Greetings, folks, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network, and Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
One big exciting hour to go.
You never know what's going to happen on open line Friday, although certainly I have to say this is not been a bomb today.
But there's still an hour to go.
But I think even if this hour bombs, the whole show cannot be said to bomb.
They got two out of the three hours in there that are good.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, email address L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
Whatever you want to talk about, folks, pretty much.
Still don't allow complaints about the phone billy, electric bill, or any of that, but anything else, feel free.
Oh, I'd forgotten about the football game predictions, yeah.
800 282-2882, email address L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
I am sorry.
I just like for the fourth time today.
I just said bomb and didn't realize it.
I am sorry.
We are when I we're really trying.
We're really trying here to lead the way in uh in civility.
In fact, we I far I I'm preparing um civil notification warning on this program, a lack of it.
You know, I think somebody's going to be in civil.
We'll just think you remember the civil defense warnings we had when we were kids.
A lot to plan for is the pre- Yeah, I am I'm I'm sorry to be exhaling.
I am I'm I'm zapped, I'm tired.
It has been a long week, but we got an exciting hour to go when they have the championship games coming up Sunday.
Three o'clock Eastern, the early game, Chicago Bears host the Packers and the Steelers host the Jets at 6:30 on Sunday.
But before we get to that, mentioned to you earlier in the program that that common cause is demanding that the Justice Department follow me on this.
The Justice Department is demanding an investigation into the Citizens United decision at the Supreme Court by demanding an investigation into the way Anton and Scalia Clarence Thomas decided the case.
And did they strategerize together and all that?
The Politico has a story about that all hot and trot.
Pantlessly, breathlessly, hoping that the Justice Department indeed investigates Scalia and Thomas.
Now in Philadelphia, we have a quasi abortionist who was murdering babies, botching abortions, using scissors.
He's charged with multiple counts of murder, but Roe versus Wade is not being questioned by any liberal reporter, is it?
There's nobody demanding an investigation of Roe v.
Wade, a Supreme Court decision.
Constitutionalizing this.
So we can go after Scalia.
We can go after Supreme Court because of Citizens United, but you got this doctor murdering people in Philadelphia.
And we're not going to go after the Supreme Court.
No, no, no, that's a great decision.
Roe versus Wade.
That's right.
Obama keeps saying that we have come back from the brink.
He brought us back from the brink.
And that this is it's now being treated as fact.
How'd he do this?
At what brink?
Did he take us to the brink of capitalism, the brink of socialism, the brink of collapse?
What brink?
And how did he bring us back?
How did he bring us back from this brink?
Stimulus bill.
Obamacare TARP.
TARP 2 TARP 3, Stimulus 4.
What did it call it?
What did he do to bring us back?
But yeah, it's it's now part of the media narrative.
We're back, folks.
Recovery in full swing.
Jobs not quite enough happening quick enough to overcome the pace of the recession.
We're on the way back.
We're back in the brink.
Well, yeah, you get if if you don't count the 18% of people that have a job, but uh they're being cared for.
Three years of unemployment benefits.
They're being taken care of.
They got nothing to complain about.
Democrats care about them.
From CBS, eyeball News 5 in Oakland.
A teacher at Oakland's Markham Elementary Scrual has been suspended indefinitely after screw officials said a pair of second graders performed sex acts on each other in class with the teacher present.
I think everybody's taken aback over this shocking incident, said Troy Flint, spokesman for the Oakland Unified School District, told CBS Eyeball 5 News on Thursday.
Of course, hard to understand how that could have occurred.
No, it's not.
It's not.
Have you ever watched MTV?
Taco Bell just pulled their ads from TV because similar kind of stuff's going on in a, I don't know, what's some reality show or something?
Well, let me see.
Yeah, boy and a girl.
Flint said the sex acts incident was one of two separate cases under investigation involving the teacher.
Both incidents occurred last week in the same classroom, but he said they didn't come to the attention of screwable officials until Wednesday.
In one case, several students apparently took off their clothes and were naked in the classroom.
In the second incident, a boy and girl reportedly engaged in oral sex in front of their classmates with a teacher there.
Flint indicated the suspended teacher whose name was not released was present for both incidents.
And he says, I think everybody's taken aback over this shocking incident.
Hard to understand how this could have happened.
Is it really that hard to understand?
I will take you back to the early 90s.
Out on Long Island.
Routinely, parents were inviting high school kids into their homes to have sex rather than the backseat of the car because it'd be cleaner and safer.
The schools have been using cucumbers to demonstrate condom deployment and who knows what else.
Liberal school officials have been opposed to abstinence, claiming kids are gonna have sex anyway.
You can't stop them.
This is California.
I'm not being dishonest.
This does not surprise me.
Jocelyn Elders wanted to begin sex ed in kindergarten, and she believed that masturbation was an appropriate form of birth control.
She wanted it taught.
You gotta demo it, folks, to teach it.
I mean, it got so bad that we were suggesting why stop there.
Why don't you just go ahead and give them a room in the school?
Get the school nurse to go, you know, get a bed in there, put a nightstand, put a pack of cigarettes on for when they finish.
I'm not kidding when I tell you this doesn't surprise me.
This has this has a natural progression if it's not stopped.
Uh let's see, indefinitely, a pair of second graders perform sex acts on the other.
Now, Snerdley, the well-known sexologist, geologist, biologist, says, but boys can't work in the second grade.
Tell that to this class.
Who cares?
Thirdly, it doesn't matter if technically anything worked.
The effort was clearly there.
Where are these kids?
Are you where are these kids getting it?
You ever?
Well, now, you're getting above my pay grade.
Snurby wants to know how to avoid a girl in second grade know how to do it.
What is a Lewinsky?
Okay, Lewinsky is oral sex.
Which, according to Clinton, and it's not really sex, because there's no intercourse.
So what's the big deal here anyway?
I'm just telling you what the left has said.
I'm just telling it's how they defended Clinton.
It's not really sex.
Uh have you um have you ever snurdly you you watch movies and television shows?
Uh you you think second graders don't get into R-rated movies or don't see them somehow?
Or worse.
Clearly, these two knew what was going on.
And a teacher, I doubt that this was a learning exercise for the teacher.
From a suddenly concerned New York Times headline, path is sought for states to escape debt burdens.
Hmm, what would that be?
What would a path be for the states to escape debt burdens?
Policymakers working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from undercrushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
Unlike cities, the states are barred from seeking protection of federal bankruptcy court.
That doesn't mean anything anymore.
Any effort to change that status would have to clear high constitutional hurdles because the states are considered sovereign.
Put Jeffrey Emelt in charge.
That's because the czar here to handle it.
Who cares about the Constitution?
What does it matter?
Bothersome constitution.
Notice here, though, that state sovereignty is only being brought up now, not when they're having new mandates heaped upon them by federal laws like Obamacare.
All of a sudden, state sovereignty matters when it comes to bankruptcy.
State sovereignty doesn't matter when it comes to forcing the states to take over health care expenses to make Obama look good.
You read the whole story.
I'm going to give you the synopsis.
You read this whole New York Times story.
The Times wants the states to get the same treatment the General Motors and Chrysler got.
Bailouts.
Which would seem to mean that the states are gonna end up being owned by the public sector unions, just like the UAW owns General Motors and Chrysler.
Which is not that hard to believe, given where we are.
In this story, by the way, I should tell you this, in this story about the states considering bankruptcy, the Times does not say anything about how Obama is going to saddle the states with huge costs they simply can't afford via Obamacare.
That's yet to come.
You know, that's that's one of those things lurking out there between now and 2014.
They're not in any financial, well, they don't even know what financial trouble is until that happens to them.
That's why 26, 27 of them are suing Obamacare, suing the federal government over this.
But now all of a sudden, when it comes to bankruptcy filings, the sovereignty of the states is a concern, but not when it comes to being forced by the federal government to assume all these Medicare and Medicaid expenses.
Remember when uh Mahmoud Ahmedizad showed up to Columbia University to make a speech two or three years ago.
Somebody in the audience raised their little student hand.
Mr. Ahmadizad.
What how do you handle homosexuality in Iran?
And Ahmadini Zad said we don't have any homosexuals in Iran, and they all started laughing.
And Ahmadini's ad said, Oh, you know of some.
Can you tell me where they live?
From the French news agency, Iran's hardlined president Mahmoud Ahmadini Zad said yesterday that homosexuality is against the human spirit.
In a 2007 speech at New York's Columbia University, he said in Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country.
He was met with howls and boos from the audience, and his remarks were later widely criticized by rights groups.
Addressing officials in the city of Yaz on Thursday, he said, they asked me at Columbia why you crack down on homosexuals in Iran.
I said, we don't have many, because we believe this act is against the human spirit and humanity.
Gay sex banned and punishable by death under Iran's Sharia-based law.
There will be some people who don't know that.
They're just gonna be shocked when they find out.
Remember the Dubai ports deal story.
I loved it simply because I like saying Dubai ports deal.
The Dubai, Dubai World Inc.
was managing ports all over the world, and they wanted to manage three or four of ours.
And everybody had a conniption fit.
It was very near 9-11, and so this is a great way for terrorists to get a legal entree to the country, so it caused a panic and it didn't happen.
This caused a lot of people to start looking at well, where is Dubai?
What is Dubai?
And people looked at Dubai and they marveled at what they saw.
My gosh, brilliant skyscrapers going up at the speed of light, luxury hotels.
Uh, it did defied imagination.
Where did all the money come from to build this?
They were setting themselves up in Dubai as the new vacation and investment spot for all of Europe.
And that great hotel called the Sale Hotel.
I have been to Dubai, it was my stopover point in the way to Afghanistan, spent two or three days there.
And flying into the place.
I mean, it looks like you're flying into Mars.
Red sand, uh, haze everywhere.
You look out the window and you see nothing but I've never seen so many oil tankers, and then out of nowhere, this massive skyscraper, uh uh uh skyline emerges, and you look out the window, and we were flying over, and there were all these islands that had been man-made off the coast of Dubai.
And these islands were gonna be housing developments or single-family homes, huge things, and everybody was marveling.
My gosh, they're building their own islands in Dubai.
It turns out two things.
All of that construction was done with slave labor.
It has come out, it is in the news today.
Slave labor built Dubai.
And people are scratching their heads.
What do you mean slaves?
There's not any slaves, there's any slaves in the world anymore.
The last place there were slaves was the United States.
Oh no.
Slavery's alive and well in certain parts of the country and parts of certain lifestyles.
But that's just all a build-up to this.
It is a story from the UK telegraph.
Dubai's islands are sinking.
They are falling into the sea.
The ambitiously constructed archipelago of islands shaped like the countries of the globe is sinking back into the sea, according to evidence cited by a property tribunal developed with tailor-made hotel complexes and luxury villas, sold to millionaires.
The islands off the coast of Dubai are accessible by yacht or motor boat, but now the island's sands are eroding, and the navigational channels between them are silting up.
The British lawyer for a company bringing a case against the state-run developer has told judges the islands are gradually falling back into the sea.
Said Richard Wilmot Smith for Penguin Marine.
The evidence showed erosion and deterioration of the world islands, with all but one of the islands still uninhabited, Greenland, and that one is showpiece owned by the ruler of Dubai.
Most of the development plans have been brought to a screeching halt by the financial crisis.
Now the islands are sinking.
Pictures of it here.
One of these islands had just one house on it, and they're and they're sinking.
And people, how in the world are they Billy's Islands out there?
And they are sinking.
Now, if they were smart in Dubai, they'd blame global warming.
And they'd suck it's an unprecedented pace.
The pace of global war and let's Dubai's pretty hot.
Dubai sweltering hot.
It's, I mean, built-in, built-in illustration.
Tony in Tampa, welcome to the program, sir.
Nice to have you on Open Line Friday.
Thanks a lot, Russ.
Do you remember when Uh Bush was running for president in 2000.
The hated Republican George Bush, how he was gonna uh kill Social Security and throw the old folks out into the street, and uh he was gonna do whatever he could to privatize Social Security, and there would be no Social Security for the old folks.
Well, my 85-year-old mother who ekes out a living on Social Security um every year that the hated Republican George Bush was president, she got a cost of living adjustment every year.
And when he was president, the economy wasn't in a tank like it is now.
Now we got the man of the people, the Democrat, the great Barack Obama.
She didn't get a cost of living adjustment in 09, 210, and she's not getting one this year because he says there's no inflation.
Maybe there's no inflation when you're on a 200 million dollar a day vacation, but down here on the street, there's inflation.
All you have to do is go into the supermarket, man, and inflation jumps right off the shelves at you.
Just go into the department store.
It reeks of inflation.
Go put gas in your car, and gas prices are necessarily skyrocketing.
Seldom have I heard such a lack of appreciation for a president as you have just exhibited on behalf of your mother.
Do you not know that for the past two years Obama has given every Social Security recipient $250 to make up for the no-cola?
No, no, he hasn't, Rush.
It was a one-time deal.
That was it.
That was in 09.
Nothing in 210, nothing in 211.
Really?
That's right.
I'm joking anyway.
So what?
Big 250 bucks.
Right, exactly.
Exactly.
Look, I agree with you.
There is inflation.
If you've seen the price of gasoline, like you just said, put the money in your car.
I'm telling you there is inflation all over the place, and they're not reporting it very high because that's not being wouldn't be very good economic news for the Obama re-election campaign.
Good point.
Republicans are always going to do all the harm to Social Security recipients.
Thanks for the call out there, Tony, and we will be back.
I must give credit where credit is due.
I uh misspoke in a minor way mere moments ago.
I said it is in the news that Dubai was built on slave labor.
It's not in the news, and that's the point.
I read it at Hillbuzz, the uh the uh the great blog out of Chicago.
They are the ones that have the story about slave labor having built Dubai.
Nothing about the ports, uh just the other stuff, including the islands that are now sinking.
Get what you pay for.
Uh who would put a foundation on the sand anyway, but these guys did looking for quick buck scam?
I'm just waitle.
Wait till the news on Hillbuzz about slave labor having built Dubai, wait till it gets into the mainstream if it does, wait until the uh Reverend Zach and Al Sharpton here about it.
It's a brand new market to exploit.
Start from scratch.
I mean, it's a golden opportunity.
And they will find out about it because the uh Reverend Dax runs his um um business out of Chicago, the Reverend Sharpton, wherever business takes him.
I have a question or two.
What whatever happened to um Obama's deficit reduction commission.
What ever happened to the uh the middle class commission that uh vice president Biden was in charge of?
Remember, nobody messes with Joe.
No, no, seriously, what happened to all this stuff?
We've had all these wonderful federal commissions by President Obama to get rid of the deficit, to expand jobs, grow the economy.
Whatever happened to all this stuff.
Um whatever happened, uh I mean, there's all kinds of these phony groups with phony charges, phony responsibilities, former objections.
Whatever happened to all this stuff, is this it's always forgotten.
We're looking at at an abject failure in this administration.
Kimberly Strassell has a piece in the Wall Street Journal today.
Obama's great leap rightward.
I'm not gonna read the whole piece to you, but she's got a great point here.
The White House has co-opted Republican talking points.
Will the House Republicans take advantage of their newly won recourse?
In other words, will the Republicans run around and start saying Obama has co-opted our language.
Obama's singing our tune.
It's a risky thing to do.
You gotta follow it up with what he's doing and what you've always said and what you believe.
But that's what Obama's doing.
I I um at least for now.
That's what he verbally it's what he's doing.
It's not what he's doing.
It's what it's what his it's what his verbal presentation is.
He's talking a great leap rightward, but he's not going there.
But he's stretching imagination and I knew he wouldn't.
Who's next?
Open line Friday Griffin in Evansville, Indiana.
Nice to have you on the program.
I used to fly over it all the time.
Nice to talk to you.
Thank you.
Uh the gentleman that called in Willago um talking about the union stuff and and wanting the um the was talking about how they should honor these uh Contracts contracts yeah the backbone of America.
Exactly.
Um grew up brother worked as a union coal miner in our area here which I'm sure will now be outlawed because we can't we can't run a coal industry anymore.
But anyway, uh union he they went on strike for a hundred and some odd days at one time he got the opportunity to be a company man to they were starting the reclamation program to reclaim all the ground and he took that job and at the Wait wait wait wait wait I need to learn the lingo does to become a company man be mean to become management yes.
Right.
Union was the and in the coal industry and probably okay got you all right so a salaried employee for the company now having to put up with all the union people in in any event um he he would talk about how the union is is kind of a there's a there's a duality or dichotomy in that in that the nonunion miner,
the non union auto worker, someone like Toyota that's nearby us in Princeton that builds the vehicle said his my brother's analogy was the the non guy owes his benefits package and his labor and his wages to the union guy because that's sort of helping set that standard but so it it's a it's an awkward thing but back to this guy's deal with it with the pensions sometimes the unions particularly the auto and the coal had so much power they really left the companies not a lot of option or not a lot of choice to simply adopt it.
So some of the stuff that has happened to GM and Chrysler and Ford too you know there's a lot of they had they had too much my opinion too much power too much ability to tell the company how to run the company how many people per ship people per job right it's called looting.
Exactly and so and the guy's saying that I wanted to take issue with or this point he made about um you know they should honor those contracts those guys didn't go into business.
I was in business I'd list these union coal miners come in when they were on strike and say how did you vote on this?
How'd you vote on this contract?
And the guy said I voted against it that could always be better and they were already making five times the wages I was to run my own business and I'm like you've got to be kidding me.
I mean I mean come on guys you try to work with them a little bit and and nope you know and then be frustrated when it went out of business and what's happened here is some of the coal mine stuff that's that's not dissimilar.
It's very similar to the auto industry and how it was done they've just come back and they're mine at non union.
I mean it just took a long run around to get the company to come back.
You know they still got the they still got OSHA and EPA and everybody to to sort of watch over that to make sure it's right but but yeah when when the guys aren't working they don't get paid when they when they get done with their job or fired or retire don't give any conversation.
The um I would apologize in advance for this uncivil rhetoric but what you're basically saying is that the unions effectively had a gun to the head of the companies.
Not in so many words exactly right I know it sounds uncivil but the hell with it right yeah and uh you know I'm not saying that the unions I'm worried if the union was to completely go away that some place like Toyota and Honda and these places that aren't union and I don't this is going to offend you but with Walmart eyes that job for us.
They go to the Walmart worker and let's face it if you can stock shelves and tell me where the sporting goods section is in Walmart you can put a wheel on a car and they come to him and say how would you like to make four dollars more an hour?
Well they'll think they've died and gone to heaven and up to Toyota they go.
So the union issue Wait wait a second did you just say if if if you can stock shelves and tell me where the sporting goods section is at Walmart you can put a wheel on a car.
Yes I did say that what I'm getting at is a lot of those jobs are low skill jobs.
They have a good benefits package it wouldn't take much to trump another non union huge conglomerate and take some of their workforce and now the person that's working at Toyota says well I'm not going to work for fourteen dollars an hour.
I'm making twenty now he says well that's what the job's gonna pay because the union's not there anymore.
So there's a huge issue in my opinion that needs to be carefully resolved there.
And I don't know if that's why I'm telling you this.
You can think about that and give me your advice on how that's going to be fixed, you know.
Um just has too much power.
You know what I know it's playing simple.
That was the whole issue.
Well, uh one of the reasons is that they got a president who is the number one union boss uh in in the country.
I think what's what's the unionized workforce private sector 11 point now, 12%, something like that.
Well, I saw just recently it's like 11 point now.
Whatever, eight, twelve, it doesn't matter.
Obama is the president of twelve percent of the people, eight percent, whatever number you want to use, and uh eighty two, eighty-one, so eighty seventy-nine percent of people uh bear the brunt of it.
No question about it.
Look, um, I'm glad you called.
I appreciate it.
Thanks very much.
I like that.
If you can point out where the sporting goods section is at Walmart, you can change it, tire.
And we're back.
It's Rush Limbaugh.
It's open line Friday.
Nice to have you with us as we get close to the wrap-up here.
I mentioned earlier working on an uncivil speech system alert.
In the event that I spot it and think the audience needs to be warned.
This is uh this is one of our betas, if you will.
Warning.
Warning.
The young civil speech system has been activated.
You are advised to defend your ears until the all clear is sounded.
That's beta one.
This is Beta 2.
The Uncivil Speech System has been deactivated.
It is now safe to resume your daily activities.
Oh, there's a deactivation in there too.
I thought it was two activation systems.
I just got them in the email and I didn't have a chance to fully digest.
So that's that's the uh here, play the warning again, just if it happens, because if I use it, we're just gonna throw it in there the moment I hear it.
The moment Warning, warning.
The uncivil speech system has been activated.
You are advised to defend your ears until the all clear is sounded.
Uh so being on the lookout, uh, this will be activated only for callers, not for me.
I'm immune.
I'm that's what power.
Uh so that that's the uncivil defense system.
Right.
All right, now to the weekends games.
These are really I mean, here's here's the the knee jerk picks, Packers and Steelers.
That's the knee jerk pick.
The knee jerk pick is uh the Packers best team in the NFC.
Uh the thing that negates it is the field in Chicago, but both teams have to play on it's gonna be cold.
It's gonna be hard for Aaron Rodgers to have the kind of game he had in Atlanta, rolling out, passing, not much win, but it's um it's uh it's you couldn't I don't think you can expect that kind of a high scoring game in that kind of weather.
In Pittsburgh, uh home team, you've got Palomalu playing and Heath Miller playing who didn't play against the Jets the first time.
The Jets had a kickoff return things you can't plan on happening two times in a row to win.
Steelers blew three end zone opportunities to win the game or tie it in the uh in the last minute.
Uh clearly the Steelers are the better team.
Not that that matters.
That's that those are the knee-jerk picks.
And there would not be I'm false I'm telling you right now that with no offense intended for anyone, simply as a football fan of these four teams, there is no better Super Bowl matchup than the Steelers Packers.
No better Well, Jets, Packers is uh is a s that's acceptable.
Jets Packers is acceptable.
Bears in the Super Bowl, that means Obama's going, and we d man ruining.
Oh I don't mean to slight the Bears.
I just you know the and I I guarantee you, you take a look at the Chicago media, they are scared to death.
You know, Jay Cutler, the quarterback, he's had a couple three really good games in a row, but his history is turnovers at at at at bad times.
And in games like this, you know, there's so many cliches in football.
You gotta hold on to the ball.
You can't turn it over.
That and special teams, that turnover stuff is magnified in importance in the uh in the playoffs.
If you go position by pitch position and match them up, Steelers, Jets quarterback, no question.
Pittsburgh wide receivers.
Um maybe a toss up there, but on the defensive side, the question is do the uh do the uh Darrell Darrell Reeves and uh Cromarty on the on the cornerbacks for the Jets.
Can they keep up with the speed burners?
I mean, Revis is the best cornerback, shut down quarter, but can he keep up with the speed of Mike Wallace?
That's who he's gonna be on.
These are the things I'm gonna be looking for, and of course, running game.
The Jets can't run the ball against the Steelers, they got trouble because then it's up to Mark Sanchez.
And that's not what the Jets want.
They have got to be able to run the ball.
So I think they're gonna be two great games.
I don't think we're gonna have a dud among them.
I don't see a blowout on either side.
I don't think the the only chance you're blowout is Packers.
They're the ones that have the ability to score that kind of point, those those kind of points, even in um in weather like this.
Steelers are not a big point team.
The Jets uh on the road probably aren't either.
The weather's gonna be similar in the 20s, 20%, uh 30% chance of snow, if if that matters.
But I've got real problems picking the Steelers.
I'm gonna tell you a little story.
I have a couple friends on the Steelers who have begged Catherine and me not to show up.
We have been to three Steelers games, two road games and one in Pittsburgh, and they've lost every one that we have attended in person.
And uh one of one of my friends there said, please, and it was serious.
Please do not.
Do not, if you're there, don't come down to the sideline.
We don't want to know you're I'm not folks.
I'm not kidding you.
We're not going, we're staying home.
I'm I'm camped, I'm camped in front of the TV today at home or Sunday.
So given that's why I picked I picked Baltimore last week, because I'm always wrong on these things.
I have been in the playoffs, so I ought to be picking the Jets.
But I Yeah, I think I'm right on the Packers.
The Packers, I don't think I'm jinxing it, but I'll just tell you, I think the Packers is the easiest pick of the two games.
Sturdley just asked me if the Jets defense can stop the Steelers like they did the Patriots.
They can't stop the Steelers like they did the Patriots.
They can't use the same defense that they used against the Patriots.
They have the ability to stop the Steelers, but not with the same defense.
The Steelers have an entirely different type of receiver core, uh, and the Jets are gonna have to come up with a whole different scheme.