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Feb. 16, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:43
February 16, 2010, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
It's Rush Limboy, your highly trained broadcast and political specialist here at the distinguished and prestigious Limboy Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882.
The email address is lrushbo at eibnet.com.
Ben Smith has it in the Politico today.
John McCain's communications director, Brian Rogers, takes a sledgehammer to McCain primary foe J.D. Hayworth.
And this is true.
Hayworth announced his candidacy for McCain's Senate seat yesterday, had a speech or two out there to make, and the McCain people didn't like very much about what J.D. had to say.
So look at this.
Here they are taking a sledgehammer to a Republican on day one.
Now, McCain never did take a sledgehammer to Obama, who is destroying the country.
Now, we're going to get a chance now, I guess, to see if the era of McCain is over, depending on how this primary goes out there.
But I just remember during the McCain-Obama campaign, it was going to be honorable.
And remember, Mark McKinnon and Steve Schmidt were worrying about civility and staying above the fray.
And McKinnon even said he would quit if there were attacks on Obama by the McCain campaign because of the historic nature of the Obama campaign.
So what we have here, folks, a teachable moment about rhino-Republicans.
They will go after conservatives more than they will ever go after any liberal, including ones who are destroying the country.
Senator McCain has full confidence the people of Arizona will again return him to the U.S. Senate this year to work hard to earn their continued support.
Former Congressman Hayworth obviously disagrees.
It was sad to see Hayworth use blatant lies and fabrications to attack Senator McCain when he entered the race for the Senate today.
Mr. Hayworth falsely said blah, blah.
Mr. Hayworth falsely said blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
One would think that when asking Arizonans to entrust him to represent him in the Senate, Mr. Hayworth would have the decency to at least respect him enough to tell the truth.
Instead, Hayworth has started his campaign with a litany of lies.
Sorry, J.D., the people of Arizona aren't stupid.
They're on to you.
This is McCain's spokesman.
Mr. Hayworth has obviously resorted to lies and distortion today because he has no record of his own to stand on.
Now, this is a great line coming from the McCain campaign.
Why the hell didn't they use it against Obama?
Why don't they use it against Obama?
Talk about no record of his own to stand on.
He was a community agitator.
He had a five-minute career.
That's right, Limboy.
That's right.
But we're running an honorable campaign.
Chevy, you would understand.
Gi, she.
I guess not.
And the honorable campaign was designed to lose.
But I just wanted to point out here, folks, how they, you know, the rhino-type Republicans will go after conservatives.
I mean, it's like nothing you've ever seen, but they won't go after Democrats this way, and they won't go after a president who's literally destroying the U.S. private sector this way.
I'm just pointing it out.
Just saying it.
Now, I want to get on to this speech that Chris Christie gave in New Jersey.
I have the text of the speech.
We have just a couple sound bites from it.
But it is strikingly good.
Let me play the sound bites first, just as a tease here, and I'm going to give you some.
I'll read the audio extra, I'll read the excerpts of the speech myself.
This was addressing the state legislature, and he says in this bite that the budget in New Jersey is in a shambles.
New Jersey is in a financial state of crisis.
Our state's budget has been left in a shambles, and it requires immediate action to achieve balance.
Sales tax revenue is not up 5%, it's down 5.5%.
And corporate business tax revenue is not flat, it is down 8%.
Is there any wonder why we're in such big trouble?
Any question why the people don't trust their government anymore and demand a change?
Today, we must make a pact with each other to end this reckless conduct with the people's government.
Right on, right on, right on.
You got to remember now, there's a speech being given in New Jersey.
In New Jersey, where, by the way, the senator there, the 86-year-old lout, Frank Lautenberg, fell in his condo.
I'll tell you these Democrats are dropping like flies one way or the other.
They could do anything to stay away from Harry Reid, apparently.
There's a rumor out there that Barbara Mikulski, who is 73, is not going to seek a reelection.
Some people are saying that's because she's going to lose.
Jim Garrity at National Reus, she's not going to lose.
She didn't have any prayer of losing.
She just may be tired.
She broke her ankle, and it's a long recovery.
She's not feeling well, still in a lot of pain.
So it's anybody's guess, but there is a rumor out there that she's going to retire and not seek re-election.
We don't know.
We don't know.
But I mean, it is.
The Democrats are dropping like flies everywhere you look out there for one reason or another.
Here's more, Chris Christie.
Today, we come to terms with the fact that we cannot spend money on everything we want.
Our Constitution requires a balanced budget.
Our commitment requires us to begin the next fiscal year with a prudent opening balance.
Our conscience and our common sense require us to fix the problem in a way that does not raise taxes on the most overtaxed citizens in America.
That's New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
And you got to remember now, the audience is the Democrats.
They still have the legislature in New Jersey.
So I have the full text of his speech.
Let me read you some additional excerpts.
This is how it began.
It's difficult to describe the extent to which New Jersey is a Democratic machine state.
Oh, wait, I'm sorry.
Wait a second.
Just a second here.
No, that's not.
That's somebody describing it.
Here's the speech.
Mr. President, Madam Speaker, members of the Senate and Assembly, fellow citizens, blah, blah, blah.
23 days ago, I was honored to take the oath of office as your governor, and I promised you and the people of New Jersey a new direction.
The old ways of doing business have not served the people well, I said, and I asked for your help in bringing about change.
Today, I have called you together because it's time to take the first major and urgent step in delivering the change we promised in the critically important area of the state budget.
New Jersey is in a state of financial crisis.
Our state's budget has been left in a shambles, requires immediate action to achieve balance.
For the current fiscal year 2010, which has only four and one-half months left to go, the budget we have inherited has a $2 billion gap.
The budget, and remember now, these guys cannot print money at the states like Obama can.
They're stuck.
The budget passed less than eight months ago in June of last year contained all the same worn-out tricks of the trade that have become commonplace in Trenton that have driven our citizens to anger and frustration and our wonderful state to the edge of bankruptcy.
What do I mean exactly?
This year's budget projected 5.1% growth in sales tax revenue and a flat growth in corporate business tax revenues in June of 2009.
Was there anybody in New Jersey other than in the Department of Treasury who actually believed any revenues would grow in 2009-2010, with spiraling unemployment heading over 10%, with a financial system in crisis, with consumers petrified to spend, only Trenton Treasury officials can certify that kind of growth.
In fact, sales tax revenue is not up 5%, down 5.5%.
Corporate business tax revenue is not flat.
It's down 8%.
Any wonder why we're in such big trouble?
The facts are that revenues are coming in $1.2 billion below what was projected last year, and over $800 million in additional spending was done by the previous administration on their way out the door.
I take no joy in having to make these decisions.
I know these judgments will affect fellow New Jerseyans and will hurt.
This is not a happy moment.
However, what choices do we have left?
The defenders of the status quo will start chattering as soon as I leave this chamber.
They'll say the problems are not that bad.
Listen to me.
I can spare you the pain and sacrifice.
We know this is simply not true.
New Jersey has been steaming toward financial disaster for years due to that kind of attitude.
The people elected us to end the talk and to act decisively.
Today is the day for the campaigning, I'm sorry, for the complaining to end and for statesmanship to begin.
Today, I am taking action to cut state spending to balance the budget this year.
This is the immediate action I am taking.
This morning, I signed an executive order freezing the necessary state spending to balance our budget.
We will freeze the spending of unspent technical balances across a wide array of state programs.
This includes everything from unspent funds to upgrade energy systems in state facilities to those aimed at assisting local governments in their consolidation plans.
Not everything is painless.
Some projects will be delayed or terminated.
Some services will be reduced, but in total, we can reduce spending by over $550 million this year by lapsing these unspent balances, by not spending this money and applying it now towards our multi-billion dollar budget gap.
He goes on to specify which programs are going to be cut.
And he says this: by far, the biggest category of spending we will need to cut is that for programs which actually have merit and in most cases make sense, but which we simply can't afford now.
Like any family, like 42 other states with constitutionally required balanced budgets, we must live within our means.
New Jersey does not have a revenue problem.
We already have higher taxes than any other state in the country.
We've gone down the road of ever higher taxes to pay for Trenton's addiction to spending.
And what's it given us?
10.1% unemployment, a dormant economy, a failure of hope for growth in our future.
Higher taxes is the road to ruin.
We must and we will shrink our government.
And that means making some tough choices, tightening our belts.
It means making doom with the resources we have.
And it means charting the course to reform now so that our spending will be more effective in the future.
So today, I am implementing over a billion dollars in reductions and reforms to programs we simply can't afford in the current economic environment and in our current fiscal state.
For example, said Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, the state cannot continue to subsidize New Jersey Transit to the extent that it does.
So I'm cutting that subsidy.
New Jersey Transit will have to improve the efficiency of its operations, revisit its rich union contracts, end the patronage hiring that has typified its past, and may also have to consider service reductions or fare increases.
But the system needs to be made more efficient and effective.
This is a, folks, this is a slap across the cheek at every union official that has anything to do with four wheels and an engine in the state of New Jersey.
The state cannot this year spend another $100 million contributing to a pension system that is desperately in need of reform.
The special interests have already begun to scream their favorite word, which coincidentally is my nine-year-old son's favorite word, when we're making him do something he knows is right, but he doesn't want to do.
Unfair.
Well, let's tell our citizens the truth today, right now, about what failing to do strong reforms costs them.
One state retiree, 49 years old, paid over the course of his entire career a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits.
What will we pay him?
And I had this for you yesterday.
What will we pay him?
$3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly a half a million dollars for health care benefits, a total of $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment.
Is that fair?
A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing, yes, nothing for full family medical dental and vision coverage over her entire career.
What will we pay her?
$1.4 million in pension benefits, another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime.
Is it fair for all of us and our children to have to pay for this excess?
The total unfunded pension and medical benefit costs in New Jersey are $90 billion.
We would have to pay $7 billion.
Hello, public employee unions.
The day of reckoning has arrived for you in New Jersey.
This is not going to be pretty, folks.
This is not going to be pretty.
We would have to pay $7 billion per year to make them current.
We don't have that money.
You know it and I know it.
What's been done to our citizens by offering a pension system we can't afford and health benefits that are 41% more expensive than the average Fortune 500 company's costs is the truly unfair part of this equation.
Suburban districts will sacrifice, urban districts will sacrifice, rural will sacrifice.
Some, both inside and outside this chamber, will urge you to retreat to the corner, protect your own piece of turf.
Our state's in crisis.
Our people are hurting.
Now is the time when we all must resist the traditional selfish call to protect your own turf at the cost of the state.
It's time to leave the corner, join the sacrifice, come to the center of the room, and be part of the solution.
I urge all of us to come to the center of the room, voluntarily, stand up to the special interest to fix our broken state together.
In total, I am cutting spending in 375 different state programs from every corner of state government.
I doubt this is going to be popular.
I'll use my executive authority to implement them now because I must.
I'm not happy, but I'm not afraid to make these decisions.
It is what the people sent me here to do.
So it goes on.
It prints out to 10 pages.
I'm not going to read you the whole thing.
We'll link to it at rushlinbaud.com.
But there is a story here from newjersey.com.
I don't know what newspaper this is.
Starledger.
The Newark Star Ledger.
With Governor Christie targeting benefits some New Jersey public workers consider retirement.
I'll have the details when we come back.
From the Newark Star Ledger State House Bureau staff, this headline, with Governor Christie targeting benefits, some New Jersey public workers consider retirement.
The New Jersey Police Benevolent Association says in this piece, you're going to see a mass exodus.
But mayors and state politicians, many of them Democrats, know that this can't continue.
It says that in the story.
Page two of this story.
No one in this economy is going to bolt over contributing 1.5% to their health care, says a Democrat.
So he's serious.
And everybody in New Jersey understands he's serious.
Apparently, a decent number of people understand how serious the situation is.
And they realize, okay, we had our chance.
We milked the golden goose for all it's worth.
We got ours.
Okay, okay.
Now they're going to come in and straighten it all out.
This is happening, and I can't tell you how many states.
There's a lot of fear out there, says Hetty Rosenstein, state director at the Communications Workers of America, which represents 55,000 public employees.
They don't feel confident their work will be respected and protected.
Even though employees might leave, mayors and state leaders said they agree with Christie's contention they need to remake a pension system too generous for the state budget to handle.
Mayors say the proposed pension changes are not enough to prompt a mass exit.
Nobody going to run out the door for 1.5% of their pension, said Elizabeth Mayor J. Christian Bullwage, a Democrat.
Smoke and mirrors, it does absolutely nothing.
Timothy Fleming, who retired from the Hunterdon County Department of Corrections after just over 25 years, said pension and health benefits are a primary reason people work for the government.
We weren't going to be making a tremendous amount of money.
A lot of people go into public service if you know you're going to get good benefits.
What if the money's not there?
The money isn't there.
It is the promise of all these benefits that kept people voting for Democrats all of these years that kept them in power.
It's what's happening in Washington right now.
The only difference is that Washington can print money.
The states can't.
They can print money.
They can do all kinds of stuff to paper over this and delay, however damaging it is, the inevitable.
But this guy, Chris Christie, he knows, by the way, everybody in this state knows this is what he was elected to do.
When a Republican gets elected in New Jersey, to run that, and a conservative Republican, I'm not talking about a moderate rhino like Christie Todd Whitman.
I'm talking about a guy like this.
You know the people of the state know it's serious.
And even the beneficiaries of all this largesque, according to this Newark Star Ledger story, understanding the fun times are over, and they're going to be making a mad dash to get out of there as quickly as they can.
Victor in Boca Raton, Florida.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
You're on the EIB network.
Hi.
Great.
Hello, Mr. Limba.
Megadittis to you from your fans at the Free Republic.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Mr. Limbaugh, I would like to hear your opinion on Sarah Palin's endorsement and campaigning for John McCain.
Thank you, sir.
Well, you know, I've been waiting for this question to come up, and I see there's a story out there today that Joe the Plumber says that he cannot and will not support Sarah Palin because of her endorsement of McCain.
It is problematic, but you know what's going on here.
She's a Republican.
She's not a Tea Party person.
She's not a third-party person.
She's a Republican.
McCain picked her.
No matter what has been written about how she wasn't supported by some people, I think, and I'm not copping out here.
I just think I understand the reality of the circumstance.
If maybe she could have stood mute and not said anything, but it would have really, really caused some problems in the other direction for her if she had not endorsed McCain.
She's in a no-win in this situation, as far as I can tell.
I have more when we come back.
Yeah, I bet the Chris Christie speech.
Folks, I just have a simple question.
Has there ever been a generation of Americans with public pensions and benefits like today's?
No.
Nowhere even close.
The current city-state federal retirees are probably the first and possibly the last generation to have such generous pensions and lavish health care benefits.
I mean, it's just, it simply is unsustainable if you're a state worker in New Jersey and you contribute $124,000 over the course of your job and you retire at $49, by the way.
And over the course of your job life, where you quit at 49, you've had deductions from your paycheck totaling $124,000 and you get $3.3 million for the rest of your life in pension benefits and another half million dollars in healthcare benefits.
Now, that's one person.
And that's multiplied by, I don't know how many of New Jersey.
It's just unsustainable.
Simply unsustainable.
I read an interesting piece the other day by Americanspectator.org by sometime substitute host here, Walter Williams.
And Walter Williams said that he once spoke to Jesse Helms about crop subsidies.
He said, Senator Helms, I mean, you're a big free market conservative.
How in the world do you support?
Can you justify crop subsidies for North Carolina tobacco growers and so forth?
And Walter Williams wrote that Jesse Helms looked at him and said, How do you think I'll ever get re-elected here to do the rest of my good work if I don't support crop subsidies?
The point being, the point being that when you really get down to brass tax and all this spending, Walter Williams' point was, it's our fault.
It's the American people's fault for wanting it.
I forget who it was.
I ought to remember this.
One of the founders.
When the public figures out that they can vote themselves money, the end of the country is not far away.
And basically, that's what happened.
Now, I can only speak for myself personally.
And I'm doing this only to contrast myself with other forms of thinking.
Not to say I'm better, although I am than other people in this way, but that's not why I'm saying this.
Sorry, folks, sometimes I just can't help it.
The truth is the truth.
Now, and I've said this to you many times.
I'm embarrassed to be obligated to anybody.
The whole concept that somebody else is going to pay for me is repulsive to me.
And I've had bouts in my life where that's been necessary.
I've had, you know, I've been broke twice and I had to ask for help from my parents.
I hated it.
I hated it.
And so did they, because they really didn't have it.
But I vowed that one of my career objectives was going to be that if I ever wanted something and more importantly needed something, I'm providing it for myself and for everybody in my family.
I'm not, I don't want to be obligated to one person and I don't want to run the risk that something's coming to me 10 or 15 years down the road that's not under my control and I'm going to wait around for it.
Whether it's paying for my own health care or whatever it is, while it's not going into debt, I don't owe anybody anything other than the monthly.
Now, this is just me.
The only reason I'm saying this, and I've, folks, for the vast majority of my life, I never made more than $40,000 a year for the vast majority of my life.
Never made more than $40,000.
And even then, I've had this constitutional objection to being dependent.
Hang on, just a moment.
I'm being interrupted here by the program observer.
No man is an island.
Snerdley is trying to confuse the issue.
What are you really saying, Mr. Snerdley, when you say rush?
And isn't it Mr. Limbaugh in this circumstance, by the way?
No man is an island.
What are you saying?
Are you saying I'm lying to people?
Well, what are you saying?
Mm-hmm.
Determination to be so independent.
Well, now that's it.
Snerdley says that this desire that I have to be totally independent runs counter to everything we're taught.
Oh, not counter to what I was taught.
Not counter to what I was taught.
My brother and I growing up, we were never, ever told that somebody else should have to support us or that we should have a claim on what somebody else has produced.
And this is what bugged that Walter Williams talking to Jesse Helms is right.
There are, and it's hard to trace the beginning of this.
And when you put a big pot of money someplace and you have elected officials in charge of spending it, you can imagine what's going to happen.
It's very seductive to be taken in by.
I tell you, you're entitled to it because it's yours.
It was yours first and it's just been taxed from you and now it's coming back to you.
I understand all that.
I understand how seductive it is.
I'm just, this is me personally.
I understand, folks.
Do not misunderstand me.
I know I'm in a very small minority here.
And I know that many of you are thinking, Rush, you're not, you're out of touch here.
Of course you don't depend on anybody.
Look at me.
Well, I had to work to get here.
It was an objective for crying out loud.
And I have to sit here and get criticized for achieving it by my own staff, overrated, and in some days problematic.
But I go back to look at what kind of mindset is it?
This sense of entitlement.
I could no more, I could no more live with myself if I found out that all I had to do was have 124 grand deducted from my aggregate pay over the course of 30 years, and in return I get 3.3 million, not because of anything I've done.
It's just me.
Sorry, I couldn't live with it.
I understand the need for money.
Believe me, I understand the importance of it.
Dawn, am I digging a hole here?
Do you think I'm digging a hole?
Dawn says 99.9% of Americans would sign up for the job where you have 124 grand deducted and you get 3.3 million when you retire at age 49.
Well, money for nothing.
Well, if that's true, I don't believe it's true because if it were true, Dawn, Obama wouldn't be in any trouble because all he's doing is giving away money.
All he's doing is giving away money to people.
People, look at, I think instinctively people understand this can't be supported.
This kind of deficit, $1.6 trillion for what purpose?
What good is coming from it?
Where are the jobs?
Where is any economic growth?
Where is any new creativity?
Where is any new innovation?
Where is Americans leading the world in manufacturing or inventing new stuff?
Where is it?
All this money is going to people who are basically sponges.
I'll take a break on that.
I haven't forgot about Sarah Palin.
Let me get to Sarah Palin and McCain.
I'm not avoiding this.
Folks, I'll say again, Sarah Palin is not a Tea Partier.
She spoke there, but she is a Republican.
And if she, and I'm, I've interviewed her a couple times for my newsletter and the radio show, but I haven't gotten into any of this kind of thing.
We talked about her bio in her book.
So I'm just my guess is as good as yours.
But I think if she's going to have a political career, it's going to have a big capital R next to her name, not a capital TP or some other party, not third party.
She's going to go Republican.
And there are just rules.
Politics is repulsive to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons.
But the one thing that she knows, I mean, you've seen the story about how she went into Daytona and totally took over the place.
Danica Patrick, who?
Sarah Palin went in there and was mobbed at the Daytona 500 on Sunday.
She was in there to speak, I think, to the Daytona Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
And she went into the driver's meeting before the race on Sunday and got standing O's from everybody on every crew.
He could not get out of there, signing autographs.
And there's one person that made that happen, and that's John McCain.
If McCain had not picked, despite whatever happened during the campaign to belittle her and on closed budget and all this stuff, one thing she knows is that Sarah Palin, nobody would know any more about her than they knew before McCain picked her, were it not for the fact that he picked her.
You remember how upset everybody got at George W. Bush, back when Specter was still a Republican, was running in the primary against Pat Toomey.
And Specter was a Republican disaster.
But Bush is out there endorsing him and raising money.
And I think he had a couple campaign appearances.
And what the hell is this?
Why did he get behind Toomey?
Where are the conservatives?
It is a problem in a lot of people's.
This is just how parties work.
This is why, folks, the Tea Party movement must stay oriented on reclaiming the Republican Party and not going third party, but reclaiming it and then establishing a new set of principles here that rewards conservatism first, foremost, and down the line.
It's going to be a slow evolutionary process because the rhinos are entrenched in this party.
And a lot of them are very wealthy, personally and as corporately.
And they're not going to give up the power that they've got easily.
It's going to be an ongoing battle.
We've talked about this battle for two years.
As conservatives, you and I know that we're persona non grata in the rhino Republican Party and in the liberal Republican Party, the New York elitist Washington corridor Republican Party.
We know those are the people saying the era of Reagan is over.
They're the ones that didn't like Reagan in the first place.
It was embarrassing.
They don't like abortion.
It boils down to the social issues with these people.
There's this new group of Republicans called the Mount Vernon Group.
And they're coming out with the position papers on stuff.
Republican Party's fighting the Tea Party people now for control of the party.
There's a big battle going on.
And I know personally, four or five of these very prominent members of this Mount Vernon group said, I'm not joining if the social issues are going to be part of our mission statement.
I don't want any part of it.
Meaning, they don't want this party having a thing to say about any social issue, not just abortion, but anything else that's cultural.
They want it to remain fiscal and political only, not cultural.
So the battle is going to be raging.
And I hate to put words in Sarah Palin's mouth because I'm just guessing and I'm neither defending nor criticizing.
I'm just observing and I think I understand why she's doing this.
I don't think in her mind she has a choice.
She wouldn't be who she is.
She wouldn't have all of this opportunity in front of her had McCain not chosen her.
So this is the obligatory payback, and I think after this, it's over.
This is, what would you say, the right thing being done that is required given circumstances, and then don't talk about it anymore.
Don't go and do any appearances, don't do that.
Just do the endorsement and move on.
And we'll see if I'm right.
Usually am.
But I haven't spoken to her about this, so I apologize if I've got this all wrong.
I'm not trying to put words in her mouth.
I was asked what I think about it, and that's what I think about it.
And frankly, one more thing.
It doesn't matter.
I'm going to be far more curious.
Her endorsement of McCain doesn't dampen anything I think about her.
It has nothing to do with it.
This is issues, issues, issues to me.
And just look for consistency on that side.
But I'm not kingmaker.
I even feel a little strange here saying, I'm going to be watching.
I'm just a guy on the radio telling you what I think about it every day.
And that's what I'm doing here.
Snirdly, would you get the smirk off your face?
You won't even let me try to be humble nowadays.
You also have to think of something else here, folks.
Imagine if Sarah Palin had not endorsed McCain.
Can you imagine the media field day with the following?
Oh, wait a minute.
Governor Palin, he's good enough to be president.
He's good enough for you to be his vice presidential running mate.
But he's not good enough to be senator from Arizona.
Can you imagine what they do to the?
And by the way, anybody who seriously read her book knew that she would do this.
She doesn't have one bad thing personally to say about McCain in her book.
With all the setting the record straight that she did vis-a-vis the McCain campaign and some of the staff, every comment she made about McCain in her book was positive.
But I shudder to think what would have happened if she'd endorsed somebody besides McCain and the media gets on this.
Oh, yeah, he's good enough to be president, but not good enough to be senator manager.
You know, loyalty is loyalty.
And sometimes people want ideological purity over loyalty and not realizing that loyalty is actually part of them.
By the way, Joe, the plumber's backed off, too.
Biggovernment.com.
Joe the Plumber says he shouldn't have said what he said about Palin, that he likes her and think that she'd make a good president.
Hillary Clinton has said that if Palin's elected president, she's going to be visiting Canada a lot more, which is where Clinton's girlfriend is.
So it could be a double meaning there.
But, I mean, that's not a bad notion, Hillary in Canada, a lot.
There were two people that I've been able to find so far who made the comment about when the public finds out it can vote itself money, the country's finished.
Ben Franklin, when the people find they can vote themselves money, that'll herald the end of the republic.
But Alexis de Tocqueville went further.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.
And we're, well, we've already busted through the envelope on that.
We're over 200 years.
But those are the two guys.
Now, we're talking about not taking government largesse.
I'm going to give you a sentence here.
And you tell me whose mission it is.
Pursuing truth and defending liberty since 1844.
Got a guess?
You don't know it now, but you're going to know it in not too long a time.
It's Hillsdale College.
Hillsdale College, one of the few colleges committed to raising the next generation of principal leaders, they are a new partner here, and we're honored to have them at the EIB network.
Every freshman at Hillsdale College signs an honor code to defend civil and religious liberty, and they promise to act at all times worthy of American blessings.
Every student at Hillsdale is required to take a course on the Constitution and pass it.
No matter what they major in, business, history, education, they must truly know and understand the Constitution before they can graduate.
Hillsdale does not take a penny of government money.
It doesn't even allow their stellar students to use government loans.
Why?
So they can teach America's brightest, the bedrock conservative principles without government interference.
Hillsdale offers teachings on conservative principles to you too, not just for their students on campus.
Subscribe to their free monthly digest in Primus, receive some of America's best conservative speeches.
It's as easy to do.
Dial a number 1-866-Hillsdale or go online to rush4hillsdale.com.
And while you're online or on the phone with the people at Hillsdale, you might want to consider making a donation to help them in their mission to pursue truth and defend liberty.
Do you realize what a big thing it is to not allow government student loans?
You talk about teaching independence.
Hillsdale College, an excellent institution of higher learning run by some very good people, producing some graduates that America needs for our future.
Well, it's official out there, ladies and gentlemen.
Lake Erie is now frozen over for the that's 241 miles of all ice.
First time since 1995 or 1996.
But back in April 13, 2007, Laurie David sent me a letter via the Huffing and Puffington Post.
Global warming causes extreme weather in both directions.
For example, the reason the blizzards are getting worse in the northeast is because the Great Lakes are no longer freezing over, thus fueling the stronger snowstorms that are topping the headlines.
And see, the lake's frozen over, so it can't be lake effect snow now.
But it wasn't supposed to freeze over because global warming.
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