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May 20, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:42
May 20, 2011, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
All right, folks, it's Friday, and you know what that means.
If you don't know what it means, just sit tight.
It'll all become crystal clear in mere moments.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday.
And this is the day that your host, O'Rushbo, takes a giant career risk.
No other major media figure would ever contemplate this, much less do it.
But I do it with great affection and eagerness.
When we go to the phones, we turn the content of the program over to unskilled, untrained rank amateurs.
Callers, we love them.
But it's our one day of the week where you can call and talk about anything you want.
Ask a question, make a comment.
Monday through Thursday has to be what I care about, or you don't stand a prayer.
Not so on Friday.
So here's the number, 800-282-2882, and the email address, lrushbo at eibnet.com.
Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall in the Oval Orifice today when Netanyahu shows up there?
A fly with a great comprehension of Hebrew cusswords.
Man, oh, man.
You know what Obama's going to go to the CIA today.
He's going over to the CIA to thank the interrogators that he's prosecuting for helping him find bin Laden.
And maybe he could take Netanyahu with him as a human shield when he goes over there.
You know, there's been a lot of commentary on the speech.
I got to tell you, have you noticed how almost every mainstream media report is trying to do damage control on this speech?
There are some exceptions, but most people, most of the lamestreamers are doing their best to do damage control here, which shows you what a bomb the thing really was.
Now, what they're trying to do is pretend that Obama's demand that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders is, that's a phony controversy.
It's any big deal.
It's long been U.S. policy, they're saying.
They're trying to claim that it does not represent a real shift in policy.
They're claiming the U.S. government's always wanted Israel to go back to the 1967 borders.
But how can that be if George W. Bush wrote Israel a letter, I have that little excerpt of it here in 2004, which was endorsed by both houses of Congress, by the way, which promised Israel the United States would never or would not demand such a thing.
Now, here's the pertinent text from the President Bush 2004 letter to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Quote, as part of a final peace settlement, Israel must have secure and recognized borders, which should emerge from negotiations between the parties in accordance with UNSC resolutions 242-338, United Nations Security Council.
In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, aka the pre-1967 borders, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion.
It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.
So the media is out there trying to say that the 1967 borders, that's long been U.S. policy.
Obama didn't upset any apple carts, and it has not been U.S. policy as recently as 2004.
And, you know, folks, apart from his betrayal of Israel, the thing that struck me most about Obama's speech yesterday was how it really did strike when I finally had a chance after the program to digest this and take it in.
He was talking about or as if the United States was still the biggest mover and shaker in the world when he doesn't want it to be.
He's running around trying to make sure that that's not the case, at least verbally.
But there he was giving away billions of dollars to Egypt and Tunisia, anybody else he happens to favor at the moment.
He told Basher Assad he has to accept democracy or give up power.
He told Israel how big their country should be.
But let's get real.
United States is no longer the world's power broker.
We are broke, but we're not the power broker.
We're broker than broke.
And he's running around giving away money that we don't have.
If anything, China and India ought to be calling these shots.
And after all, isn't that the way Obama used to say he wanted it?
He's running around apologizing for this country.
He's told people that the days of the United States leading the world economically are over.
Those days aren't going to happen.
And is there any doubt, folks, that when it comes to the Palestinians and the Israelis, he's got an affection for the Palestinians?
There's no question about this.
None whatsoever.
Standing at longtime opposition with our allied status with Israel.
There's a couple of pieces here.
This is from Israel National News.
Israel expects Obama to take back 1967 Lions demand.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick on the draw Thursday, voicing clear displeasure with Obama's Mideast policy speech.
The response began, Israel appreciates Obama's commitment to peace.
Israel believes that for peace to endure between Israelis and Palestinians, the viability of a Palestinian state can't come at the expense of the viability of the one and only Jewish state.
And you'll note, as we pointed out yesterday, nobody talks about the right of return.
And when that's not discussed, all the rest of this is disingenuous.
It's a fundamental seminal demand that the Palestinians have.
The Israelis are never going to grant it, and the Palestinians are never going to give it up.
Right of return would, if it were ever granted, if it ever happened, it'd be the end of Israel.
The fact that that's not being discussed here is quite important in determining exactly what this really is all about.
In another story out of Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's associates expressed their disappointment with Obama's speech Thursday.
One aide saying the United States president is detached from regional realities.
Netanyahu's associates told Winet early on Friday that Netanyahu, who departed to the U.S. Thursday night, is prepared for a confrontation with Obama on vital issues.
Now, it's quite understandable the Israelis would not be pleased and Wouldn't be happy here.
The New York Times today, Helene Cooper, Obama and Netanyahu are facing a turning point.
As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel heads of the White House today for the seventh meeting since Obama was immaculated into Orifice, the two men are facing a turning point in a relationship that has never been warm.
By all accounts, they don't trust each other.
Obama has told aides and allies he doesn't believe Netanyahu will ever be willing to make the kind of big concessions that will lead to a peace deal.
Whereas, of course, ladies and gentlemen, the Palestinians have made one concession after another, right?
The Palestinians continue to make concession after concession after concession after concession.
Satire there for those of you who don't, or sarcasm better stated.
Once again, here, the New York Times framing it all about Obama.
Are you sure you turned that air conditioning down?
It's not making you.
There's one in the far room where all the works that you got to turn that down too.
I don't care if it freezes those guys out.
There are interlopers in there.
Yeah, well, it isn't working.
Don't sit here and tell me not to sweat it.
Now, the New York Times, once again, as is happening throughout the mainstream media, making this all about Obama.
When because of Obama, life and death issues for Israel as a nation are now on the table, and they have been for a while.
But the New York Times tries to portray this as a personal dispute between the status quo conservative, Republican-loving Netanyahu and Obama, who is a great intellect.
And if you read the story, you would note how the Times says Obama was humiliated when Netanyahu refused his order to stop construction on the West Bank some months ago.
So naturally, according to the New York Times, Netanyahu has to be punished.
And that's what yesterday was also about.
Obama's using the upcoming vote of the United Nations about establishing a Palestinian state to try to wring this 67 borders concession from Israel.
So once again, you've got a dichotomy or a dilemma, if you will.
Many in the mainstream media are trying to cover up for this bomb of a speech.
And in the process, the New York Times taking it a step further, making it personal between Obama and Netanyahu.
And on that score, of course, Obama kicks butt.
That Netanyahu, he likes the Republicans.
He likes conservatives.
No, snurdley, right of return would just turn Israel into Palestine.
We're talking nearly 5 million people who claim they were displaced from their homesteads.
The right of return, they want to go back to where Israel, or what is now Israel before it was chartered, it'd be the end of Israel.
So as I tried to eloquently point out yesterday, you haven't heard that being discussed in any of this.
And it's the fundamental issue.
I continue to sit here and on the one hand, I slap myself on the head.
Okay, I got to talk about this.
I mean, it's in the news.
My perspective is sorely needed, no question about it.
But it's still a trap.
There's nothing new here other than, for the first time, we have a president who is clearly aligned with the enemy of our ally, not with our ally.
That's what's striking.
That's what's new here.
But in terms of anything being done now that's going to lead to so-called peace, there's nothing out there that's going to lead to peace.
This does not work.
This is not how it happens.
Peace, doctors, nurses, clean water do not happen at the end of a bunch of sentences.
You don't negotiate peace.
You negotiate terms of surrender.
And nobody's talking about that.
In the meantime, we continue to spend money we don't have throwing it around in all these places.
And you've got an area of the world, the Middle East, which is undergoing an uprising.
We've been lied to about what that's all about, this Arab Spring.
One story that I do believe has some truth in it, the Wall Street Journal a couple days ago, Jewish donors and fundraisers are warning the Obama re-elect campaign to presidents at risk of losing financial support because of concerns about his handling of Israel.
Some Jewish donors say that Obama has pushed Israeli leaders too hard to halt construction of housing settlements and disputed.
You know, my question to this, what took you so long?
This is one of these questions that I have forever had.
I've been befuddled by blind Jewish support for liberals and Obama my entire life.
I've gone to the greatest Jewish thinkers of my generation to have this question explained to me.
I've gone to Norman Podoritz, who's written an entire book about this.
And at the end of the day, the end of all of it, nobody really has any different or better answer than they've ever had.
That is just blind emotional loyalty based upon totally erroneous assumptions that Jewish people make about conservatives.
Because intellectually, it makes it must.
I mean, here's a guy sat in Jeremiah Wright's church for 20 years.
He ought not get a Jewish dime.
But, as you know, he gets the vast majority of campaign donations from Jewish organizations and individuals.
Okay, folks, the world's going to end tomorrow.
So does any of this matter?
The rapture is tomorrow.
Got it right here.
Right here.
Time magazine, who earlier this week gave us the explanations and the reasons why powerful men plant their seed all over the place.
Time magazine now, Apocalypse Weekend, Harold Camping says the world ends Saturday.
He's said it before.
Women and minorities hardest hit.
Here's Ben Stein from the Sunday Show on CBS, CBS Sunday morning.
I read from this yesterday, but this is Ben Stein actually in his own voice defining for the CBS Sunday morning audience, which probably put a thimble, what the Arab Spring is.
The Arab Spring as a force for democracy, human rights, and peace in Egypt seems to me to be a fraud.
The dictator and his entourage are kicked out in Egypt.
We're pro-West, a bit restrained on Israel, open to free enterprise, and resistant to Iranian-sponsored terror.
Egypt is now rapidly becoming anti-Israel, pro-Iran, pro-the Iranian terrorist group Hamas, and very far from pro-human rights.
As the terrorist government of Syria cracks down violently on its own people, the UN Security Council does exactly nothing about it.
Has anyone noticed that the common denominator of all the successful Arab street movements is that they're sympathetic to Iran?
When the dust settles, Iran is going to own the Middle East, except for maybe Saudi Arabia if we have the guts to help them, which I very much doubt.
You can call it Arab Spring if you want, but with Iran now the regional superpower, it's a lot more like an extremely bleak Mideast winner.
And this happens to be a point of view gaining favor, gaining acolytes, that the Arab Spring is not how it's being portrayed, an uprising of democracy.
Clearly, it's what the regime wants us to believe.
And of course, Obama's responsible for it.
Obama made it happen.
Obama's election, Obama's existence, Obama's presidency.
Why, even Obama killing Osama is bringing about the Arab Spring.
Of course, no mention of George W. Bush and Iraq having anything to do with an uprising of democracy.
But in fact, an uprising in democracy is not what is happening.
Here's a media montage.
Today's show today, Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Richard Engel reporting about Obama's speech in the Middle East.
In the Middle East, the reaction to the speech has been, by and large, negative.
In Cairo, the reaction was mostly disappointment.
Many Egyptians wanted a U.S. peace initiative for Israeli-Palestinian talk.
But democratic change in Egypt has created a new reality here and unleashed voices the United States may not like.
Hours before President Obama spoke, Islamic fundamentalists gathered in Cairo to demand the release of Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric in prison in the United States for masterminding the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.
One of the cleric's sons, Mohammed, told me his father should be released on humanitarian grounds.
Mohammed fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
I was surprised to see him out protesting at all.
This would have been unthinkable under the previous Egyptian government, which often arrested hardline Islamic militants.
It certainly wouldn't have allowed them to demonstrate in front of the American embassy in Cairo.
Middle East reaction to Obama's speech is negative.
Washington Post, Obama's speech greeted with wariness and apathy.
And the primary reason for it is that they're saying it's just words.
He could have said this a long time ago.
We're looking at what he does and doesn't do rather than what he says.
For many in the region, it was simply too little too late.
I don't think this is going to fix his image.
He should have said something from the very beginning.
We've been waiting, said Farais Brezett of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Qatar.
Most people have realized that what the U.S. does or doesn't do is no longer important because people took matters into their own hands.
He's talking about Egypt.
Doesn't matter.
Obama doesn't matter.
We took over Egypt ourselves.
Doesn't matter.
He was out there trying to get ahead of it.
What he says doesn't matter.
So the take anyway over there is wariness, apathy, too little too late, no biggie.
All right, let me make it crystal clear.
The Palestinian right of return.
Just so everybody understands this, the Palestinian demand for right of return asserts that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return, a right to the property they or their forebears left or which they were forced to leave in the former British mandate of Palestine, which is currently Israel,
and the Palestinian territories as a result of the 1948 Palestine War.
Now, the Complicating factor here is that there really is no such thing as Palestine.
It's been created for the sake of this argument or this dispute.
And there never were Palestinians.
But there are now, of course, for the sake of prolonging, servicing, and animating this dispute.
So now that Obama has taken away Israel's borders chip by himself asserting that Israel returned to its 1967 borders, the right of return is the only thing left to negotiate over, and it really isn't possible to negotiate since it would effectively spell the end of Israel as a nation since we're talking about five, six million people.
There's a Palestine was created by British mandate way, way, way back, 1948, something along those lines.
Now, give you a modern-day analogy.
It's a little flawed, but it still works.
The Cuban exile community in Miami firmly believes that if the Castro regime ever is done away with defeated scent packing, they have the right to return to what was their property, both land and assets in Cuba, that nobody else gets it.
You could also call that a right of return, although that's not a formal negotiating term, obviously, but it's the same point.
They would, and they are operating under that belief system that if Cuba ever does go free again, that first dibs on what was Cuba is theirs.
For those of you who smoke Cuban cigars, we can give you a similar analogy.
A lot of people assume that if the embargo is to be, let's say the embargo is lifted and the Cuban regime is still there.
People assume that Cuban manufactured cigars will simply all of a sudden show up in tobacco stores.
That's not what's going to happen.
What's going to happen is that the Dominican, Nicaraguan, other manufacturers of cigars around the world are going to say, wait a second, we have spent all these decades developing our brands and our trademarks, and we're simply not going to let those same marks from Cuba show up and compete with us.
And they're going to say, we want first dibs on raw Cuban tobacco to do with it what we want, either blend it with our existing tobacco from the Dominican or Nicaragua, wherever it comes from, or whatever.
It's going to be a mess.
The State Department is going to get petitioned.
We'll be petitioned by any number of Cuban exiles for a right to return to what was theirs that was taken from them by the Castro regime.
As I say, it's a little bit flawed analogy, but the right of return basically is pretty self-explanatory when you understand what is meant by it.
That about 4.5, 5 million people think they were kicked off their land.
They want the right to return to it, in effect, ending Israel.
So it's a non-starter.
There will never be a right of return agreed to by Israel.
The Palestinians will never give up the demand.
So with that hanging out there, you can talk 67 borders all you want.
You can talk every other aspect of this dispute all you want.
Until that's resolved, there will be no quote-unquote peace.
It just isn't going to happen.
Best I can do in explaining it.
This from Time magazine, in a comfortable office, Bible placed firmly atop his lap, the 89-year-old Harold Camping is preaching with utter certainty about the end of the world, May 21st, 2011, tomorrow.
That's the day of judgment.
I don't know, by the way, if tomorrow is Judgment Day, if the rapture does happen tomorrow, I don't know what that does to the Obama campaign.
I'm not sure if that will end the Obama campaign or not.
People have been asking me, Rush, if the world ends tomorrow, does that mean the Obama campaign ends?
That remains to be seen.
Harold Camping believes this with conviction.
The YouTube video posted last year, he said, it's the day that ends all gospel salvation activity.
It's the most important day by a billion times than any other day the world has ever known.
On that day, Camping estimates that roughly 207 million people, about 3% of the world's population, will be plucked from the earth.
What will follow?
In other words, they will be saved.
The rest will be subjected to five months of earthquakes and other calamities until the world officially ends on October 21st of this year.
Now, I saw this.
I said, this is a dead ringer for the global warming movement.
This is exactly how these people are portraying it.
End of the world and we're destroying the planet.
Sounds a lot like the global warming warnings that we've gotten over the last 20 years.
Well, the warmers believe that up to one-third of the species on earth are about to die.
And this is, you know, Michael Creighton had a great analogy once, a great comparison to the global warming crowd and religious believers.
The similarities.
There was a Garden of Eden.
There is sin.
There's destruction.
There's a rapture.
There's all of this.
Even though the global warming people claim not to have a religion.
But Time magazine having a lot of fun here mocking these Christians.
But are they any more deluded than the people who believe so devoutly in man-made global warming?
As I say, these comparisons are fascinating.
Global warming and these end of the earth guys, it's almost identical.
As I say, Obama heading over to the CIA today, scheduled a visit CIA headquarters on Friday.
Thank the rank and file for their help in capturing Osama bin Laden.
The White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said yesterday Obama will meet with a broad range of the intelligence community to thank them for their ongoing work, especially on helping locate the former al-Qaeda leader.
Carney said that Obama decided to make the trip shortly after bin Laden's death.
Several reports published since Navy SEALs killed bin Laden indicate the CIA was deeply involved in determining his whereabouts.
All of this is going on.
Obama's going to make this visit while his Justice Department continues an investigation of the CIA interrogators who engaged in waterboarding.
And the Washington Post here, this is the story comes from the Post, studiously avoids mentioning that the information that eventually led to locating bin Laden in Pakistan was extracted by CIA interrogators who are currently being prosecuted.
Or they don't mention that Obama has given his support to this investigation numerous times.
But if these CIA officers that are under investigation, if they are guilty of a crime, isn't Obama guilty as well?
Hasn't he benefited from the information the CIA gained through supposedly illegal means?
After all, as Obama says, nobody is above the law.
Brief timeout, Open Line Friday, El Rushmo, and we'll get to your phone calls as we always try to do on Open Line Friday in the first hour.
Sit tight.
We'll be right back.
Ladies and gentlemen, I was misinformed.
The British mandate for Palestine dates back to 1922.
I was getting confused with the date of the charter to formation of Israel.
The British mandate for Palestine dates back to 1922, and it was meant to be payback for Jewish help in, or Arab help rather, meant to be payback for Arab help in World War I. Speaking of global warming, the New York Daily News had a story.
This is from last summer.
And we're just surfacing here from our archives.
Just to put some of this stuff in perspective, last summer, documents released Friday by the Nixon Presidential Library show that members of Nixon's inner circle discussed the possibilities of global warming more than 30 years ago.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan walked into Nixon's office and told him that we're going nuts producing carbon dioxide.
The world's temperature the next 30 to 50 years could rise by seven degrees.
We're going to have sea levels going nuts.
Parts of America in 30 years will be underwater.
Nixon was told this.
Documents just released, again, this story is from last summer from the Nixon Library.
Advisor Daniel Patrick Moynihan, notable as a Democrat in that administration, urged Nixon to initiate a worldwide system of monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere decades before the issue of global warming came to the public's attention.
There is widespread agreement carbon dioxide content will rise 25% by 2000, Moynihan wrote in a September 1969 memo.
This could increase the average temperature near the Earth's surface by seven degrees by the year 2000.
This in turn could raise the level of the sea by 10 feet.
Goodbye, New York.
Goodbye, Washington, for that matter.
Nixon was warned that New York and Washington would be underwater because of carbon dioxide in 1970.
What a hoax.
What a fraud.
And look how it ensnared all kinds of people.
Five years later is when Newsweek is doing its cover on the coming ice age.
1975.
Moynihan was Nixon's Counselor for Urban Affairs from January of 1969 through December of 1970.
Well, I mean, it's just, if anything, we know that the Earth's temperature by 2000 had not risen seven degrees Fahrenheit and New York and Washington were not underwater and not even close.
None of it was true.
All right, to the phones.
Rick in Pomona in New York.
Great to have you.
You're up first today on Open Line Friday.
Nice to have you with us, sir.
Hey, Rush, how are you?
Very good, sir.
Thank you.
I tell you, when I heard Obama make his comments about the Middle East yesterday, I practically fell on the floor.
The one thing I want to tell you, a couple of things, but number one, not all Jews, of which I am, are blind supporters of Obama.
Oh, no, I know that.
Because we all, a lot of us, were expecting something like this to eventually come out.
And this weekend, I'm kind of glad he made this statement when he did, because this weekend, I believe, is the National APAC meeting in Washington.
And I only wish I had known he was going to say this stuff.
I would have been down in Washington.
And I would urge all AIPAC attendees to get over to the front of the White House, turn your back, but hold up signs that say shame on you.
It's not going to happen.
I know, but I wish they would.
I think what a lot of people don't realize of that group is today, giving back the, according to ABC Network, seized lands of the post-67 war.
Next will be Jerusalem.
And that'll be the chokehold.
Yeah, I know that's coming.
Well, it's not coming.
It's there.
But that will be the next focal point.
Because everybody knows what's going on here.
Well, not enough know that, because I just don't understand why anybody would be voting for this guy come 2012.
I mean, you just look at the health care program.
Well, there is the simple explanation.
And sometimes the simple explanation is rejected precisely because it is so simple.
Meaning, no, Rush.
It's got to be more complicated than this.
The simple explanation is that liberals are liberals first.
They are liberals before they are Jewish.
They are liberals before they're black.
They are liberals before they are women.
That's why all these different groups, you have the feminazis, you have the union people, you have all the various different coalitions of the Democrat Party, they are liberals first.
And that is to what they are loyal.
And their biggest threat, in their minds, their biggest fear is the American right or the right wing anywhere, Republicans, conservatives, you name it.
Blind loyalty to themselves.
So they're going to sit there.
It's entirely possible that American liberal Jews could sit there and watch this regime whittle Israel away to nothing.
Yeah, Snerdley, you think not what's going to wake them up?
What is it going to take the way that speech yesterday, go back to 1967 borders, blind support.
Look at, let me ask you a simple question.
They're trying to put something in perspective.
What would be better off, what would make the Middle East better off, no Iran or no Israel?
Okay, well, guess what?
Guess what the objective is in the Middle East?
No Israel.
Of course, the answer is the Middle East would be profoundly safer, profoundly improved, profoundly better if there were no Iran.
Nobody's making a move on Iran.
Now, we're being told that the problem of the Middle East is Israel.
Our president essentially sends that message, not in so many words yesterday, but sends that message with that speech yesterday.
The problem in the Middle East is Israel.
And we got to do something about it.
We've got to get rid of the Israelis.
We've got to neuter the Israel, whatever we have to do.
But they are portrayed as the problem.
And everybody knows if you take Israel out of the Middle East, you haven't improved it.
You haven't made it a better place.
This is silly.
I don't know if not now, what would have to happen for American Jewish liberals to realize what's going on and renounce their support for whoever is running a Democrat Party that has, as part of its agenda, the neutering of Israel.
Look at the New York Times.
I have just a kid from the middle of country from Missouri.
Not a formal education, all that.
All I have to rely on is common sense.
The New York Times, liberals first, they are leading the pack against Israel.
They always have led the pack against Israel, portraying Israel as the problem in the Middle East.
And I don't mean just their op-ed people, but their official editorial position.
It's always befuddled me that the New York Times is owned by a Jewish family.
But they are, and it is what it is.
They've admitted it, for instance, to explain why they don't cover all the things that was being done to Jews by Hitler.
Liberalism first.
Loyalty to the cause.
And that's the simple answer for it.
Same thing.
Why do blacks not abandon the party that has destroyed them and their families?
Because of an ideological loyalty that can't be broken.
And we'll be back, sit-tight.
Now, the New York Times caught a lot of grief about their lack of coverage during the 30s and 40s of what Hitler was doing to the Jews before the war, even during the Holocaust.
And the Times, in effect, admitted that they shied away from those kinds of stories because they didn't want to be perceived as too Jewish.
They were afraid the public would think of them as a Jewish paper.
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