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Dec. 22, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:46
December 22, 2011, Thursday, Hour #3
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Time Text
It's hour number three on this Thursday.
The week almost done, but Russia's vacation underway, a vacation that will last until Tuesday the third of January.
Boy, the head very nearly explodes when thinking about the enormity of Tuesday, January 3rd.
Imagine what it means for America.
The return of Rush at the beginning and middle of the day, an actual Iowa caucus voting at the end of the day.
It will be 2012.
The next time Russia's actual voice is at these microphones.
Till then, those of us in the fill-in brigade are pleased and proud to be here.
If you're just joining us, we've spent a couple hours doing some 2012 talk, a little year in reviews, some economic talk, some payroll tax uh showdown, a little this, little that.
I got a few more things up my sleeve topically to add on here as we work our way toward the end of this Thursday.
Mark Stein is in tomorrow and a bunch of folks next week.
I am not one of them, so this is our last uh time together, and just want to thank you and uh and your kindness to me when I fill in.
And and even if the kindness extends to telling me that you don't like me very much, or that you think I'm crazy about something.
That's fine.
Any talk show host will tell you, you know, agree or disagree, just listen to the show.
And and Rush appreciates that too, because he wants the fill-in folks to not bleed the ratings too badly.
So uh much appreciated.
It's been a uh a wonderful, wonderful year, and I know everybody else who you whom you'll be hearing from uh Brother Stein and others next week share my appreciation for you and for the entire EIB operation for letting us hang out when Rush is away.
All righty, one-eight hundred-two eight two two eight eight two.
Let's get back to your calls and see what people have been uh attaching themselves to topically while the top of the hour came and went.
We are in Riverside, California.
Dave, hey, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
I'm doing great, and how are you today?
Very well, thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Uh Merry Christmas to you and uh good morning or good afternoon, wherever you're at there.
The time zone thing.
I'm in Texas, so it is actually afternoon.
Okay, well, I'm still in mourning.
So anyway, uh the main thing I've got to say on this economy thing here right at the moment.
One big thing is the oil prices.
When the oil prices are severely uh raised, way up near a hundred bucks a barrel, they're probably over a hundred bucks a barrel now, as far as I'm concerned.
Uh people don't have the money to put in their gas tank.
If they just if it is a reduced down to, say, two bucks a gallon, two twenty-five even.
People have more money, more money to spend.
People will spend that, they will hire people, people will pay taxes.
There is your tax increase that people are yelling and screaming for.
The people will get employed, and that is your tax rate.
I don't know where the hell these people come up with some of this stuff, thinking that $100 a barrel is a...
A boondoggle for uh the oil company.
Sure it is, and for the probably the people that have the stock in it, but when the people don't have the money to put into it because of the jobs and the and the economy, there's no money to spend.
Well, when uh uh the the the price of oil is determined by uh dozens of global factors, and uh and the the only thing we at America can do uh through our laws and through our participation in the oil marketplace is make decisions that create uh a better market for energy made in America and used by Americans.
We can conserve, and that's lovely.
And if people are not driving hybrids, that's great.
That's a way to use less gas and save money, that's wonderful.
But the way to bring actual prices down in America is to devote ourselves to the discovery of more American energy.
And you can call it drill baby drill, you can call it Keystone XL Pipeline, you can call it whatever you want, but we have to battle uh to to t uh to the political death, these environmental extremists who would cripple that effort until something can be found that runs our world as well as fossil fuels.
It's going to be fossil fuels that run our world.
There are plenty of other things that there are plenty of other things that seem to work, great.
If we if if there are the hybrid worked, great.
Uh the electric car, maybe not so much.
But if there's something that can be found that works without any government subsidy, it's not needed.
If America will embrace greener technologies or or alternative fuels, that's totally fine.
But until then, we need American fossil fuels.
No, I I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you there.
At the same time, housing and the oil companies, uh, the oil prices right at the moment are to my what I feel are are crippling the economy right at the moment.
When you have these when you have home improvement stores that are uh uh doing a boom in business there is literally a domino effect there along the whole hiring situation of of every facet in in the country.
I don't I don't know in if and when people have the money to spend they're gonna spend it and people will get hired.
Well well that's that's a general economic truth.
Give me sixty seconds on on the whole housing thing because obviously housing prices right now are a fraction of what they were and once were I'm living proof of that of w what's what's your uh I mean that's certainly a buyer's market at the moment but again not a lot of people have a um you know enough money for a down payment which is you know the market giveth and it taketh away.
And I'm right at the moment I am upside down on my mortgage.
And I would love to get refinanced at these lower rates but I can't qualify to do it.
I am I am a good I my my credit score is in the high seven hundreds, but I can't qualify to get a refi because of my mortgage is upside down here, which is a a lot of people in Riverside County are are are looking at the same situation if they would do that I would go out and spend the money that I would save in the economy and you know I know Barbara Boxer I guess it's Barbara Boxer,
Senator Boxer, uh brought up something saying that she was gonna try to get the this upside down uh underwater uh mortgage thing passed where people like me uh who pay my bills on time who don't have a good credit score would have a chance to get in on this well I haven't seen that yet.
Well but but that's but here's the thing and with every proper empathy toward you in your situation uh it is not government's job to make banks give you a refi.
Right.
I understand that it's it's it's just not I mean I'm very sorry but it's not.
I mean and and that doesn't sound like you're whining about that at all.
You sound very responsible and you do have a UR in a boat with a whole lot of other people.
Um what we need to do is get some of these reforms and some of this crazy Dodd Frank nonsense off the backs of banks.
All banks want to do is make money all banks want to do in some ways banks are like any other business.
They want to make money.
And if they find you a guy with a good credit score upside down on the mortgage and a refi that's likely to actually pay the the the note every month uh that is something that should be attractive to them and if we take the boot of overregulation off some of our banks, uh your world may improve.
Dave, let me thank you best in Riverside and elsewhere in California, let's head to Lincoln, Nebraska Steven Mark Davis in for Rush, how are you?
Hi Mark thanks for giving me a chance to talk to you.
I love when you're on and I'm hoping that if one of you guys don't run for president, one of you uh uh you know right thinking uh talk show host that one of you will please be a press secretary we need people to articulate like you guys do.
You're very good.
Way too I wanted to you know I I want it all of this is rooted in a world view.
The reason that we are Re Republicans and conservatives is because of our unwillingness to compromise.
How we got here as a Republican Party is because we had compromise in the past and we've learned from it.
And hopefully if I say it right then that will tie in some of the racism, racism charges of constitutional and even the faith questions that Perry and uh Romney are being are being uh discussed about um you know the the whole world view that separates us is is the republic that we that we believe that natural rights come from God not the government.
Um that's what started us.
You know we our founders have some history much like we're learning from history we're watching you know Spain fail because of green energy policies, Greece failed because of government big big government and we watched the UK almost fail because of national health care.
Our founders had learned from Leviathan and Plato, and they'd read The Prince.
They were very familiar with how governments around the world had worked and what had failed.
And we started uncompromised.
Our whole idea of us...
Excuse me, I'm out of breath.
It's all right.
Take your time, my son.
Our Constitution was formed in the middle of huge compromise.
The first thing we get accused of racism within the Republicans is a three-fifths compromise.
compromise where the northern you were um where uh um we had stu we had some Southerners you know our founders actually wanted to end slavery during the revolutionary ward they'd spoken about it and King George was unwilling to let that happen.
I think founders that had come into a world where the whole world was dominated by slavery and the idea of a social order, a class system.
I I remember the history I'm I'm I'm having a good time I need I need to kind of move the ball a little a little bit here.
So on the subject of compromise uh the it's funny that is taken on a uh it's taken on a negative connotation.
It depends on what.
If you have Party A and Party B and and Party A wants to do something and party B wants to do something else and they meet in the middle, there's a way for that to be okay if in fact if I'm a member of Party A, if it doesn't involve me compromising on my core values.
Uh some things are are things we can either do, uh a tax cut or a tax increase, you know.
I mean, I'm I'm I'm all about cutting taxes.
I think they're too high.
Uh i the it's you know, a compromise over the sale of a house, you know, meet somebody in the middle, that's fine.
Most of the of the issues that we're we're talking about these days are about the core values of the right and the core values of the left, though.
And and on that, there's uh that that's why I say that this this hunt for common ground in that arena is largely pointless.
Somebody's got to win, somebody's gotta lose.
Because we don't agree.
They're call our compromise is the Constitution is believing that the first amendment, the second amendment, the tenth amendment, you know, the Civil Rights Act and the Women's Suffrage Act, you know, the thirteenth, fourteen, fifteenth, and nineteenth amendments, with Republicans passed, giving blacks the right to vote and women the right to vote, and that we would have had a hundred years earlier with the blacks the right to vote if we'd had power.
You know, these are things that we believe that natural rights come from the government.
I mean from God, not the government.
So that's where our refusal to compromise is.
We believe that it's not we're not interested in in how we feel as a majority.
That's Christy.
Democracy says that if the majority of people believe murder is okay, then it will become law.
Right, but but as uh as we are not a democracy.
Exactly.
We are we are not a direct democracy.
All right, Stephen, I got a fly.
You're we're d democracy we we are not, as many will remind you.
We we are a republic and not a uh and not a textbook democracy where everything is done by a show of hands.
And I am grateful for that.
All right, sir.
Thank you very much.
Mark Davis in for rush on the EIB network.
It is the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Davis filling in from Texas, talking a little Iowa, a little New Hampshire, a little year gone by, a little year to come.
Holy cow.
The uh it is a fertile field for talk show topicality.
So let's see what's going on in the public mind here as we head next to Stanfordville, New York.
Will Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
Hi, Mark.
Pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you.
Hey uh Time magazine's person of the year this year.
They picked the protester.
Yeah.
Which just goes to show you how far left Time Magazine has gone.
Uh who had a bigger accomplishment this year than Navy SEAL team six.
You are right about that.
You are your listen, uh absolutely right.
They are they're pro uh if this were uh uh a token of admiration, absolutely right.
Let me give you a little bit of the time man of the year, person of the year logic, though, and and work our way through this a little bit.
Uh you you do know that both Hitler and Ayatollah Homey have been Times Man of the Year.
Yeah, actually I didn't know that.
The the thing is that it it is like who affected the world the most, who affected the news the most, not who warms our hearts the most.
So let's take a clear-eyed look here at a couple of things.
Because uh, first of all, I I think in the top few, I mean Paul Ryan was in there, that was very cool.
Uh th there were all kinds of ones, and through the years there have been many.
I think first of all, giving it to Rudy Giuliani in two thousand one was lovely.
Uh because I think that was a kind of uh uh uh rotary club koanis type honor rather than what uh the the the the thing is supposed to be, which is who affected the news the most, I would think in two thousand one.
There's only one choice, and that is the double cover of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden.
I think they would have gotten a lot of protests for that, so they didn't do it.
Now in this year, uh here here's let me just ask you this.
There's nothing I loved more this year than the death of Osama Bin Laden.
But did it, you know, affect the the did it affect the news as much, even affect the war as much as all what what did the the ki the the cover Say from uh from Greece to the Arab Spring from Occupy Wall Street to Moscow, all these folks taken to the streets.
I mean, let's just kind of face it.
That pretty well was the biggest thing a year, wasn't it?
Uh I'm gonna respectfully disagree.
I I I thought that uh 156 going into the middle of Pakistan and getting him uh Oh, it's the most amazing thing.
It's the most incredible thing.
It's the most uplifting thing.
It's the thing of which I am most proud, but that's not really what the time person of the year is.
I suppose.
I mean, I mean, I listen, it's kind of funny.
I think uh it's they've certainly given it as a matter of fact.
Let me use this as a a point of departure.
Thank you enormously for the call, because I can sit here and define what Times Person of the Year is or supposed to be using their own words.
Let's examine how many times they have failed to live up to it.
I mean, I get it's it's either something huge that happened in the news or some enormous trend that has affected our lives uh uh i tectonically.
I mean, last year, Facebook dude, Mark Zuckerberg, okay, for the degree to which Facebook is a big part of so many of our lives.
2008 or 2009, rather, Ben Bernanke.
Whatever.
2008, President Obama because he won.
I get that.
2007, Vladimir Putin.
2006, you know who it was?
2006, Times Person of the Year.
It was you.
And me.
That cover with a mirror representing the individual content creator on the internet.
Yeah, okay.
2005 was the Good Samaritans.
You had Bono, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates.
That's that's pure admiration.
They did that one for pure admiration.
04 was George W. Bush, he just won re-election.
03 was the American soldier, which made people uh fall out of their chairs since it was Time Magazine.
O two were the whistleblowers, whatever.
O one was Rudy Giuliani, 2000 was George W. because he had just won.
Uh 1999 was Jeff Bezos, the uh the Amazon guy.
98 was Bill Clinton and Ken Starr.
No argument there.
Uh 97 was Andrew Grove, uh microchip guy, right?
96 was David Ho for AIDS research.
Those were admiration things.
Uh 95 was Newt.
That used to be his new billboard campaign, the only presidential candidate who's been Times man uh man of the year.
94 was Pope John Paul II.
93 was the abomination of all time uh man of the year covers.
Uh the peacemakers, Yitzhak Rabin, who um who surrendered far too much uh in the security of his nation of Israel, F. W. Declerc for South Africa for some progress there, okay, whatever you want to do.
And the bloodthirsty terrorist Yasser Arafat on a Time magazine cover for Man of the Year for the Peacemakers.
Really?
Really?
92 was Bill Clinton, understand that he had just won.
91 was Ted Turner.
1990 was George H.W. Bush for all the many, many accomplishments as the uh Berlin Wall began to fall.
Uh I love this.
89, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Yeah, right.
You know that was uh admiration on their part.
Uh 1988, the endangered earth.
Gorbachev again in 87.
Come on, man.
Kory Akino in 88, Deng Xiaoping in 85.
Golly, they love the communists for that stretch there.
Peter Uberoth in 84 for Olympic reasons.
Back to the commies, Yuri Andropov in 93, but he shared 1983, excuse me, shared 83 with uh with Ronald Reagan.
1982, they went goofy on us again.
The computer was machine of the year.
Great.
1981 was Lech Vowenza, 1980 was Reagan, since he had just won.
1979, Ayatollah.
Listen, gotta tell you, I mean, please, if it's if it's about affecting the news, I mean, for good or ill, because again, go back to 1938.
Hitler.
Back to the commies in 1978 for Dung Xiaoping, 1977 was Anwar Sadat, 76 was Jimmy Carter, he had just won.
1975 was what this was great.
In 1975, the folks at Time Magazine must have been banging their heads on the wall.
What do we have to do?
They thought this is great.
We'll do something great for womanhood.
So they did um American women.
The people of the year, whatever you want to call it.
American women.
And feminists went nuts because there were twelve of them.
Twelve of them.
Betty Ford, Barbara Jordan, Billy Jean King, some other folks that maybe you've heard of somewhat less.
And the letters began immediately.
I don't think the ladies sounded like that.
I won't do the high voice version.
They essentially said it takes twelve women equal one men.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks a lot, Time Magazine.
So anyway, there in a short history of times, man slash women slash person of the year.
All righty.
Well, we got a half hour of show left.
Let's see where else we go.
Well, a lot of that's up to you.
1-800-282-2882.
I'm Mark Davison for Rush from Texas, right here at WBAP Dallas Fort Worth.
Back in a moment on the EIB Network.
EIB Network.
It's the home stretch, our final half hour before we uh tie a bow around this Thursday, a little spritely Christmas tune.
One could almost clog.
I said almost.
All right, I'm Mark Davis here in Dallas Fort Worth, and tomorrow it'll be Mark Stein and a whole bunch of folks uh next week.
And then Rush is back on Tuesday, January 3rd, Iowa Caucus Actual Voting Day.
Holy cow, what lies ahead?
And that has been much of um of what we've talked about today and various other things, looking uh back at the year gone by and ahead to the incredible dramas that are splayed out in front of us.
So with that, uh let's head back to your calls to see where we go.
We are uh just just down the road from you.
We're in Fort Worth.
Sam, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you?
Hey Maud, talking to you again, my friend.
Hi.
Hey, let me preface my comment by first saying that you know that I support the president.
And I think no matter who the Republicans for the beginning.
Um but sitting back and doing an assessment as to who the best candidates are on the Republican field.
Uh if you do an objective assessment, it's it's obvious that Mitt Romney is the best uh candidate and probably the toughest one that the president will run against.
So I hope you guys actually nominate Mitt Gingrich, because I think the the president will dispatch very easily.
Now, the reason why I believe that you guys won't nominate Romney, and it's you're gonna have to do it, is because of his religion.
I mean, there's no other reason as to why this man is not.
Sure, there is a head of the field right now.
Sure there is, because he's insufficiently conservative too many.
Uh let we'll talk about the religion angle here in a minute because I true I just don't know that.
Uh it's impossible to know whether Romney has topped out because of of objections to or squirreliness about Mormonism.
There's no way to go back and make him a Baptist or a Lutheran and see if he would do much better.
It's just impossible to know.
I will tell you this, uh evangelicals, whatever that means anymore, were polled in 2008 about uh, you know, could you f ever vote for Romney and the percent who said no has decreased mightily.
So I have a feeling that those objections, whatever they may be, are waning.
Now to your point about who's the quote unquote best candidate.
What is the definition of that?
Is it purely numerical who has the statistical best chance uh of beating Obama, or is it the po the possibly the candidate who is a little more conservative, a little more of a risk taker, a little bolder who might still beat Obama anyway and do better things?
What is the definition of the best candidate?
Who has had the most success throughout his career.
That would be Newt.
The hands hands hands down newt.
What?
Newt was kicked out of office by his own party.
Come on.
After changing Washington.
Absolutely not.
Newt Gingrich changed Washington.
Tell me the long list.
And listen, I I'm not a detractor of Governor Romney at all.
Uh but just if if if if please tell me what the things are in Mitt Romney's life, the the political things.
I mean, he's obviously successful in business.
I salute him for that.
But what is the list of magnificent things Mitt Romney has actually done, please?
Well, okay, he was a successful governor for one, right?
Really?
Yeah, he was a successful governor who was a popular governor when he was there.
The Olympic experience when he turned that game around.
You can't dismiss that accomplishment.
I I do not.
I give him the Olympics, absolutely.
You can't dismiss his business experience.
You can't dismiss that.
I mean, I don't think that's what I said I stipulate that he's a successful businessman.
What is the list of political accomplishments that glows so mightily?
I think he says a lot of the right things.
He was great on Charlie Rose the other day, and I his beliefs seem solid.
I I have faith that he would be a very good president in in many ways.
But this notion that Mitt Romney's resume is a one-tenth of what Gingrich is in is i is crazy.
Okay, but hold on.
Just think about what Gingrich's own party and the people who work with him, who work for him and work with him, set a box.
Let's think about what is the case.
It's called being a leader.
And if Coburn and I love Coburn and I love Peter King, but if their panties are in a wad because of some run-in they had with Gingrich in ninety-six, they need to get over it.
It's because they said that this man is not a leader.
He's a hypocrite is what they said.
He's a hypocrite.
And they should know they work for him.
How many people let's do some math.
How many human beings worked closely with Newt Gingrich over you know over 20 years or so?
Thousands upon thousands.
How many of them are fussing and moaning about him?
Maybe six.
Well, I hope I come off as well.
There's a lot more fussing than you still hear about.
I mean, so, I mean.
Not so much.
You don't know that.
Not so much.
I'm sure there are a lot who work with him who who aren't in front of a microphone, so you don't know that.
Maybe.
I don't know.
Uh if if they wanted to.
I mean, I listen, if Cobra.
He said he would have a hard time supporting New Gingrich.
He's one man.
He's one man.
He's one important man who who has a reputation for being truthful, for being honest, and for being conservative.
Well, how about the well if for every Tom Coburn, I can find you fifty truthful, reliable conservatives who have nothing good things to say about him.
I mean, that that's a losing argument.
You found one guy, yay, maybe two guys, maybe three, maybe six.
Yay.
Well, it's like I I hope and pray that Newt is the nominee because I I think we'll have a field day.
First of all, just think about just one thing before you before you let me go.
And that is having the first lady of the United States as a homewrecker.
Could you imagine that she'll be the first homebreaker who's the first lady of the United States?
Could I mean could you tolerate that?
Could you deal with that?
I would suggest to you that if Newt winds up being the nominee and people are willing to overlook what Newt did, that they're certainly not going to badger Callista much.
I mean, boy.
It's a big if.
It's an embarrassment all over the world to have your first lady as a freaking homewrecker.
Well, I was gonna say, if it's a big if.
If if they if they make it through the turnstile of that, ain't nobody gonna be worrying about Callista.
However, what you described may be the reason.
What you described.
Oh, well, listen, what what you've drawn attention to one thing that is a pretty good point.
Of of all the candidates, Newt is the one who takes away the ability for it to be almost entirely about Obama and have it be a referendum on Obama.
The one problem with the Gingrich candidacy is if Newt's the candidate, a lot of it winds up being about him.
Sam, thank you, man.
Appreciate it very much.
Got a roll.
Appreciate you.
1800-282-2882.
We are in uh Satellite Beach, Florida.
Mark, hey, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you doing?
Hi, Mark, how are you doing today?
Hi, good.
Hey, as I uh I would like to talk about the uh payroll tax cut, but just as a side note, you know, the women of the year when they were nominated, uh their nickname was the dirty dozen.
I don't know if you knew that or not.
Oh God, well, I'm not not to anyone with Cooth.
Hey, on the payroll tax cut, the problem that we have with that issue is that the wrong terminology is being used.
Um it's not a payroll tax cut what they did last year for us.
What they did was they took thirty percent of the six percent uh that they uh that they extract from our paycheck to pay for Social Security.
That is a funding.
That is not a tax.
And unfortunately, it gets captured under the payroll taxes.
It's kind of like a uh uh uh a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle is not a square.
True, and not all of one is this when you know all Corvettes or Chevrolets, not all Chevrolets are Corvettes.
Uh you bet.
And what happens here now is that now they're starting to talk about it as though, hey, it's a tax cut, so therefore if you're against it, uh you're a bad person.
And the Republicans need to get the handle back on that for what it is.
It's a defunding of your Social Security benefits uh payments uh that took place last year, and what they want to do is reestablish it because it doesn't make sense to defund something that's underfunded.
It's like it's like not funding your uh your four oh one K. Uh it's ridiculous to do that.
uh well put, appreciate it.
And and Mark, thank you.
And like a lot of other calls and a lot of other members of Congress who are making that very same point, this is what I guess Carl Rove meant and what some others mean when they say we're going to lose this battle.
Because to the vast majority of Americans, you know, if all of a sudden more is being taken from their paycheck, that's a tax increase.
And we and we can nuance it and spin it and explain it and be right all day long, and yet people are going to go, dude, it's a tax increase.
So we are left with a decision to make.
A strategic decision, a political decision, um a decision based on principle.
And uh again, maybe I'm just energized by my chat with uh Jeb Henseling earlier who said um do the right thing and let the chips fall where well that's my words, do the right thing, let the chips fall fall where they may.
His word was uh I I want to cast a vote for doing the right thing and not worry about the politics of it.
Cast the right vote first and then and and worry later about the politics of it.
Um I don't think you'll ever do wrong.
Uh at least you'll uh you'll the the very least you'll sleep better at night.
1-800-282-2882.
Mark Davison for Rush on the EIB Network.
you It is the Thursday Rush Limbaugh Show.
Mark Davis filling in, Mark Stein tomorrow, rush back January 3rd, Iowa Caucus Day to the phones, to the phones at 1 800 28282.
We are in Fort Myers, Florida.
Charles, hey, Mark Davis in for Rush, how are you?
I'm well, thank you.
How are you?
Doing great, thanks.
Thanks for taking my call.
I wanted to uh agree with and expand on something uh caller uh a few minutes back discussed, and that was uh the basic absence or apparent uh unawareness of politicians to understand that by merely opening some oil grounds for exploration,
that mere fact alone would send oil prices and therefore gasoline prices in a downhill spiral.
It would have uh it would have that effect.
It doesn't have to, you don't have to wait till the oil comes online if there's the threat of it.
And that has to be a good idea.
The markets depend on what happens if everybody in the United States had a dollar less per gallon of fuel, they could put that money into the economy.
Maybe that would be a hundred dollars, two hundred dollars a month.
What would that do to our economy?
That is plenty.
Charles, you're right.
Thanks.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, markets, uh everybody looks at uh at oil markets as you know, why does prices go up and why do prices go down?
It is so many different things, but a lot of it, as with all kinds of markets, like the stock market and housing market.
Uh i it's it's uh a market is like a a living sentient creature that wonders what's going to happen.
Look, it looks around in its environment and says, and wonders.
Well, it probably doesn't actually make that noise, but it it wonders what's going to happen.
And if there, for example, if there is tension in Libya, if there is uh uh the notion of Iran, you know, shutting down the Straits of Hormuz or something like that, the markets will respond, they will constrict, and the price of oil will skyrocket.
If the markets are soothed by the notion that America is going to create more oil, is going to find more oil, discover more oil, refine more oil.
Uh the addition, the promise of the addition of that uh added supply, even if it's months, years down the road, will have a depressive effect on the price of oil.
This is how markets work, and so the price of oil is made, it is kept higher by an administration that is hostile to American energy exploration.
All righty, we are in Naples for a lot of Florida business today.
We're boy, you think we're talking to Florida now, about a month from now, let's see what's going on in Naples, Florida.
Tom, hi, Mark Davis in for Rush.
How are you doing?
I'm doing fine, Mark.
Thank you for taking my call.
My pleasure.
I believe that the best defense is a good offense, and that has relates to what's going on, whether it should be a two month or a one year extension.
There's a simple way to take the defense and make it a false uh an offense against the president.
All um the leader had you know, um Bayner has to do is just ask them one question.
Mr. President, why do you want two months instead of one year in the extension of the tax cut?
We believe it should be one year.
But if you give us a logical explanation, we will take it under advisement and if it's anywhere near uh reasonable, we'll probably do it.
Except it won't all the other president nobody's asked him why does he want too much?
I would be really interested in hearing the president's answer.
One thing that might make that I mean it's not rocket science and it's a good it's certainly not that the Republicans off the defense and put and put it put them on the offense and put the president on defense because then he owes not only the House an explanation, he owes the American people an explanation.
Well, you'll have a lot to explain for it.
Tom, thanks.
One of the things that might make the answer a little more interesting is it was President Obama who said that he wanted the year solution, the 12-month solution.
But the 12-month solution that the House of Republicans delivered went straight into the axis of some of the sacred cows of the left, and so that became something they could no longer stand for.
I wish it were that simple.
Sometimes maybe it is.
Ask somebody, hey, why did you do that or why do you believe those things?
And if the answer is somehow unsatisfying or unsatisfying, underwhelming or not persuasive to the American people then you've scored a political point or two and and maybe brought people closer to your view.
Um as we head into this showdown though I I think it's just a whole lot of sniping back and forth and a whole lot of gambling going on.
Democrats feel like they they're gambling that they have a winning hand that this uh hey we we passed something and the House just won't do it that they're gambling that's a winning hand.
House Republicans are gambling hey we uh there was something we were willing to do and the Senate won't come back and uh and compromise with us.
they're gambling that that is a winning hand.
Ultimately, though, we get to December 31st and nothing is resolved.
Then you see a further drop of congressional approval going into negative numbers.
But I'll tell you this one last thing for this segment.
Republicans, even Democrats for that matter, should not be driven by how low people's opinion is of Congress.
They should be driven by doing the right thing.
And if you do the right thing and the other side does what it wants to do and there's deadlock and you don't give, if Republicans do not give in.
I mean, Republicans could make the public opinion of Congress go up a little by giving in.
So should they give in no they should not let people it's it's a recurring theme of today's show.
Let people think of you what they will while you go about the business of doing the right thing.
Let people think of you what they will as you go about the business of doing the right thing.
All you gotta do is figure out what the right thing is.
Hmm sometimes easy sometimes not but if you lean on core values it's not so tough.
him and uh a bunch of guys next week none of which will be me none of whom because I'm out of here for the holidays and uh headed to Iowa by the way so next time uh we speak in a fill-in basis I will have we'll have done that but the most important thing is that Rush himself will be back in the chair on Iowa caucus day on January 3rd so I want to thank him and to him and Catherine the best of Christmases and to and to uh to Bo and uh and HR and Mike and Ed and the folks I've had the chance to to hang with all year doing this just best of Christmases.
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