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March 25, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:08
March 25, 2011, Friday, Hour #2
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Ha!
How are you?
How's that NASA Muslim outreach working out for the regime?
Drudge has a picture of it.
Muslims beat and stomp an effigy of Obama in protest.
Where is this?
I don't know.
It's somewhere over there.
All hell's breaking loose.
How's your Friday?
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Great to have you here, folks.
Telephone number if you want to join us, 800-282-2882.
Email address, Elrushbow at EIBnet.com.
Have you seen the latest of what's going on in Wisconsin?
The Union Brotherhood is trying, well, they're trying to destroy the democratic process there.
They're now trying to stuff the Supreme Court there with liberal activists in hopes that they will reverse the decisions of the people's representatives.
That's what's happening.
Folks, telephone number again, 800-282-2882.
It's Open Line Friday.
Whenever you want to talk about fair game, feel free.
If you want to go the email route, the address lrushbow at EIBNet.com.
All right, you go back to this Judge Sumi, county judge, whose son, husband, paramour, I don't know what, works for the SEIU.
What was it, son?
I think it's son.
Doesn't matter.
Some family relation.
Anyway, she claims she grants a temporary restraining order, even though no laws were broken.
We went through all this last week, the legal machinations of a TRO and what makes them valid and not.
I mean, pure activism.
This is, remember earlier this week, extensive discussion we had on the way we play the game versus the way they do.
We go by the book.
We campaign.
We convince minds and hearts.
We then have an election.
We win.
We then implement our ideas.
They don't accept.
No, no, no.
Those rules don't apply when they lose.
They go outside the rules, create their own rules.
And if we are not going to respond and play by the rules they set, we're going to get swamped.
And what's going on in Wisconsin right now is they're trying to totally reverse and corrupt the democratic process.
They're trying now to stuff the Supreme Court in Wisconsin with a bunch of liberal activists to essentially affirm this county judge and her temporary restraining order and eventually say that Scott Walker's law is unconstitutional and invalid.
They're trying to invalidate it, which is reversing the decisions of the people's representatives.
These are actions designed to reverse, to thwart, to stop the democratic process in Wisconsin.
They do not.
And look, the reasons are many, but they're two primary.
One's ideological.
It's just who they are.
Their ideology is their religion.
Their ideology, liberalism is what animates them.
It is their soul.
The second is money.
Everybody needs money.
Everybody has to pay bills.
Everybody needs to eat.
They have a mechanism for getting money that does not involve earning it.
It involves siphoning tax dollars, siphoning the work of others via tax dollars, their hands in the treasury.
Anything happens to prevent them from being able to do that or that will reduce the amount they get to grab, they have a conniption fit.
They panic.
So those two combinations are what motivate them, animate them.
Democracy rules, elections, that doesn't matter.
Compare what is happening in Wisconsin with what happened when Judge Martin Feldman reversed Obama's moratorium on drilling.
A federal judge simply said, your moratorium on drilling is illegal.
Feldman got death threats from the left.
The judge got death threats.
Similar things happened to Judge Vinson when he declared Obamacare unconstitutional.
So the Union Brotherhood in Wisconsin is now on the march and attempting to accomplish the same aims as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Well, I don't know how else you would describe it.
Buried in the economy section of the New York Times today, GE's strategies let it avoid taxes altogether.
General Electric, the nation's largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, said that $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill was zero.
In fact, GE claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
Now, that may be hard to fathom for millions of American business owners and households now preparing their own returns, but low taxes are nothing new for GE.
The company has been cutting the percentage of its American profits paid to the IRS for years, resulting in a far lower rate than at most multinational companies.
And the Times is not upset about it because GE, they're a good green company here.
They're part of arrangement with Obama.
The Environmental Protection Agency is giving money to charitable organizations that attack Republican members of Congress.
This is from Investors Business Daily.
Did you know, for example, that telling the truth about climate change causes childhood asthma?
We've heard the litany of horrors that climate change is said to bring about, retreating glaciers, rising sea levels, dead polar bears, drought, flooding, disease, famine.
Now we're told that fighting the EPA's power grab to regulate greenhouse gases will lead to an increase in childhood asthma.
The American Lung Association, considered one of America's most credible and worthy charities, has placed four billboards in Michigan's 6th congressional district, including one outside the office of Representative Fred Upton, who heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
It feature a quickly, I mean, a sickly-looking girl as the ads feature a sickly-looking girl with an oxygen mask, and they read, Representative Fred Upton, protect our kids' health.
Don't weaken the Clean Air Act.
But what Upton and the Republican House majority, most people elected in November trying to do is restore the Clean Air Act to its true meaning and congressional intent.
The act was created to clean the air, not to fight mythical climate change and regulate down to our lawnmowers, the so-called greenhouse gases, including that product of human respiration, carbon dioxide.
At any rate, we'll see if the Republicans want to hold on to their majority.
This is exactly the kind of thing that's happening in Wisconsin.
Congress funds the EPA.
The EPA is giving money to the American Lung Association.
The American Lung Association is putting up billboards attacking Republicans in the House over their attempt to stop the EPA from taxing carbon dioxide.
It's that simple.
What are we going to do about it?
Are we just going to sit around?
Oh, really?
Yeah, this had better stop.
Yeah, this had better stop.
Just like, let me ask you a question.
You say this had better stop.
Okay.
There's a provision in Obamacare put in by Nancy Pelosi, $105 billion that implements the program.
An election was held last November, the stated purpose of which was to elect people to repeal it.
One of the fastest ways to repeal it is to defund it.
The House Republicans don't want to go anywhere near that $105 billion.
You say this had better stop.
I say something better start.
$105 billion for crying out loud, the funding implement mechanism.
Just wipe it out.
No, we're afraid of a government shutdown.
You don't understand, Rush.
We're afraid of a government shutdown.
We're afraid of the PR war.
We'll lose that.
But we want you to know we just cut $6 billion on the same day we borrowed $72 billion.
So you tell me, Snurdy, this better stop, we better, I agree with you.
Don't misunderstand.
And Fred Upton, most favored status among the leadership.
Fred Upton, this is the guy who originally went along with the ideas of getting rid of the incandescent light bulb in exchange for the compact fluorescent.
He has supposedly gotten his mind right on that.
So you say this had better stop.
Well, the Republicans are in the House.
They're going to have to be the ones to stop it.
I agree with you, it's got to stop.
I agree with what's going on in Michigan's got to stop.
But who's going to stop it?
The voters have done their part.
The voters voted.
The voters donated.
The voters rallied.
The voters organized.
It's called a Tea Party.
They've done their part.
Yeah, this better stop.
The EPA actually giving money to the American Lung Association.
EPA is funded by U.S. tax dollars.
Money laundering.
If you want to look at it this way again.
And I remind you now in Wisconsin, again, the Union Brotherhood trying to destroy the Democratic process, stuff the Supreme Court or stack it with liberal activists in hopes that they'll reverse the decisions of the people's representatives, particularly this most recent one by Governor Walker.
All right, I promise now we'll come back and we'll get phone calls because it is Open Line Friday.
And I'm looking at the board here and of people that are waiting to get on the air.
And we'll see.
We'll see.
By the way, do you know what it was that ultimately caused Jefferson to wage war against radical Islam on the Barbary pirates?
Do you know what it was?
Jefferson and John Adams as envoys of President Washington went to the UK and they visited Tripoli's, which is now Libya, Tripoli's ambassador to Britain.
And his name was Sidi Haji Abdrahaman.
Name doesn't matter.
Jefferson Adams goes see Tripoli's ambassador to Britain.
They were trying to stop the piracy.
The ambassador gave them a lesson in Sharia law in explaining why the piracy was permitted.
They're infidels.
They either pay a tribute or we can legally take what they've got.
And Jefferson wrote about this.
The ambassador answered us that the right to piracy was founded on the laws of the prophet, that it was written in their Quran that all nations who should not have answered their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Muslim who should be slain in battle was sure to go to paradise.
So the Tripoli ambassador told Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, you either pay us or we're going to keep robbing you and killing you.
It's in our Quran.
And that's when Jefferson decided to go to war.
And Peter Beinhart writes that Barack Hussein Obama is Jeffersonian at the Daily Beast today.
All right, to the phones.
If I don't take a phone call at this very moment, I might not get to one today.
And it is Open Line Friday, and I promise Bergen County, New Jersey.
Hello, Bill.
I appreciate your patience.
Hi.
Hi, thank you.
I think I can see no reason why we went into Libya at this point in time.
The only thing I can think of is Obama may want Gaddafi taken out because he hasn't been a threat to us.
He's been very independent since over 10 years ago when we went after him for what he did to the plane.
And I think that's what I'm saying.
Wait, wait, wait.
You think Obama wants Gaddafi gone because Gaddafi has not been a threat to us?
Exactly.
Why else would he attack the guy?
The guy doesn't do anything to the United States.
He doesn't represent a threat here.
He hasn't done anything.
He hasn't thrown down any of our planes or anything.
Well, but he has.
That was a long time ago, and he got paid for that.
We almost killed him as a result of that.
So why does Obama want people in power who do have or who do threaten the U.S.?
That is the question that I think the American people have to answer as to why they voted for him last election and why they should not vote for him in the next election.
You really mean that you think get Qaddafi out of the way because he doesn't threaten the U.S. and have him replaced by somebody who does, i.e. the Muslim Brotherhood or what have you?
I believe that.
That's a serious charge you're making out there, Bill.
Well, I understand that, but I'm not a politician, and I see it this way because I do follow the news and I follow what's going on in the world, and Libya just isn't a threat to the United States.
There's no reason for him to have gone after this guy.
Well, I think one of the reasons for doing it was because they thought it would be easy.
Because the case could be made.
The case could be made.
Look at the same kind of thing is happening in Syria.
And Bashr Assad is no different than Gaddafi.
Male, Arab, anti-American, slaughtering his own people.
There's no difference whatsoever.
Iran, ditto.
We've gone through this all week.
Any number of places around the world.
North Korea, Darfur, Zimbabwe, but Libya.
The Middle East is on fire.
The geography here is not irrelevant.
You look at the record of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain.
These countries have, to varying degrees, and sometimes in contradictory ways, but in varying degrees, have all helped us with the war on terror.
Now, they've also got factions inside who have attacked us.
Yemen, of course, and the USS Cole.
Libya, well, we know that Gaddafi has been behind acts of terrorism.
Egypt as an ally.
Tunisia, Saudi Arabia is a target of what's happening.
Jeffersonian Obama.
Charleston, South Carolina.
Carl, thank you.
You're on Open Line Friday.
Good afternoon, sir.
Thank you for calling.
I understand that the administration was using social media to encourage protests in Egypt and other places.
So to that point, if they did, then I think they have blood on their hands.
Wait a second now.
The Obama regime was using social media.
I heard one scant report one time, I think, with CNN mentioned it.
I hadn't heard it since.
Good.
Well, I know social media was being used by people in Egypt.
I'm not our State Department was using Twitter to try to communicate with protesters.
Okay, but was the State Department encouraging the protesters to rise up and overthrow?
That's what Carl here is saying.
Right.
Well, that's the data we need to know.
If we can find that out, that's, I think, critical.
And if they did, then we clearly have blood on our hands.
Secondly, we went in to support, we brought in a no-fly zone.
Right.
And now, if you take a look at Syria, Syria is blowing up.
And my guess is a lot of protesters are emboldened by the no-fly zone support they're getting in Libya.
And my guess is that they're now going to want or expect a no-fly zone in Syria.
So that now we're in checkmate.
We either don't help them or we do help them.
Well, but this should be the be end of the end of the president's career.
Yeah, you're meaning they want the no-fly zone to use it as cover for committing atrocities.
Well, right.
If Syria, if the people of Syria begin to protest and there are atrocities, then they're going to expect, I think they're emboldened now.
They expect a no-fly zone, whether it's the U.S. or NATO or whomever.
If they don't get it, then we've abandoned them, and he'll lose a large part of his faith.
Okay.
Well, I do not.
Is Obama talking about expanding a no-fly zone to Syria?
No, but Syria is blowing up today.
I mean, there's protests in the streets of Syria.
Well, I know.
I know.
This is why we're raising the question: why, given the reasoning for Libya, why not go into Syria and save the people?
You're saying Syrian protesters are going to be expecting it.
I don't.
I'm not.
Well, okay, the Ivory.
They want one, but expecting is another thing.
No, I don't know that I would expect a no-fly zone if I'm aware.
Have we ever tried to liberate the Syrians?
What in the world would make them think that we're going to do?
What am I missing here?
I know what the last caller was saying.
I'm trying to my usual polite self here.
I'm sure a lot of other people think that Syrian protesters are going to expect protection from us and no flies on from us, like the protesters in Libya got.
I don't.
My problem with the Iranians probably thought so too, and it's been no evidence that we're going to help them.
Okay, we've gone into Egypt and we've helped out, but look what's happened.
We've installed the Muslim Brotherhood is running Egypt.
Not a democracy movement.
Now we've got in Libya.
We still don't know for sure why we're there.
This is the most muddled policy ever.
Nobody knows.
One day we're there to get rid of Gaddafi, then we're not there to get rid of Gaddafi.
We're going to protect people.
No, we're not going to protect.
There's not been a presidential address.
We don't know what the purpose is here.
Now NATO's running a show, and the leadership of NATO has just been passed off to a Canadian.
Okay, so under no-fly zones, genocides happen.
The no-fly zone in Bosnia led to the genocide over there.
No flies all over Libya.
They don't have an air force.
There's no point in a no-fly zone in Libya.
But what on what grounds would the people in Syria intellectually expect that we're going to come to their rescue?
On what grounds?
Syria is properly anti-Israel.
You think here's another thing, another aspect about this.
Syria is anti-American.
And the Obama regime has yet to go to bat for anybody protesting anti-American regimes.
Now stop and think about that.
The people in Libya were protesting Qaddafi.
The people in Syria are protesting or rising up against Bashur Assad.
But Bashur Assad is anti-American.
We have not gone in.
We have not gone to bat for anybody protesting anti-American regimes.
We haven't done it.
Now, you can draw your own conclusion from it, but we haven't.
And let me tell you where the end of this all leads.
The end of this, the trail that we're on leads to Israel, whether you want to admit it or not.
That's where the... Netanyahu is talking about erecting his dome, his anti-missile dome.
Has Obama called Israel to assure them of our assistance should any of this get out of hand aimed at them?
He called Netanyahu yesterday.
The bombing in Israel.
Yeah, yeah, about that.
But is he offered any aid or I don't know if it has been offered?
It hasn't been reported.
So, if these people in Syria think that Obama and Hillary just pulled us out of there, for all intents and purposes, we're not a superpower anymore.
We can't do it.
We can't afford it.
NATO's doing this.
The whole point of all this has been to exhibit, to illustrate, to establish that the United States can't do all this kind of stuff anymore and isn't going to.
So they're in for a rude surprise if they in Syria.
We're asking the question here rhetorically because we're trying to point out the hypocrisy and meaninglessness of stated policy.
Okay, you're going to go in there and get rid of Qaddafi because he's being mean to his people.
Well, hello, Bashar Assad, and hello, Kim Jong-il, and hello, Robert Mugabe, and hello, whoever's running Darfur.
It's not the standard.
They say it's a standard, but it's not the standard.
There's all kinds of people being mistreated.
People of color are being mistreated all over the world.
In fact, far less than the people in Libya, in some cases, being treated.
Or far worse, I should say, than Gaddafi is treating him.
Anyway, who's next?
Northern Virginia, this is Rob.
You're next.
It's Open Line Friday.
Great to have you here, sir.
Well, hello, Rush.
My question is: if Hillary were president, how would she be handling the Libyan situation differently?
You're asking an impossible question.
Well, I guess my question then is this: Is the situation in Libya being handled this way because a liberal Democrat is the president or because this particular liberal Democrat is the president?
Well, a little bit of both.
A liberal president is one thing.
Obama's a special variety.
I'm serious.
I think it's a little bit of both.
I don't think Mrs. Clinton would inspire articles celebrating America's decline.
I don't think she would engage in policy that would do that.
She wouldn't want that stated happening under her watch.
She wouldn't want pieces written about how we can't.
She's been shoved out there to be the face and voice of the administration.
I don't think she would have handed off the operation in NATO.
Bill would have, but Hillary's too macho.
I don't think she would have handed it off.
Would she have acted much more quickly than Obama did?
There's no way of knowing.
It'd be fun to speculate whether she would have acted sooner, differently, for different reasons or what have you.
She got a shorter fuse.
There's no question.
She wouldn't have been on the golf course.
She wouldn't have been down in Brazil, you know, watching the supermodel strut their stuff.
Well, let me rethink that.
She might not have been down there at that time.
So those are tough things.
But you're basically asking me who's better equipped to handle a 3 a.m. phone call.
There's no question she's doing it.
I will bet you, I don't know what I've got stories of stack.
I'm going to go through the stack here and just give you some of the headlines here because my theory is that within the Democrat Party outside this administration, there is some genuine uh-oh going on.
Uh-oh.
Because this is the most lackadaisical, the most incoherent, the most inexplicable American administration foreign policy anybody can ever remember.
It is incompetence on parade or worse.
And there's some people going through here looking at what's going on who are genuinely scratching their heads.
Let me give you some headlines.
Here to Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, a mission wrapped in confusion in his story.
What the hell are we doing? is how he opens the fourth paragraph.
Eugene Robinson is a total Obama lackey.
Here's how he ends it.
Now that we're involved in Libya, it may be that the only way to get uninvolved is to depose Gaddafi, which our military forces are specifically not allowed to do.
Hence my confusion.
Yesterday, Jonathan Alter, would somebody put a bullet in this guy's head so we can leave?
Well, we can't because previous Democrats mounted pressure on Gerald Ford that he can't do that.
Roger Simon taking out Gaddafi.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no federal law that makes the assassination of a foreign leader outside the boundaries of the U.S. illegal.
So, Roger Simon Politico, let's just take him out.
Let's just get rid of him and come home.
Peggy Noonan, who was one of the early swooners of Obama, now he seems incompetent and out of his depth, the speech Obama hasn't given.
Politico, no plans for oval office Libya speech.
And all kinds of people in this story are quoted essentially scratching their heads.
Karen Tummelty, Washington Post, pressure building on Obama to clarify mission.
Well, my point is that throughout the Democrat Party and the media, they're never going to do it any more publicly than they're doing in these stories that I've just cited here, but there are huge question marks.
Now, there are also none.
There's also a lot of people who are fully supported.
This is disruptive.
This is chaotic.
This is cutting the United States down to size.
A lot of people on the Democrat side are in favor of that, too.
But I do know that this is not what a bunch of people signed up for.
Not everybody, not everybody in the Democrat Party wants this country to fade away and become zip-zero nada.
Because some of them still have this quest for power to rule it.
Dominated.
Anyway, thanks to the call out there, Bob or Rob.
I'm sorry to be back with much more Open Line Friday after this.
Open Line Friday, 800-282-2882.
If you want to be on the program.
Oh, let me grab this.
I was going to play a soundbite here, but let me grab.
This is Laura in Bremerton, Washington.
Thank you for waiting.
I'm glad you're on the program.
Hi.
Hi.
It's so good to talk to you again.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You know, I've been listening, and all week long, everybody has been talking about Libya and Gaddafi and Egypt.
You sound just like Susan Estrich on the phone.
You sound just my friend of mine.
You sound just like Susan Estrich.
Oh, well, I take that as a compliment.
Thank you very much.
Well, you're welcome.
And you said earlier that you were afraid that today being Call-In Friday just might not be quite as fun, but I came up with something a little bit fun.
I am so sick and tired of hearing about our first lady.
You are?
Oh, yeah.
And her fashion sense.
Every time I see her and they start talking about how fashionable she is.
All right, now you and I both.
What colors she wears.
I think about that old story, the emperor's new clothes.
And I keep thinking every time she dresses in yellow, I keep expecting some little kid to pop up and say she looks like a bowl of mustard.
I mean, I'm sorry, but she just, she never seems really to be happy.
She doesn't wear her clothes with any finesse or flair.
She just kind of seems to march around like a lumberjack wearing caulk boots, and none of her clothes look to fit her right.
And I don't know why the people in the fashion world, other than that they're kowtowing and kissing butt, seem to think that.
Well, that's what I was going to ask you, given your observations here.
I would have to say that your observations, I'm sure, are shared by many.
Well, from the ladies and the people I talk to.
Well, of course.
Well, sure, it's beyond anecdotal here.
The bottom line is, why do you think the reporting is so different than the reality that you see?
Do you know something?
The reporting on the entire regime is different from what I see.
It's because most of the reporters are just a bunch of kiss butts and they get that tingle.
Well.
You know, if sharp creases make for a good president, for crying out loud, any military guy could be a good president.
No, but let's stick with, no, no, no, let's stick with Mucho.
You've described Muchell in yellow as a bowl of mustard.
She's not been so categorized by fashion writers or others in the dominant media.
Why?
The opinion you have of Mrs. Obama and her fashion choices is fairly common, I think.
And yet, you're right.
She's written about as leading fashion icon, trendsetter, and all that.
My question is very simple.
And I know the regime's exaggerated about and so forth.
Why?
Why in the world is she written about in ways that so many people don't agree or at least question?
Well, it goes right back to she is the first, and I know this is going to sound racist, but if they do it any other way, they're going to be marked as racist, probably.
Well, there is that element.
If they are critical of her fashion choices, I'm sure that there might be some fear there that the criticism stems from.
Because if you criticize any of Obama's policies, you're racist.
Well, yeah.
And, like, there are some my particular skin color, I cannot wear orange.
Why?
Because it makes me look orange.
I have my cousin beautiful redhead.
She cannot wear different shades of red.
They just, they clash.
Because it makes her look red.
So you look orange when you wear it.
Or could that not be just a reflection of the fabric on your epidermis?
Yeah, and that's why I can't wear it because it makes me look like I've got some liver disease or something, you know.
Well, let me say, I'm wearing orange today.
I'm checking in Ditto Cam to see because I look I don't look orange.
I'm told it's a little bit too soft of a pastel color for me, but it was the first thing that my eye found today when I was going through the closet.
So I just put it on.
Well, look, Laura, I appreciate the call.
I really do.
There's an obvious answer to my question.
Sorry, I'm not going to answer it.
But there is an obvious answer.
It's just, it's, and you know, it is.
And I've even answered it earlier in the week on things unrelated to fashion and so forth, but there's no...
There's...
There's...
There's the...
It's so simple, I shouldn't have to say it.
Do you want me to talk about Michelle's shape?
Snirdley is sharing with me that he has there are things about her shape that you like.
Is that well, I'm not going to say what I think about her shape.
I'm not really sure what it is.
Until I know that for certain, I'm not, I would say, I can't win this.
There's no purpose here in getting into such detailed discussion, analysis of the First Lady's shape.
But asked as to why the fawning over the fashion, fashion icon, fashion leader, I mean, that is so easy.
I shouldn't have to answer it, and I'm not going to.
And I'm going to take a brief time out here in the nick of time, by the way.
It's Open Line Friday, and Rushland Ball with just one exciting, busy broadcast hour remaining.
Talk to you about what's up.
Human Events has a story, a column, actually, Brian Sussman, painful lessons for wind power.
It's hilarious.
I love it.
I love it when these do-gooder leftists get hoisted in their own petard.
And household wealth down 23% in two years, according to the Federal Reserve, in the midst of this sterling, burgeoning economic recovery from recession.
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