Greetings to you music lovers, thrill seekers, and conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
It's Rush Limbaugh from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Televote numbers 800-282-2882, the email address lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
If you want to call today, as we're doing Open Line Friday on Wednesday, Mark Stein will be here hosting tomorrow, Mark Davis on Friday.
I'll be out the next couple of days, and so we're going to pretend this is Friday.
Whatever you want to call and talk about is fair game.
And we will look forward to hearing from you, Holman Jenkins Jr. in the Wall Street Journal today, GM becoming a royal debacle.
I just read his own words to you here.
It's good to be the king until you start tripping over your own robe.
So King Barack the Mild is finding as he tries to dictate the terms of what amounts to an out-of-court bankruptcy for Chrysler and General Motors.
He wants Chrysler's secured lenders to give up their right to nearly full recovery in a bankruptcy in return for 15 cents on the dollar.
They'd be crazy to do so, of course, except that the banks also happen to be beholden to the administration for TARP money.
Wasn't TARP supposed to be about restoring a healthy banking system?
Isn't that a tad inconsistent with banks just voluntarily relinquishing valuable claims on borrowers?
Kingly prerogative also conflicts with kingly prerogative in the case of GM's unsecured creditors, who are the sticking point in agreeing to a turnaround plan by the drop-dead date of June 1.
And by the way, GM announced today that they can't make their debt payment.
They owe a billion dollars someday soon.
And now they want to exchange, they have $28 billion in debt.
They want to exchange it for equity.
General Motors wants to exchange some of their debt to the government for equity like the government is going to do to banks.
So you're going to have King Barack the Mild owning the car company exactly as we forecast with his car czar, Steve Ratner, who has got himself involved in his own little scandal in New York State involving the former controller there, Alan.
What is it?
Hevesy, is that how you pronounce his name?
I think it is.
And this is the thing that Ratner's involved in.
He basically paid somebody a bunch of money to manage pension funds.
They had no idea how to do it.
It's either he's got an IQ of 80 or he's engaged in fraud.
Since his Democrats will probably never know what the truth is, I doubt they'll investigate this to the extent that is warranted.
But nevertheless, the one problem here, according to Mr. Jenkins, why on earth would General Motors creditors, who include not just bondholders, but the UAW's Healthcare Trust, want any part of this deal?
They've already seen that the rights and privileges of shareholders are not worth diddly when King Obama is throwing his prerogatives around.
He dispensed with the GM chief executive Rick Wagner, though the king owned not a single share of GM stock at the time.
His minions communicated the king's pleasure that GM considered discontinuing its GMC brand, maker of pickups and SUVs that offendeth King Barack, though these vehicles earn GM's fattest profit margins.
Did you know that?
Or do you remember that?
We mentioned this.
Obama just told him, get rid of the GMC line.
Get rid of it.
He's never made a car in his life.
He doesn't even have a share of stock yet.
Obama's minions have not asked GM to give up on the Chevy Volt, even after determining it'll be a profitless black hole because of the king's fondness for green things.
No wonder King Obama's mediation of 40 years of stalemated labor and business issues in the auto sector isn't going well.
King Barack should take a leaf from St. Jimmy the Simple, who faced a collapse of the railroad industry.
He signed the Staggers deregulation law, returning power to the industry itself to decide what services to provide and which customers to chase.
What had previously been an industrial basket case, halfway nationalized, already fixed itself overnight.
He might consult with the sage of Omaha, who has become a fan of the rail business.
What would make Sir Warren similarly enthused about investing in GM?
The answer we're guessing is not more cars like the Chevy Volt.
The banks get all the attention, but they have the power to earn their way out of trouble.
Not GM the way things are going.
St. Warren could do King Obama a real service by warning him off a path with Detroit that could end up blighting all the years of his reign.
So, GM, it's panning out just exactly as everybody suspected.
Nationalization of banks, nationalization of the automobile industry by a man who hasn't the slightest idea what he is doing.
Just incredible.
Let me grab a couple of quick phone calls here since this is the last day this week.
I'll be here.
We'll talk to as many of you as we can.
Oh, we got a call from Port St. Lucie.
Well, how about Otis?
Port St. Lucie, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Hello, Rush.
Hello, Rush.
Yes, sir.
Hi.
What an opportunity for me to thank a man that I consider a godfather to my troop.
And that being said, what in the hell are you doing to my equity in Port St. Lucie?
What am I doing to your equity?
What do you mean?
Well, you know, the other day I was feeling really down and, you know, Obama and all this stuff.
And me and my wife were getting ready to split up when Barney Frank gets us back some equity.
And I turned on the radio to feed off of your positivity.
And what do I hear?
Rio Linda East, Port St. Lucie?
This is a beautiful pal we got here.
Well, yes, it is.
I mean, it's it, but Port St. Lucie is growing, and I think with the attention that you can ask the people of Rio Linda about this, their property values have skyrocketed the last 20 years because of the attention I brought to Rio Linda.
You won't find nearly as many cars on concrete blocks there as you used to.
There's a lot more community pride.
I predict that if I continue to focus on Port St. Lucie, you won't have any more sad, comical incidents of people going into McDonald's and calling 911 five times when they're out of french fries.
So your whole beef's over the fries.
No, it's not a beef.
It's just, it's just, this is, this is, it's just, it's sad.
It's intolerable.
Actually, it wasn't French fries.
It was chicken McNuggets.
There weren't enough chicken McNuggets.
So call 911 five times.
I mean, 911's there to help people in genuine distress.
Yeah, but we don't tolerate that here.
We like our McNuggets, and we expect them to be there when we get there.
But you got us so far underwater, we're going to sue you for 100,000 snorkels now.
Sue me for 100,000 snorkels.
There was another incident about Port St. Lucie.
I had it in the stack all week, and I exercised restraint, and now I can't remember what it was.
It was just a short little story, but it was somewhat similar to the crisis of running out of chicken McNuggets at McDonald's.
Let me see if I can find it during the break.
If you're worried about property values in Port St. Lucie, you should not be blaming me.
I'm doing everything I can to elevate them.
Blame the Obama administration for continuing to screw up what's going on in the housing markets and the lack of value and equity value in homes.
We're trying to do something about that here on the EIB network.
We'll be back.
Otis, thanks for the call.
Sit tight.
We're coming right back.
This is interesting.
The Rasmussen Reports is out with its daily presidential tracking poll.
And, you know, there's a gap here that is referred to as the presidential approval index that Rasmussen tracks.
What they do is they take the strongly approve numbers in their poll and measure them against the strongly disapproved numbers.
Now, this gap between strongly approve and strongly disapprove has been as high as 16 points on the approval side since the king was crowned.
But it's down to plus two now.
32% strongly disapprove of Obama.
34% strongly approve, which gives the president an approval index rating of plus two.
On the generic congressional ballot, it's all tied.
39% for Democrats, 39% for Republicans.
Additionally, in this poll, most voters continue to believe that the financial and auto bailouts were a bad idea, but the political class disagrees.
60% now believe the federal government has too much power and too much money, but the political class is practically just opposite of that.
Also, they add this 32%, or it's Earth Day, 72% think individuals can improve the environment by their actions.
Just 31% believe most Americans are environmentally aware.
Half of America's workers say their employer does a good job when it comes to recycling.
Not a bunch of PAP.
There's always a bunch of PAP in every good news poll.
And the Earth Day poll is PAP.
We told you earlier, the New York Times, $34 million on cash, on hand in cash, $1.3 billion in debt, and yet the CFO, the CEO, got salary and bonuses of $8 million or $5 million, $5.8 million, and Little Pinch got 2.8.
Sounds like Wall Street CEOs.
Companies going to hell.
Executives getting high compensation and bonused.
The New York Times in big trouble.
Advertising revenue down 27%.
And everywhere you look in the liberal media, newspapers are in bad shape.
They're crumbling.
CNN practically not on the radar with ratings.
MSNBC is just drifting away.
The three networks' share of people who watch evening news is down significantly over the last 30 years.
News magazines, nobody's reading them anymore compared to the numbers that used to.
It's just amazing.
And none of them, none of them will have, they won't hear a word about the fact it might be their content and their arrogance that's turning people off.
However, there is a savior, a savior lurking in the Senate who wants to save and rescue newspapers, and that would be John Kerry, the haughty John Kerry, who, by the way, once served in Vietnam.
Troubled by the possible shuttering of his hometown paper, the Boston Globe, Kerry reached out to the Globe on Tuesday, then called for Senate hearings to address the woes of the nation's print media.
To the Boston Globe family, Kerry wrote, America's newspapers are struggling to survive, and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the lives and financial security of the employees involved, including hundreds at the Globe, there will also be serious consequences for our democracy, where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount.
So he's not talking bailout yet, but I mean, what the hell else would this be?
So the primary media organs of the Democrats experiencing trouble, and here comes help from the United States government, particularly John Kerry in the U.S. Senate.
Tyler Texas, as we go back to the phones, this is Susan.
It's nice to have you with us.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
I'm so excited to get to talk to you.
When I first discovered you on the radio, the first words I heard from you were about women on the front lines in the military.
And I heard you say, why would a woman trade the best of what it is to be a woman for the worst of what it is to be a man?
And I said, who is this guy?
He's fantastic.
So I have a question for you, and I only trust you to be able to answer this question.
Well, you've called the right place.
I think I have.
The question I have, Rush, is this.
With Acorn and this porculus stimulus bill getting $4 billion with a B, $4 billion, what effect is that going to have on our future elections, even with all the conservatives standing up at the tea parties?
Will we have a chance with $4 billion in Acorn?
Yes, and I'm glad you asked about this.
Election fraud has been a staple of our country since there were elections.
I mean, people are people, and there are always people who are going to try to cheat.
The Democrats have had Acorn and other community organizer groups engaged in fraudulent voter registration for many, many years.
It's not optimal, and of course, it's immoral that such groups should be receiving federal money in the guise of stimulus.
But the way it was done, they were called neighborhood rebuilding groups or some such thing.
But it's community organizers like Acorn.
But when you get right down to it, Susan, all these people at the tea parties, if somebody doesn't surface they want to vote for, it's going to be 2008 all over again.
Exactly.
If the Republican Party nominates somebody similar to McCain in 2012, it's going to be, you know, we can overcome all of this with the right candidate.
We won two landslides in the 80s.
And Ronald Reagan did not have anywhere near a conservative media back then.
He didn't have anywhere near the Allied support that Republicans do today.
The difference is Reagan didn't need it.
These people do, and they eschew it.
So it really boils down to who it is that the Republican Party conservative movement presents as a candidate.
Exactly.
Well, I've just been so concerned because it seems to me their only purpose is to steal the elections.
You should be concerned.
Oh, it's far more than that.
They do far more than try to steal elections.
They intimidate business.
They work hand in hand with militant union leaders.
I mean, they're socialists.
Exactly.
They're doing everything they can to limit individual freedom and liberty.
This is not just, and, you know, fraudulently registering voters to win elections, this is one spoke of their wheel to attempt to achieve what it is they want.
They know, just like every other leftist group, Susan, they can't win.
Fair fight arena of ideas.
Exactly.
Well, thank you so much, Rush.
I only can trust you with talking about this because no one else will.
Yes, you can, Susan.
Thank you very much.
Glad you called.
This is Matt in Woodlake, California.
Your next Open Line Friday on Wednesday.
Hello.
Rush, Dittos, from the home of Pat Hill and the Fresno State Bulldogs.
I got to tell you from the original Rush Baby.
I was homeschooled from second grade to eighth grade, and I listened to you three hours a day for my formal education.
Now, you don't know.
You just don't know how many light years ahead of people your age who went to public school you are.
Well, I got a pretty good clue.
I got a degree and taught for a while, so I've got a very good idea.
Good.
But you came out once to Fresno on a Rush to Excellence tour, and I was too young to go.
My dad said you wouldn't allow crumb crunchers to go, so I'm hoping you'll come back someday.
But my point of calling is.
Now, wait a second.
I never kept crumb crunchers out of these things.
There were crumb crunchers all over the Rush to Excellence tours.
Well, maybe dad didn't want me going.
Your dad had probably heard me talk about, just like the previous caller, the All-American First Cavalry Amazon Battalion, which is nothing more than a bunch of women soldiers on PMS.
Or your dad probably heard me demonstrate safe talk by putting a condom on a microphone.
He probably decided this might not be for his son.
Well, I still have a certified ditto head shirt from all those years ago I kept.
Terrific.
But my reason to call in is on Saturday, we had at 8:31 in the morning, me and my wife had our first baby, and we named him Rush McGovern.
You're kidding.
I'm not kidding.
His name's Thomas Rush McGovern, but we're calling him Rush after my two EPA.
Oh, man, this is.
Can you imagine this?
The McGovern, there's a McGovern with the name Rush.
Oh!
Rush is our last name spelled at G-O-V-R-A-N.
Doesn't matter.
I put up with it.
I thought you said McGovern.
McGovern.
Well, I want to thank you, sir.
I am truly, truly honored.
Most people name their dogs after me.
No, no, this is an important one.
My wife's even on board.
Even your wife, was it a struggle?
Oh, no.
I don't know.
She went along with it.
She knows me.
We signed the birth certificate and all, though.
It's official.
He's got his name on his little thing in the hospital right now.
It says Rush.
God bless your son.
And God bless you, Rush.
Thanks, Matt.
Thanks.
Oh, we just lost him.
Sounded like a cell phone connection that went south.
Did I mispronounce his name?
Was it not McGovern?
Is it?
It's McGovern, but he spells it a different way.
Doesn't matter.
Rush McGovern.
The left.
Watch the kid grow up to be a hippie.
We have some audio soundbites last night from the Fox News channel.
Dick Cheney, former vice president on with Sean Hannity.
First soundbite, Hannity says, how dangerous is that to not call it what it is?
I mean, it's still a war on terror.
Is it Obama just didn't have the courage to say it's a war on terror?
Does it seem like a weakness?
Is that telegraphing weakness?
I think it does.
What the Obama people are doing, in effect, is saying, well, we don't need those tough policies that we had.
That says either they didn't work, which we know is not the case.
They did work.
They kept us safe for seven years, or that now somehow the threat's gone away.
There's no longer a threat out there.
We don't have to be as tough and aggressive as the Bush administrator was.
I think that's a mistake.
I just, I think that's a misreading of the circumstances we find ourselves in.
I respectfully disagree with the vice president.
I don't think that, because I was asked about this earlier today, I don't think Obama's saying that we don't have to be as tough and aggressive.
I think if we get hit again, they're going to blame Bush and Cheney.
I mean, hell, they want to conduct investigations of them for this, even though all the interrogation memos indicate what a rousing success they were in gathering information preventing future attacks.
So if we get hit again, this is all set up to blame Bush and Cheney for the torture that led to the anger at the U.S. around the world.
That's what's going on.
This is not that Obama doesn't think that we're at less risk anymore.
Why is it so hard for people to understand Obama?
Obama's who he is.
We've got years and years and years of Obama case history.
Plus, we know who liberals are and what they believe.
And we know what they think of their own country.
Cheney continued with this.
I thought, you know, yesterday, this whole exercise on detainees and on releasing the legal memos, you know, all of the professionals all said it was dangerous, that this is something we shouldn't do.
I worry about that.
I also noticed yesterday we didn't have any national security figures out there explaining the new policy or why we were scrubbing these old programs.
It was the political spokesmen that were out there.
That bothers me.
I think that says something about the mindset that this is being done essentially to appease a certain element of the Democratic Party or because of campaign commitments that were made in last year's campaign.
They may not have been able to find any security people that agreed with this.
But again, here's the notion put forth that Obama just keeping a campaign promise or appeasing the far left.
Obama is the far left.
This is Obama.
Hannity finally says, when you put all of these things together, what do you conclude?
Do you conclude it's that they're naive, that maybe they don't understand the nature of the war on terror?
Yes, basically.
I don't think as we strip ourselves of important capabilities in terms of our interrogation program for detainees, I don't think there are members of al-Qaeda out there around the world this morning say, oh, gee whiz, isn't that great?
Barack Obama and his administration are no longer going to ask our guys tough questions when they capture them.
Now maybe we won't behead their people when they capture them.
I mean, it's just, it says something about a mindset that I worry about very much.
And I maintain that these guys do not believe that this is going to turn our enemies into nicer people.
I don't think that's what this is about at all.
There might be some naive liberal Democrats that voted for Obama that think this, but people in the administration and they may hope it, but I don't think there's a whole lot of that degree of naivete.
Speaking, let's do the Obama interrogation.
We've put together here a little skip, folks, of what it will be like in the not so distant future with the Obama administration conducting interrogations.
Future interrogations.
The Obama administration.
Also last night on Hannity, Carl Rove showed up and essentially said that Obama is acting like a Latin American colonel.
Hannity basically said, look, is it fair to release all these documents that he's releasing?
Sure, as long as they've released the limits to which America will go to extract this information, let's share the information that was extracted and saved America from further attacks.
But look, let's step back for a minute.
What the Obama administration has done in the last several days is very dangerous.
What they've essentially said is: if we have policy disagreements with our predecessors, what we're going to do is we're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels and mirrored sunglasses.
And what we're going to do is prosecute systematically the previous administration or threaten prosecutions against the previous administration based on policy differences.
Is that what we've come to in this country?
Now, that may be fine in some little Latin American country that's run by the latest junta.
It may be the way that they do things in Chicago, but that's not the way we do things here in America.
Not the way we did things in America.
To Phil in Tampa, you're next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hello, sir.
Hi.
Rush, I've been listening to you forever.
And the thing that I really enjoy about your show is how you always stay positive.
I'm finding it very difficult to stay positive.
And to make a long story short, it's because what's happening at work.
And here in Tampa, I work for an engineering company.
And when all of our so-called leaders were voting on this porculus bill, we were getting emails, maybe not daily, but weekly, about how we should support it and call our congressmen and our senator.
And, you know, they're not spending enough.
They need to spend more.
And I said, well, isn't, you know, this might be great for the company if you get this money, but what about the country?
And everybody that was sitting around that table looked at me like I was from another planet.
And I realized that.
And Mike, I mean, I'm not alone.
I listen to the radio.
I hear your callers, but I felt alone that day, at least with the people I work with anyway.
A lot of people do who have to interact with liberals every day.
Because when you interact with average, ordinary, everyday liberals or Democrats, it's hard not to think, my God, the country's finished.
We're over with these people.
These people haven't the slightest concern for anything that you have a concern for.
They're selfish or it's all emotional or something like that.
I can relate.
If I had to deal with them at work all day, every day like you, it would take an effort to stay optimistic.
Because those people, I imagine those emails that you were sent were very effective with those people.
Oh, very much so.
I can't speak for everybody.
Well, here's the question.
I was probably one of the only ones that was against it.
Well, here's the problem.
You see, these people all think Obama is the country.
They all think Obama is good for the country.
They all think Bush was horrible.
They think Obama only cares about improving the country.
This is a result of the demagogic campaign and the cult-like hold that Obama has on these people.
So when you say to them, well, it may be good for the company, but what about the country?
They think they've already got good for the country buttoned up by electing Obama.
So you've got a wide gulf there that you have literally no contact with them on.
You've got nothing in common with them on that.
Obviously not.
The funny thing is, after the porculus, you know, it went through and this money, I guess, was not coming fast enough, the company ended up laying off about 6% of the workforce.
Well, exactly, because the company was never going to get the stimulus money.
That's what I thought.
State governments get the stimulus.
Have these co-workers of yours take a look at what's happening at Caterpillar.
Obama singled them out.
He told, he lied to the country.
He said that Caterpillar CEO said that he would start hiring people back the moment that there was a responsible stimulus plan signed.
And Obama says, so he's talking about my plan.
Well, Caterpillar just announced yesterday more layoffs around the country and worldwide.
And the stimulus bill was about shovel-ready jobs.
It was about rebuilding roads and bridges and schools and buildings and all these wonderful sounding pap.
Exactly.
But see, the problem you're up against, your people, your co-workers, they see the facts.
It's happening in their own business.
But they still, Obama doesn't know it's working this way, or Obama still intends to help us.
And blah, blah, blah.
It's a deep attachment that these people have.
Well, the thing to me, it was very scary because, you know, you listen to the radio and you hear people, and, you know, every once in a while you get somebody on there, you know, ultra-left, and, you know, they disagree with you.
But I didn't think there was that many in my own life.
I didn't realize there were so many of them.
And it's scary.
To me, it's scary.
It's the first time I've ever really been scared about it.
Well, this is not comforting, but you're not alone in that either.
You're not alone in being scared.
I mean, I have friends who have kids in school here.
I don't know how these parents put up with it.
If I had a kid in school and my kid was coming home telling me the stories of what happened, I would not be able to just sit back and not do anything about it because of being afraid to anger the teacher and harming my kids.
Great.
I'd be storming the school with all kinds of protests and demands that this stuff cease and so forth.
It's pervasive out there, there's no question.
But hang in.
There's not much else you can do anyway.
And I can tell by talking to you, you don't want to give up.
You don't want to cave in.
Just be confident that you're right and that eventually they're going to see the light at some point.
Some of them will.
They all won't.
But the history of the country is such that we've overcome a lot.
This is a new chapter in things we have to overcome.
We've never had a president that thinks so little of his country.
And we've never had a president that's so eager to apologize for it around the world.
We've never had a president so eager to not defend, stand up and praise his own country.
And the dangerous thing there is that he's bringing all these cult-like followers along with him in that belief with the notion that America is unjust, immoral, unfair.
And that just sets the stage for massive federal involvement in everybody's lives, akin to what's going on with the global warming hoax.
But be confident and take solace in the fact that you have millions of other Americans out there right in line with you who also aren't caving in or giving up.
Their children and grandchildren, the future matter too much to them.
I got to go.
Thanks for the call out there very much.
It's a brief time out.
We'll be back and continue after this.
I saw the other day, and it was down here, somebody in Florida's identity credit card had been stolen, wrecked.
It was one person.
And there are more and more of these stories with the numbers of identities and credit card identities, numbers being stolen, people standing behind you as you punch in your credit card somewhere.
It's happening at an ever-increasing rate, especially during the recession.
There's a way to prevent this from happening to you.
Even if somebody does steal your numbers, a way to keep them from succeeding in taking over your identity, it's called Life Lock.
When it comes to identity theft, you're either protected by Life Lock or you're not.
You know that identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in America, and it happens every three seconds in the country.
And you can be smart about it.
Call Life Lock Now.
Trade your worries for the peace of mind that comes with having Life Lock.
Numbers 800-440-4833.
Just mention my name, promo code Rush, and they'll give you a lifelock for absolutely free, 30 days plus 10% off.
It's a peace of mind, much like Carbonite is peace of mind for all of your important data on your computer.
Life Lock, peace of mind for your identity.
Even if your identity does get stolen, something gets past them.
They'll insure you up to a million bucks in damages.
1-800-440-4833.
That's Life Lock.
Use the promo code Rush, Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
Pam, great to have you with us on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello.
How are you, Rush?
Fine, thanks.
I'm very glad to talk with you.
I've been a longtime listener and also watched you on television back in the day.
Yeah.
And we very much enjoyed it.
I have something on my mind that has, for the past several months, has really kind of troubled me with the Democrats and the way that things are going and the leftist liberals, excuse me, if you will, if that's even permissible to say, wreaking havoc on the likes of middle-class America and maybe, you know, lower-class, middle-class America.
My question is: what are they wanting?
It can't be money because most of the people that are wreaking the havoc on the not necessarily elite, what's in it for liberals to win.
What are they in it for?
I have a theory.
Well, okay, tell me, let me answer it because I don't have much time here.
And not that I don't want to hear your theory, but I've got to get this.
I want to answer your question within the limited amount of time I've got.
Because you said the key.
It's not about money because they're getting screwed with money too.
It's about revenge.
When you get right down to it, liberals are filled with.
They're angrier now than they were before the election or as angry.
People can't understand.
They're still as mad.
They're still as filled with hatred for us, their domestic enemies, as they were before the election.
It's about revenge.
This is about getting even.
It's about cutting other people down to size.
But you start trying to understand intellectually what's in it for them to support this kind of stuff, and you're going to have a tough time because it's all emotion.
They really think the poor are going to get richer.
They think that the country is going to become fairer and all these nebulous things that government cannot accomplish.
I got to run.
Back after this.
Stay with us.
Here it is.
A couple of Port St. Lucie shoplifters left pictures of themselves behind in a Walmart and they were caught.