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June 28, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:48
June 28, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Rush.
Safe return to the show tomorrow.
And thanks to all of you for hanging out with me today and yesterday.
One hour to go today.
Let's see what we make of it, shall we?
1-800-282-2882.
I'm going to hop to calls here in just a second.
We're going to talk some campaign finance.
We have an Arizona campaign finance ruling, and it invokes the notion of public financing of campaigns, which that's kind of funny.
It's just just silly me again.
I don't believe there should ever be any such thing as public financing of campaigns.
I have some other um I have some other campaign finance views.
I hope they don't cause you to run the car off the road.
Um you want a little preview?
How about this?
No limits whatsoever on anybody in any race.
Boom, how'd that work out for you?
It's called Liberty.
Campaign spending is the sound of free speech.
Now, that having been said, if person A or company B or PAC C wants to spend five million dollars on a candidate, oh, you're gonna know it, and you'll know it instantaneously.
And if a candidate receives a big, big, big check from a labor union or the NRA or some Hollywood mogul or some religious figure or some private citizen of some stripe or another, you'll know it and you will judge that candidate accordingly.
And then the campaign ads will be filled with all kinds of that ominous voiceover.
Did you know that candidate Joe Blow received five million dollars from and then that contribution will be phrased in the most sinister of terms?
Uh and uh people will live or die by the people with whom they associate.
Kind of like life.
This whole thing of artificially limiting what people can contribute.
And it's kind of funny because I think gone are the days when we just presume that that conservatives have all the money.
I wish.
Uh no, I don't.
I wish wealth for everybody.
I wish wealth for everybody.
I just want conservatives to do more political spending than liberals do.
Uh so that that's that's me on campaign spending issues, and it's uh fiendishly simple.
It's called following what liberty seems to teach.
And uh we can talk about that some and I'll give you the Arizona story here in a minute, and we'll take uh we'll take some calls here on various things here in a moment as well.
But first, a little chapter of life called This Internet is a really interesting thing.
You ready?
We had heard from our military wife in Oklahoma City yesterday.
And being down here in Dallas Fort Worth, and uh we have a real neat relationship with our neighbors to the north in Oklahoma on the way to boy, I'm I'm f in the sixth hour of filling in for rush, three hours yesterday, three hours today, and I have yet to throw down some love for the Dallas Mavericks.
What is wrong with me?
Can you join me, please?
I know you want to.
Even half of y'all in Miami want to.
How about those Dallas Mavericks?
Woo-hoo!
We yeah, they say the Cowboys are America's team.
Not so much.
The Mavericks were America's team as any team would have been going up against LeBron and Chris Bosch and Dwayne Wayne, maybe the most hated franchise in all of sports right now, the Miami Heat.
Hey, sorry.
The parade was something you should have been here.
Anyway, on our way to the NBA Finals, we uh that that road went through Oklahoma City and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
That hadn't been what's that?
It used to be the Seattle uh supersonics, but that's a great team and just a great town.
And with the military bride there with us uh in Oklahoma City.
I want to just throw you some love for something for a town you ought to go visit.
And maybe when you make your tourism plans, maybe Oklahoma City doesn't exactly jump to the front of your mind.
But let me put it there for a couple of reasons.
They're just Oklahoma City's great, it's a great place to be.
And all of you listening up there, God love you, and uh especially on Proud Limbaugh Affiliate, K T O K News Radio 1000.
And I went to their I had dual goals.
Number one to tell you about the magnificent, magnificent Oklahoma City National Memorial.
I sat here in this chair in a radio studio in Arlington, Texas, just between Dallas and Fort Worth, where WBAP is located.
And on that morning of April 19th, 1995, uh wire services spring to life.
I mean, we weren't really in the days of my first uh uh time of my first days in radio as a reporter in Charleston, West Virginia.
It was like, yeah, that dot matrix printer.
I don't go back far enough for the Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite days, but I do go back to the dot matrix printer, and you get that ding-ding ding ding, like AP or the UPI wire at that time would spring to life with some kind of story, and and as with any big story, first you know a little, then you know more.
And on April 19th, 1995, the network alerts and various technological ways in which uh radio networks and wire services seek to tell us, hey, something's going on.
The first inkling of it was that there had been a building, there'd been some type of explosion and or fire at a building in Oklahoma City.
Well, you know, I'm hours south of that, and I wow, I thought I thought, wow, that's terrible.
I hope it's not too bad, but it certainly didn't strike me as anything I'd be talking about on the show that day.
I mean, after all, I'm down here in Texas.
And then I remember one of the reports said there might be some fatalities.
Maybe as many as fourteen or twenty fatalities.
I'm like, Holy, this this might this might become a regional, if not national story.
And it's so wild how these things so slowly roll out across the rest of the country.
Well, it didn't take long to realize that the death toll was far larger.
That it was in fact the Murrah building bombing.
Downtown Oklahoma City.
Tim McVeigh at work.
And as that day unfolded, I listen, wherever you were, I mean, we talk a lot about 911, as well we should, and here comes that tenth anniversary.
Isn't it wild?
Tenth anniversary of 911's on a Sunday.
I I did I I broadcast from New York on the fifth anniversary, because it was like during the middle of a work week.
And our news director came, and you know, we all went up in there.
I did I we were in a hotel overlooking ground zero for the fifth anniversary of nine eleven.
It was stunning.
It was really, really wild.
Um you'll have your Sunday shows, your Fox News Sunday, your Meet the Press, your face the nation, you know, State of the Union, stuff like that.
And I'm sure they'll pay proper attention to it on the Sunday that is nine eleven.
But do you think it'll be muted otherwise?
Pardon me for yodeling, right?
Adolescence kicks in on the third hour.
Will it will it mute the the I mean listen, it won't mute the significance, they're still gonna ring the bell, they're still gonna do the names.
Maybe it'll give it added significance because it's on a Sunday, which is also a day of worship for many.
I don't know.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I do know that night, and this will be wild.
I do know that night, if it cross your fingers, you know, you know, I know Russia's a big NFL fan, as am I. Cowboys Jets.
How'd you like to be traveling to New York to play a football game on the night of 9 11?
We ain't America's team that night, I don't think.
Anyway, though, I I just wanted to tell you, if if you didn't already know, that the Oklahoma City National Memorial, which stands there now sixteen years later, is an amazing and magnificent thing.
There are a lot of memorials that you can go see.
There are a lot of things you can go see, structures that are conceived with the purpose of memorializing something.
I don't know if it's ever been done better than the Oklahoma City Memorial.
At one side, there are these gates.
At one side is a gate that says 901.
They are the gates of time, monumental twin bronze gates frame the moment of the explosion, which was at 9 02 AM on that morning.
One gate says 9 01 on the eastern gate, representing the last moment of normalcy and peace.
Opposite it on the Western Gate, 9 03, the moment when everything changed.
Or as they like to call it at the memorial, the first moment of recovery.
An interesting way to phrase it.
But Oklahoma City's just cool.
It's just it's a wonderful place.
And if you're, you know, just within any kind of shout and distance, go check it out and do check out the Oklahoma City National Memorial.
We talk a lot about the Oklahoma City bombing, and maybe that's occupies some place In your head.
Well, this memorial will occupy a very special place in your head and in your heart if you should um if you should ever go.
Now, under the heading of this internet is a really wonderful thing.
I knew that the the Rush Limbaugh affiliate up in Oklahoma City was KTOK.
And I knew they were at 1,000 on the dial, but I wanted to figure out what do they call themselves.
Every station has a positioning statement, a way that they like to refer to themselves on the web and when you speak their name.
So I go to their website to find that out.
And there on the top of their website is something, and guess what?
Oklahoma News now makes the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Are you kidding?
You show me this and I can't resist it.
The state Supreme Court has ruled against journalists over birth dates.
Justices say the public does not have a right to know how old government employees are.
How great is this?
Thanks, Topical Gods.
Seven to the ruling.
They were looking for the release of certain records.
The Tulsa World and the Oklahoma Publishing Company appealed a ruling in a fight that initiated with Oklahoma City, then moved to the state.
Reporters argued that the release of birth dates was necessary to properly and correctly identify individuals who might work for government agencies.
In some instances, those employees bore the same names of individuals arrested for criminal actions, and the birth dates would be the only way to confirm identities.
But um they they ruled against them.
The justices said there is simply no instance in which we can fathom how such information would advance the public's interest in assuring that the government is properly performing its function, so journalists are not entitled to know how old government employees or what or to know the birth dates of government employees.
There you go.
See?
Find the websites of various Rush Limbaugh affiliates and check the news from around the nation.
All right, tell you what, let's do.
Uh well, that's speaking of well, now let's go up to Wisconsin.
Let's explore more local news that's made it national.
Chokegate, did we have and it's kind of funny because I've I am probably going to peel away from that handy uh that handy moniker for this because it's the story out of Wisconsin.
And it just in in sharing the details from Christian Schneider at the National Review Online Corner Blog.
It just looks like Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is a troublemaker.
And that she was really, really mad at at Conservative Justice David Prosser, who and went after him and he resisted her.
You don't resist a woman at chest level.
That's fraught with dangers.
So he put his hands up on her shoulders and she said, You're joking me, you're trying to joke me.
These are state Supreme Court justices.
So to talk about Wisconsin, let's let me travel just about ten miles from where I am, and let's go to Dallas.
Mark.
Hey, Mark Davis, in for rush.
How are you?
Hey Mark, how's it going?
Very well.
Thank you for taking my call.
I did have a quick comment about the quote unquote choke gate.
Sure.
Uh I just noticed normally when you see a conflict between two individuals, um, if they're both kind of going at each other, you're probably going to try and restrain both individuals.
Right.
But if only one of those people is being the aggressor, then isn't that the person you're normally going to try and restrain and pull back a little bit?
Right, because one of the justices who intervened pulled Anne, pulled Justice Bradley off of Prosser, saying, Stop it, Ann, this isn't like you.
Well, to whom is that attention paid?
It's not like I make it a point to break a fight between people, but if one person's getting choked, I seriously doubt that you're going to go over and grab her, kind of help her, hold her down, and so Prosser can do a more effective job.
Exactly right.
If Prosser really is trying to cut off her windpipe, you're gonna say you're gonna say to Jud Justice Prosser, David, what are you doing?
Get your hands off of that woman's throat.
No one ever said that, did they?
All righty, man, thanks.
The dynamics and mechanics of breaking up a fight.
Uh is it a fifth grade playground or the chambers of the Wisconsin State Supreme Court?
And and is and is it even a real fight or one concocted for I was gonna say political political purposes?
What political purpose is served by this?
Maybe it's just personal venom of Justice Bradley was really mad at Justice Prosser for um uh because he had uh d developed a a problem with the chief justice uh about the timing of how to deliver a ruling with regard to uh uh to some of the um the union issues.
Wow.
Oh well, never a dull moment in this great land.
1800-282-2882, Mark Davis in for Rush.
More of your calls Coming right up.
On the Rush Limbaugh Show for a Tuesday, Mark Davis filling in.
Rush is back tomorrow.
Let's see who's with us now.
Let's head down to Roanoke, Virginia.
Cindy, Mark Davis, in for rush.
How are you?
I'm good.
How are you?
Fantastic.
Thank you.
I'm just responding to the gentleman that thinks that we need tariffs on foreign products.
Yeah.
We need less regulation, less taxes, and uh less crony capitalism.
Bingo.
You know, because if if businesses are having a tough time in the global economy, uh there are a lot of reasons.
And the first responsibility of American government is not to punish consumers with a bunch of tariffs because we're really miffed that a bunch of other countries have sweatshops with people well, we should be miffed at sweatshops.
You don't whine about that and punish American consumers with tariffs.
You you deal with it and compete in other ways while creating the most pro-business climate you can in America.
You sound like a voice of experience.
What uh what do you and the family do for a living, Cindy?
Well, we have a small construction business, but I was in the uh commercial insurance industry for many years, and I saw what was going on with EPA and OSHA, and mostly unnecessary.
Um makes owning a company unpleasant, but those regulations were actually brought on by larger manufacturers that didn't want to compete, so they got in with government forced regulation that smaller companies were not able to compete with, couldn't fight against.
Yep.
And uh you're doing it to small HVAC, uh window installations, painting companies, plumbers, painters with this EPA-led regulation now.
I know that um it's just phony.
It's all phony, but the end result, if they get their way, it's gonna be larger unionized.
See, we're so small they can't force us out unless they do something like this to us, and these fines are thirty-seven thousand dollars a day.
Yep.
They can put on us.
Kind of gets your attention, doesn't it?
Thank you.
That's exactly the the portrait I figured you would draw, and I just didn't know exactly what shape it would take.
It was it perfectly made the point.
Cindy, thank you very much.
Let's head to WABC Country in New York City.
Ralph, hey, Mark Davis in for Rush, how are you?
Mark, um, as we're about to uh commemorate the ten years uh since that horrible attack took place right in my own backyard here.
You know, I I I the horrors of that day, you know, we we we don't we we remember, but but I think in a sense it's human nature to uh put it aside because it's so horrific.
And you know, our our policies, the president who believes at his core that we we can negotiate with these with these monsters.
Um the two don't really coincide in my mind.
And on one hand, we we we remember the victims, which rightly so, but our policies say differently.
And um, you know, I it it really bothers me that we're in these these uh squirmishes all over the all over the map, and we're send we're still sending servicemen to die, and they're they're coming they're coming back uh uh maimed and everything else.
If I had a son, Mark, I would re I to bid him farewell uh and to go off to fight these meaningless wars, I would be I I don't know if I could do it, Mark.
Well, apparently not, and if you are of the type that that recoils at the notion of America at war against terror, okay.
Uh know that the vast majority of military families are are very proud of of their sons and daughters who go, and and even proud of them if the unspeakable happens and they die.
I'm intrigued.
Uh you took us on an interesting path from the proper indignation that you feel about 911, uh which we all share, I would hope.
But why is it that you have such an embittered view of the war that we have fought in the part of the world that wants to kill us?
Well, I i if we were in these wars, Mark, to to win them at all costs and to really uh uh uh with we had some sort of um uh substantial goal, which I believe that we don't.
I think that we we're willing we're a bit willy-nilly in the way we go about our business.
I re I really do.
I I mean we cannot be we are.
We've assumed the role of policeman of the world.
I mean we have that role, I I I guess.
We do.
Yeah, go ahead.
No, no, we do.
Uh and and since time's up, I got I gotta scoot I really uh and I'm I'm glad I asked you the additional question, because you're not coming at me a as some anti war pacifist, but maybe just frustrated that ten years after nine eleven that maybe the war we are fighting is is seems to be filled with half measures and frustrating sloth and what does victory even mean.
And I will tell you that I I have those days myself.
So um Ralph, I thank you.
Uh but but do rest assured that uh the the the the folks fighting this war support its mission.
They probably on their quiet moments wish we were, you know, had a pet a little more to the metal as well.
Maybe if do we if we change presidents, maybe that might change.
Let's think about that.
Thank you, sir.
God bless New York.
Back in a moment.
Home stretch, final half hour, and then we are out of here and Rush is back tomorrow, and all is right with the wor Well and no, all is not all's right in the Rush Limbaugh show world, but there's so many things that are jacked up around the world, it'll take a whole lot of Rush Limbaugh shows to straighten them all out.
And the good news is he will be here for you to host those shows.
Except on the days when he's doing other things, and that is when uh folks like Mark Stein and Walter Williams, Mark Belling, and I are more than uh honored to hop in and um and keep the needles bouncing, as we say in the industry.
So uh thank you for for hanging out today.
Really appreciate it.
Let's get back to some of your calls now.
Th and in particular there's someone I want to thank right now who's on the line.
Uh I was in the midst of a bit of a riff in the last half hour uh about anger management and sensitivity training.
I did not officially scoff.
I I I think I offered I offered a certain amount of skepticism in some c in some cases.
I think that especially in sensitivity training, the uh sensit yeah, right, that people are dumped into that and it only makes them worse.
I wondered about anger management.
It it arose from the Wisconsin uh Supreme Court Justice uh uh choking issue, uh where at one point they were talking about taking a Supreme Court justice and forcing them into anger management.
And I wondered how many people are uh th if anger management is just a conduit through which we take people who may have uh actual righteous emotion, well founded uh uh indignation about something, but we just don't like it, so we stuffed them into anger management.
No overall slight uh was intended to the anger management industry for which uh I'm sure there is some uh at least residual need.
So funny thing when you bring f when you bring something up on the Rush Limbaugh show, chances are you'll find somebody who do uh who find folks who do anger management.
We are in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Joanna, how are you?
Welcome.
It's nice to have you.
Hi, I'm fine.
I'm glad you made that explanation because I turned on the radio and heard the end of it, and so I do appreciate what you just said.
It is my great pleasure.
I hope I didn't make you angry.
Um teasing up to you.
Um I did anger management um for many years and and the people often said to me that I helped them tremendously.
I'll I'll bet so.
What with uh when you do anger management, what kind of training do you have to have to get that gig?
Well, um, you know, a social worker can do it or uh count counselors can do it, uh I'm a counselor.
The the thing is is that um not currently, but I mean I was.
The thing is is that um you know people do grow up learning wrong behavior and they don't know how to change how they deal with um disagreements.
And if they get the right help and f find out how they can deal with disagreements in a better way, um it's it's great for them and for everybody else.
And we need to do it.
I don't think people should be forced.
I think um that's bad.
I don't like being forced by anything.
I don't like the fact that government controls us so much.
I'm I listen to Russia all the time.
I believe in freedom and liberty and I'm a libertarian constitutionalist.
So no, I don't believe in forcing.
Where did where do most of the clientele come from, Joanna?
Um Well, really, um many of 'em were people who say they abuse their children or things like that, you know.
And so they're that kind of thing, yeah.
If a judge set rules and the judge says, okay, you're gonna need to do anger management, you're abusing your kids.
I think even you can agree that in that case.
Oh, you no, please, even me.
Yeah, I guess I can grudgingly approve of that, Joanna.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
No, of course.
Of course.
Yeah.
And and do you and and when you start at square one with someone who is uh oh gosh, you have what a can of worms.
It's okay.
It's okay.
It's a it's a good place to open that can.
If you have a parent who has insufficient control to keep from beating the kids, and I assume we're not talking about uh, you know, good biblical spanking here.
We're talking about beating the kids because mom or dad just snapped a twig and lost it, correct?
Uh-huh.
All right.
If that's square one, how do you sit somebody down and make them stop that?
How do you give them a longer fuse?
It it takes a long time, and I couldn't explain it in a five-minute phone call.
But um I'll just I'll just say this.
Um those people um they were probably dealt with the same, usually dealt with the same way by their parents and cycle theory.
You treat you treat your kids how you were treating.
And they need to get in touch with their real feelings.
They there's so much they need to learn.
I just can't explain it in five minutes, but no, no, it's no one will ask you to.
It's okay.
It's all right.
But um I will tell I will tell you the phrase learn.
And and um and and truth is a lot of ignorance.
For example, um, I can remember some parents who said, um, yeah, when my kid turned two and he started saying no to me all the time, um, boy, I'll let him have it.
And you know, they're not even many times they're not educated enough to know that a two-year-old is learning that they have a different identity from their parent, and because of that, they say no in order to express that they're separate and that they have their own will and they're testing, just yeah.
Um a good thing, but um the parent needs to understand that.
And you and so you you educate, you you know, there's a lot you have to teach in order for people to to learn to how to change and how to deal better with their children.
And it's probably not a good time to tell that person that that defiance only lasts about another sixteen years.
It takes different forms.
No, listen, well, God bless you.
Uh th this is if I I c do you ever walk around and think, man, I I might have saved some lives here.
I might have taught I might have given a parent some skills.
Well, you should.
You should.
You should I'm proud I'm proud.
And I couldn't keep working, I became ill and couldn't keep working, but um I wish I could have done it more, but anyway.
Well, I'd say you you did plenty and you've done us a huge favor today, Joanna.
Thank you very, very, very much.
Wow.
Yeah, you know, I have a feeling that didn't expect to hear those stories this morning.
Of course, who knew that I was uh gonna be doing a story out of Wisconsin that involved angry Supreme Court justices where one of them was uh threatened with being dumped into anger management against his will, which led to some observations about anger management that led to a former anger management practitioner calling us to stick up for the industry, boom, and there you are.
No, to the extent that judges every once in a while will will say, and a lot of times it's uh it's a choice.
It's like I tell you what, you can do e you can do some anger management or uh prison, rather they uh certainly uh kind of a different technique of uh of dealing with anger.
Um she probably has.
I mean, if if she is able to and it's weird, and I know that then maybe you're thinking this, you're thinking, well, why do we need to teach people, you know, not to beat the kid?
Oh, trust me.
Trust me.
Uh coping you know what?
There's a book to be written about this, maybe somebody has.
Coping skills.
Talk about a rare commodity.
And I guess if you were raised and in in a in a violent household.
And no impl if you're just joining us, no no no no no, this is not a spanking round table.
We're talking about actual literal violence where somebody just snaps a twig.
I uh my blood ran cold when Joanna shared that story about the parent who had said, My two-year-old said no, and I showed him.
Wow.
Is that the path you walked in your own upbringing?
Chances are.
I had to I didn't get to go there, but God bless Joanna, but as soon as she mentions the term, get in touch with your real feelings.
I mean, my psycho babble alarm goes off, but you know, but I I know what you meant, and that sometimes that's exactly what it is.
Is uh I realize that you're dealing with a two-year-old, man.
It's a two-year-old, it's what they do.
And uh honestly, that just seems like good family counseling.
When I think of anger management and the kind that for which people are maybe over prescribed, would that be the case?
Over directed.
Uh what's what was that was Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson?
That's a bit of B- movie, but pretty pretty pretty humorous.
Um I don't know, or supposedly some professional is supposed to give you some of these coping skills in mid-life for anger.
I I guess what I'm concerned about is sometimes anger is appropriate.
Now it's never appropriate if you hit somebody, uh, unless they're hitting you first, or anything like that.
But uh I guess that that what's resonating with me a little bit here, uh especially with the term anger, uh face it, as conservatives, haven't you ever faced this?
Well, you conservatives, you're just always so angry.
You're just so mad.
Why are you always so angry?
Oh, I don't know, because the country's going down the tubes?
Oh, I don't know, because my liberties are being uh, you know, left by the roadside, because the country I grew up in is is is being turned into some neo-socialist specter of its former self.
Oh, there's nothing to be mad about.
And but my favorite example, my favorite example, is let's not respond.
Uh here's where we get anger and fear.
We have 9-11, right?
Well, it seems like uh all this uh this war stuff, that's just anger and fear.
Uh yeah.
I mean, that's the catalyst for it.
Obviously, uh the the entry into any war and the dispatching of that war needs to be very cool headed and measured and professional.
But the first thing that the first thing that 9-11 should if you did not have anger and fear right after 9-11, there's something the matter with you.
Guess what?
I'm still angry.
Every day we've talked about uh about 9-11 today and ground zero.
You know what I wanted to do?
I got a break, I know.
You know what I wanted to do?
I wanted to build the World Trade Centers back bri no brick by brick doesn't work.
Glass pain by glass pane, exactly the way they looked at dawn on September 11th, 2001.
I wanted to put back the New York City skyline exactly as it looked, as a f as two fingers in the eyes of the people that did this to us to make the skyline look exactly as it did.
How dare you do this to us?
We're gonna put those buildings back up.
And you know what we're gonna do?
Oh, the memorials are great.
The museum is great, that's fine, that's fine as far as they go.
But the greatest testament to ground zero would be build two World Trade Centers again, call them the New World Trade Centers one and two, and have people report to them for work every blessed beautiful day in Lower Manhattan.
That's what I wanted.
And you're damn right I'm still angry this was done to us, and I'll never stop being angry.
I don't let that control my every thought, my every emotion.
It doesn't make me want to nuke whole countries just yet.
Uh but anger is an appropriate first step.
And fear.
Hello.
Who wasn't afraid?
Is my city next?
You know, am I gonna there are people who are am I gonna have to jump from a top story of a building uh at some point like my countrymen did because Al Qaeda happened to pick the town where I live?
I mean, I don't mean fear, the kind of fear that sends you under the bed, but let's just call it concern.
So anyway, words have meaning.
Well, thanks for that.
I feel better.
Mark Davis in for rush.
Be right back on the EIB network.
It is the Rush Limbaugh Show for a Tuesday.
The Rush Limbaugh show for Wednesday will sound somewhat different because Rush will actually perform it.
And I know you are grateful for that, and as a listener, I am too.
And while I'm spreading gratitude around, uh plenty to you and plenty to the folks at EIB and uh to HR and Mike For hanging out with me and uh yesterday and today's been great.
Uh so I've been sitting here talking about um welcome, welcome to a malady that often afflicts me in my local show, telling you I'm going to talk about something and then promptly forgetting about it as I am easily distracted by other calls and shiny objects.
Uh the Supreme Court ruling regarding regarding Arizona's matching funds for publicly financed candidates.
I I touched on campaign finance at the beginning of this hour.
But here's what the story was, and I wanted to put this in your head so that you would know.
Supreme Court yesterday struck down part of Arizona's public campaign finance law.
This is the latest in a series of its rulings, holding that the right of political speech trumps government efforts to restrain the power of money in elections.
The court rejected Arizona's system of providing additional funding to publicly funded candidates when they face big spending opponents or opposition groups.
How nutty was that.
Thank goodness.
The system has been used in every statewide and legislative election since voters approved it in 1998 after a rash of political scandals in the Arizona Capitol.
But the court, in a five to four ruling, and guess who the five were?
If you don't know, I'll tell you in a moment, uh, says the law impermissibly forces privately funded candidates and independent political or political organizations to either restrain their spending or risk triggering matching funds to their publicly financed opponents.
Chief Justice John Roberts was joined by, repeat after me, Scalia Kennedy, Thomas Alito, declaring that that this major portion uh of the uh McCain Feingold campaign fine act.
Uh they they've already declared that major portions of McCain Feingold are unconstitutional.
And now, in this ruling, Chief Justice Roberts writes, quote, the First Amendment embodies our choice as a nation that when it comes to such speech, the guiding principle is freedom, the unfettered interchange of ideas, not whatever the state may view as fair.
God bless John Roberts.
And once again, here I go, I'm going to drop the M word again.
The marketplace.
If you run for office in Arizona or anywhere else, do you know what your applause meter is?
And let's apply this to 2012.
It drives me nuts that Rick Santorum doesn't have uh, you know, more poll numbers and more money.
Maybe at some point he will.
You know what?
He will if more people want him to be president.
If they don't, they don't, and hey, you know, there you go.
I gotta be a big boy.
Uh the Herman Kane thing.
Is that going to work out?
If enough people want him to be president, it will.
If his fundraising just goes crazy, there you go.
If it doesn't, it won't, and he won't.
It is up to us.
That is the marketplace.
I have a feeling Michelle Bachman's making a couple of bucks these days.
You know why?
Uh a lot of people woke up these last couple of days or last couple of weeks and decided, whoa, I thought I might want her to be president.
That's the marketplace.
Don't jack with the marketplace.
With publicly finance this and restraining and putting restraining free speech here and putting limits on the no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That is not what liberty looks like.
All right.
Well, seems like after a couple of days together that maybe some wrap-up comments are in order and uh an official uh welcome back to the show for rush.
So let's uh take this last break and we'll come back and do precisely that and tie a little bow around our Tuesday and our two days, count them two, of uh of fill-in magic.
I much appreciate it.
You guys have been great, and I'll have a final word for you here in a moment.
Mark Davison for Rush, stick around, please.
Well, as our two days together draw to a close, we've had a lot of fun and some light moments among some very serious episodes of 2012 presidential talk and budget talk and all the looming issues, and I've had a just a fantastic time.
Thanks to uh H.R. and Mike and to Rush for letting me do this.
I always want to go into our ideological battles with a smile, even a sense of humor.
Uh that's part of why Russia's been so successful, but he will tell you, and I'll tell you, this is one of the most serious elections ever, and uh our very nation hangs in the balance.
So just God bless you, and uh see you next time.
I'm Mark Davis.
Follow me at Twitter at Mark Davis All OneWord.
Welcome back, Rush.
We missed you, and I hope to see you here on the program very very soon.
God bless our country and our troops.
Rush will be back tomorrow.
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