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April 29, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:59
April 29, 2011, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 podcast.
Oh, isn't she beautiful?
She looks so regal, so gracious.
Oh, and the dress is to die for, and isn't that the perfect hat?
Oh, oh no, no, wait, that's Colonel Gaddafi riding into another town he's taken back from the rebels.
Uh America's hand command is away today, and this is your undocumented Anchorman sitting in, Mark Stein, honored to be here, and no supporting paperwork.
No long form birth certificate on me, no sorry.
Uh I'm a foreign exchange student at the uh Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
It's a it's a great program.
Uh guys like me get to study here, and uh in return, Barack Obama gets put on the standby list for coach seating at Westminster Abbey.
So it all works out.
Uh Rush is away today.
He will be back live on Monday for another full week of excellence in broadcasting.
Uh in the meantime, empire's rise and fall, debt ceilings rise and rise, but in a turbulent world, there are some things you can rely on.
Live from New York City.
It's open line Friday.
Actually, you were live uh live from New Hampshire.
There it turns out you can't even rely there are some things you can't rely on.
Uh we're not live from New York, we are live from Ice Station EIB in the uh Yeah, no, that's that's true.
H HR and the and the uh and the production team is is all in uh is all in New York and uh and it goes via the piece of wet string uh from Ice Station EIB here in the granite state of New Hampshire all the way down to New York, and then I think it goes over to uh uh California and up there to the satellite and from there across to the planet, uh wherever you are, this is the Rush Limbaugh Show coast to coast.
1800-282-2882.
You know how this works.
Uh Monday to Thursday, the show is under the control of a highly trained broadcast specialist.
Uh but Russia's away today, so we don't have a highly trained broadcast specialist.
What do I know?
So call up and talk about anything you want to talk about.
1800-282-2882.
We'll talk long form birth certificates.
Uh we'll talk uh long form marriage certificates.
I don't know whether Prince Williams produced his yet.
Is he even eligible to be king if he won't produce his long form marriage certificate?
I I think we should see it.
Uh we'll talk about whatever you want to talk about, whatever is uh is in the news, whatever is on your mind.
If it's not in the news, stick it in the news by talking about it on this show.
1800-28282.
Um Did you get up early to watch the uh wedding?
Think it's a chick thing.
Uh but that's okay, I'm cool with that.
I'm I like like uh I pretend when I I I already, I mean, it's uh relatively early in the day for me.
I've met a zillion women just in the course of basic social interactions this morning, uh who who have been a gog all over the TV set since uh four AM Eastern uh time.
And I'm I'm the kind of sensitive new man who can pretend to be interested in the Royal Wedding for the benefit of getting on with the chicks.
And uh so I did a I did a pretty good uh I did a pretty good uh job of it, I think.
But if you don't worry, we're not gonna do a lot of royal wedding coverage here, but I will say this.
Uh a couple of things I think worth noting about the Royal Wedding.
Uh the snub, the ambassador from Syria, uh got disinvited at twenty-four hours notice.
Now that twenty-four hours notice, that is brutal.
You're the ambassador from Syria.
And uh they arbitrarily decide that you've crossed your your boss, uh President Assad, uh the guy, the dictator in Syria, not the old dictator, the new they've got a hereditary dictatorship in uh Syria.
I guess that's why they get invited to the Royal Wedding and Obama doesn't, because a hereditary dictatorship is uh is a close enough model that Syria's got to an hereditary monarchy.
Uh but they uh Assad Sr. uh died and he passed on his uh Toxic throne to Asad Junior, who was actually an ophthalmologist in um Syria.
I don't think did I say ophthalmologist correctly there?
I don't know.
It's like the Kyrgyzstan of professions.
Uh but he was an ophthalmologist uh in London, and then he went back to be dictator in uh Syria.
And if you think about it, it's a a kind of logical career path uh because it's uh it's only a uh uh a difference of degree between uh between uh uh death panels of the British National Health Service and death panels of the Syrian Bathist Party.
Mere difference of degree, uh as they're discovering on the uh on the streets uh in Syria right at the moment.
So uh so he he suddenly found himself uh in in a whole big bunch of this Arab Spring uh trouble uh like all the other dictators uh over there uh and which when you think of it is pretty bad because if you're an ophthalmologist and you can't read the writing on the wall maybe you're in the wrong profession.
But anyway he was an eye doctor and he never saw it coming and uh so Assad is uh up to his neck in all this trouble now and he fires on the f starts firing on his own people and eventually he kills enough people that he gets disinvited from the Royal his ambassador gets disinvited from the Royal wedding at twenty four hours notice after he's booked his suit and uh and all the rest of it and and the ambassador did say it was uh in fact embarrassing.
And people made jokes about it.
You know, there's this guy slaughtering people throughout Syria and uh Hillary Rodham Clinton is hailing Assad as a reformer, right?
This mass murderer.
Hillary Rodham Clinton has said uh the position of the United States government is that this mass murdering ophthalmologist is a reformer.
And uh and so you can mock uh what uh the Royal family did in disinviting the Syrian ambassador at twenty four hours notice.
But I don't think in the imperfect world we live in that you should underestimate the power of the snub.
One of the most disgusting aspects of modern international relations is when you see uh the representatives of real states, states that represent free peoples, states that have responsible government, uh constitutionally ordered states, when you see them sitting next to the representatives of one man psycho states, uh you're diminishing yourself.
When the foreign minister of Sweden is at some international gathering and he's sitting next to the foreign minister of Syria and they're pretending that th people hold the same thing hold the same job and represent the same thing the Swedish foreign minister is diminished by going along with the pretense that the Syrian foreign minister is no different from him.
And you we we see that with the President of the United States too.
You've seen all those pictures of him kibbitsing and backslapping with Chavez uh down uh at some whatever it was the summit of the Americas or whatever crazy pointless stupid international gab fest he happened to be attending uh that day.
Uh the President of the United States is diminished uh by uh being seated uh at uh the same gathering as the President of Venezuela.
You we should never overlook the power of the snub.
Uh the it's practice at royal weddings to invite the entire diplomatic or the ambassadors of every foreign country represented at the Court of St. James disinviting a guy and actually saying to him no sorry, you're not you we can't have you in polite society because you represent a regime that's drenched in blood is a small step,
but in a in an imperfect world it's all you can do to get civilized countries to take small steps and that's better than him you know seeing pictures of Obama kibbitzing and laughing uh with Hugo Chavez.
So I'm in favour I'd like to see a bit more of uh uh of the snub.
Uh one eight hundred two eight two two eight eight two I want to talk about instead of talking about the royal kiss, I thought it was lovely.
I thought it was lovely certainly compared to say uh you know Al and Tippagore.
But uh the Royal kiss was uh was lovely but I want to talk about uh another kiss.
This is Alan West Congressman Alan West speaking in Florida uh and he gave a brilliant sci uh sound bite here.
If you support Medicare the way it is now, then kiss the United States of America goodbye.
That's the kiss that matters Royal the royal kiss uh Wills and Kate, very nice, very nice.
But this is the kiss that matters.
If you are wedded to Medicare the way it is now, then you can kiss the United States of America goodbye.
That's the choice that's the choice.
You come up with a way to reform Medicare.
Because Medicare uh as it is now is going to end.
The only question is whether it ends because it's replaced by something else, or it ends because it winds up destroying the United States of America.
I love Alan West.
That is a perfect soundbite.
I happen to be uh at some event in New York last year that Alan West uh spoke at, and I didn't really know much about him.
I mean I'd read the bio and everything, but I'd never seen him in action.
He's terrific live.
If you get the if you ever get the chance to see him live, go and see him live.
He he's authentic, he can stand on his feet when some nut uh in the back row decides to start baying and yelling at him, he can dish it out.
He doesn't he doesn't just stand there and have a couple of lame comebacks.
He can dish it out and win.
Uh he's not a scripted, blow-dried pole uh and and this uh improvised soundbite of his uh actually gets the choice in front of the United States right now.
If you support Medicare the way it is now, then kiss the United States of America goodbye.
He's right on that.
He's right on that.
Now, by comparison, here we have Donald Trump speaking uh yesterday, same day as Congressman West in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Uh and this i this is how uh this is how congr this is how Donald Trump uh addresses the big issues.
Quote, we build a school, we build a he he's talking about Iraq here.
We build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road, they blow them up.
We build again.
In the meantime, we can't get an effing school in Brooklyn, says Donald Trump.
He doesn't he doesn't say effing, he fills in the asterisks.
He's speaking to an audience in uh in Vegas here.
Uh the the uh the the problem is this, we don't actually need another effing school in Brooklyn.
We've got all the effing schools in Brooklyn we need.
The problems in Iraq are not that uh building schools in Iraq is sucking up the US education business.
This country wastes more money on education than anything else.
Uh so he's so underneath the g the false swagger and bravado of that, the effing school in Brooklyn stuff, the point is actually false.
Okay?
Now then he goes on to the next thing.
He goes, We have nobody in Washington that sits back and says you're not gonna raise that effing price in oil.
He's talking about oil now.
We have nobody in Washington that sits back and says, you're not gonna raise that effing price.
So again, he doesn't he he puts in the he he he he says the full word uh he puts in the full asterisks and everything.
No, the Saudis set the price of oil.
The reason the Saudis set the price of oil is because as a matter of policy, uh the United States has decided largely for aesthetic reasons that it wants to be dependent on the world uh to supply its energy needs.
Uh so we have uh we it's not it the it's the the oil is on Saudi sovereign territory.
If you want to take it from them, then you can set the price of Saudi oil.
If you if if you don't accept that it's if you accept that it's Saudi sovereign territory, what you gotta do is uh generate oil and generate your uh energy needs in your own sovereign territory.
Instead we have a guy, uh the president goes off to Brazil to congratulate the Brazilians for the kind of uh deep water offshore drilling uh that he that he would never dare to license here because it would because the Sierra Club would complain that it would destroy the planet.
Apparently it's all right for the Brazilians to destroy the planet, but not for the Americans to destroy the planet.
So again, that's that sounds like a tough soundbite of Trump's, but essentially it's false.
He's not gonna the Saudis would laugh.
Uh you can use all the F-words you want to the Saudis and they'll laugh in your face.
And then he turns about on to taxing Chinese goods.
Rush was talking about this a couple of days ago, and I'm correctly saying uh that it's protectionism and it's not conservative.
Uh and here's uh here's Trump talking about what he's gonna say to the Chinese.
Listen, you mother effers.
Okay, so he's now uh advanced from two syllable naughty words to four syllable naughty words.
Listen, you mother effers, we're going to tax you twenty-five percent.
Interesting, interesting.
Uh I would be fascinated to see the effect that would have on the Politburo in Beijing.
You compare, you compare uh the truth that Alan West distills into his single soundbite with the false braggadocio, the hollow swagger of Donald Trump's sound bites.
If you fall for this phony guy toughness, just because it's a blizzard of F-words, uh more fool you.
This morning, two two speeches.
Alan West, absolute truth in a pithy, beautifully phrased soundbite that gets the choice facing the United States.
Donald Trump uh uh uh a lot of uh uh self uh uh uh aggrandizing empty hollow F-words at the heart of which every single position is false.
That's why this guy is not gonna be the Republican nominee.
Uh this guy is not a conservative, uh and and uh and underneath all the uh all the F word uh braggadocio, which we can all enjoy, uh is a deeply false and deluded worldview.
one eight hundred two eight two two eight eight two Mark Stein in for rush on Open Line Friday.
Mark Stein in for Rush, open line Friday on the EIB network, one eight hundred two eight two eight eight two, super funky bumper music, uh, because apparently uh after the royal wedding uh they're having a uh disco for the uh for the for the big wedding party.
The the Queen was said to be not happy about it.
Uh but I don't I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily believe that.
I I I remember once a couple of years ago she danced with uh uh Sir Elton John to rock around the clock, and uh she was a game gal and gave it her best, so I'm sure she can I doubt if they if uh kung fu fighting comes up, which we discussed yesterday, the racist song Kung Fu Fighting, I I would bet her Majesty the Queen will be getting down with the best of uh the best of them.
Um As I said, it's a uh it's a chick thing in the United States, as far as I can tell.
No American red blooded there are even fewer American red blooded males watching the Royal Wedding than watching the United States participate in the uh soccer match in the World Cup.
It's that it's that low.
It's that low.
If you go into a if you go into a bar uh and uh a sports bar and the royal wedding comes on, they say, Oh no, please, can't we have the can't can't we watch the Golden Girls rerun dubbed into Spanish on Channel 173 and said no men in a red red blooded men in the United States watching the Royal Wedding.
But the monarchical urge persists even in a two and a third century old Republic.
Don't doubt don't doubt it, don't doubt it.
What do you think Obama's all about?
I always find this uh odd when I'm um speaking around America, and somebody asks me, Well, who do you want to be the guy that matches Obama?
I don't want a monarchical figure.
I don't want a glorious leader.
Do you remember that uh little video, all the celebrities, the what's he what's he called?
Demi Moore's uh boy toy.
What's that guy called?
Uh Ash Ashton Kutcher, thank you.
Ashton Kutcher.
Uh he made a little video in which all the celebrities pledged that they're going to be servants of the president and all mankind.
Sorry, hang on a minute.
I thought you'd you guys settled that question in 1776.
You were servants of George the Third.
What's the point of swapping being servants of George the Third for being servants of uh Obama?
Uh then uh then for the first uh few months of his uh of his reign, uh we saw all this stuff uh where he'd uh he'd fly in for these so-called town hall meetings, and uh and his subjects, his unworthy subjects would beseech him to do something for them.
Uh remember this lady?
I have an urgent need.
This is a lady from Fort Myers.
I have an urgent need.
We need a home, our own kitchen, our own bathroom.
Well, you know, Good King Barack took her name, Henrietta Hughes, and ordered his staff to meet with her.
Or does his staff with to meet with her.
Uh this this unworthy, like Good King Wenceslus Good King Wencesless looking out on the feast of Stephen as the snow lay around about deep and crisp and even, and he and his page go off to the poor guy's hovel uh and and and bring the majesty uh of uh the state to bear on this poor, unworthy wretch's hovel.
Uh and that's what basically what uh uh Barack Obama was doing for Henrietta Hughes.
He ordered he ordered his staff to meet with her.
I don't know who they were.
I hope he didn't insult her by dispatching some no-name deputy assistant secretary or whatever, instead of flying in one of the uh big time uh tax cheating cabinet uh uh members to uh, you know, nationalise a Florida bank and and convert one of its branches into a desirable family residence for her, where with a uh swing set hanging where the drive-thru ATM used to be.
But you know what was pathetic about this?
That as she stood there and she said, We need a home, our own kitchen, our own bathroom.
What's her kitchen got to do with with the citizen executive uh who uh at the apex of United States government.
Uh this is humiliating.
This is embarrassing for a republic, a so-called republic.
And instead the audience in Fort Myers roared their gratitude.
Yes, they yelped.
Amen.
Gracious God, thank you so much.
The almighty sovereign from Barackingham Palace has agreed to descend on his subjects and solve all their woes.
This is unbecoming.
When you mock what's going on in Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, don't ever doubt uh Barack Obama is a uh is a product his accession is a product of the monarchical urge from people who think that a great leader, a benign sovereign from the clouds can save them all.
That's exactly what George the Third George III couldn't understand why you guys were upset about things.
Because th that's what he thought he was to you the benign sovereign.
Open line Friday 1 eight hundred 2828 two.
You know, I don't want to press this point by the way, but the the monarchical urge and its role in the election of Barack Obama.
This idea that somehow you need the great leader, the the the superbeing, the man who bestrides the planet almost like a god, which is what was said about Do you remember all this stuff about Obama uh the uh what's his name?
The uh the the film director uh Spike uh Lee uh says that they will divide henceforth they will uh divide time into uh the eras into before Barack and after Barack.
Uh this is this is unrepublican this stuff.
You don't need the super leader.
Uh what you need as I was talking yesterday is a Calvin Coolidge figure.
You need a modest American citizen who understands that the people are not his subjects but that he is the servant of the people in a constitutional republic.
You know, Barack Obama isn't our boss uh we employ him he works for us.
Now I don't want to say that in a racist way so all you crazy guys with the left wing website saying whoa what are you saying?
You sound like some kind of Pullman porter or whatever No every American president works for the American people and the idea of looking for the super being if you're gonna look for a superbeing to solve your problems you might as well go back uh to a royal family.
You might as well not have bothered dumping George III in the first place.
And as I always say uh if George the third had been running in two thousand and eight he would have been the small government candidate by the way.
But I'll t I'll tell you something else too that struck me about this.
You know all this um the Prince Mary's a commoner right over in London.
Kate Middleton they meet at uh university up in Scotland somewhere and there's been all this she's not that common actually by these things go but she is what they call a commoner and uh they say that um she's uh her her family include among her forebears was a coal miner and this is look look at this she's not the coal miner's daughter but she's the coal miner's great great great great granddaughter or whatever she is and yet she is going to be uh queen she's gonna be uh the queen consort of uh the United Kingdom of Canada of Australia,
New Zealand, Belize, Jamaica, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Bahamas, whole bunch of places.
She's gonna be the queen.
From nowhere.
Nowhere.
Now that's what they used Yeah, her dad is an entrepreneur.
That's that's what who was saying that?
Was that Diane Sawyer saying that, HR?
Really?
I don't know who was saying.
I couldn't I I couldn't stick watching the the twenty seconds of the coverage I caught by the way, because like nobody knows anything.
They're getting the Yeah, the the idea that that her father is an entrepreneur, so that would relate to America.
I don't even know what that means.
What that Barack Obama and Timothy Geitner can impose a supplementary tax on her dad or whatever.
I don't know what quite what the ankle is there.
We could do with more entrepreneurs.
But anyway, anyway the th this this idea that anyone now they're making this oh look Kate Middleton anyone can grow up to be Queen.
That's what they used to say about this country.
Anyone can grow up to be president uh of the United States.
And uh that used to be that used to be the case.
It's not quite the case anymore.
If you notice what we have now is uh government by uh Harvard and Yale.
Uh uh Obama is Harvard Law School uh Bush was Harvard and Yale Law School.
Uh Clinton was which one was Clinton was he?
Which one was he uh Clinton was Harvard and uh and Bush the first was Yale.
By the way, people think this is normal.
Uh that the that the products of these elite institutions uh should be should be the uh American uh presidents.
And it's not actually normal at all.
It there's never been a time in the history of this country when the ruling class has been drawn from as narrow a field uh as it is now.
Do you remember the kind of guy?
Went back when it was true that anyone could grow up uh and be uh American president.
Uh do you remember where uh William McKinley, uh he didn't go to Harvard a year, he went to Allegheny College for one semester.
Uh Grover Cleveland went to something called Clinton Liberal Academy.
Uh which sounds is that still open?
I hope not.
What a name.
Clinton Liberal Academy.
But he left to support his uh family.
Truman.
Truman didn't have a degree at all.
Why?
He was entirely unschooled.
Uh Martin Van Buren left school at fourteen.
Abraham Lincoln only had eighteen months of formal education.
Zachary Taylor never went to school at all.
Since Ronald Reagan left office.
Ronald Reagan, remember Eureka College, Illinois.
America, for the first time in its history, uh has lived under continuous rule by the Ivy League.
It's it's not a two-party system now, it's a two-school system.
You've got uh Yale uh for Bush one, then Yale law for Clinton, uh then Harvard Business for Bush two, and Harvard Law for Obama.
Uh so it's not even true now.
When somebody comes along who's actually started at the bottom, like Sarah Palin, who's who's gone to schools you've never heard of, like North Idaho College or Matanouska Susitna College, uh whatever that is, I don't know where it is.
Uh because she's started at the bottom and she's worked her way up and she's in the situation that a lot of people are in where you have to pick up your credits here and pick up your credits there and pay them off as you go and work as you go.
Uh everybody's oh, good grief, how fretfully vo everybody recoils in horror like Dowager Duchesses uh at the uh at the oh good grief.
Manatuska Susiticall, we couldn't possibly have someone like that in the White House.
It'd be completely absurd.
America, America is uh for the first time uh in its history is now under the control of an elite drawn from a narrower and narrower range of society.
And again, this is unrepublican.
This is entirely un-Republican.
So don't mock what's going on at Westminster Abbey just because they've all got goofy titles like Duchess and Marquis and Prince of This and Prince of that.
Uh when uh you're when you're going exactly the same way.
What do what would Zachary Taylor's chances of getting to be to the White House now be?
What would William McKinley's chances of getting to the White House now be?
What would Harry S. Truman's?
What would Ronald now we say, oh no.
Rule by Ivy League, and not a two-party system, not a two school system.
Hey, let's go to Vinny in the Bronx.
Now there is.
There is a uh there's an Ivy League name if ever I heard one.
Let's go to Vinny in the Bronx.
Vinny, you're live on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Great to be able to do that.
Hey, Mark, forget about it.
Anyway.
Oh, don't do this.
You make me sound like some silly metrosexual queen when you got you when you do it, you forget about it in that beautiful Bronx voice.
I just want to give two quick examples of uh uh media hypocrisy.
The first one would be uh FEMA's disappearing act in Alabama where the death toll is three hundred and counting.
Uh we remember the outcry uh against President Bush and FEMA and Katrina, and I just want to make sure our media realizes that FEME is nowhere to be found in Alabama either, and I'm breathlessly waiting to report as to why and what President Obama's doing about it.
And the other one would be...
Just before you get to that, Vinny, this is right, by the way.
300 people have died in one American state.
Alabama, Alabama, three hundred people dead.
This is like uh you remember nine eleven, three thousand people died.
This this is like Alabama's nine eleven.
Uh and uh and if this had happened on a Republican uh watch, uh the the media would be demanding to know what the president was doing about it, why why the delay had been in getting FEMA and getting federal aid out there and all the rest of it.
And uh there's a virtual news blackout on it.
You would never know that this was the biggest death toll in forty years uh from a uh uh a storm uh of this kind.
So you're you're right on that point, Vinny.
What's what's your next point?
The other one is about an incident that happened uh in September of two thousand and ten.
I believe they actually went uh by the name the kill team, and it was uh a group of um it was a group of rogue uh uh American soldiers in Afghanistan uh who murdered Afghan civilians, they mutilated them, and I believe they took pictures of it.
Um now this story received scant coverage.
I believe it broke early this year, either February or March.
It was a one-day story.
Uh I it I hearkened back to Abu Ghraib where uh when that happened, you had art exhibits, you had novels, you had conferences, and you had everyone screaming for uh uh resignations and impeach the president and yada yada yada.
Yeah, and that's crazy Abu Garab, if I remember correctly.
Unfortunately, Tar Shane, these American soldiers uh committed horrid atrocities and they just happen to be under the presidency of one Barack Hussein Obama.
I'm just wondering where the call for uh Mr. Obama's resignation is.
Yeah, and and as you point out, with Abu Gray with that uh crazy gal, what was her name, Lindy and the opposing all the fellas in the Victoria's secret uh underwear and all the rest of it.
Right everybody was saying that that goes to the top.
That that g that that goes to Rumsfeld and Bush.
They bear responsibility for this.
Uh Rumsfeld should Rumsfeld should resign.
Uh it's d it's nobody nobody's it's just some purely local matter happening out on the distant horizon, thousands of miles away, doesn't reflect on the Obama administration at all.
So I guess as you point out, all the novels and plays and uh things they did about Gitmo, uh that that seems that whole genre seems to have died in the last couple of years too mysteriously.
Trying to Hey Vinny uh Yes sir.
Yeah, I I thought you'd gone for a minute there.
If I'm not mistaken, aren't they still trying to bring up Donald Rumsfeld on war crimes?
Yes.
Yes, they are.
They are, and he has to be very careful where he flies around the world because all these uh it's as you say, it's not just the uh American media.
Uh a lot of these European countries, there's like showboating magistrates in European Union countries who can't wait for Rumsfeld to change planes in their jurisdiction uh and they can bring him up on war crimes trials.
They they haven't ruled out getting Rumsfeld and Bush and Cheney put up on war crime trials uh at uh at The Hague.
Yet as you say, uh GIs can kill Afghan civilians on Obama's watch, and apparently it doesn't uh it doesn't affect the uh the great Nobel Peace Prize winners uh stature in the eyes of the media and the and the Europeans.
That's uh absolutely right there, Vinny.
Thank you.
Hey, great to talk to you.
Thank you, sir, for your time.
Thank you, Mark.
No, thank thank you.
Vinny from the Bronx.
Uh one eight hundred two eight two eight eight two.
It's Open Line Friday.
Whatever you want to talk about.
No highly trained broadcast specialist is here to restrict the range of subjects today.
Whatever you want to talk about, it's all yours.
1800-282-2882.
The United States Congress is trying to get on up.
It wants to get that old debt ceiling up.
The uh the debt ceiling has been raised seventy-five times in the last fifty years.
The debt ceiling only gets on up, it never gets on down.
The d the when you when you raise the debt ceiling, it just gets on up and then gets on way up even further.
Never ever, ever uh feels the need to get on down.
But uh one thing uh is striking about the current debate.
Uh apparently, apparently, uh only uh sixteen percent of Americans, according to uh the latest poll in the Washington Post, want to raise the debt ceiling without any spending reforms.
This is uh on the face of it, a a good result, because it shows that uh the the debate now is going the way of conservatives.
Uh that the idea that we can simply uh carry on increasing uh the uh debt ceiling ever and ever and ever, with no plan ever to start living within our means.
I said yesterday the government of the United States borrows one hundred and eighty-eight million dollars every hour.
That's the official figure uh from the two thousand and eleven budget.
The two thousand and eleven budget presumes that the government of the United States can borrow uh can spend, can spend a hundred and eighty-eight million dollars that it doesn't have every hour of every day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks uh a year.
Uh now we have to raise the debt ceiling because that's not enough.
So we've got to raise it some more.
So we can borrow even more than a fifth of a billion dollars every hour.
And uh what we see is that only sixteen percent of people want to raise the debt ceiling without any spending reforms.
Now they're almost there.
They're almost there.
Because you know uh this is the John Boehner plan.
The John Boehner plan uh is to uh is to agree to raise the debt ceiling in return for certain serious concessions on spending.
Now, what's the betting that that'll work?
I mean, I can see John Boehner and Harry Reid and Barack Obama uh having a meeting and coming out all smiles and having an agreement.
Uh they've announcing that they've uh uh agreed to raise the debt ceiling in return for cutting back spending in this area and that area and all the rest of it.
And then as happened a couple of weeks ago, we would find out 48 hours later that these were all meaningless accounting tricks uh that would impact uh federal spending not one jot, not one whit, and yet the debt ceiling would have gone up.
Uh so I don't even think that's a viable solution.
I think at this stage uh the United States government has got a choice.
It can live within its means uh or regardless of what it does to the debt ceiling, it will be sending a message to our lenders around the world that we simply are in the game of business as usual, and that the political institutions of the United States are impervious to course correction.
And once that happens, then it doesn't matter whether you raise the uh the debt ceiling, uh, because the rest of the world has got the message that you just spend a holics and you're never not gonna be spend a holics and you're just gonna be uh spending, spending, spending until you drive the country off the cliff.
What what we need to do now is uh is actually start making uh talking seriously about ending entire government departments.
Uh you can save uh you you you you you can save straight off uh a hundred million dollars just by cutting out the Federal Department of uh uh of education.
You don't need to you you can you can just take that out of the equation.
You even if you want to have an argument about some things that uh that it does that you think are quite good, like Pell grants, I'm not even a big fan of Pell grants, but if you want to take one or two little things like that, they don't need a cabinet department.
Uh there shouldn't be a Department of Energy.
Uh we have to get serious about saying we don't need this Cabinet Department, we don't need that cabinet department.
We want to end those.
We want to end those.
Because right now, um this guy, uh do you remember Paul O'Neill?
He was the Treasury Secretary, first Treasury Secretary under Bush.
He went traipsing around Africa with Bono.
Uh they wore uh Colonel Gaddafi pajamas and were photographed together like Colonel Gaddaffy's mini-mees, traipsing around Africa.
Uh they were there for, you know, Bono's big thing is debt forgiveness for Africa.
Paul O'Neill has now denounced the people who are who are threatening not to vote for increasing in uh the debt ceiling.
Uh, and he's saying that they're damaging the United States of America.
No, sir.
Your conventional wisdom uh is damaging and has profoundly damaged the United States of America.
And instead of wasting your time at taxpayers' expense, traipsing round Africa in the Colonel Gaddafi pajamas arguing for debt forgiveness for Africa, you and Bono should climb back into your tribal pyjamas and tour the United States, arguing for debt forgiveness for the United States, because that's what it comes down to.
If we stick with your brain-dead conventional wisdom.
Mark Stein Infrarus, 1-800-282-2882 talking about the debt ceiling and lots more still to come.
The Rush Limbaugh Show.
Open line Friday, 1-800-282-2882.
We're talking about the debt ceiling.
Uh we're going to talk about the Paul Ryan Plan and uh the real choice facing this uh nation, which is about uh between ending Medicare as we know it, or ending the United States of America, as we know it.
That's the way uh Colonel Alan West put it in Florida yesterday, and he is absolutely right.
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