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Aug. 25, 2010 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:44
August 25, 2010, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Okay, so the review here, folks, Sarah Palin has had, let's say, counted them up.
At least 11 of the candidates she endorsed go on to win, often against very long odds.
And don't forget, because the drive-bys are out there saying that Palin's lost her power, that Palin no longer has the ability to shape the political landscape.
It seems to me that 11 of the candidates she endorsed have gone on to win.
Obama has had one candidate go on to win.
They made a big news story out of that.
That was the schlub out in Colorado who immediately distanced himself from Obama.
And let's not forget that one of the candidates that Palin endorsed was McCain.
You know, nobody seems to want to remember this.
The drive-bys certainly don't.
And by the way, how about McCain?
$21 million from Mr. McCain Feingold, $21 million to beat J.D. Hayworth.
Ended up, I think, the outcome was 2-1, vote-wise.
Boy, it's a good thing we really got money out of politics, isn't it?
With McCain Feingold Campaign Finance Reform.
$21 million from the Maverick in a primary in which he was endorsed by Sarah Palin.
Hi, you folks.
How are you?
Rush Limbaugh here.
Fastest Week in Media.
It's already Wednesday.
Great to have you.
Telephone number, 800-282-2882.
That's right.
McCain ran to the right of J.D. Hayworth.
Now, J.D., now and then he went right.
Sometimes he went populist.
But McCain had to win out there by running to the right.
And the drive-bys are saying, oh, McCain's back.
McCain's back.
McCain's so far right.
He got a long way to get back to the center line.
I predict it won't take long to get back to the center line.
Bad news out of CB.
Well, no, no, it's not bad news out of CBS.
They're very happy about this.
Katie Couric, an all-time ratings lull for the CBS Evening News.
If you dig deep in the story, some CBS news execs reveal the truth.
Well, we weren't really looking for ratings when we hired Katie Couric.
Right, they weren't looking for ratings.
They didn't want a lot of viewers.
They weren't looking for people to actually watch the CBS Evening News.
I mean, they're admitting this now.
They weren't after ratings.
They were after plaudits, social architecture.
They wanted pats on the back or wherever from the now gang for hiring Katie Couric.
You know, the last time, well, Katie Couric's highest ratings in a normal busy news day, you know, outside of some special event driving the news was the second day of her program when I offered the commentary.
Jeffrey Lord, the American spectator, points this out.
The American prospect yesterday had this headline, The End of Palin as a Kingmaker.
Right?
Okay, so she's endorsed 11 people who have gone on to win.
And what?
One of them, Sarah Palin.
By the way, this Imam, Faisal Abdul Skyhook Raouf, you know who this guy is?
This guy, the way this is shaping up, this is looking to me like we're refighting the Cold War all over again.
Instead of the communists we're fighting, we're now fighting the middle of the Islamists.
And this guy, Faisal Abdul Raouf, is Alger Hiss version 2.0.
I mean, history is repeating itself like I haven't seen.
Alger Hiss version 2.0 is who the Imam is.
The guy running the mosque.
And this is who a Jennifer Rubin at Commentary says, you know, this is the balloon boy story of the summer.
They've raised $9 million or something, and something's going to cost $100 million.
There's no story here.
The story is how the anti-American left wants the mosque built, how 80% of Americans, 80% of Americans never thought the Soviet Union was the end-all, end-all in a panacea, but the American left and the intelligentsia did.
And that's why this guy, I'm going to call him Alger Hiss version 2.0.
You watch how that ticks them off.
Because they loved Alger Hiss.
I mean, one of the real reasons I hated Nixon, the reason even Nixon gave him OSHA, Nixon gave him the EPA, Nixon gave him all kinds of things.
He still couldn't win him back because they hated Nixon for prevailing over Alger Hiss.
Hiss was a known communist spy.
It was finally proven.
Now, I'm not saying this guy, the Imam, is a communist spy, but as far as the left is concerned, he's Alger Hiss version 2.0.
Imagine this.
Sales of U.S. new homes unexpectedly fell to a record low in July.
Unexpectedly fell to a record low.
These people, I'm convinced, are trying to tweak me.
They say a lack of jobs might have something to do with this, a lack of jobs.
Well, we think a lack of jobs is hurting more than America's confidence.
They also chalk this up to America's confidence.
A lot of people think that housing prices are going to fall further still.
And many people simply don't see buying a house as the kind of safe investment it once was.
In fact, the regime, forget who it is, I've got in a stack here.
There is someplace, the regime is saying that the American dream is now renting a house.
Homeownership is finé, total la completa.
The American dream now renting.
Most people should have rented in the first place.
And this many people shouldn't know.
This is from people who gave us the subprime mortgage crisis, encouraging people who had no business getting a loan to go out and get one and buy a house they had no business buying because everybody knew that they would never be able to repay it.
No, Snerdley, don't argue with me about this.
The Cold War analogy is right on the money.
We're now fighting the Moscovites instead of the Muscovites, which is what the old name for the Russians was, the Soviets, the Moscovites.
Now, the 9-11 attacks in New York City, lest we forget, took out an entire zip code, 10048.
They took out an entire zip code.
It doesn't exist anymore.
It is easy to forget the massive damage that it did.
You know, I was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
When was this, Snerdley?
How many years ago was it?
Two years ago, it seems like it was longer ago than that.
Well, whatever the year, what's his name?
Al Gore won it.
I ought to get the Nobel Prize for Science.
Look at this.
New microbe discovered eating oil spill in Gulf.
A newly discovered type of oil-eating microbe suddenly flourishing in the Gulf.
Suddenly?
Suddenly?
What, God just created the microbe?
Scientists discovered the new microbe while studying the underwater dispersion of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf following the BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion.
The micro worm, a micro microbe works without significantly depleting oxygen in the water, and it works in cold water.
Now, who was it that told you the ocean's going to eat this stuff alive?
It was I. L. Rushboat, one of the few willing to go out on a limb because I have an awe and respect for God and creation.
And even without a scientific education, without even scientific examination, just my own instincts called this long before these experts finally got into it.
They're so desperate to find that oil.
They're so desperate to prove it's still there.
They are so, so desperate for a disaster.
And the more they look into it, the more they can't find the oil.
Now they've found a microbe that's eating it alive.
A microbe suddenly flourishing in the Gulf.
My guess would be there's nothing sudden about this microbe at all, that it's been there long before we've even been around.
Do you know that, what's it, Max Baucus admitted in a town meeting he did not read the health care bill?
He's the author of Obamacare in the Senate.
And Max Baucus admitted that he didn't even read it.
He said, no, it's a lot of legalese.
We have experts to do that.
I don't think my constituents would want me to waste my time reading a bunch of statutory language.
So the author, the guy who wrote it, told his constituents he didn't know what was in it.
They have experts for that.
He was very proudly admitting this, proudly stating he had not read the Obamacare bill because it would be a waste of his time.
It's a waste of our time, money, and liberties, Democrats.
The Democrats are the biggest waste of time, the biggest threat that we face out there.
And Obama, the regime has told the United Nations America's human rights record is less than perfect, but stressed that the U.S. political system has built in safeguards that promote improvements.
In its first ever report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on conditions in the United States, State Department said on Monday, some Americans, notably minorities, are still victims of discrimination.
I'm not, I am not kidding you.
Notably minorities, many Americans still victims of discrimination.
It really is pretty outrageous, and it doesn't seem to have gotten any notice.
I would quote, you didn't, you're hearing about it for the first time now.
Well, we almost missed it, too.
This is a story from Monday, the AP, and it's another apology to the world.
Why are we reporting to the UN about anything, much less human rights?
The UN is the most composed of the friends and relatives of some of the worst thugs and people in the history of the world.
Our enemies.
And we're up there basically apologizing to them.
All right, a brief time out.
No, I didn't forget.
I'm going to give you the details of where Catherine and I were yesterday.
When I left here on Monday, I told you we had to go to a funeral for a 16-year-old man, young man.
That was just a tragedy.
No parents ought to have to ever bury a child, particularly 16 years old.
I will give you the details of this and who the person was, the family and all.
You'll recognize when we come back, and I'll fill you in on the details right after this.
Sit tight.
We'll be right back.
And we're back.
Hellrush Ball on the cutting edge of societal evolution.
America's real anchor man, doctor of democracy, and America's truth detector.
Now, most of you are going to know the story I begin telling here.
Those of you new to the program will not.
Let me give you a brief background on this.
The invasion of Iraq was in the spring of 2003.
Sometime later that year, I forget exactly when, I think it was summertime, I arrived home and there was a FedEx package that had been sent to the New York office.
Somebody there had then forwarded it down to me at my home here.
I opened it and I was in awe of what I found.
There was an American flag, a large American flag, properly folded in a Ziploc bag.
Accompanying the flag were five or six certificates, each certificate signed by a pilot, each certificate a picture of an American warplane.
The flag had been flown on each of those aircraft during the original invasion, the first bombing runs in the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The flag, unbeknownst to me, had been flown in my honor by a bunch of pilots who, also unbeknownst to me, were regular listeners and supporters of the program.
And the ringleader of this was Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hassara, who flew tankers, KC-135s, which is the military version of Boeing 707, and occasionally KC-10.
But Mark has flown the KC-135 tanker all over the world.
As they say, nobody kicks ass without tanker gas.
There was also enclosed a handwritten note on legal-sized yellow paper.
The note was from Lieutenant Colonel Hassara.
And it was a long note, and it explained what had happened and why, where the flag had been, the names of the pilots who had flown it.
I'm getting teary-eyed, misty-eyed reading all of this and looking at these certificates and looking at the flag, knowing that this had been done in my honor.
Here are a bunch of guys whose mission was to take out the Republican Guard, whatever targets they were assigned, in sandstorms or not, the original invasion.
And they passed that flag around from airplane to airplane to fly it.
And this is common, by the way.
Flags are flown on missions for people constantly, and the flags are then presented.
It was the first time it had ever been happened, it ever happened to me, done in my honor, and I was floored by it and began the process of trying to get to know Lieutenant Colonel Hassara.
I wanted to personally express thanks and tell him how honored I was by all of this.
And I've since gotten to know by email some of the other pilots.
One of them has called this program, Joe Katozinski Taz.
The last time he called, he was in the control tower at Baghdad International describing throwing a faulty French refrigerator off the roof.
It was a hilarious story.
So over the course of the ensuing years, Catherine and I got to know the Hassara family very well.
Last December, middle of December, they found themselves, Mark's now retired, they found themselves in Florida, so we invited them to come to Palm Beach for dinner.
They brought the whole family.
That flag has been framed.
It's on display in a position of honor at our house.
Catherine commissioned a giant eagle on a giant pedestal, a sculpted eagle, and we have placed the eagle in front of the flag.
There's a little sign, a plaque on the frame of the flag denoting what it is.
And around the corner from the flag are all of those certificates of the jets signed by the pilots.
They are framed along with the legal pad note written by Colonel Hassara explaining what that flag is all about, where it went, why it was flown, and so forth and so on.
We took a picture, a number of pictures of the Hasara family in front of the flag, and a picture with me and Lieutenant Colonel Hassara in front of the flag standing next to the eagle.
Now, those pictures, if not already, will soon be posted at Facebook on our Facebook page, which is facebook.com/slash Rush Limbaugh.
And the whole family is pictured in one of these.
One of the children at the time was 15, Jeff Hassara.
Prior to the family's arrival at our home in last December, Jeff was diagnosed with bone cancer, which is tragic in and of itself.
He was a classic violinist, was interested in learning to play the piano, a skateboard alongboard aficionado.
Went to M.D. Anderson in Houston for diagnosis.
The doctors decided they had to amputate his left arm as the best course of action to get rid of the cancer that was the best thing they could do.
So they did.
Unfortunately, we thought, by the way, in December when the family was here for dinner that everything was fine.
Jeff was in great spirits.
The whole family was.
It was right before Christmas.
These are very deeply and devoutly religious people, by the way.
And so we had a great time at dinner and had a lot of fun posing in front of the flag and just talking about life and stories of that kind.
Sometime this spring, I forget the exact month, Mark let us know that Jeff's cancer was back.
And it was back very aggressively.
And they went back to M.D. Anderson and a number of other places in Houston, which is one of the premier cancer research centers and hospitals in the country.
And it eventually doctors said that there really wasn't much more they can do.
There were numerous tumors and they were large and an insidious, ungainly large humor had grown in his left shoulder where the amputation had taken place.
Well, that began a whole period of time of prayer and hope, a lot of positive thinking.
There wasn't any denial.
I mean, they realized what they were dealing with.
Throughout this whole period, the young man, Jeff remained, I mean, obviously got depressed, but he was making jokes.
He said, Dad, you know, realize I'm right before the amputation.
I'll never be able to do this anyhow.
He said this while he's playing the piano.
That was very hard on the whole family.
And eventually the cancer won the battle.
And it was last Tuesday, was it?
Monday, last Monday at 4:15 in the afternoon that Jeff Hassara passed away.
Family was there.
The family live in Iowa.
That's where Mark is now working after his retirement from the military.
But the whole family is in Utah.
Both grandparents, Val's parents.
Mrs. Hassara.
Story continues when we come back.
Yeah, it was a week ago, Monday, 10 days ago, that now 16-year-old Jeffrey Hassara passed away.
And it was at, I guess, 6 o'clock in the evening.
Catherine and I are in the kitchen at home.
And we got an email.
got an email from from Mark telling us what had happened and it caught us by surprise.
I mean everybody was aware it was inevitable barring a miracle and there was hope for a miracle by the way.
So I reading the email and I said we'd been out to see Jeff and the family in Utah a couple months ago.
Jeff had asked to go out to Utah to see family.
All the family is out there.
All of his friends, family's friends are in Iowa, but all of his family's out there.
He'd requested to go out there.
So they drove him out there.
He was in great discomfort, had to lay on a mattress in the back of a van for 16 hours or 19 hours on the way out to Utah.
But his spirits were constantly up.
So we went out to visit and say hello.
And we stayed in regular email contact with the whole family, and we have ever since I've figured out how to track down Lieutenant Colonel Hassar after he sent the flag.
By the way, I want to read to you what his note said that accompanied the flag.
He said, Mr. Limbaugh, please accept this flag as a small token of our appreciation for your support of the troops currently in the Gulf as well as in other conflicts.
This flag flew on five different aircraft stationed at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
My fellow airmen would appreciate an email from you when you have the time so that we know you got the flag.
There are a few items folded in the flag, two coins from two of the squadrons.
It flew just as you see it in the plastic bag.
He, talking about one of the airmen, was the first.
This was tiny, by the way, this man, took it into Baghdad on a defensive counter-air mission in his F-15C.
This is why he wants to make sure you get the flag.
We've flown this flag for you to show in some small way our appreciation for your support of the troops in Iraq.
Many of us are avid followers, and though we didn't get the chance to listen to your show, we stopped by your website as much as possible.
From all of us, to all of you at EIB, and for all you do for the men and women in uniform, we salute you.
And that was from Lieutenant Colonel Hassara.
So that's what that brought some tears to my eyes, and heart was beating rapidly, and my chest was swelling with pride all at the same time.
So that's what started all this.
We tracked down the Hassara family, and they became good friends and remain so.
In fact, they were special guests at our wedding on June the 5th that weekend.
And they weren't going to come because of their son's condition.
He wasn't doing well back in June.
And Jeff, who we had been out to visit before the wedding, Jeff knew how much they wanted to come, so he told him to go.
He insisted that his parents go.
He said that they had had a tough year and they needed it.
So Mark and his wife Valerie showed up.
I introduced them.
Catherine and I introduced them at our wedding dinner on Saturday night.
And of course, we didn't, we told everybody not to bring gifts.
We asked if there was any desire to contribute to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
So we had those people there.
And everybody that met the Hassars loved them, and they learned of the story of their son.
And when I mentioned Monday wasn't going to be here yesterday, a whole bunch of people sent me notes from Kansas City, Vince Flynn, and his wife asking us to pass along their condolences.
Anyway, I got the email last Monday announcing the death.
And Catherine had been in regular contact with Jeff.
In fact, shortly after our visit to Utah, he went out and remember now he's not, barely weighs 100 pounds.
I mean, it's just terrible to see what this cancer is doing to this 16-year-old young man.
But he interpreted something in an email that I had sent him about plugging on and not giving.
He went and got a longboard, love skateboarding.
And they sent us a video actually on the skateboard in front of the family abode out there, you know, whizzing down the street with one of his friends who had flown out from Iowa with him to spend the summer as much, whatever length of time they were going to be in Utah.
And Catherine staying in regular touch via email.
So the note that he had died really caught us by surprise because just a couple days prior that he'd sent a note to Catherine updating her on his condition, but there was no allusion to any eminence of the death.
So it was a shock.
So Catherine said when she got it that I'm going out there.
I've got to go out there.
So Catherine flew out on the next day on Tuesday, a week ago today, or yesterday.
She flew to Iowa and spent the week with the family because all their family is scattered, most of them in Utah, many of them in Texas.
And they all work.
And so Catherine went out and helped them make arrangements.
And it was last Friday that Jeff's body was flown to Utah for the service for his family friends in Iowa on Thursday.
And then Friday flew his body out to Utah for the family to pay its last respects and for the funeral, which was yesterday.
And Catherine spent the whole week.
She got back late on Thursday night of last week.
And then we started making plans to fly out for the funeral, which was yesterday.
Now, I want to tell you a little bit about the day yesterday and this family, because it was, as all funerals are, it was very sad.
But I also thought it was a, in its own way, it was a beautiful day.
It was a wonderful celebration.
And they Sarah has made us members of the family.
They seated us in the front row with the family yesterday at the funeral, which is an honor that we won't ever forget.
I've told Mark and his buddies and his family how much love and appreciation I have, and consequently all of us, meaning you and me have for him, his family, people like them who serve in the military, volunteer to do so.
And he's always said to me that he appreciates that.
He understands that we have a great appreciation for his military work.
And I sent him a note last night to tell him that throughout my life and career, I've always appreciated the people who I define as making the country work.
And as I grow older, I'm in greater awe and appreciation for the people who make this country work each and every day.
And Lieutenant Colonel Mark Hassar and his family epitomize people who make the country work.
They are unsung.
They do not seek fame in any way.
They don't compromise their values for any temporary fleeting surface gratifications.
They epitomize American exceptionalism.
This family is like a lot of American families that you've never heard of, but the kind of families that define our greatness.
They're filled with love.
They define it.
They make the most of what they have, and they feel blessed for what they have.
And they consider whatever it is they have to be their good fortune in life.
And they're devoted to decency and goodness.
But the things they do, the heroism and the goodness, the good work that they do, are known only to their family and friends.
Nobody knows who they are.
Yet the country wouldn't be what it is and remain what it is without them and people like them.
As we were leaving yesterday after the funeral, this is the father of the man who's just been buried.
And he's walking us down and he's telling Catherine and me that I am the last voice for this country and so forth.
And I thanked him very much for that.
But in truth, it's people like the Hasaras.
And I'm sure many of you are just like them, and you know people just like them who are keeping the country alive and well and will sustain it.
They're the backbone of the country, people like this, in many ways.
We always wonder why such tragedies happen to people like this.
And these questions are one of many questions, the type of questions that we will never, ever have the answers to on this earth.
Now, there's a reason why this happened, but it's inexplicable to the living.
It makes no sense whatsoever.
Nobody in this family and this young man ever did anything to anybody.
Quite the contrary.
I'll never forget a story that Mark told me this, told Catherine and I this story in the most casual way.
One day, there was a knock on the front door at the home in Iowa, and it was a neighborhood kid who said, I want to move in with you.
Things at his house and his family were not all that well.
Now, I don't know about you, but if that happens, some neighborhood could, who I know, but not well, knocks and doors and says, I want to move in.
The last thing I do is take them in.
I mean, we'd try to find out what's going on.
But the circumstances were known, and Marcus R. said, well, if you want to move in here, here are the rules.
And those rules were going to constitute a major change for this kid.
And they took the kid in with everything else that was going on.
And they took the kid in seemingly without quite the idea of it, questioning it never crossed their mind, just how to do it right was what concerned them.
And they told us this story as though it's a common thing that anybody would do it.
And of course, it's not common.
Most people wouldn't welcome a troubled neighborhood kid to live in the family just because the kid knocked on the door.
Something like that is special and unique and shows the kind of people the Hassaras are.
Anyway, all of this and more is why we both profoundly appreciated being included in their moment of pain and anguish yesterday, a pain and anguish that no parent ought to ever experience.
But they were dealt a hand and they played it with class and dignity.
And their fine qualities have rubbed off on us.
And we're thankful to have made their acquaintance.
This is, you know, you talk about circles closing, loops closing, and things happening for a reason and why and how they all happen.
The Hassars are one heck of a great family.
They've now included us in the family, and that's to our benefit.
Catherine made last week, we got an airplane to take Jeff's body home.
And Catherine made this airplane.
Our pilot sent us a picture of it.
It looked like a military airplane.
It was a jet.
It was a Gulfstream 3.
But the way it was painted and outfitted, it looked like a military airplane.
And Catherine said, you know, it's amazing how circles get closed, loops get closed.
In 2003, Mark Hassara arranges for that beautiful flag to be flown in the original invasion of Iraq in my honor.
And all the thousands of pieces of mail we get here every day, somehow that was found and forwarded on to me.
And then 10 years, seven years later, we have a chance to some really small way return the favor by arranging for his son to be flown home to Utah for burial.
It was actually a very heartwarming thing.
And for us, it was a mixture of all the emotions that attach to something like this.
There's pain, there's questioning why this, but it was also beautiful in its own way to see the family, to see the entire community out there come together and learn of the stories of how this young man had impacted and changed the lives of people that he had met, and by virtue of his strength and compassion and deportment during this illness that he'd suffered.
So he was an amazing young man, and Catherine and I feel very fortunate to have met him.
But it's just a shame.
16 years old.
16, two short years on the planet.
So he was buried at a family grave site, and they returned later this week to Iowa to try to continue and move on.
But this is, as I say, and you well know, this is something no parent should ever have to do, and no parent really ever contemplates it.
So I wanted to explain all this to you just to, you know, I've tried to make a point here of sharing as much of my life as possible because you and I have a familial type relationship, you and I in this audience.
And I wanted you to know about the Hasaras, and I wanted you to know about Jeff and their family and what happened to him, because it's in the midst of the day-to-day grind, facing battles in which you question whether the country is going to survive and the economy is going to survive and so forth.
You have a chance to be immersed in a circumstance that is the epitome of unfortunate sadness.
But yet at the same time, that event inspired confidence that this country is going to survive because these are the people that make it work and these are the backbone.
And they, I think, are exemplary and emblematic of the kind of things that Americans that you've never heard of and never will hear of experience and go through every day.
So from Catherine and I and all of us here to the Hasaras, we love you.
We have a great, profound appreciation for you as human beings, not just your military service.
And wanted to take the time here to recount the story and to say God bless.
We'll be back after this.
Don't go away.
And we are back.
This segment's going to be very short here, folks, because I did not want to interrupt the story, the monologue in the previous segment.
Speaking of Facebook, we have three pictures up.
We have a picture of Jeffrey Hasara, facebook.com slash Rush Limbaugh, a picture of Mark and me standing in front of the flag that he flew, and one of the entire family that we took in front of the flag.
And they're now posted.
And we also have a new iPad winner.
We're giving away iPads three a week until August 30th for people who register on our Facebook page.
Today's winner is Alexander B. of Tampa, Florida.
We have three iPads left to give away.
These are 64 gigabyte iPads, 3G capable, engraved on the back, giant size engraving, the EIB logo, and the Rush Limbaugh signature.
We'll have another winner to announce on tomorrow's program.
So it's facebook.com slash Rush Limbaugh.
I really hope you take some time, take a look at pictures of the Hasara family, put some faces with the story.
And we'll be back.
Sit tight.
By the way, folks, one of the most preposterous things about the U.S. report to the United Nations Human Rights Council is when we apologize, the State Department actually begs the United Nations for suggestions on how we can improve on our human rights.
I kid you not.
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