Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 Podcast.
You know what I hope, folks?
You know, I'm really hoping right now.
I hope CNN has our old buddy Nick Robertson on the first plane out to Japan.
I can't wait for Nick Robertson to hit the ground in Japan, run up to people in the earthquake region, and ask them if they have a message for President Obama.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Nick Robertson here with Keiku.
Kiku, what is your message for President Obama?
Well, hey, folks, I mean, uh, how long is it going to be before we start?
He's got a press conference here about 25 minutes.
Right in the middle of this program.
We might jip a little bit of it just to have fun, just to have fun.
But how long is it going to be before the press starts talking about this uh this earthquake and the tsunami and how it impacts Obama?
Well, as everything does.
And did you hear what Obama said?
What a what a tin ear.
Obama issued a statement, and he referred to our alliance with Japan as unshakable.
On the day a record earthquake hits.
8.9% on the Andy Richter scale.
Eight point or eight point nine.
And our alliance with uh with the Japanese unshakable.
How are you, folks?
Rush Limbaugh here to wrap up a busy broadcast week on open line Friday.
Here's the telephone number.
Remember, all of you paid actors write your own script on Friday.
Snerdley's got this look of shock on his face.
You know you're they're gonna believe you if you keep joking about this.
I can't change what they are going to believe.
They make it up anyways.
It is open line Friday, whatever you want to talk about, fair game.
Uh Monday through Thursday, I have to care about it at least a little.
But on Friday, if I don't, hopefully you'll never know.
I'm the only paid actor on Friday, that's for damn sure.
That's the way to look at this.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882, email address L Rushball at EIBNet.com.
So as you've heard by now, Japan was hit by an earthquake.
It was either 8.4 or 8.9 on the Andy Richter scale, depending on whom you listen to.
Now, in any case, it is said to be the biggest earthquake to hit Japan ever.
It's also supposed to be the seventh largest earthquake ever recorded.
And they're saying that there has never been a tsunami like this.
As far as anyone knows, the waves are just now starting to hit the uh U.S. left coast.
Our cameras are out there watching the waves roll in.
They got some surfers out there taking advantage of it.
Uh geologists are saying this earthquake 900 times the size of the Northridge, California earthquake.
Just to put it in a little perspective.
You of course remember the Northridge California earthquake.
You do.
You remember the Northridge earthquake.
When was it?
Okay.
When was the North Ridge earthquake?
You claim to remember it.
When was it?
1979, 80.
You think of the earthquake that uh whole section of the Bay Bridge plunked?
Is that what you're thinking of?
Or you're thinking of a different one.
The apartment building in LA.
Okay, so you okay, so you've got the right one.
All right.
Well, I I don't remember the Northwidge earthquake, but you do.
Oh.
Oh, well, you better be pretty smug then.
Your friends moved to California, probably get away from uh hurricanes and stuff, and they move out there in the North Wedge earthquake happened.
They move right back to the East Coast.
That's the way it uh generally happens.
Some of that footage, that whirlpool in the ocean.
I thought I was reading the book of Revelation when I looked at that.
It looked like the end times out there, or either that or the special effects of a of a of a movie.
Uh, but this has to be, folks, this has to be a tough call out there for the environmentalists around the world.
Because much of the damage, you know, they're scrambling right now to blame this on global warming.
We're gonna try to find a way.
But much of the damage in Japan seems to have happened in that part of Japan most heavily involved in manufacturing cars.
So do the environmentalists cheer or do they pretend to be saddened by this?
Well, I think it's a um it's a legitimate question.
Wait.
Uh I don't know if the Prius is made in that particular.
That would really be a dilemma for them if the Prius, or maybe electric cars are made in uh in that area of Japan.
There's a story in the New York Times today.
This is uh unbelievable.
I want to go back and play for you a soundbite from this program.
Uh actually, me, your host, on October 20th, 2009, year and a half ago or so.
And Anita Dunn had just gone up to the National Cathedral to wish somebody goodbye and started talking, or maybe she was talking to students, I forget who, but she was telling us how much she admired admired Mao Tse Tung.
Remember?
And a lot of people were shocked and stunned by this, and I said, why?
I mean, that's that's who these people are.
Mao Tse Tung, it's catastrophic.
That was the point of the soundbite.
This is what I said.
Can you think of any other administration in this country where a president or a communication specialist or anybody else would run around and start praising Mao Tse Tung as a role model, as a philosopher to follow?
Can you think of any administration who would have previously cited Stalin or Lenin or Castro?
This administration idolizes all these people.
I'm not suggesting they're mass murderers.
I'm saying they envy the total control, the tyrannical control that Mao Tse Tang had.
I have often uh said in people uh to people who ask, Well, why I don't understand Cuba's a country falling apart.
Why these people, all these actors, and so why do they idolize Castro?
Because he's got total control.
100% total control.
So Anita Dunagone out there and praise Mao Tse Tsung.
There was reaction to it.
New York Times story from uh yesterday, actually, it's by Mark Landler and Helene Cooper.
And the headline of this story, Obama seeks a course of pragmatism in the Middle East.
And it goes on and on and on.
It prints out to three or four pages.
Then you get to the last paragraph of this story.
Now keep in mind the soundbite that you just heard.
Last paragraph.
How Mr. Obama manages to do that while also balancing American interests is a question that officials acknowledge will plague this historic president for months to come.
Mr. Obama has told people that it would be much easier to be the president of China.
As one official put it, nobody scrutinizing Hu Xin Tao's words in Tahrir Square.
So the regimes put out news that Obama envies Hu Jin Tao.
Because Hu Xin Tao doesn't have to analyze anybody.
And they don't analyze what Hu Jintao says if they want to stay alive.
They're pointing out over in Egypt, all this pressure for Obama to say something in Cairo, now say something about Libya, and Obama's sitting here in the White House going, ah, gee, why couldn't I be Hu Juntao?
Nobody cares what he says, nobody's monitoring his words.
Why couldn't I have and consolidate that kind of power?
Yeah, America's a tough place.
Mr. President, it really is a tough place.
You know what the problem Obama faces?
You know what this Hujentao comment really shows up?
The real telling of this is, meaning in Libya, in Cairo, in Iran, anywhere.
You go around the world, nobody's looking to Hu Jintao to help them with their freedom fight.
But they all are looking to the United States for help with their freedom fight.
That has been our role in the world.
One of the many characteristics of American exceptionalism.
People seeking freedom around the world have always looked to the United States.
They don't look to Hu Xin Tao.
So Hu Jintao doesn't have the burden of helping people gain their freedom, quite obviously.
Hu Jintao is a bully, by the way.
As a totalitarian authoritarian figure, Hu Jintao's a bully.
I wonder how Hujintao feels about Obama and Michelle My Bell running around now ripping bullies.
So I just I think this is quite telling.
He's feeling the stress, and here it is in the New York Times.
He's feeling the stress, people actually paying attention to what he says.
People around the world who want their freedom.
Ah, gee, why are they calling me?
Gosh, I wish I were Hu Juntao.
Nobody has to listen.
Nobody pays attention to what he says.
By the way, um, the Prius is made in the area of the earthquake in Japan.
So is the Nissan Leaf.
The full-fledged electronic buggy.
The Northridge earthquake with 1994, by the way, Mr. Snerdley.
So, there you have it.
Gosh.
Mr. Obama has told people to be so much easier to be the president of China.
No one is scrutinizing Hu Xin Tao's words in Tareer Square.
Sit tight.
A busy broadcast week comes to a screeching close here on the EIB network.
Back right after this.
Open line Friday, Rush Limbaugh at 800-282-2882, the email address L Rushball at EIBNet.com.
You notice all the uh stories about how the Wisconsin Capitol of Madison is now eerily quiet.
After the uh the assembly vote yesterday, eerily quiet.
It's uh it's clear that the organizing for America crowd and the union thugs are not going to waste any more money on a lost cause.
So voila, all of these, all of these hard working middle class families have just magically disappeared.
And now we're hearing all this talk about recalls.
And not for the Democrat senators who ran away and hid rather than do their jobs.
Well, we're hearing about recalls for the Republican senators who did their jobs.
But recalls involve getting names on petitions, which is what the unions like the SEIU and the groups like Acorn and Organizing for America do best.
So I just want you to remember now that quiet has taken over in Madison, Wisconsin.
Don't forget the pictures.
Remember when you see these spittle flecked, red-faced, crazily ranting protesters.
Remember those pictures.
These are the same people who can normally be found in the classrooms, indoctrinating your crumb crunchers.
And you are paying them to indoctrinate your crumb crunchers.
They may not all have been teachers in Wisconsin.
They might have been bust in from elsewhere, but that's who they are.
And I I noticed how many of these protesters were carrying signs about freedom, which is ironic because what they were doing was trying to prevent anyone from having a choice about whether they have to join a union or not in order to teach in public schools.
They're trying to make uh make sure that unions can continue to force their members to pay dues, whether they want to belong to the union or not.
So we had a government shutdown in Wisconsin.
It's important to remember now who did it.
Who was it that tried to cause a government shutdown in Wisconsin?
And notice, notice how all of a sudden a government shutdown is not so bad after all.
When the right people do it, it's not so bad after all.
But if you're a lib out there, don't worry, don't panic.
All is not lost.
Because the Democrats are already saying it, they're gonna roll back the Walker reforms as soon as they get the majority back in Wisconsin.
And they're using this as a fundraising effort now.
Meanwhile, these videos that I spoke of mere moments ago, these videos, of their spittle flecked tantrums will be priceless for the other side.
Think about how hard it is going to be for these Wisconsin Democrats to run as rock ribbed conservatives after this display of their true attentions.
And make no mistake, they will.
Liberals seek to win, they have to move to the center.
Portray themselves as something other than what they are.
Here's the AP story.
Wisconsin quiet after anti union vote.
It's an AP story.
And they're stunned.
They are amazed at AP that why just yesterday it was a cauldron.
It was a hotbed of democracy in action.
The great American left striving to maintain its authority and control today.
It's like a cemetery.
But it's not a mystery.
Let me help the people at the AP.
Organizing for America, the Obama people, any unions are not going to waste any more money or time on a lost cause.
So voila, all of these hard working middle class families.
All of these put out.
All of these discriminated against middle class families.
All these people that Richard Trumpka says.
Republicans want to deny a middle class lifestyle.
That's what he said.
Richard Trumpke, who, by the way, Mr. President is a bully.
Richard Trump has said that what's going on here is that Walker, the governor, and those Republicans want to deny a middle class lifestyle to these hard working, spittle flecked middle class families who joined the effort to deface the state capital in Wisconsin to threaten violence.
They've just magically disappeared now from the Capitol.
I mean, you can't expect people to protest for their rights if nobody is going to pay them.
And the money has run out.
The cause is gone.
Voila, that's it.
And there are competing stories I have here in the uh in the snack of stuff.
Here is one.
This is from a the heavily unionized associated press, by the way.
Headline, uh Wisconsin vote vilifies public workers, according to White House.
The White House is denouncing a vote by the Wisconsin Senate to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from government workers, calling it an assault on public employees.
If that's true, then why is it that federal employees are not offered the same so-called collective bargaining rights that the public sector unions in Wisconsin enjoy.
We've told you before it was President Jim McCarter who stripped federal workers of most of their sacred collective bargaining rights back in 1978.
There was little or no outrage at the time.
And oddly enough, Mr. Obama has done nothing to restore those supposedly sacrosanct rights.
But that didn't stop the spokesman Jay Carney from saying Obama believes it is wrong for Wisconsin to use its budget troubles to denigrate or vilify public sector employees.
The truth was Governor Walker was trying to save jobs.
He was trying to prevent people from being laid off.
Seems to be an unusual way of denigrating and vilifying somebody, if you think about it.
State Senate acted on Wednesday night by using a procedural move that we all know here to pass the anti-bargaining rights measure.
And the White House now says that uh this vote vilifies public workers.
Washington Post, Karen Tummulty.
Wisconsin governor wins his battle with unions on collective bargaining.
Now there's a quote in here.
Who is it?
Mark Melman, a Democrat polston, uh Pulster said, Yeah, from the looks of it, he's winning.
Governor Walker is, but he's winning the battle through pure uncompromising force, but he is losing the war.
Losing the war.
He's creating all kinds of bad vibes.
He's getting all kinds of bad press from Melman's buddies.
He's winning.
But he is losing.
Although Wisconsin's traditionally had liberal and conservative forces, usually the discourse is much more civil and deliberate, even when there are differences in public policy, said Dennis Dressang, the founding director of the Leo Follett School of Public Affairs of the University of Wisconsin Madison.
If this can happen to Wisconsin, it can happen anywhere, he said.
Yeah.
It can and it will.
Somebody making a hundred grand total makes a demand to somebody 50, I want to raise, and I want the total authority to determine how much I get paid.
And you're going to pay me.
As long as that remains the equation, these battles will continue and they will increase.
And the Republicans will continue to win them.
As the Wall Street Journal in an editorial today says, their headline says that all taxpayers win in Wisconsin.
The changes to collective bargaining help taxpayers.
When a liberal governor assumes office and gives away the story, can't do this now just as easily.
When a Democrat, the day's going to come, they'll elect a Democrat governor again in Wisconsin someday.
It's going to be very tough for this guy to go in and reverse this because this is going to have, what Walker's done here, he's going to have meaningful fiscal reform.
People's taxes are going to be cut.
The budget deficit is going to come down.
It's going to be very difficult for the next Democrat, not to say they won't try it, but it's going to take a big political reversal to go back to the old ways.
Welcome back to Open Line Friday.
I'm your host, El Rushmow, serving humanity.
How does that happen?
I show up.
It's that easy.
Telephone numbers 800 282-2882.
I just listened to a little bit of uh Obama's press conference opening, spreading his calm on the troubled waters between here and Japan.
And he uh he pointed out that we are at one with the Japanese people.
The American people through him offer our condolences, and we will do anything.
He said, We're sending an aircraft carrier over there to help them.
He did not identify the aircraft carrier.
I happen to know which one it is.
It's the USS Ronald Reagan.
Obama didn't identify it.
I don't know if that was purposeful or a faux pas, or he thought it was not relevant.
But just so you know, it's the USS Ronaldus Magnus that's now steaming its way to uh to Japan.
Investors Business Daily editorial.
Wisconsin's Walker has his patco moment.
That's the air traffic controller strike.
Reagan.
Fed up with Democrats' no-show tactics, Walker used a perfectly legal parliamentary maneuver to get a vote.
And on Thursday, the bill passed the State Assembly by 53 to 42.
Walker did it for the countless taxpayers who want us to balance our budgets and more importantly, to make government work for each of them, to which we say amen.
Finally, the taxpayers have a seat at the table.
A point that I was making yesterday.
When there's collective bargaining with public employees, government unions, who they negotiating against?
Us.
Who represents us at the negotiating table?
There hasn't been anybody.
The taxpayers have no representation.
Collective bargaining talks going on with nobody representing the players.
Well, in this case, Scott Walker represented the taxpayers.
In this case, Scott Walker was representing the people who are paying the salaries and benefits of the government union people.
Yeah.
Well, they've got a seat at the table.
The tantrum thrown by the unions, and they're bought and paid for Democrat politicians.
You'd think it'd been slow uh sold into slavery.
The way Trump and the boys were talking about this, that these government union people paid twice when private sector workers make in Wisconsin were sold into slavery, just like Spike Lee thinks LeBron James was sold into slavery when he took his talents to South Beach to play for the Miami Heat, who really don't play in South Beach, but who's keeping track.
Slavery.
That's how oppressive Governor Walker was.
But in the end, Scott Walker won, and his courage is having an impact.
Very quietly, Idaho on Tuesday ended tenure for their public teachers.
In Iowa, the legislator, legislature, has begun debating its own bill to curb public unions' bargaining Power over benefits and layoffs.
And in Ohio, John Kasich, the governor there seeks to limit union bargaining power to wages only, not benefits or layoffs.
IBD says perhaps we've reached a turning point in reversing the union's pernicious influence on public policy and their insistence that the 95% of the population that does not belong to a public employee union must be taxed to pay for organized labor's gilded benefits.
Amen.
That's exactly what's going on.
The 95% of the workers in this country who do not belong to public sector unions are being taxed and taxed and taxed to pay union workers and more importantly, their leaders who are in the five to six hundred thousand dollar a year range.
All of that is taxpayer money.
It's not the result of sales of iPads.
It's not the profit coming out of Walmart, for example.
It's taxpayer dollars.
So perhaps now there has been a turning point in reversing this kind of influence.
If so, investors business daily.
This will go down as a shining moment for Walker, Wisconsin, and state governments everywhere.
But let's go back to the Associated Press on our around the world tour.
The way the AP is looking at this is embodied in their headline.
Wisconsin defeat could help launch counterattack on GOP.
With a labor movement suffering an epic defeat in Wisconsin, perhaps other states' union leaders plan to use the setback to fire up working people nationwide and mount a major counterattack against Republicans at the ballot box in 2012.
Let's look at the numbers.
5%, even 8, 8% max of American employees unionized.
Somehow these numbers benefit the Democrats and hurt the Republicans.
There's going to be a counterattack on the Republicans with 5 to 7% of the American population.
What is the percent of public sector union members in the general population anyway?
Compared especially with the percentage of taxpayers whom they are fleecing.
We're talking about a percent of a percent here.
What's happened here is a great awakening.
Taxpayers around the America, around the country are understanding just who it is they're paying and how much they're paying them.
Now, all during 2007, 2008, we heard about Barack Obama as a community organizer.
A lot of people didn't know what that meant.
Well, it's a community organizer.
And when you stop and think about it, people who live in the real world and hear words like community organizer would probably think that Obama was standing around in a community somewhere and organizing the people there.
Yeah, okay, but to do what?
To go to grocery store?
To um meet the bus on time?
What is community organizing?
Now, what are people in the community doing standing around waiting for somebody to show up and organize them?
What exactly is it?
Well, we just saw it.
You just saw what community organizing is.
You saw it for weeks.
It's $7.5 million in damage to the state capital.
It's vandalism.
It is pollution.
It's litter.
It is spittle flecked faces storming their way into the building with open windows.
It is an attempt to shut down the normal democratic flow of government operations.
You just saw community organizing.
You just watched it.
In fact, the website that put all this together is appropriately named, organizing for America.
I can't tell you the number of people over the course of years.
What is a community organizer?
The uh Republican convention.
Rudy made fun of it.
Talked about Obama being community organizer, started laughing.
Community organizer, what's a community organizer?
It's Intimidation, it's bullying, it is shaking down other people for money.
Community organizers are bullies, making Obama a bully.
They shake down businesses.
Jesse Jackson's a community organizer.
It's not a bunch of poor people standing around an oil drum with a burning fire in five-degree weather in Chicago in the middle of February.
And some guy who cares about their welfare comes out and organizes them and tells them where to go, pick up a sterno log to stay warm.
It is intimidation.
It is bullying.
It is what you saw going on in Wisconsin.
That's what, if you've ever wondered what community organizing is, that's it.
And there's more of it on tap as these defeats continue to set up for the Democrats.
Wisconsin's measures stripping public employees of most bargaining rights swiftly advanced to Governor Walker on Thursday.
He promised to sign it as soon as possible.
But this is all gonna lead to a big defeat for the Republicans.
That's the AP take on this whole thing.
Richard Trumke, one of the bullies in organized labor, he of the AFL CIO said Governor Walker's overreaching has brought us to this moment to be able to talk about jobs, to be able to talk about the right to collective bargaining.
This is the debate we've wanted to have for 25 years.
Well, guess what?
Suddenly the debate came to us.
And he lost it.
But the die is cast, the tears have dried up, the teets have gone dry.
The gravy train is derailed.
The golden goose has died.
The money tree has withered away, root and branch.
Their ultimate defeat, the Trumpas, the organizers, their ultimate defeat is inevitable.
It's now only a question of how ugly they want to make it.
All right, here's a little review of Obama's press conference so far.
He opened by bragging about increased domestic oil production.
He said that he's gonna be monitoring price gouging.
Spoken like a true community organizer.
Of all the things going on, what does he see?
Price gouging.
He's gonna be monitoring that, mind you.
He's not gonna make sure we got more supply.
He's not gonna no, no, no, he's gonna monitor price gouging.
Of course, big oil.
Out to rip everybody off during this unfortunate time.
So that's one.
Then he started bragging about increased domestic oil production.
That's a story they put out.
They say their oil production is up even with the moratoriums.
Saw that story last week, maybe the week before.
Yeah, we're supposed to believe it by 300,000 barrels a month or a week or something.
Our oil production, way, way up after Obama's drilling moratorium.
Says he's encouraging oil production, but he is doing it responsibly.
That's what they always say.
Whatever they're doing, we're doing it smarter than our predecessors.
We're doing it intelligently.
He also said that he's now looking into new oil from Alaska.
By the way, I know a little bit about this.
I think I can safely reveal that there has been in the Democrat Party a softening in their opposition to drilling and war.
And he may be, well, I can't tell you how.
You're just gonna just don't doubt me.
This is not etched and sewn, Stone.
I said, I have sensed a softening in their opposition to drilling and war.
No, it has nothing to do with the oil price per se.
It has, it's uh there might be some connection.
It's it, but but it's largely unrelated to that.
It has other political attachments to it.
And again, now don't, you people at media out there in other places, do not misquote me on this.
If you want to misquote me, wait till it's on my website so you can misquote me accurately.
I'm saying the Democrats have not changed their minds that are willing to support drilling and end war.
I'm saying I am sensing a softening of opposition to it.
An openness to it.
However, there might be some trade-offs, obviously.
But even after Obama said he is looking in a new oil from Alaska, he then, in the next minute, said that drilling is not a long-term solution.
It's the only long-term solution.
It is the only short-term, long-term period solution.
But what he's setting up here is windmills.
That's the long-term solution.
Windmills and solar panels.
I had a story last week.
Somebody where there's a bunch of windmills being driven insane by the noise.
The noise of the turbines is driving them literally insane.
They close the windows, it's so loud they can't escape the noise.
This windmill stuff, no pun intended, isn't gonna fly.
But the long-term solution he means is wind windmills and solar panels when he says drilling is not a long-term solution.
Look, you have a president here, community organizer, a party that is politically opposed to oil.
Politically opposed to oil.
Don't ask me to explain it logically.
It doesn't make any sense.
After saying that we are looking into new oil from Alaska, that drilling is not the long-term solution, the next minute Obama said that we have to gradually reduce demand.
That's tantamount to saying I'm not really concerned about the rising prices if they are slow.
If prices increase slowly, that's fine.
If that reduces demand, that's cool.
If we have to deny free markets and do what we can to reduce demand by elevating price, we'll do it, because that'll take us closer to our dream of solar panels and windmills.
He said that green tech is the answer to this energy crisis that we're facing.
You knew this is going to happen here.
You've got a skyrocketing oil price.
There's a momentary blip, and it has fallen a little bit, but you know they've been waiting for this.
This is this is, I mean, this is hello, Chevy Volta, all the reasons that you don't want to buy these cars here.
The market seems to be creating them.
Green tech is the answer.
Solar, wind, yeah, just like Spain.
It isn't the answer.
There is no place, not one country, not one county, not one place in this world that has its meads, needs met with solar or wind.
Now keep in mind, we're told that our young president here is moving to the center.
What we have here is environmentalist wackism right at the forefront of this press conference.
And nothing's center right about environmentalist wackoism.
So what Obama has done is doubled down on failure.
He's doubled down on failure when it comes to increasing America's energy sources, supply.
He wants to reduce our consumption and need, and he wants to do this by tampering with the market and elevate prices.
Now we have a story just like three days ago.
Today, the Department of Energy's independent U.S. Energy Information Administration released their latest short-term energy outlook for projected crude oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.
Despite the misleading comments made by Interior Secretary Salazar last week, the Gulf of Mexico crude oil production has continued to significantly decline since the regime's de facto moratorium.
The Department of Energy's independent U.S. energy information, the latest numbers also show the regime's anti-energy policies have made us more vulnerable to energy price increases as we have become increasingly reliant on unstable foreign energy.
So there is, they're out there lying through their teeth, telling us that oil production is up despite their moratoriums.
It isn't.
Oil production is down.
It's from the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources.
That's the source.
And we will be back.
Obama says the Republicans want cuts in the budget that he won't accept.
And Obama said he's tired of people using the budget to advance ideological and political objectives.
Can you believe the outrage that somebody would do that?
And he totally he totally opposes using the budget to advance anybody's ideological objectives.
He only says this when the Republicans are in charge of writing the budget, by the way.
His whole budget, all of it, every dime that we don't have that he spends is about advancing his totalitarian agenda.