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May 21, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:28
May 21, 2009, Thursday, Hour #3
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Documented to be almost always right, 99% of the time.
I am Rush Limbo, America's real anchor man, America's truth detector and the doctor of democracy, a highly trained broadcast specialist.
Don't try this at home, no matter how easy it appears.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program today, 800 282-2882 and the email address L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
Interesting story in the New York Times today.
This is about uh Guantanamo Bay, and it relates to the dueling speeches today by Vice President Cheney.
I just in fact I got an email.
This is a great description.
I got an email from a listener who said, Rush.
I listened to these two speeches today, and even though Obama went first, his sounded like the Democrat response to a Republican president.
And I thought, wow, what an that is that is a great way to characterize this.
In other words, who had the gravitas?
Who had the weight?
Who was compelling and who was defensive?
It was Cheney who had the gravitas.
It was Cheney who was compelling.
It was Obama who was on the fence and even apologizing.
And you don't win wars.
Apologizing.
New York Times, one in seven freed detainees rejoins the fight, report fines, and they will kill again.
An unreleased Pentagon report concludes that about one in seven of the 534 prisoners already transferred abroad from Gitmo has returned to terrorism or militant activity.
Two administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the report was being held up by Defense Department employees fearful of upsetting the White House at a time when even Congressional Democrats have begun to show misgivings over Obama's plan to close Guantanamo Bay.
Defense Department officials held on to the report, fearful of upsetting the White House, because this story goes against everything Obama wants to do and what he's saying when it comes time to close Guantanamo Bay.
Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, on this program, I was the first in major American media broadcasting to predict that the California vote, while indeed a welcome nuclear blast politically, would lead to a bailout of the state of California by the Obama administration.
And now lawmakers in Sacramento, California, are already asking for the bailout.
A number of other commentators have uh have seen the light here to understand that there's not the odds that they're going to be big cuts in spending in California is a myth.
George Will writes about it today.
The coming California bailout.
And his conclusion is that like big auto, Obama will serve the unionized political workers that are responsible for this mess in the first place, and their leaders too.
Here's what George Will writes.
Now California's mostly Democrat political class will petition Washington for a bailout to nourish the public sector that's suffocating the state's dwindling and departing private sector.
The Obama administration, which rewarded the UAW by giving it considerable control over two companies it helped reduced to rubble, will serve the interest of California's unionized public employees and others largely responsible for reducing the state to mendescency.
California's voters are complicit in their state's collapse.
They elect and re-elect the legislators off whom public employee unions batten.
That's that is about the extent of the truth of it.
When you ever wants to blame the voters, like the uh all the newspaper editorials did yesterday.
The voters did for voting against tax increases.
The big mistake the voters make is sending back the same blowhards.
Okay, from the National Coast, National Post uh In Canada, their website.
Get out your bleach and launder those reusable fabric grocery bags after every use.
You're not clogging up landfill with plastic throwaways, but your environmental conscience conscientiousness could make you sick.
A microbiological study, a first in North America of the popular eco-friendly bags has uncovered some unsettling facts.
Swab testing by two independent laboratories found unacceptably high levels of bacterial yeast, mold, and coliform counts in the reusable bags.
The main risk is food poisoning.
Food poisoning in plastic grocery bags forced on us by the environmentalist wackos.
So here's what's ahead of you.
You go out and you buy one of these clown cars, risking your life at an even greater percentage than ever before.
Then you go stop at the grocery store with your eco-friendly reusable grocery bag.
You combine that with rationed health care, less disposable income, and you're going to die an early miserable death.
But the intentions were good.
I don't know.
These people are just loony tunes.
They are just nuts and wackos, and all of them have way too much time on their hands.
Also, the Waxman Markey Bill, the cap and tax program, we talked about it earlier in terms of the Black Chamber of Commerce opposing it.
But get this.
Read to you a little passage from it.
Title 4, Subtitle B, Part 2, Section 426 of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.
That's cap and trade.
All these lawyers and the way they title things.
That means there's a Title A and a Title B. There's a title for it and a subtitle B, Part 2, Section 426, states this.
An eligible workers, specifically workers who lose their jobs as a result of this law.
They're admitting this law is going to cause people to lose their jobs.
An eligible workers, specifically workers who lose their jobs as a result of this measure, may receive a climate change adjustment allowance under this subsection for a period of not longer than 156 weeks.
80% of the monthly premium of any health insurance coverage, up to a maximum payment of $1,500 in relocation allowances and job search expenses not exceeding $1,500.
dollars.
Climate change adjustment allowances under this subsection, a period of not longer than hang on just a second here, folks.
I just I just got to do some quick uh one five six divide.
We're talking 13 years.
An eligible worker who loses his job under this law may receive a climate change adjustment allowance for a period of not longer than 13 years.
Oh, wait, wait.
That's wrong.
Hang on, I was doing months.
Just a second.
Just a second.
Uh five, six weeks.
And there's 52.
So it's five, six, divine fifty-two.
Hang on, just one five, six, fifty, two.
Three years.
How many of you believe the 13?
I did.
I did totally made sense.
Okay, three years.
80% of the monthly premium of any health insurance coverage up to a maximum payment of $1,500 in relocation allowances and the job search expense not exceeding $1,500.
So the Waxman Markey cap and tax bill that Obama cherishes admits several of you are going to lose your jobs.
This is good legislation.
See, what's happening here that is that the environment, the so-called environment, so-called saving the planet, is given a higher priority than your job.
than your welfare.
UK Times Online has driven the new Honda Insight 1.3 SE Hybrid.
Jeremy Clarkson with the review.
Much has been written about the insight, Honda's new low priced hybrid.
We've been told how much carbon dioxide it produces, how its dashboard encourages frugal driving by glowing green when you're easy on the throttle, and how it is the dawn of all things, the beginning of days.
So far, though, you've not been told what it's like as a car as a tool for moving you and your friends and your things from place to place.
So here goes.
Biblically terrible.
Possibly the worst new car money can buy.
It's the first car I have ever considered crashing into a tree on purpose, so I didn't have to drive it anymore.
The biggest problem, and it's taken me a while to work this out because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox.
For reasons known only to itself, Honda has fitted the insight hybrid with something called constantly variable transmission, CVT.
It doesn't work.
Put your foot down in a normal car, the revs climb in tandem with the speed.
In this little car, the revs spool up quickly, and then the speed rises to match them.
It's like the clutches slipping.
It feels horrid.
The sound is worse.
The Honda's hybrid petrol engine, gasoline engine are much shaved, built for economy, low friction 1.3 that at full chat makes a noise worse than somebody else's crying baby on an airliner.
It's worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open.
Really, to get an idea how awful it is, you'd have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.
So you're sitting there with the engine screaming its head off, your ears are bleeding, you're doing twenty-three miles per hour because that's about the top speed, and you're thinking things can't get any worse, and then they do because you run over a small piece of grit.
Because the Honda has two motors, one that runs on gas and one that runs on batteries, it's more expensive to make than a car that has only one engine.
But since the whole point of this car is that it could be sold for less than Toyota's smug mobile, the hybrid the uh the Prius, the engineers had plainly peeled the suspension components to the bone.
The result is a ride that you won't believe.
There's more.
Normally Hondas feel as though they've been screwed together by eye surgeons.
This one, though, feels as if it's been made from steel so thin you could read through it.
And the seats are designed specifically, it seems, to ruin your skeleton.
This is hairy shirted ecoism at its very worst.
However, as a result of all this, prices start at 14,000 or 15,490 pounds, that's 3,000 pounds or so less than the Prius.
But at least while the Toyota with the Toyota, there's no indication you're driving a car with two motors.
In the Honda Insight, you are constantly reminded not only by the idiotic dashboard, which shows leaves growing on a tree when you ease off the throttle.
You believe that.
The dashboard when you ease off the throttle, the dashboard displays trees, the leaves going on a tree.
Uh but the noise and the ride and the seats, and also by the hybrid system Honda has fitted, in a Prius, the electric motor can, though almost never does, powered a car on its own.
In the Honda, the electric motor is designed to assist the gasoline engine, providing more get up and go when the need arises, and that result is this.
In a Prius, the transformation from electricity to gasoline is subtle.
In the Honda, there are all sorts of jerks and clunks.
And for what?
Yeah, you could get 60 or more miles per gallon if you were careful, and that's not bad for a spacious five-door hatchback, but for the same money, you could get a golf diesel, which will be even more economical and hasn't been built on rice paper to keep costs down.
It goes on.
It is just hilarious.
In the UK Times, this review of the Honda Insight Hybrid.
It's our future, folks.
The only re I'm not reading this to Ram Honda.
But I this is our future.
This is the crap that Obama Motors is going to be designing and putting everybody in.
Imagine being in a car that is so noisy.
It's the equivalent of putting a dog on top of a ham slicer.
I have three emails I want to read to you and a couple of news stories here before we get back to the phones.
The Treasury Department, the Obama administration, is preparing to announce as early as today that it is going to invest an additional seven and a half billion dollars into GMAC, General Motors Acceptance Corporation, in a deal that could allow the U.S. government to hold a majority stake in the finance company.
Makes sense you can own General Motors, you've got to own GMAC.
They're just buying things up left and right.
Meanwhile, in Detroit, unemployment raise in Michigan, uh to 12.9% in April, the highest mark since 1983.
And there hasn't been a Republican in sight.
For what, the last eight years or so, even maybe further back than that in uh in Michigan.
Twelve point nine percent unemployment.
Go to any blue state or blue city where they're having trouble.
Look who runs the place.
And you'll find liberal Democrats.
Dear Rush.
I listened to your show yesterday and I listened to you on Greta Van Susterin last night.
You astound me at how off base you are.
To say that John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Peter King, Jeff Sessions, Haley Barber, Kit Bond, to name just a few, have not been strong supporters of conservative values and have openly been defying this popular president is a lie.
And I'm not used to you lying.
No one in the Republican Party would consider Colin Powell one of its leaders except the elite, which you are one of.
Not you or Sean or Mark or focusing on the great speech by Michael Steele the other day, saying the honeymoon's over, or the fact that Boehner and Cantor have been rallying the Republicans in Congress to vote against this socialist president's agenda.
What would we do without these brave Republican conservatives after all the lies by the media, the Democrats won them an election in 2008?
So just stop this nonsense of saying the Republican Party has no voice.
This is crap.
They have a voice in the men above you, but you do not highlight them, and you just condemn the whole party, and that is a lie.
You are a huge disappointment.
Shame, shame on you for not supporting the men and women standing alone in the Republican Party with no coverage from the media, because the conservative talk show radio is condemning all of them and refusing to talk about their courage and the fact they are the only line of resistance to this Marxist president.
Shame, shame on you.
This is from Linda in Princeton, New Jersey.
Now, Linda is uh upset with me over my analysis yesterday on this program and last night on Greta Van Sustran about the um California results, in which I admitted that as far as it goes, those results last night are the equivalent of a political nuclear blast.
But I said unless there's a Republican Party to pick up on the meaning of it and start championing and representing people all over the country like those in California who voted, it may as well not have happened.
She's also upset that I've anointed Colin Powell as the uh titular head of the Republican Party.
She not does she probably doesn't see the irony and the humor in all that.
But Linda, I'm not attacking any of the names you've mentioned.
I've defended them constantly, Boehner, Sessions, but they don't run the Republican Party, Linda.
And neither does Michael Steele.
Linda, what you have to understand is that the Republican Party is now being run, not by anybody in Congress or the Senate.
It's being run by people who don't like the result in California.
They don't like a return to Reaganism.
They don't like tax cuts as an issue.
They don't like social conservatives in the party.
They are the Rockefeller blue bloods.
That's why I appointed Colin Powell the leader, the titular Leader of the party because that is the kind of people they are.
I don't need to name names, but there isn't a definitive single conservative that has rocketed to the top of electoral Republican politics that is leading the party.
And for all the great guys we have in Congress, Linda, there's nothing they can do to stop this so-called Marxist, as you say.
We don't have the votes in the House.
We're precariously close in the Senate, and we got several of the kind of Republicans I'm talking about in the Senate.
Arlen Spector just joined the Democrats.
We got Olympia Snow and Susan Collins, who will more likely vote with Democrats than Republicans on issues that matter to you and me was not condemning conservatism.
I'm condemning the Republican Party for trying to get rid of its conservative influence.
I would be expecting your next hate email tonight.
By the way, E.J. Dion Jr. today in the Washington Post is all upset.
He thinks that Cheney has successfully distracted Obama from uh health care and the economy.
And the Obama agenda has been tripped up by the libs going after Cheney and Cheney firing back on defense and uh and Guantanamo Bay.
E.J. thinks that they this other that they're they're they're they're they're succumbing to the bait that Cheney's putting out there and distracting Obama from the truly wonderful things he has in mind for us with the economy.
Of course, the Federal Reserve today, as I reported earlier, has reported the forecast the U.S. economy is worse than it was three months ago.
Couple more emails.
This next one is from a guy named Thurmond in uh in Magnolia, Texas.
And what he's done, he sent me a copy of a letter that he sent the management of Arby's to whom it may concern.
This evening we went to dinner at the new Arby's in Magnolia, Texas.
I've been a patron of Arby since I was a kid, but as an adult, I haven't lived near one, so I was excited that we were getting one near us.
Imagine my surprise when I pull into the parking lot and I see signs in the two spots adjacent to the handicap parking that say preferred parking hybrid vehicles.
I take this to mean that Arby's is now engaging in a kind of environmental class warfare with hybrid car owners being the preferred customers.
I find it very offensive.
So since I'm a proud owner of a gas guzzling SUV, then I guess you don't want my business.
Therefore, I'm going to be taking it elsewhere.
So this guy pulls into an Arby's, and they've got the handicapped spots, they're right next to two spots reserved for hybrids.
Which double tree?
Where?
What were you doing in a hotel in Palm Beach Gardens?
Well, I'm sorry, the story of what you were doing on a hotel ten miles from town is far more interesting than parking spaces for hybrids, Dawn.
I'm sitting here minding my own business.
I'm telling you about the story in Magnolia, Texas.
She telling me, oh, it's just the way it is at the Double Tree.
What Double Tree?
Seminar.
Oh.
Seminars take place.
Nighttime seminars, right?
Okay, so preferred parking for hybrid drivers at the Double Tree for nighttime seminars.
And at uh and at Arby's uh in Magnolia, Texas.
I'll tell you all this is.
Mr. Mr. Thurman on a Magnolia.
This this is they this is just a business thing.
They think everybody's caught up in the environment and they're just like GE and all these companies going green.
Uh they think it's a way to help them sell more products.
They're just marketing it to you because they think you've been bought and convinced that we're in a disaster area or era because of the uh because of the environment.
By the way, uh I just a thought crossed my mind here while you were interrupting me about the hybrid spaces at this hotel ten miles from your your home.
This Honda, this Honda hybrid.
Did I read this right?
When you're driving, when you slow down, when you when you when you slow down, the dashboard shows leaves growing on the trees, right?
That's what it said.
Ladies and gentlemen, what is the uh the fuel for growth of a tree and a leaf on a tree?
No, it's carbon dioxide.
The specific emission, we're trying to limit CO2.
It is our exhalation of CO2 that trees and bushes and weeds feed off of.
They convert it to more oxygen, and the the whole photosynthesis thing happens, and we can breathe.
So these technically, when you slow down in your hybrid, you are harming the growth of leaves on trees.
I wonder if when you speed up, your dashboard in this thing shows trees being clear-cutted.
Yeah.
One more email.
Dear Rush, ditto's from the blue state of Maryland.
I would characterize myself as a Reagan independent.
Rush, I agree with everything you say about less government in our lives is better, but I'm a credit card loser.
The new legislation eliminating over-the-limit fees and other transgressions will save people like me money who are conservative in our political views, but somehow find it difficult to manage a buck wisely.
And he's talking about the new credit card legislation that removes perks and rewards for paying your bill on time.
So that we the people responsible with credit card payments will be subsidizing those or not.
This guy's claiming he's not he's manages his money poorly.
I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve with this one, Rush.
I wish I was more responsible with a dollar.
And as much as I admire you and support your conservative and patriotic commentary, this bill will save people like me money.
But responsible people will be asked to foot some of the bill.
I say if you're responsible with your money, tear up your card and send them a message.
I hope someday to escape the uh the fact that I live beyond my means, it's madness.
Please wish me luck.
Signed Leo in Brooklyn, Maryland.
Now here's a guy.
Not gonna wish him luck.
This guy's basically saying, Rush, stop complaining.
Go ahead and pay for my inability to live responsibly with a dollar.
Basically what he's saying.
Okay, if they're gonna pay.
If they're going to pass legislation that helps him, even though it costs other people a lot of money, he's gonna go for it.
And he wants me to wish him luck.
It doesn't sound to me like he has any desire to fix the problem, the madness he has with living within his means.
What do you mean he can't help it?
I can't help it.
Well, that's doesn't have to now because of this legislation.
You have to worry about a thing.
Hey, I'm gonna pay for it, and he sends me a note saying, sorry, I disagree, I disagree with everything except this.
Can you imagine sending somebody an email?
Look, I'm a slob, I'm irresponsible, I can't manage a dollar.
I agree with everything else you say, but thank you for subsidizing me.
Please don't criticize the legislation.
People like me need it.
This is kind of like people in a neighborhood coming to your door knocking on and say, give me part of your paycheck.
You're living well, and I'm not.
I'm overextended.
All right, uh Doug in Atlanta, this is a cell call.
Nice to have you on the uh EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
Thank you very much.
Luckiest man on I-85 dudos to you.
Oh, the luckiest man on I-85 ditto.
So you're like I got through to you, I got to do your show three times today.
Are you driving in are you driving hands-free on this cell phone?
Oh no, my wife is driving.
Your wife's driving.
Well, that's not much safer.
Anyway, given what you've been talking about today, when are we going to bring back the misery index and track it all the way back to Jimmy Carter's administration and bring it all the way forward and show definitively how much better we are off under Republicans.
Remember what the misery index was.
The misery index was high unemployment.
So we've got that, but unemployment during those days was uh double digit.
It was high interest rates, too.
Interest rates were like 18 percent.
Yeah, 21 percent.
When I got out of the way, that's right, 21 percent.
And we're not we're not there yet.
We'd have to we'd have to recalculate what it is that equals misery.
Uh and I don't know.
You had a question yesterday, Doug, from somebody who said, When when are Obama's voters?
Did Democrats really vote for this what they thought they voted for?
The government owning automobile companies and all this stuff, and I said, I don't know.
The answer to that is crucial.
And by the same token, before we have a misery index that works, you're gonna have to have people in misery.
Okay, I know the foreclosure rates at an all-time high, but are they in misery?
The media is not doing stories on the misery.
See, this is key.
If there's misery but nobody reports on it, does it matter?
If people are losing their jobs and losing their houses, but going on unemployment, unemployment benefits are all-time high.
But if nobody reports on the damage and the hardship here is does it exist?
Does it matter?
Well, they're miserable but optimistic.
Fine.
Why are they optimistic?
Because they think Obama's gonna handle it.
Well, hell, we just the Federal Reserve just said after all this stimulating, after all these fixes, it's going to get worse.
The economy has not bottomed out.
It's not going to turn around by the end of the year.
They have downsized their predictions.
That means it's worse than they even think they're telling us it's going to be.
This I must tell you, folks, I am 58 years old.
And as you know, I have been a student of the news, a student, an observer of life.
Many times I have lived my life by observing others live it.
So I am a student of this stuff.
And I remember the 70s because I was among the miserable.
It was bad.
It was rotten.
And Jimmy Carter was not liked.
He's up there in the White House wearing his cardigan and telling everybody else to do the same thing, and he's botching the rescues of our hostages in Iran.
And it's not a popular figure, not like Obama.
And I'm telling you, not denying that it exists.
I'm telling when you watch the news, I don't care Fox to PMS NBC, you don't see stories on the misery.
Maybe now and then.
I mean, but but you it's not a focus as if it would be if there were a Republican.
There were more stories on economic misery during the boom years of the Bush administration than there is news reports on the misery that if this many people are losing their houses, there ought to be outrage out there.
It ought to be economic collapse.
You lose your house, you lose your job, and all you have is your unemployment.
Sorry, that's still not enough for most people.
But we're not hearing reports about it.
What we're hearing is Obama is loved, his popularity sky high.
And we're hearing that people have all this hope.
We keep asking, how's that hope and change working out for you?
So to get to a misery index, there's gonna have to be misery.
And remember, you I'll tell you how important the media is in this.
Remember how easy it is for them and has been and was, for them to create the impression in people's minds that the economy was in the tank, even though people's lives were solid economically.
But they watched the news and they thought, wow, well, I'm doing well, but there are a lot of people are hurting out there, so the economy must be in bad shape.
Consequently, the people who are doing well right now and so far are not dramatically affected by this recession, don't see stories on how bad it is, and therefore don't think it's that bad.
The statistics that are reported, such as those today, the numbers, X number more people, 600,000 more people lose their jobs.
You don't see them.
What you see is Obama rescuing everything, supposedly.
So misery Index will only work when there is perceived misery.
And right now, we're still caught up in this hope and in this change.
I gotta go.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back.
Folks, before we get out of here, I want to talk about Vice President Biden.
There's an interesting story today that uh Obama is really fed up with him and had to bring him in and Joe, you're gonna have to be more disciplined.
You're distracting things here, some of these things that you're saying, and he's now over in the Balkans.
I mean, they've they've gotten him out of town.
Now you remember earlier, when was it?
Uh May 19th.
So this is uh two days ago.
This in the Detroit Free Press.
Actually, it was a day before.
Eleanor Clift reported this.
Joe Biden reveals the bunker like room where Vice President Cheney went during 9-11 after the when the plane was heading in and uh targeting Washington.
They they got Cheney out of the White House, they took him to the secure bunker, which is a private place, nobody knows where it is.
Joe Biden reveals the bunker like room is at the Naval Observatory in Washington where Cheney lived for eight years, which is now home to Biden.
Uh Eleanor Clift and that report stirred up a lot of frenzy about Biden giving away the secure location.
He described it as uh uh a room with uh a hallway with uh uh electronics equipment, TV monitors on the walls and so forth.
And he then came out and corrected himself and said, No, no, no.
The uh Elizabeth Alexander, his uh spokeswoman on Monday, said what the vice president described in his comments was not an underground facility, but rather an upstairs workspace in the residence, which he understood was frequently used by Vice President Cheney and his aides.
That workspace was converted into an upstairs guest room when the Bidens moved into the residence.
Now, the reason this is important, because Eleanor Cliff's first report, Biden says this is the secure location.
If Eleanor Clift got it correctly, I have checked this today with legal authorities.
If Eleanor Clift reported it accurately, if the referenced undisclosed location was indeed classified, then I am told that Joe Biden, the vice president, may be subject to 37 United States Code Section 793,
which says that such an action shall, not the usual may, but such an action shall be punishable by a fine or up to ten years in prison.
Now, admittedly, this is gonna have to be fact checked, but if indeed there's a reaction of getting Biden out of town and the quick recharacterizing of what he said here, and we know that he flaps his gums off and says the most uncontrolled, undisciplined things.
But all this talk about how stupid Sarah Palin is, how risky she would be, and here's Biden potentially violating a federal law punishable by ten years in jail by revealing the secret bunker where any vice president is taken, not just Cheney, any vice president's taken during an attack.
And now no, no, no, it wasn't underground, it's upstairs bedroom.
Upstairs bedroom with electronic equipment on a hallway with a steel door.
It's hard to believe.
So that's why, among mummy uh many other things, the vice president is in the Balkans.
He's being shot at over there, I understand.
His plan was.
Thank you for being with us today, folks.
I love it.
It's just more fun than a human being should be allowed to have each and every day.
Tomorrow we'll do it again open line Friday, 21 hours from now.
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