All Episodes
Previous Next
March 25, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
32:16
March 25, 2011, Friday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
No, I don't care how you go to me.
I don't care.
I'm not going to answer it.
It's patently obvious.
You can do everything you want.
You can cajole, you can threaten, you can urge, you can coddle.
I'm not gonna answer the question.
Everybody knows it anyway.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
One big exciting broadcast hour remains.
Happy to have you with us, Rush Lindbaugh, the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number 8002882 and the email address.
L Rushbow at EIB net.com.
The audience can demand it.
The audience can demand it.
They can damn right.
I've I've already you know what?
If people listen carefully, I've already answered this anyway.
The answer to this answers a lot of questions.
And I've already answered it countless other times.
Don't even it's a one-word answer.
I'll just give you a hint.
It is a one-word answer.
All right.
Uh I made made a joke here earlier today that uh uh Peter Beinart's piece equating Barack Obama with Thomas Jefferson as I'm looking for the Jeffersonian tax increase on mileage for your horse and buggy.
That's because the Congressional Budget Office has released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenue.
And that these taxes could be used to offset the cost of highway maintenance at a time when federal funds are short.
Offset the cost of high what was the what was the stimulus all about?
The report discussed the proposal in great detail, including the development of technology that would allow total vehicle miles traveled VMT to be tracked, reported, and taxed, as well as the pros and cons of mandating the installation of this technology on all vehicles.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I'm I'm here to tell you Liberty is under assault on practically every front.
This is exactly what the Tea Party is all about.
This kind of stuff is what has given rise to the Tea Party.
Bring it on.
Let's go, let's have this fight.
Raise raise taxes.
Well, what I guess gasoline taxes aren't providing enough revenue anymore?
Is that what it is?
Why, people are driving less now?
The price of gasoline's gone up, people are driving a little less.
So you got to finagle another way.
How about this notion that makes you trying to steer everybody in these stupid high-speed trains, mass transit, whatever, you know, and people driving their cars less and less, whatever is going on, bring it on.
CBO.
Nonpartisan CBO.
Not a Democrat party proposal here.
This is the non-partisan CBO.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow night's a big night.
What was it?
Last year, a couple years ago, for some reason this is the last time I saw the show, too.
I was channel surfing around.
I ran across Larry King alive.
And he had some male celebrity, and I don't remember who it was.
Movie star, I think.
Going on and on and on about turn off your lights.
Uh was called uh uh Earth Hour.
And it was turn off your lights for an hour on a certain, I was like a Saturday night or whatever.
The point is, Earth Hour is this weekend.
It's uh it's coming up 8:30, Earth Hour 2011.
You're supposed to turn off all of your electrical implements as a means of illustrating how we can save the planet.
And you recall, who I wish I could remember who this was, because it was a B actor.
It was a B list actor who was trying to make a name for himself.
And I was frankly surprised at who it was.
Not that I held an opinion of them.
Is this I didn't know that this person was politically active in this way.
I wish I could remember who it was, but I don't.
At any rate, as is my want, I urged everybody to turn on Edward Norton.
That's that's who it was.
That's exactly who it was.
Edward Norton.
And of course it would came to all the usual platitudes of the deep meaning, the crisis that we find ourselves in, the limited time we have to solve the crisis, that the Earth, uh its ecosystems hanging in the balance.
And uh it was just something that we should all do together to feel really good.
Come together, save the planet, well, the yada yada.
Well, there's a piece today.
Ross McKittrick.
The Vancouver Sun.
Actually, it ran yesterday.
I remember the last Earth Day, I urged everybody turn your lights on.
I made sure every light, every thermostat was turned down to sixty-five.
I mean, I t every opportunity I had to use electricity, I did.
And of course, people thought I was being mean.
I wasn't being mean, I was being contrary and trying to, and I urged everybody else to as well.
Mr. McKittrick, though, nails this.
2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour.
Here's my response.
I abhor Earth Hour.
Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the twentieth century.
Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity, giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time.
Getting children out of menial labor and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading.
Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible.
The expansion of our food supply, the promotion of hygiene and nutrition depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water.
Many of the world's poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes.
Because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung.
This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke and parasite-related lung diseases.
Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil fuel-based power generating stations.
After all, that's how the West was developed.
This whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity, and I can't do that.
Instead, I celebrate it and all that it has provided humanity.
Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty, backwardness.
By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation, it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism.
It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called the earth.
And all the while, hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous reliable electricity.
People who see virtue in doing without electricity ought to just shut off the fridge, the stove, the microwave, the computer, the water heater, and the lights and TV, all the other appliances for a month, not an hour, pop down to the cardiac unit to hospital, shut the power off there too.
I don't want to go back to nature.
Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes.
You see what it's like to go back to nature for humans living in nature, meant a short lifespan marked by violence, disease, and ignorance.
People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are Fighting against nature.
I hope they leave their lights on.
Here in Ontario, through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, despite the expansion of industry, the power supply.
If after all this we're gonna take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour like naughty children who've been caught doing something bad.
When we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations.
No thanks.
It's...
I like visiting nature, but I don't want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization with all its trade-offs is something to be ashamed of.
Right on, dude.
This is uh this is Ross McKittrick, a professor of economics at the University of Gulf.
Writing in the Vancouver Sun.
He's exactly right.
Don't need to add anything to it.
Great, great, great defense of electricity.
Here come these nincompoops.
Turn off your electricity for an hour.
And do what?
What are you accomplishing?
What great statement are you making?
The painful lessons of wind power is the same thing.
Brian Sussman, human events.
Energy took another blow.
This time in Massachusetts wind energy.
Wind one, 400-foot tall wind turbine owned by the town of Falmouth on the southwestern tip of Cape Cod.
The residents of Falmouth initially welcomed wind one as a symbol of green energy, a handy way to keep local taxes down.
Electricity generated by the turbine would be used to power the municipality's infrastructure, thus shaving about 400,000 a year off utility costs.
That was the dream.
That was the ideal.
Wait till you hear what happened.
It's a riot.
Right after this, we'll be back.
Your guiding light.
Your times of trouble, confusion, mercantile, tumult, chaos, despair.
there.
All right.
Rampant unemployment, inexplicable military operations, and even the good times.
Okay, to our friends here in um in in Falmouth, Massachusetts.
They installed their giant wind turbine in the spring of 2010 and cost of 5.1 million dollars.
Three million of that derived through grants, government kickbacks, credits, and all that.
As soon as the wind turbine was turned on, residents began to complain.
Wind won was as loud as an old Soviet helicopter.
Neil Anderson lives a quarter of a mile from the turbine.
He's an avid supporter of alternative energy.
He's a good liberal.
He's owned and operated a passive solar company on Cape Cod for 25 years.
He said, This thing's dangerous, headaches, loss of sleep.
The ringing in my ears never goes away.
I I could look at it all day, and it doesn't bother me, but it's just it's way too close.
Tired of the constant chopping sound of the blades, the residents got lawyers.
Now this month a deal was struck with the town to disengage.
Get this now.
Wind turbine, create electricity.
Save money, green energy save the planet.
They struck a deal with the town to turn it off when winds exceed 23 miles an hour.
I kid you not.
This is a problem because giant windmills like Wind One operate at an optimum efficiency when the winds at 30 miles an hour.
When the wind's at 30 miles an hour, that's when you get the best output, but it's intolerable, the noise.
So they've got a rule.
They shut the damn thing off when the winds get up to 23 miles an hour.
So the investment in Fulvus has taken hit, according to uh Gerald Potamus, who runs the wastewater facility, shutting off the turbine during higher winds is gonna cost the town a hundred and seventy-three dollars every year.
Because now they're gonna have to rely more on natural gas.
They put up this giant turret.
Is this not typical of liberals?
You put this giant damn thing up there, and when the winds are blowing at the optimum level, it's intolerable.
Hell, it's intolerable at any time the wind is blowing.
So they shut it down.
Ever since uh they talk about AlphaNont Pass in California, which is good the same thing.
Altamont pass 4500 windmills in California.
This east of uh of the of the Bay Area.
Uh there they've had a just the number of dead birds reported because of those windmills, uh activists don't even want to talk about it.
They went ballistic demanding action.
So a taxpayer funded uh examination, two years of the problem was conducted, then the monitoring team deserved uh uh determined eight thousand two hundred birds were whacked dead by these turbines.
Aldermont pass.
It just Yes, I'm sorry.
It's funny.
To me, it's hilarious.
And who's next?
Laura in Great Falls, Virginia.
Hi, you're on open line Friday.
Great to have you here.
Hi, thank you, uh Raj for taking my call.
I'm a long time listener.
I love your show.
You're a great American.
Thank you very much.
And keep speaking up because I agree with you on everything you say.
Well uh yeah, I do.
I do, and I have a passion for your show, and I've been trying to reach you many times, but unfortunately the lines were busy.
But anyway, I got my dream today.
Anyway, my my um comment today is about Egypt.
And Egypt, the future is quite bleak for Egypt.
And here's why.
We remember in 1981, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Right.
And when the strongest opponent they're the the strongest opponent of Mubarak today, and they're closely tied to Iran, we all know that.
Now that radical violent organization is about to take much more influence and control in Egyptian politics.
They were less violent during the thirty years because of the strong leadership of Mubarak.
Now he's gone, and I believe that the close relationship with the United States is history.
Now, even though uh I quote from Stat for uh January 4.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you think Obama cares?
He doesn't care.
You think he cares that the relationship we once had with Egypt is frayed now?
I don't think he does.
Otherwise you would have behaved differently when he came out and and he just humiliated the pr the Mubarak openly.
This president, even though he made serious mistakes, Rush, there are positive fruits.
The present U.S. administration set out to humiliate him publicly from the beginning of the massive demonstrations in Egypt.
And only a rebuke from Saudi Arabia slowed our government's tactics.
And no Arab country in the Middle East has done more to befriend America.
And I don't know why they betrayed him.
I I'm very sick and tired of it.
Well, I'll tell you why.
And it's a very it it it's obviously more nuanced than this.
The United States foreign politics has always been a complicated thing for purists to understand, but it really isn't hard to understand.
The old days, U.S. foreign policy was rooted in the best interests of America.
What was best for us, our freedom, and our people?
Whoever we had to align with.
Now m mubaric not perfect, Mubarak certainly not perfect, but better than the left of the lot.
That's what's gone out the window.
What's best for America?
U.S. foreign policy being better rooted in in American national interests, that's what's going out the window.
And that's what makes people like Mubarak expendable.
That's what no longer exists.
Ba-do-ba-do-do-do-do-do.
I lost my place.
Well, that's something I was gonna do here.
No, because I just got a very distracting email.
That's a good one.
I just it's a distracting email.
Let me go back.
Craig in Central Florida.
We'll do this.
Head back to the phones.
You are on open line Friday.
Hi.
Hey, Rush.
Uh David was great to talk to you.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Uh I'll get right to my point here.
Uh I just have a simple question for her.
Are you going to endorse a GOP candidate?
You mean in the primaries?
Yes.
Um It only be the second time if I did it, I know.
I know the pressure's on.
The pressure's on.
Everybody said, look what happened last time, but I didn't.
I know.
Um if you don't plan to, I'd beg you to do it.
Um, you know, considering the circumstances in the country right now.
Um and based on our results from last time getting McCain.
Yeah, I know.
Um you're blaming me for that.
No, no, no.
I'm not blaming you.
I mean, I you know, everybody has a reason for do what they do, but you know, the country needs uh conservatives in particular need that.
Well, let me ask you a question.
I'm gonna turn it around on you.
You know who the field is right now, pretty much, right?
Yeah.
Who do you endorse?
Uh if I had to vote for something right now, I'd probably vote for Bachman.
Michelle Bachman.
Um I mean, I like McCain.
I don't really understand all the hatred.
Uh I mean uh palin.
I don't really understand all the hatred for Palin.
I think it's kind of a it's an almost like an infection that that a lot of even conservatives buy into the fear.
It's fear.
I don't understand it, but I would vote for Bachman.
Um but i you know it's gonna save save the candidates a ton of money, a ton of heart feelings and and back biting, and it's gonna allow them to save their money to go up against Obama who's gonna have they say a billion dollars in a bank.
Well, some of that goes beyond the scope of my responsibilities here.
Um saving money.
But nevertheless, I understand your concern.
Uh it has it's a question I've been asked by um by by many.
Uh you know, it it it's I think the sh I think the field is looking great.
If you look at the way this field is shaping up, you've got Bachman, you have uh Palin, Christie, Trump, uh you any any number of of of people here that you could coalesce behind.
So it's it's gonna it it'll be an interesting period of time.
Did I did I hear you say that you like McCain or did you say Palin?
No, no, no.
No, I like I like Palin.
Palin uh McCain I I feel the same way about as you do about McCain.
I mean I voted for him because I you know I held my nose that I did it though.
Well you know the real question is who is Colin Powell going to endorse uh because he is said to be the prototypical Republican and he's not gonna be running.
And we've always been told that General Powell, uh keep a sharp eye on how uh uh he's thinking, who he endorses, that's probably the best route the uh Republican Party could take.
Well, I I can kind of care less about that, but I I think you're ducking me.
You're really not you're I'm you're not willing to give me a yes or no.
I'm just having fun with you.
Uh no, I don't know.
Look at what it what do you want me to do?
If there's nobody in the field that I am jazzed about, which is entirely possible, by the way.
If there's nobody in the field, what I'm gonna have to do then is is is say, okay, this election had better be about Obama.
And it it I think it ought to be anyway.
This election should be all about Obama and do we want because frankly, I would vote for Elmer Fudd, then Obama.
I would vote for whoever the Republicans nominate.
Of course.
I don't care.
Everybody would.
Any other unique position to to just clean out the field, allow all these candidates to back up the person.
No, no, wait a minute, no.
Wait a minute.
I'm not trying to slither out of this.
I'm trying to tell you as honestly as I can.
What if there isn't anybody I'm passionate about?
You know, do you know how hard?
Do you do you know how hard well I could do that?
I could pick somebody, but if I don't have passion about it, uh I can't I can't I'm not a liar.
I can't come in here and tell you I'm Rasmataz rolled and ready to go for somebody.
Nah, you don't have to be passionate to to endorse somebody.
Ganging up on my own staff.
Thanks to you.
Thanks to you.
My own staff is ganging up on me in here.
Good.
Well the the election is going to be about Obama.
That's I'm no I'm not I'm not.
Well, you I'm s I'm suggesting to you that it is entirely possible a loser candidate will get the nomination.
That's what I'm telling you.
It will be about Obama.
It's got that it has to be about Obama.
It has to be.
That's what all this is about.
It has to be about Obama.
We can't handle four more years of this.
We have what do you mean if it's you know who?
Who the hell is you know who?
Oh, don't what that's I don't know anything.
Now they're throwing names at me, folks, that are telling me if you know it's such and such, it's gonna be a disaster.
And if that if it's that person is gonna be a disaster.
It may well be.
That's what I'm telling you.
It may well be a disaster.
And it regardless what it is, the uh the the election has has to be about Obama.
It's got to be.
The uh that's the only logical thing anyway.
We can we have got to stop this.
Even if it's a stopgap.
Elmer Fudd, I don't care, pick a name.
This is why I don't understand all this talk, and I hear about people I don't think Palin's the one to you.
Russia, well, she's a lot better than some of the others already in the field.
All right?
So but I I I can we can say that about a lot of them.
Um I know, I know.
I need to know.
Because nobody knows that.
Snerdley's just say you gotta pick the person who can win.
I gotta pick the person can best beat Obama, who has the best chance of beating Obama.
That's what you think.
Who can win?
Can win the nomination or beat Obama?
No.
Saving the country is about getting rid of Obama, and I'm telling you, you guys are not hearing me.
You're you're not hearing me because you don't want to face the truth.
The truth is, the sad reality is we may end up with milk toast as a nominee.
But we still have to get rid of Obama, in which case it has to be the election has to be about Obama.
It has to be.
You'll see.
You'll see.
Staff still doubts me.
I know some of you people do, but they know me best.
They still doubt me.
I'll tell you this.
I'll I'll just I'll just hear whoever in this field takes it to Obama.
The straightest, the hardest, and the most direct is who's gonna win.
Somebody they're gonna have to take it to Obama.
Can't you can't, this is not a pussyfoot around type election.
This is not, well, we gotta worry about what they say about us.
We gotta worry about our PR.
We gotta worry about charges of racism.
Somebody's gonna have to be willing to take it to Obama.
It's going to be about him and four more years of this stuff.
And we'll see if there's anybody in this field willing to do that.
You do do do do the New York Times today, ladies and gentlemen.
Senior administration officials says we don't want to get sucked into an operation with uncertainty at the end.
In some ways, how it turns out is not on our shoulders.
Meaning Libya.
A senior Obama regime official.
It doesn't matter how it turns out, that's not on our shoulders.
That is the way that uh they are looking at this.
Who's next?
Zach in Augusta, Georgia.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Zach, are you there?
Testing one, two, three.
Zach.
You there?
You there, Zach?
Sorry, Russ.
I had to mute on.
I apologize.
That's no big deal.
How are you?
Doing great, you?
Good.
Yeah, it's funny.
You're uh just talking about the uh the 2012 election, and um Yeah, before Obama got in office, I was pretty straight ahead guy, Not worried about any conspiracy theories.
But with this bunch in power, it would not surprise me that if before you know Obama got inaugurated and they were talking about you know what Hillary was gonna do, if he just said, look, I'll go ahead and be you know, I'll be the start starting pitcher as it were, and go, you know, straight ahead, hard as I can go, liberalism.
I'll be hated, and at the end of my term, you'll get elected because you're perceived as more moderate and more tempered and this, that and the other, and she'd be the closer.
What do you think?
I lost you.
Are you saying Obama will get elected in 2012 and then walk away, let Hillary have it?
No, no, no, no.
No, no.
Hillary is gonna run in 2012 because you know, of all the basically.
Oh, you think Obama will s oh, oh, you think Obama will will he seek it and she'll contest and and and she beats him, or he just says no moss.
She'll contest, but I mean it was it I I would say it it wouldn't surprise me if he was pr pre-planned all along.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
I d I d no, I I don't I don't think that.
I I uh that that that idea has never crossed my mind.
I don't think uh I think putting Hillary at state was to keep her out of these sweepstakes.
I I think putting her over there was to make sure that she's uh uh not but here look the bottom line is let's stay focused.
I don't care what they do.
I don't care.
If they if if they have that kind of conspiratorial plan, I don't care.
The important thing is that whoever the next POTUS is has got an R next to their name.
I don't care whether it's we're running as Hillary or Obama or what have you.
I'll tell you something else.
This Libya stuff and a Japanese earthquake has created an impression that might not be accurate.
Let me just put it this way.
Do not believe that the Tea Party has forgotten about this budget business, the spending, what the Republicans on Capitol Hill are doing.
Make no mistake.
They are as focused, they are they are gonna be as demanding, they're gonna be watching a you know this is it's only intensifying.
This this uh this reluctance on the part of the Republican leadership to deal seriously with spending and defund Obamacare.
Uh there is a lot happening.
It's not being reported on because the press shoves it aside for this sexier stuff, the Japanese earthquakes, the tsunami, uh the the Japanese syndrome and all that stuff, then Libya and everything else.
But the pressure being brought to bear on Republicans uh regarding spending Tea Party, they're swelling in their ranks, their enthusiasm's growing, their their demands uh are intensifying.
Just because you're not hearing about it doesn't mean that it's been forgotten or the energy or passion has evaporated, because that's uh that isn't the case at all.
Jim in Westfield, Indiana.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, I'm gonna give you some plausible deniability and give you radio actors guild ditto.
All right, thank you much, sir.
Yes, sir.
Love you, Russian.
I I agree with everything you say.
I'm gonna go ahead and answer the question that everybody bugging you to answer.
I'm gonna answer it for you why they keep covering Michelle with uh all this positive fashion press.
I know the word you're talking about.
Let me hear it.
What's the word?
The word is pity.
They feel sorry for her.
If you ask me, she looks like she's a little girl dressing up in her mama's clothes.
And that's just the way I see it.
You think they feel sorry for her?
Absolutely.
Why?
Okay, why why do they feel sorry for her?
Because she looks like a little girl dressing up in her mama's clothes.
Hmm.
Okay, well, um I will concede that in large part sympathy drives the reporting of Muchell Obama as a fashion icon.
But not because she looks like her mother's little girl.
I disagree with your reasoning.
I see.
Which don't take it personally.
Oh, I don't.
I mean, don't take it personally.
I don't think it has anything to do with what she's wearing.
I have nothing.
I don't I I mean I She has nothing to bring to the table.
No, that's that's uh So I wouldn't say that either.
Wouldn't say that she's got a garden.
There's a lot that she's bringing to the table.
You don't want to eat it, but she's growing it.
Well, it's um.
Now the sympathy has other explanations to it.
Folks, have a wonderful weekend.
Have a great, great time out there, and uh be patient, as we will be back.
Rearing and ready to go with more broadcast excellence.
Wherever it takes us, we will go with no fear.
Be back here same time, same station, same time on Monday.
Adios, and thank you for joining us today.
▲
Export Selection