Rush Limbaugh Program - June 19, 2009, Friday, Hour #2

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June 19, 2009 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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June 19, 2009, Friday, Hour #2

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	It is my great honor to be included in that number.
	Mark Stein is as well, and he will be joining you on Monday.
	And I will join you in listening to him.
	And then everybody can huddle up because I'm coming back on Tuesday.
	And then Rush returns on Wednesday of next week.
	Today, of course, is Friday as we wrap up the week with open line Friday and whatever whenever I'm here, all the folks uh back at uh at HQ uh uh offer up some wonderful guest suggestions.
	And the last time I was here, I had the great pleasure of talking to Byron York of the examiner about various things.
	I I think that was just sort of uh uh put our finger on the pulse of a number of things, but we're gonna go sort of uh single topic today because Byron's been doing some of the best writing around, and there's been a lot of it on the extremely curious case of the abrupt firing of Gerald Walpin, the Expector Inspector General of AmeriCorps.
	What in the world is going on here?
	And um, well, that's the general question.
	It has multiple uh subsidiary questions, so let's say hi to Byron and let's dive in.
	Pleasure to be back with you, sir.
	How are you doing?
	Hey, Mark, I'm doing great.
	It's good to be here.
	Let us I I sort of build this as a uh as a Gerald Walpin 101.
	So let's do this.
	Uh what was he in what was his job as the inspector general?
	What did which involves talking about AmeriCorps and what it does?
	So what was this guy doing in since 2007 when he was appointed by Bush 43?
	There are inspectors general uh at uh virtually every federal agency, and their job is to investigate allegations of wasted money, inefficiently spent money, fraud, all sorts of other, you know, misdeeds uh inside federal agencies.
	They are there to protect uh the the taxpayer.
	Now, because what they often do, uh the results of their work is often irritating or perhaps embarrassing to the political appointees who head the agencies, sometimes to the White House itself.
	Congress built in because of this.
	Congress gave them certain job protections.
	It's harder to fire an A.G. than it is just uh someone else who serves at the the uh the service uh the the pleasure of the president.
	So uh last year uh a law was passed that required that if the president wants to fire an IG, he has to give Congress 30 days' notice, and he has to give cause why he is doing that firing.
	And this was called the Inspector General Reform Act, and it was co-sponsored by then Senator Barack Obama.
	Who now gleefully uh rapes those guidelines and gets rid of Mr. Walpin i i in in a uh uh uh neck jerking period of time.
	Yeah, it's it's a really and and I'll tell you, this is the thing.
	It happened about this time last week.
	This is a time that just, you know, caught my eye, it got me interested in this story.
	What happened was there there are all these protections for an IG, but Gerald Walpin is the inspector general for something called the Corporation for Community and National for National and Community Service, which is the umbrella group for AmeriCorps, big group, just got a tripling of its funding to 5.7 billion dollars a few weeks ago.
	He's the inspector general there.
	He's driving in his car in upstate New York uh a week ago Wednesday, gets a call on his cell phone.
	It's the White House Council's office.
	And remember all of these job protections he has as an inspector general.
	White House Council's office said, you know, uh Mr. Walpin, uh the President wants you to know he really appreciates your service, but it's time to move on.
	And Walpin says, Well, you know, what are you talking about?
	And they said, Well, the President wants you to resign.
	And he said, Well, I need some time to think about it, and they said, you have an hour to either resign or be fired.
	Now, this is absolutely stomping all over the law that President Obama himself had co-sponsored just a couple of years earlier.
	So let's examine why this might have happened.
	The narrative seems to be that Mr. Walpin was peskily actually doing what Inspectors General do, finding waste and fraud.
	Remember that.
	They have the job protections because they do things that often irritate the higher-ups.
	And what had happened is there was a um a nonprofit program in Sacramento, California, run by a man named Kevin Johnson, who's a former NBA star, a very big deal basketball star.
	Uh it was a nonprofit and it got eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars in AmeriCorps money.
	Allegations came to Walpin's office that money had been misused, That some of uh federal AmeriCorps funds had been used to wash Kevin Johnson's car, or to uh run errands for him, or to push political causes.
	Uh that all of it's totally inappropriate under the terms of these AmeriCorps grants.
	So Gerald Walpin begins to investigate, sends a couple of people out to California, and they find that indeed it is true.
	Now this is something that becomes politically charged, especially after last November in which Kevin Johnson uh ran and won the office of mayor of Sacramento, California.
	So it became a real political football after that.
	Now, there's a Michelle angle here.
	Take me through the Michelle Obama chief of staff job change angle.
	Well, the the Michelle Obama angle is is something that's just not fleshed out at all, although uh uh Senator Charles Grassley, the Republican Capitol Hill, who is a real champion of Inspectors General, has asked the White House specifically about this.
	But uh there has been an Internet report that I did not put a lot of credence in uh saying that she was involved, but what we do know is, of course, AmeriCorps is one of the the the Obama's favorite programs.
	And Michelle Obama did shake up her staff recently.
	The the chief of staff she had brought into the White House with her, uh a woman named Jackie Norris, she decided to move out and bring in another chief of staff who had worked with her in Chicago.
	And Jackie Norris didn't just leave, she actually went to another job, which is as a senior advisor to AmeriCorps.
	And her responsibilities, I think will be many, but kind of unspecified.
	So there are questions uh about whether she might have been involved in any way in this decision to fire this uh pesky inspector general who was investigating charges of corruption involving a prominent supporter of the Obama campaign.
	Well, based on that, let us show some restraint uh that Lord knows the dominant media culture would never show if this kind of blood were in the water in a Republican administration.
	But let's let's do that and and take a sidestep to what came out of the Obama administration in terms of justification for the urgent need for sacking Mr. Walpin so quickly.
	They were trying to paint this guy as somehow dangerously senile.
	Exactly.
	Let me add one more thing about uh the first lady, which is I asked Walpen himself about this.
	Did he have any knowledge that either Michelle Obama or Jackie Norris were involved in any of this thing?
	And he said he did not.
	So we need to make that clear.
	Uh what happened was after clearly when the White House called Walpen in the evening on Wednesday, told him he had an hour to quit or be fired.
	I mean, that is pretty clear, I think, an uh uh an attempt to push him out, to muscle him out, to get him to resign so they wouldn't have to go through this whole thirty-day stuff and explain their reasons.
	They clearly didn't want to do that.
	But since Walpin refused, um the president had to.
	So the next day he did notify Congress.
	And but he still didn't give a reason.
	So Republicans who were saying, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, we need to f have a reason for this.
	And it was only when one Democrat, uh Senator uh Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who's a big fan of Inspectors General, she said that it appeared the White House hadn't, you know, shall we say not followed procedure on this.
	So the White House at that point does send a letter explaining why they did it.
	And they specifically point to a meeting that happened a few weeks ago on May 20th.
	It was a meeting of the board for this corporation for National Community Service.
	And they said that at the meeting, quote, Mr. Walpin was confused, disoriented, unable to answer questions, and exhibited other behavior that led the board to question his capacity to serve.
	So that became they they listed some other things, some other reasons as well, but that became the really hot button issue that uh that they have have brought up for this firing.
	I should point out that Gerald Walpin is seventy-seven years old, so there's this perhaps suggestion that maybe he's out of it, that he's getting a little senile.
	Well, there wasn't a lot of evidence of that.
	I mean, he's seventy-seven.
	I guess that means he was about seventy-five or seventy-six when he was appointed.
	He seemed worthy enough then.
	I don't know what switch magically flipped to make him incoherent in the last few weeks.
	It certainly looks for all the world like it was not his lack of faculties, but his gift for finding what he is tasked to find that got him in trouble.
	Well, this is something where I can say something on my own experience.
	I I mean, I have uh just uh interviewing him, I've spoken to him for probably a total of two hours in the past week or so, uh, and I found him to be extremely sharp.
	Extremely sharp, totally knowledgeable, excellent memory, all of that stuff.
	And he's also done some rather high profile media appearances.
	He was on uh Glenn Beck's show on Fox a couple of times this week, uh, performed very well.
	I mean, no one who has talked to him or looked at him would in any way suggest that he uh is not capable of doing this job.
	I did speak to him about this specific allegation, and he talked about he said there was this meeting, he was not feeling well that day.
	He was giving a presentation, but the presentation he gave was he was excoriating the board for not doing its job and pushing harder on this Sacramento investigation.
	So he he was being kind of a a pain in the backside of this board because he said they weren't pushing hard enough on this investigation that did involve the president's friend and supporter.
	It was after that uh he said he had he they asked him to leave the room for about fifteen minutes, he came back, his notes were out of order.
	They asked him a couple of questions, uh he hesitated, and that was kind of it.
	And now we have them saying that he's confused, disoriented, and unable to serve.
	Sufficiently so that the 30 days provided by a law that then Senator Barack Obama helped establish that that's just a deal breaker, he's got to go, and he's got to go immediately.
	Well, there's two th things to think about it.
	One is the question of of Walpin's faculties, and like I've said, he appears to be very sharp.
	But let's say that he did have trouble.
	Let's say he was kind of losing it.
	Uh, does that mean you call the guy up on his cell phone in in one evening and say he's got an hour to quit or be fired?
	No.
	I mean, you you would go through the process.
	And here again, this goes back to the original thing that made me curious about the story is that that you've got one hour thing just indicates that there is something funky going on, and we still, I think, don't know exactly what it is.
	Well, and and hopefully the day is and listen, if this amounts to not very much, then let it amount to not very much.
	If it ends up being uh an an ethical fire storm that that uh deserves to to dog this administration, then I just wonder how much that will happen.
	And as a last thing, Byron York with the examiner, uh the the the two words left in my head today, uh I'm just gonna give you I'm gonna put up the lob and you'd give me the overhand smash.
	Give me the curious description of this firing from the White House ethics counsel, Norm Eisen.
	Well, after Republicans raised questions, Norman Eisen from the White House Council's office uh went to Capitol Hill to answer some of their questions.
	And um he he told them that it might appear that the handling of the uh WAP in firing, you know, maybe raised some questions, but it was in fact an act of political courage uh for them to do this because they the White House believes strongly that the inspector general must get along well with the management of the corporation.
	So they were willing to risk the criticism because they wanted so much for uh uh the AmeriCorps Inspector General system to run well.
	So this was in fact an act of quote political courage.
	Not even the dictionary is safe from these people.
	Uh Byron, always a pleasure.
	Thank you so very much uh for for being with us and uh just love you forever and read Byron York at the examiner, and your buddy Michael Baron and a ton of other folks we love.
	Always a joy to have you.
	Great to be here.
	Thanks for having me.
	You bet that's Byron York.
	All righty.
	So there you go.
	If you weren't up on uh on the whole Gerald Walpen thing before, now you are.
	Uh the degree to which we can cover this, I will largely leave up to you.
	I pretty well got pretty well got my licks in while we were talking to Bayer, and this just I mean it just stinks to high heaven.
	Now the the important thing, and it this is this is important.
	And it's also important to hit this break on time.
	So here's here's here's where we'll go next.
	It is impossible for such stories to exist in a vacuum.
	The things that are happening already is uh the people who are in the tank for President Obama from the White House to its sycophant followers are insisting that this is absolutely nothing.
	The people who are not fond of the presidency of this president uh are are suggesting that this is uh travel gate and maybe even Watergate 2.0.
	So maybe let's sort out where this might go next and intermingle that with things that you're already on hold about on a multi-topic, that is the nature of the beast after all, open line Friday on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
	I'm Mark Davis in Dallas at WBAP, Dallas Fort Worth, 1-800-282-2882, and we'll continue in just a moment.
	It's the Rush Limbaugh Show for a Friday, Open Line Friday.
	I'm Mark Davis, fill it in for Rush, which I will do again on Tuesday, in between on Monday, Mark Stein in Rush returns on Wednesday.
	All right, we have a caller who is about to invoke a little golden piece of audio that maybe you've heard.
	And if you and I get to the wallpin stuff, I just want to take care of some folks that have been on hold because uh I just want to move through some of those kind folks who call and spend some time on hold here at 1-800-282-2882.
	Uh Barbara Boxer was uh questioning uh Brigadier General uh who heads up the Army Corps of Engineers.
	So there he is, all uniformed out and answering questions about New Orleans, so Lord knows Senator Boxer is all amped up with a fresh opportunity to retroactively kick President Bush in the teeth.
	And she's just cop and attitude left, right, up and down, uh, capped off by this moment as she asks the Brigadier General a question.
	The Brigadier General begins to answer the question respectfully, referring to Senator Boxer as ma'am, just as he might refer to Senator Charles Schumer, uh Senator John Cornan, Republican Democrat, doesn't matter as sir.
	Well, he refers to Senator Boxer as ma'am, and it is, shall we say, for her a problem.
	Well, why has it been delayed?
	Uh Ma'am at the uh LACPR is Adam.
	You know, do me a favor.
	Could you say Senator instead of ma'am?
	It's just a thing.
	I worked so hard to get that title.
	So I'd appreciate it.
	Yes, thank you.
	Yes, Senator.
	There is nothing that I can say.
	There is nothing anyone can reveal that is a greater window to the kind of sanctimonious self-absorption that is part of what makes my teeth itch with the modern left.
	You know, I c can you in a million years imagine Mitch McConnell.
	Now, I I know it's not apples and apples, because women have faced, you know, an uphill struggle to achieve the seats in the Senate they have, and that's fine, and I love that, and it's great, and I respect it, and it's tremendous.
	But uh make it another woman.
	I mean, I don't know.
	Well, I'll tell you what, I guess you make it a Republican woman.
	Can you imagine Kay Bailey Hutcheson doing that?
	Uh I I wanna I want to go to bat for the aforementioned Claire McCaskill, uh, you know, Patty Murray.
	I uh you know, ph this is singular in its um in its in its just cloying narcissism.
	And uh with more, here's Norman in Anderson, Texas.
	Well, I wanted to play that for you so everybody would know what you're talking about, Norman.
	Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
	Hey, Mark, thanks for having me on Mega Texas Ditto's.
	Thank you, man.
	Uh it just you know, this is sort of like the magma under the surface.
	Uh all of these liberal Congress people have a disdain.
	Well, I say all of them, most of them have a disdain for the military.
	And every now and then it pops up as lava.
	And this is one example of it.
	And it acts as an American.
	And I know, you know, the world watches what we do.
	It is embarrassing.
	Uh to have an elected official have such dripping disdain and arrogance against our military.
	And I was just gonna get your comments.
	Well, it's funny, but because I I thought the same thing, because I saw the video of this, and there he is, and there she is, and just this, this this wagging of the finger at this man who has served this country.
	And the instant narrative that I jumped to was the uh the the visceral anti-military motivation of many, especially in the high-level elected left.
	Now I can't climb inside her head and and read her mind.
	I'm not the amazing Creskin or anything like this, and and fairness requires that we both admit that we don't know full well that she would not have given the same kind of dressing down to a civilian.
	And yet, and yet the the track record that uh that that these folks bring to the table, uh uh w whether it is um uh moveon.org in their general betray us ad, there is an ongoing tapestry of disdain for people to wear the uniform that makes it more than plausible that that was part, at least part.
	Maybe some of it was just you know, feminist hackles on the rise, but at least part of what led her to this uh ridiculously embarrassing moment.
	Norman, thank you.
	Let us uh hit the bottom of the hour here, and then we're back with more of the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show, open line Friday.
	I'm Mark Davis filling in from Dallas Fort Worth.
	Uh gentleman in Tallahassee, Adam, don't move because he's got a little health care thought here and there.
	We're going to talk some Korea.
	We're going to spend some time looking at the United States Census.
	There is a member of Congress who says I will tell the Census Bureau how many people are in my house, and not one question more.
	Tell you about it next.
	Stick around.
	Thank you, Johnny, and thank you, Rush, for the honor of filling the chair today and Tuesday of next week.
	Mark Stein will be in on Monday.
	And then after my second gig there Tuesday, Rush returns on Wednesday.
	So very, very glad to have you here and uh and glad to be here.
	All right, let me lay down the Michelle Bachman story.
	Uh, you got ahead of me, didn't you?
	You either you either you heard it already or you figured, hmm.
	Who who's been showing the kind of spunk in the House of Representatives?
	And there are a few.
	And I have to tell you, from from Eric Cantor in Virginia to uh I don't know, there they're just uh uh there are a few folks who are really um stepping forward among a kind of a uh a new crop of names that we're going to be uh hearing a lot about,
	and a lot of this is uh are sort of projects for uh a gentleman who uh I'm very proud to call a friend, and that is Congressman Pete Sessions of the 32nd District of of Texas, who is the head of the NRCC, the National Republican campaign committee, and his job is to get uh try to get that Democrat uh try to get that Democrat majority uh thwarted,
	try to get the Republican majority back in the House, just as another, John Cornyn, has the job of doing so with the NRSC at the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
	So it's you know, the Lord knows that's a spark that we can follow to to various types of conversation.
	What kind of people do we need uh carrying our baton?
	Well, maybe it's folks who are bold enough to step forward and say this.
	Um Michelle Bachman, Congresswoman of Minnesota, has told the Washington Times that she and her family will not fully fill out the 2010 census forms.
	Uh she says her family will only be indicating the number of people in the household, because the Constitution doesn't require any information beyond that.
	She believes the upcoming census with its intricacy and the personal questions it asks goes beyond the pale.
	She also expresses concerns about the role of acorn in the data collection.
	Uh Viv acorn, as you know, came under scrutiny after uh charges of voter registration fraud in the 08 presidential elections.
	Her quote, I think what the threat of acorn would be diluting the ballot box and the effectiveness of our vote, she said.
	They will be in charge of going door to door and collecting data from the American public.
	That is very concerning.
	So this gives me a point of departure.
	Uh this there's a shallow level at which we can examine this by sort of uh pumping our fists in the air and saying, Yeah, me too, I'm with you.
	Uh and by the way, I am with her.
	I'm tempted to do exactly the same thing.
	Is it an act of civil disobedience?
	Yes.
	Are you technically violating the law?
	Well, at the moment, yeah.
	On the severity scale, I place it somewhere around doing 56 in a 55.
	Um but unlike doing 56 in a 55, which would be either accidental or uh or or the slightest level of misbehavior just for the sake of it, this uh thwarting of an existing law uh is um is something that we do on the shoulders of civil disobedience past.
	Now, here's the project that I have, and we can intermingle this with the various other things we're gonna do, and I'm gonna be on the horn here with uh all the callers here in a moment on a variety of things.
	1-800-282-2882.
	But here is the challenge.
	If we're going to make this a um a strain of civil disobedience that we're going to admire and even emulate.
	We need a basis for that civil disobedience.
	Here's where it gets a little tricky.
	The census is specifically mentioned in the Constitution as a way as an enumeration, a way to count the American people.
	And nothing else.
	Now, does that mean that it cannot ask anything else?
	Well, therein lies the debate.
	Every time I've heard Walter Williams fill in here on Rush, which is always a joy, or any time I've read anything he has said, he takes us right back to the Constitution for the specific things that government is supposed to do.
	And it is his wish and mine and many of yours that the government really not do anything else or much else.
	I mean, those those things are in there, they're good things, and I've always believed that if it's in the yellow pages, government shouldn't do it and just all down the line there.
	Strong but limited government.
	Now, follow me along.
	Does that mean that the government cannot do things that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution?
	Well, that answer certainly seems to be no.
	We got a million laws on the books that you and I might say shouldn't be there, but they can be.
	Some of them maybe you and I like, some of them maybe you and I don't like.
	That's settled in legislatures.
	Legislatures meet for the purpose of determining what kind of laws we have.
	Every once in a while, probably not so great a while, legislatures will pass laws that certainly have no basis in what the Constitution says government should do, but are things that we can have government do if we wish for government to do it.
	Speed limits, uh you gotta have your kid in a car seat, uh, you know, all manner of things like none of that's in the Constitution, but those are laws that we can certainly have, and we can either have them or not have them.
	It's up to us.
	That's where you that's where we go to one of a conservatives' favorite amendments, the tenth, which essentially is the founding fathers saying, you know what?
	If we didn't put it in here, it's left to the states or to the people, where we can either have or not have helmet laws, have or not have speed limits, have or not have an intrusive census.
	So this puts us in at odds with the law in order conservatives usual approach, which is to fight the laws that we don't like, topple the laws we don't like, r rather than disobey them up to that point.
	Uh you know, we're fond of saying obey the law and fight to get it changed.
	Bring about what we want, and we often criticize those who disobey laws while fighting to change.
	Say, look, if you're looking to change the law, change the law, but meanwhile obey it.
	Now, so d so what is it about the census that makes it sufficiently noxious that makes it sufficiently unbearable?
	I mean, I hate answering those stupid questions.
	It is none of government's stinking business.
	But the question we've got to confront intellectually is uh is what Congressman Bachman's doing, what you might do, what I might do, and you know, and again, our likelihood of doing jail time for this is probably fairly slim.
	Um, but we need to craft a basis for our civil disobedience.
	I mean, uh we ain't exactly at the lunch counters in 1961 on this, you know.
	But I don't want to downplay it either.
	I don't trust these people as far as I could throw them.
	This administration with a ton of personal information from me and from you.
	Uh you know, and this is kind of funny.
	It it really does go to how much you trust who's in power.
	I have warrantless wiretaps, please do them.
	But that was the Bush administration, which I trusted to fight a war on terror.
	This is the Obama administration, which I wouldn't trust to pick up my mail.
	So I guess, you know, who's president really is the lens through which you see all of this?
	Because those warrantless wiretaps that have kept you and me safe were the devil's work, according to people that uh hated Bush's guts.
	So anyway, so so that's the thing.
	We're gonna have a bunch of calls on a lot of other stuff, but then we'll if if you got some thoughts on that, give me a buzz, one-eight hundred two eight two two eight eight two, and we'll start to filter into those here as this hour continues and the final hour plays out.
	Uh I think we have largely um a pretty big majority limbaugh audience approval for Congresswoman Bachman standing up to the uh to the census.
	Great.
	Me too.
	Hoorah.
	But what we need to do is we need to kind of figure out what the basis is for our objection.
	Exactly.
	Not just distaste.
	Is it a fourth amendment thing?
	Are those questions in a way after a fa fashion an unreasonable search or seizure?
	It's kind of metaphoric, but I don't know.
	Um I'm looking.
	Help me.
	It is Mark Davis with you on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
	Very, very glad that uh that you're here.
	And I tell you what, let's do rather than give somebody like 30 seconds, uh, let's go ahead and take our our our pause here and come back and dive onto the phone lines on the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
	It is open line Friday.
	I'm Mark Davis filling in for Rush, and we will continue on the EIB network.
	It is the Friday Rush Limbaugh Show.
	I'm Mark Davis, joining you from about, oh, I don't know, eleven, twelve miles from George and Laura Bush's house.
	It's nice to have him in town.
	President uh was in Erie, Pennsylvania a couple of nights ago, talking about his views and uh uh the juxtaposition of his views with Barack Obama's views will create obvious uh instant points of comparison.
	But one of the things also wanted to mention today as we go to your calls is how much or how little do you want President Bush out there sticking up for what he did?
	Not necessarily kicking President Obama in the teeth, but I mean, unless you want.
	I I don't want.
	I really don't.
	I I'll tell you this.
	I have been a fan of the general etiquette of former presidents not criticizing their incumbent successors.
	Um ever since Jimmy Carter trashed that, uh maybe that's been off the table.
	I don't know.
	Um here's here's what I'm good with.
	I have thoroughly enjoyed uh Dick Cheney stepping out to properly defend Guantanamo and a number of other things, um around that I believe he has decidedly won as um as as his approval ratings climb higher than Nancy Pelosi's from a poll a couple of weeks ago.
	But um as far as a pres as this president himself vilified constantly during his presidency and even since by his successor, I I don't need him, you know, getting out there and trying to duke it out with the Obama administration.
	That doesn't get us anywhere.
	But for him to stand up for his beliefs and stand up for what he did and stand up for his track record, uh that's something that I would afford any president, Republican or Democrat, a lot of latitude to do.
	All righty, let's hop in to the State Capitol in Sunshine State in Tallahassee, Florida.
	Adam, you are on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
	Mark Davis filling in.
	Nice to have you.
	Hi.
	Hey, Adam.
	Adam going once.
	Going twice.
	Yeah, ready.
	Let us roll instead, just north of me here in Dallas Fort Worth, cross the Red River to Oklahoma in Fairview, Oklahoma.
	Mark.
	Hi, Mark Davis in for Rush.
	How are you doing?
	Hey, Mark, nice to talk to you.
	Same here.
	Uh as I was talking to your screener, I told him I said the thing that really bugs me the most is this thing's like with the Obama administration, they are more there's more lawlessness going on up there now because it seems like every time you turn around, they're doing something that, you know, when it's confronted and brought out into the open, it's against the law.
	It's either unconstitutional or it's you know, they plant break the law doing it.
	Well, i it's funny for people who who made transparency and accountability their middle names.
	The Walpin case in particular shows uh their uh their penchant for obscuring both concepts when it fits their need.
	I mean, this is just a shameful thing that's happened to this man.
	And um and and I believe emblematic of the kind of a of the kind of rules don't apply to us arrogance of that uh that is quickly becoming their hallmark.
	Well, yeah, it's just getting it's getting to the point that they're you know, they're just taking a few little baby steps on the Constitution, and they're waiting to see just exactly what the reaction's gonna be before they finally just get on, just stand in the middle of it and just start grinding it into the ground.
	Because it's obvious to me that there is nothing in the Constitution that they believe in.
	You know, we let they don't believe in the regular in the laws that it sets down, they don't believe in the guidelines that it sets because they know that they're overstepping their bounds and full the one thing I cannot figure out is that these things are set down in the Constitution, if they are laws and they know that it's wrong, and the people out here know that it's wrong, what do we need to do to go ahead, you know, to get something started to say, hey, uh-uh, this has gone too far already.
	The answer, the the answer is is in front of our face, but it's a long way in front of our face, and it's called the Congressional Elections of Twenty Ten and the Presidential Race of Twenty Twelve to get people in office who do respect what the Founding Fathers actually said and actually wrote, rather than making stuff up as they go along based on their view of of how the nation ought to be.
	Uh Mark, thanks.
	And again, it it's it we we talk a lot about uh who does and doesn't, you know, respect the Constitution.
	Uh everybody thinks they respect the Constitution.
	The left feels that it respects the Constitution by viewing it as a a living, breathing, growing document that shifts and changes with the social mores of the day, uh, where conservatism teaches that that's ridiculous, that it is what it is.
	That's why you hear words like strict constructionist, originalist, things like that.
	Because the words are in there.
	I mean, is there a right to abortion in the Constitution?
	That's a question that has a yes or no answer, and it is not uh a nebulous one.
	That answer is no.
	So what does that mean?
	We then go to that very familiar Tenth Amendment, where if it's not in there, it goes to the people and to the states.
	Every state should have its own abortion laws.
	Every state should have its own uh laws on on the recognition of gay marriage.
	There are there is no right to these things in the Constitution or anywhere else.
	And that is one of the fundamental logical flaws of the left, one of the just the intellectual weaknesses that if they want something badly enough, it becomes a right.
	Well, if if if I want it, if it just seems like human decency to me, it must be a right.
	Well, guess again, no, it's not.
	If Vermont wants to give legal equality to gay marriage and Texas does not, they each have that right.
	If they want to have permissive abortion laws in Massachusetts and very restrictive abortion laws in Utah, those states have that right.
	And anybody standing in in a state where things are not going the way they want and say, well, wait a minute, you know, that woman has a right to get an abortion.
	No, she doesn't.
	And that's why Roe v.
	Wade is flawed.
	And and and for gay folks or people who are sympathetic to them to say, well, you know, but but they have a right to have their marriage viewed as the equal to heterosexual marriage.
	No, they don't.
	You can argue that you think it should be that way.
	You can argue that you think it's basic decency to do it and indecent not to, and you can have that argument all day long.
	But as soon as you say that it is a right, you have very simply misspoken.
	Something does not become a right just because you want it really badly.
	Now, I apply this to myself.
	I'm not a cigarette guy ever.
	Occasional cigar, that's it.
	Uh first cigar ever given to me, Romeo Ijuliata by Rush Limbaugh, 1996.
	I'll bore you with that story sometime.
	But I believe it's insane for government to be uh telling restaurants what their smoking rules can be.
	I believe that restaurant should have the right to have its own smoking rules.
	But if a city wants to be stupid enough to have anti-smoking uh uh laws, they can do that.
	So just because I want it or feel passionately about it, doesn't mean that I can invent it as a right just based on my zeal.
	Anyway, all right.
	My passion for the moment is to get this commercial rake it on time.
	Let's do it.
	Mark Davis filling in for Rush Limbaugh on the EIB network.
	We have about a minute here before we close things out for this hour and go on to the next.
	But being Father's Day, I want to tell you about a dad that it would occur to Rush to tell you about if he were here, and that is Russia's father.
	A lawyer and a World War II fighter pilot who served in the China, Burma, India Theater.
	You know where the name Rush comes from?
	It honors the maiden name of of family member Edna Rush.
	The family is filled with all kinds of service to the legal profession and to our country.
	Russia's grandfather was a prosecutor in Missouri, a judge, special commissioner, served on Missouri State House of Representatives.
	The grandfather, longtime president of the Missouri Historical Society, died at 104, still a practicing attorney at the time of his passing.
	So for Rush's dad and granddad, I know he's thinking of them today.
	And so should we.

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