wouldn't like this in Marin County either.
Well, get this.
The outhouse is intended for use by Dylan's employees.
That's what it says here in the Los Angeles Times.
David Emminger, whose house lives very near the, who lives in his house near the outhouse.
Emminger and his wife have installed five industrial-sized fans in their front yard.
Five fans in the front yard in Malibu.
And I wonder if they got permits for this.
Or if they themselves are in violation.
Five industrial-sized fans in an attempt to blow the stench from the outhouse back at Dylan.
Now, folks, we are talking major footprints here.
We have an outhouse footprint.
Now we got five fans across the street pushing the odor back at Dylan's house.
And once again, guards who staff a security shack near the edge of Dylan's compound around the clock are among those who utilize the outhouse.
There's another woman here, no, same woman, Cindy Emminger, wife of Dave Emminger, says that her eight-year-old son David Emminger Jr. was sickened by the stench, and then she became ill too.
She said, we both have allergies and we are sensitive to chemicals.
I finally noticed they'd moved the port-a-potty directly in front of my front door.
So the Dylans were not sitting idly by.
As the neighbors complained about the stench, the Dylans apparently moved the outhouse closer to the complaining family's house.
Now, you might be asking, what in the world?
Bob Dylan, this is a compound he has out there.
And his peon staff, apparently, his indentured servants have to use an outhouse?
Ladies and gentlemen, anybody with an estate, anybody with a compound knows that you have an enclosed and air-conditioned bathroom for the servants, for the gardeners, for the various vendors and contractors who come to maintain your property and keep it beautiful.
I've never heard of this.
The only time you have outhouses out there is during construction when no plumbing has yet been installed.
How in the hell can Malibu let this happen?
And how do they get away, by the way, with just one outhouse?
You know, it gets cold at Malibu at night sometimes during the year.
This is shocking.
This is stunning, no matter how you look at it.
In addition, it smells funny.
It just looks weird.
Your guiding light.
Rushland Boss showing the way.
Here behind the golden EIB microphone.
Back to the phones.
Chillicothe, Ohio.
This is Tom.
Thank you for waiting, sir.
You're next.
Megaditto's Rush.
I've got a question.
There was a promise during the campaign that people over 65 weren't going to have to pay income tax anymore.
I seem to remember Barrick Hussein Obama saying that.
And I'm 66 and I'm still paying them.
I'd kind of look at it as a bonus if I didn't have to, you know.
Yeah, I don't remember that proposal.
People over 65 will not have to pay taxes.
Well.
Because Social Security benefits are taxed.
Oh, yeah.
Where did you hear that?
I seem to remember hearing it during the campaign.
And I asked you.
Are you sure that you are not confusing over 65 with the 95% of Americans will pay no tax increase?
Well, I'm about 65% then, because my CPA says I'll have to pay federal income tax until I've been dead for six months.
Oh, I would think it'd be even beyond that.
This is horrible.
The 70s, the millions of dollars to AIG people.
And, you know, Schumer's already been made a liar on Fox News.
There's no way to get the money back, according to Neil Cavuto.
Well, see, AIG could write the government a check if they wanted to, if they have the money.
There may be no way to get the money back from the individuals now.
But I think Cavuto is perhaps, I love Neil Cavuto now, don't misunderstand.
But if Neil Cavuto says that there's no way of getting the money back, Neil Cavuto does not understand the full power, depth, scope, and intentions of these people running the government.
Oh, legally?
He means legally.
Well, that's what I mean.
He doesn't understand the full scope, depth, and deceit of these people running the government.
Legally?
What the hell?
Legally?
Carol in Baltimore.
I'm glad you called.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi.
I'm sure you won't be happy after a while, but Mega Dido's.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate your calling.
I am a liberal.
I listen to your show a lot.
Most of you are.
What country are you from?
I am from the USA.
Oh, you're an American liberal, okay.
Yeah.
Where did you think I came from?
I'm certainly not somebody down in, I don't know, from Afghanistan.
Well, I don't know.
I'm sorry.
You know, I have a hearing problem.
I have a cochlear implant, and you do have a mannerism, a speaking mannerism that sounds international.
Well, I don't know what that is.
You probably perfected that while at university.
No, I did not.
I perfected it in Savannah, Georgia.
No, you're from Savannah?
Yes, I am.
I'm from Savannah, Georgia.
That's a huge capitalist town.
You know, they make Gulfstream jets there.
Well, you know what?
Wonderful.
I love capitalism.
It is wonderful.
I love capitalism.
And I'm a capitalist.
I am a small business owner.
So do you.
Well, then, how can you be liberal?
You have to hate yourself, then.
If you're a capitalist and a small business owner, you have to hate yourself.
No, why would I hate myself?
I hardly want to say that.
Well, because liberals hate small business.
They hate capitalism.
No, they don't.
Responsible for all that.
That's why I call injustice and inequity and stuff.
That's why I call it.
Okay, okay.
I got to tell you.
Hold on.
Hold on.
Just please, please hold on.
We'll come back after the commercial timeout.
Don't go away.
Go ahead.
Admit it.
You are addicted to this show.
It is called EIB.
An airborne phenomenon spread by casual contact.
And when you get it, you are cured.
No cure necessary.
Rush Limbaugh serving humanity, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
I've been following Apple's presentation today.
It's going on even as we speak of the new software version 3.0 for iPhone.
Folks, I am happy to be able to tell you that they finally are adding cut and paste across applications to the iPhone.
The way it's going to work is, you know, the magnifying glass, you double-click on a word and it will highlight that word and then you can drag the magnifying glass to wherever else you want and that selects the text.
You can paste it.
You can paste photos.
I think you're going to be able to send photos via text message, MMS.
A lot of they're updating push notification.
Big things happening in iPhone version 3.0.
Don't know when version 3.0 will be released to the general public.
And I am the general public.
I don't get anything before anybody else does.
I don't know when it's coming out.
I'd love to know.
I'm sure that'll be announced too.
And you have to factor in a couple of two-week delays, which Apple always does.
Back now to Carol in Baltimore.
We have a little bit more time now, Carol.
I appreciate your holding on through the break.
Well, thank you.
I'm just excited that you would even have a liberal on your radio show.
Well, we have them on each and every time they call.
Well, I've never heard the liberal call in.
I listen to your show every day.
No, then that's not possible.
Well, it is.
Because we have, no, no, no, wait a minute.
I don't want to waste time arguing facts here.
Okay, we want to argue.
Please don't hit me with these.
We won't argue because I'm not going to go through.
I'll just use it.
Yeah, but see, you already started.
You first, in the first call, you said I wasn't going to be happy after talking to you.
That's the first clue I had.
You're a liberal.
The second thing is you then hit me with this gobbledy-gook image that we don't take liberals on this show when that's not true.
Now, you're here, and you've been held on through the break.
You're going to be given all the time you want to say, whatever you want, including...
Wait a minute, why are you so angry?
I didn't...
I didn't get upset at you.
I'm not angry.
I'm frustrated.
You sound like an intelligent woman.
I am a very intelligent woman.
Well, then you need to do something about your level of education and understanding because this program does not restrict liberals from appearing.
I didn't say that you restrict.
Did I use that?
You did too?
No, I did not.
I said, I'm so happy.
I'm excited you would have a liberal online.
I said because I hadn't heard them.
Excuse me.
I hadn't heard.
Even though you said you listen every day.
I warn you, do not debate my memory.
Do not debate my facts.
I listen to you every day, Rush.
That's why I'm not a girlhead.
You must not listen all day, every day, because we have liberals call here all the time.
I can understand why you'd want to maybe forget them.
They're not the most memorable phone calls, but nevertheless, they do call, and we put them to the front of the line.
You realize there are four people on Holbin Holden longer than you because you're a liberal and you got through.
Well, I don't want to have any kind of preference.
I would just rather just call and be in line.
I don't want to be a liberal.
My God.
All right.
I'll tell you what.
We're going to put you on hold, and we'll put the other three people ahead of you.
Just hang on.
We'll come back.
Who's next?
Where are we going next?
She wanted it, folks.
She wanted it.
She wants equal treatment.
Fine.
She don't want any preferential treatment.
Here's Todd.
No.
Brad in Severn, Maryland.
Great to have you.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you, Rush.
I'm glad you moved me ahead of Carol.
She asked for it.
She asked for it.
She did indeed.
There you have it.
Okay.
I was just calling about this issue with the execs at AIG.
And I think this is another one of the numerous plays that the Obama administration is making because it really is absolutely pointless.
They could solve a lot of their problems with a few accounting moves.
One of them is getting off of the mark-to-market accounting and going to a five-year average.
Right.
Now, while I was on the charitable golf circuit, Charity Golf Circuit last week, didn't they float the idea?
Didn't Obama float the idea that they might someday relax mark-to-market and someday lower the corporate income tax?
Yeah, I mean, but once again, at the talking point, he was going to the audience that he was working with at the time.
He's not going to do that.
Remember, Rahm Emanuel said we need a crisis.
If they do, but he said it because he wanted a market uptick because his approval numbers are heading down, and he wanted the market to be up so he can say his stimulus plan is working.
Would you explain, I mean, I could do it.
But frankly, I need a little break here.
Could you explain mark to market to people in the audience who may not understand what it is?
Say the people in Rio Linda and Fort St. Lucie.
Basically, it is a current evaluation of an asset.
For example, I got a letter from my mortgage company the other day telling me my mortgage, my house was valued down.
And because that's the current value, if they use the average, the five-year average, it keeps it at the trends.
It moves things slower.
Mark-to-market is very volatile, and it goes with the changes.
It goes up, and all these companies like AIG, all of a sudden their assets went up the last few years.
They had a lot more money to loan out.
Now you get a little bump and things go down.
All of a sudden, they've loaned out too much money and their ratios are off.
And that's what's caused a lot of the problems.
It's pretty close.
Let me give it a shot here for those of you.
And this man's a highly technical expert in this, I can tell.
And I want to try a layman.
See, there's another thing that I do.
I make the complex understandable.
First thing you have to understand, mark to market is a direct result of Enron.
So as often happens, we had a scandal, we had a crisis, the government moves in, and if you can imagine a meter with the arrow pointing straight up is zero.
That's we're not changing anything.
So Enron happens and the meter goes way far one direction.
Oh, no, God, we're on a rack.
Oh, but look what Enron did.
So to fix it, rather than take the meter back to zero, we take it all the way the other direction in extreme, and that gave us Sarbanes-Oxley and mark to market.
Mark to market simply means that financial institutions, banks, corporations have to value their assets according to the value they could get for them that day.
In the past, before market-to-market rules were invented by Elmer Fudd and his gang at the House of Representatives, the market valued assets, and corporations were allowed to take a five-year look down the road and say this asset's going to be worth X.
And their balance sheet, the P ⁇ L profit and loss, would reflect assets based on the best estimates of the value of assets five years down the road.
Well, today, you can't do that.
You have to mark the asset at its current value.
And these banks, mark to market, they're holding worthless paper.
All these worthless mortgages.
And one of the things the bailout was supposed to do that Geithner was supposed to have done, and this is a key, Geithner was supposed to have placed a value with an auction or something on these toxic assets, even if it was a penny, even if it was 10 cents, even if it was 50 cents on the dollar.
They have not done it.
So these toxic assets remain worth nothing.
And so the balance sheets of these banks and corporations that hold these instruments are therefore worth nothing.
In the old rules, they could assume that at some point in five years, there's going to be value with these assets, and they'll be able to sell them, move them, or something.
Now, this was abused apparently by Enron because they looked down the road and they said our asset value is 500 gobzillion when it was zero.
And they were selling stock and they were in debt and so forth.
So rather than just deal with Enron and people were doing what they were doing, Sarbanes-Oxley came in and made every corporation heel to mark to market.
And that's why there was a market uptick last week, because when Obama teleprompter told him to float the idea that they might relax mark to market, bam, there was a huge up.
Do you know, folks, there are a number of things.
If mark to market were banished or even altered a bit, you could cause an immediate, noticeable economic recovery in the financial sector because they'd have asset value again on paper, but they would still be able to use it for borrowing, for credit, and so forth, and start taking risk again.
It's the same as if you simply you want to fix health care?
Fix health care?
It's real simple.
Loser pays.
Tort reform.
Loser pays, and all of a sudden you're going to have a lot of prices come down because medical malpractice insurance would plummet.
There's so many simple things we could do here, but none of it, none of it would empower and entrench Obama's teleprompter and the Democrat Party.
For example, I'll just give you an example.
I'll have details on this tomorrow.
Mark Sanford.
I like Mark Sanford.
I've met him a number of times.
Governor, South Carolina.
Mark Sanford finally put up his hand.
I'm not taking bailout money.
I'm not taking it.
There's an unconstitutional provision in this formula, the porculus bill.
And that is, if a governor says no, the Congress can author or authorize or order a state legislature to override the governor's decision.
That violates the Constitution.
That's unconstitutional.
That violates the checks and balances, separation of powers.
So Sanford said, okay, I'm going to take some of the money to retire my state's debt.
Peter Orsog, OMB, Obama administration, oh, no, no, no, no, you can't retire debt with what we're giving you.
You have to spend it the way we say.
I'm not making it up.
That's who these people are.
So you're giving the state's money and the governor of South Carolina says, okay, God, I want to retire from my state debt.
No, you can't.
You have got to spend it on new welfare cases.
You have to spend it on whatever else that the Obama administration determines.
This thing is not about creating jobs.
It's not about stimulus.
It's about the expansion of federal power.
A brief time out.
Working hard here to get back to Carol.
A couple more, Carol, in front of you, and then we'll get to you.
Back after this.
Stay with us.
Is that a bathroom plunger that Obama's holding up?
The picture on the Drudge Report, Obama decked out in a green sweater and so forth, Bobby St. Patrick's Day.
And he's holding up what looks like a green Irish toilet plunger.
I don't know what else it could be.
It's exactly what it looks like.
Okay, we want to check in with Carol in Baltimore.
She requested to go to the end of the line, to be fair.
Carol, are you there?
Yes, I am, Ross.
How are you?
All right, just have one more call to go in front of you.
Okay, cool.
All right.
Put her back on hold.
It says, Mary.
Oh, by the way, by the way, I have the entire feature set.
No, the entire feature set of iPhone 3.0.
You are going to love this.
Copy and paste, cut, copy, paste.
Landscape mode for most apps, meaning the keyboard in mail.
When you turn it sideways like you do in your web browser, you got the big keyboard landscape keyboard in most applications, push notification for all apps.
Let's see.
Peer-to-peer.
Peer-to-peer connectivity.
This will mean being able to print from the iPhone.
That's so.
Peer-to-peer connectivity and the beaming of information.
Landscape mode for most apps.
Push notification for all apps.
Cut and paste.
There's some other things in there, too.
All right.
Mary in Roulette, Texas.
Nice to have you on the EIB network.
Hi.
Hi, Russ.
So excited to be able to speak with you.
Thank you.
Listen, I wanted to talk about another probable stimulus failure, especially with Obama's concern for education reform.
And that is that I work for a major education publishing company.
And we are geared to try to get some of the stimulus money as a company and selling books to students.
And so with the $1 billion in Texas for special ed and Title I monies, you know, we're going to sell the books.
And what we've done in talking to special ed and Title I people is we found that none of them are actually going to hire any new teachers because they can't afford to keep those teachers on after the stimulus money.
Exactly.
It's the same thing with the 25 cops in Columbus.
They're there for a year and then they're either gone or paid for by Columbus.
Right.
So they're not going to hire any teachers.
They're going to buy a bunch of textbooks to continue programs and books in which they are already failing.
You know, I mean, we're already failing in our education system with.
I know.
Well, you can indoctrinate kids with liberalism with textbooks probably easier than you can a teacher.
Well, they may not read the textbook as often as a teacher would lecture them, but you can accomplish the same thing without the teachers.
Right.
So they're going to just go ahead with all the left-leaning history books, everything, all the same status quo, no oversight.
Basically, all of us in the publishing company are just kind of, we're all very aware that they're just going to burn through it with no actual reform because it's going into the schools as we speak pretty well.
I mean, you know, pretty well as we speak.
Yeah.
I know.
Well, it's all a lie.
It's all a fraud.
We're all getting the shaft.
The best thing to do is just realize it, then you won't be disappointed.
You got to hear this audio sound bite.
The press asking Bob Gibbs, the bumbling Bob Gibbs, when did the president know about these AIG bonuses?
You said you haven't talked to the president yet about when he learned about these bonuses.
Could I just put in a request that you ask him?
I will write that down.
First of all, why haven't you asked the president?
Let me learn about this.
There are a lot of questions I haven't asked the president, Chuck.
Ooh, see, all day long I've been telling you, these bonuses have been known to be coming on this date.
They've been known by everybody in Washington for months.
And now the press, when did Obama know this?
He's acting like he was blindsided by it.
Carol, damn it, I'm just sorry.
We'll have to have you on tomorrow.
There's just no more time here today.
All right, we'll put Carol from Savannah, Georgia in the queue tomorrow, the Q-U-E-U-E, not the C-U-E.
And we will be talking to her tomorrow at her request in the normal line in which she ends up being.