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March 15, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:47
March 15, 2012, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 podcast.
Hi, folks, great to have you back.
Here we are, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB network, the Limbo Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
And remember, as long as I'm here, and I'm here, it doesn't matter where here is.
Our telephone number if you want to be on the program is 800 282 2882.
The email address L Rushbow at EIB net dot com.
Get this.
Obama has just announced that the United States and Britain are going to release oil from their strategic reserves.
I didn't even know that Cameron was up for re-election.
I did not know that he was up for re-election.
That's why Obama's doing this.
This is going to have absolutely no impact whatsoever.
It is a purely political move from the guy who says we can't drill.
Can't drill fast enough, we can't drill soon enough.
What does that mean?
If we can't drill, what it means is that putting more oil on the market isn't going to matter anything.
Besides, if we drill, we can't put any oil on the market for two to three years.
So we're going to deplete the strategic oil reserves.
We don't have an emergency.
There is not a shortage.
We are exporting gasoline.
Do you know that, folks?
We are a net exporter now of gasoline.
As you go to the pump and you see the price rise, we have a net exporting of gasoline position now.
Part of this is due to refining capacity around the world, a number of other things.
There's not an oil shortage.
There's not a crisis.
This is simply a flailing attempt to try to get the price down.
If you're going to do this, do this in October.
Not now.
I'd folks I'm going to tell you something.
Doing this now, releasing uh oil from our strategic reserves is a sign, I think, of pure panic.
I think the truth of the matter is the left is in a state of panic.
Those two polls, the New York Times and the Washington Post this week have shaken them to their core.
None of this is playing out the way it was supposed to.
And I've got a different take on this.
You might have seen the guest list.
It was it was filled with Hollywood types and people who have connections to uh Great Britain.
There were 34 Obama fundraisers at this state dinner.
Bundlers, people who have uh either donated or raised combination of the two, a minimum of 500,000.
34 of these people.
It was a campaign event.
Now it was not a state dinner person.
They called it that, but technically it was not a state dinner because Cameron's not the head of state.
The Queen is.
So this has to be called something an official dinner for his sake, they called it a state dinner, even though it really wasn't.
But they used this guy purely and simply as an Obama campaign moment and uh as an election uh ploy.
And releasing oil from the strategic reserves is nothing more than theater.
Releasing oil this is not even a short-term solution.
All it really means is that we're gonna have to refill these strategic reserves at a much higher price.
This is this is an action that is going to cost us money.
Not that anybody in the regime cares about that.
The purpose of the strategic oil reserve is to provide the nation an emergency capacity.
We don't have an emergency other than Obama's reelection is in trouble.
That's the emergency.
There is no shortage of oil.
The emergency is the price of gasoline going up.
And the toll that is taking on Obama's approval numbers.
That's the emergency.
And even something that's set aside for national security, and that's what the strategic oil reserve is for.
It is not.
And I realize this audience has grown, almost doubled here this week, potentially, with all that's going on.
Imagine some of you new to the program or not.
Um you can't possibly be in context here if you're just joining us today or this week and we've been at it for 23 years.
But the strategic oil reserve does not exist to lower gasoline prices.
It's that's not its purpose.
The strategic reserve is to is to have a supply of oil when this nation is cut off, or is being threatened with a cutoff of imported oil, or when we there is a genuine shortage, and when our national security depends on it.
This is nothing more than a cheap political ploy that's going to end up costing money because the oil is going to have to be repleted.
But there's not enough in the strategic reserves to last long enough, if it's all refined as gasoline, by the way, there's still not enough of it to last long enough to have any kind of permanent meaningful impact on the price of gasoline.
The strategic reserve was created by Jimmy Carter after the OPEC oil embargo in the late 70s.
That was when, and by the way, that shortage was contrived.
There is not a shortage of oil on this planet.
There is not a shortage of oil anywhere.
Whenever there are shortages, they are contrived and are the result of distribution channels being locked down, shipping lanes being closed, or production being shut down in oil-producing countries.
But there is no shortage of oil.
There's no shortage of oil now.
We are not having any supply cutoff other than Obama refusing to drill, and Obama refusing to authorize the Keystone Pipeline.
The one man standing in the way of an increased supply of oil in this country, Barack Obama.
And so now he's going to release oil from the strategic reserves.
Because this is supposed and the media will be right in here, folks.
The media gonna be jumping for joy with this and doing exactly what they're supposed to do.
The news is going to be Obama cares.
He's he's not waiting for the oil companies.
Somebody has to act.
Somebody has to care about the American people.
Somebody has to care about the price of gasoline.
They say that presidents can't do anything about it.
Have you heard that all week, by the way?
Well, guess what?
The one has found a way to do something.
That's what's going to get reported here.
Don't get depressed.
Don't get dispirited.
What we have here is the opposite.
We you ought to be jumping for joy, and I'm not kidding you.
There is a state of panic going on in the White House over a number of things.
Their fundraising, Carl Rove's column today, Wall Street Journal, their fundraising is a visual.
I was telling somebody the other day, I might have mentioned on the radio program here today, if we had a media that was as suspicious of Democrats as it is of Republicans.
If we had a media that was curious, if we had a media that was as interested in holding Democrats accountable when they're in power as they are Republicans, I can't tell you what difference that would make in terms of the kind of country we have, the attitude, the overall attitude of the population of this country would be profoundly different.
Now we don't have that kind of media.
We have a propaganda agenda-oriented media, and that's just the way it is.
And I'm just telling you that this strategic reserve release is the result of panic.
It's strategic in the sense that for a week we've been told that the president can't do anything about the price of oil.
But now the one has had enough of the suffering.
By the way, the state dinner last night, they wouldn't even announce the kinds of wine because of how expensive they are.
I'm not kidding, Dawn.
This is, and it's not the first time.
It's not the first time for Obama not to announce the names of the wine.
Normally, these state dinners you use American wines.
There are occasions where some some fine Bordeaux French wines have been used.
But it is an honor for the winemaker to be chosen, and it is an honor to be publicized that his wine or her wine was chosen for a big dinner at the White House.
Obama is not announcing which wines because they're expensive, maybe $300, $400 a bottle.
And can't have that while gas prices are going up, can't have the appearance of Obama partying hearty while people continue to lose jobs and so forth.
So they have to not announce, and not for the first time, the kinds of wine that are being used.
So we will explore in greater detail, uh, ladies and gentlemen, this whole what I think is the actual mindset of the White House and the Obama re-elect people right now.
And I think if you're going to do this, if you're going to release oil from the strategic reserve, and by the way, I don't care how incompetent they are and how economically ignorant are ignorant they are, they know that this is not going to affect the price of gasoline.
Not for the long term and not significantly.
And if it does, it never has before.
This is the thing.
Release this could be gets not enough oil compared to the total amount of oil refined into gasoline this country uses every day.
The strategic reserve is like a thimble compared to the daily or weekly use of oil in this country.
So they know this.
So the price had better come down somehow.
They better be able to point somewhere where the prices come down, or maybe they're just going to try to live off the fact that somebody finally had to do something.
For the struggling American people fighting against big oil, attempting to rape and rip off average Americans who are already in challenging economic times.
So Obama as hero again.
Democrats as saviors create a bunch of victims, ride to the rescue as the savior, and so forth.
I think this is um, you know, this this again, folks, this strategic reserve is supposed to be used to help us survive an interruption of our oil supply.
Which we could have, by the way, if the Iranians closed down the Straits of Hormuz, but they haven't.
They're not going to do that today.
There is no interruption.
We are not having any problem getting oil other than the obstacles Obama has put in the free flow of oil at market prices, refusing to drill here, and the uh failure to okay the Keystone Pipeline.
Got to take quick time out.
We'll do it, we'll be back and continue in mere moments right after this.
I had not, by the way, just so you know, I had not intended to talk about this at all today.
This was not at the top of the stack, but when I heard at Obama, and he's out, he was out in uh where is it, Prince George's County today, and uh Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland, and just spewing a bunch of dribble and bilge about gasoline prices and energy and so forth.
And then he announces the release of the strategic reserve.
So we got to deal with it as it happens.
Now, speaking of gasoline prices, uh, Dick Luger, Republican Senator Indiana, pointed out in an editorial in the Politico today.
Now, this is a stunning statistic.
For every 10% increase in the price of oil, every 10% increase in oil prices is expected to knock 0.25% off economic growth.
That, if true, is an amazing fact, especially when you bear in mind that we've had gasoline prices go up more than 100% under Obama.
Works out to a reduction of GDP by 2.5%, and our GDP is not even growing at 2%.
Our GDP, our economy is growing at under 2%, and the federal government's share of the total economic output it is, which does not include economic output, they don't produce anything, is 23% on its way eventually to 25%.
Maybe it's 21% now, 23%.
Whatever it is at its historical high.
That's how much of the private sector that Obama and the Democrats have simply transferred and shut down and moved to the government sector.
And that's why there are two million fewer jobs.
So you have this statistic from Luger, every 10% increase in oil prices is expected to knock a quarter of a point, a quarter of a percentage point off economic growth.
Well, you run the numbers, gas prices up over 100% under Obama, and gross domestic product down by 2.5%.
Think of how much this has cost the country.
Think of how much it has cost you and me, and how much it's going to cost the economy if Obama doesn't do something about it, which he could very easily do, but not this way.
Not releasing the strategic reserve.
He did it before.
You may not remember.
But back in June, Obama released 30 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserves because of the Arab Spring.
Back in June.
Did that make the world price of oil go down?
I don't think so.
There's not enough.
30 billion or million barrels is a thimble compared to the daily usage of oil by everybody on the planet.
Here are the numbers.
The world consumes 87.5 million barrels of oil a day.
United States alone consumes about 19 million barrels a day.
And this is all according to a guy named Tom Close, the chief oil analyst at the oil price information service.
As of February 29th of this year, the inventory of the strategic reserves, 695.9 million barrels, that equates to 36 days supply of oil at current daily consumption levels of 19 million barrels a day.
But the most that has ever been released from the strategic reserve ever was the 30 million barrels Obama released last June during the Arab Spring, and now if you jump forward from June of last year to today, did the release of oil from the strategic reserves have any lasting meaning on the price of gasoline and the price of oil?
Obviously, no.
Because it's all up.
Now I know that keeping track of numbers when people are speaking them to you is very tough to do when the numbers aren't in front of you.
But let me do it one more time.
The inventory of our strategic reserves of oil, 695 million barrels.
That would propel or that that that would that would run the country for 36 days.
Obama released 30 million barrels in June.
There's not enough oil there to bring down the price of oil or to bring down the price of gas.
Now, what's going to happen when that doesn't happen?
And by the grab audio sum by 29.
Let's just I I knew this had happened.
Cookie sends me this soundbite, the commercial break.
Here's Obama in Largo, Maryland, at Prince George's community college just this morning.
The question is, how do we meet this challenge?
Because right now, we're starting to see a lot of politicians talking a lot, but not doing much.
Oh, yeah, right on.
By the way, the God reverb is back.
Did you notice that?
Obama is God.
It's what he's saying is here, okay, everybody's talking about nobody doing anything.
Nobody's doing anything about the price of gas level.
Well, I'm going To.
Yay!
Obama!
Yay!
30 million barrels.
I don't know how much he's gonna release.
It was 30 million barrels last June.
So when this release does not bring the price of gasoline down.
What will the Democrats say then?
I have a pretty good guess, what they'll say.
They'll say C, C, the prices are fixed.
Or they will say big oil is sabotaging the courageous efforts of our courageous president.
Big evil oil.
Yep, that's right.
Big oil.
Price fixing.
Seeing to it that our young brave president is not helped by this courageous move.
That has to be what they're gonna say because it's not gonna lower the price of gasoline.
Not significantly, and not for any real length of time.
We're not talking about enough oil here.
Your guiding light, your bulwark...
During times of trouble, confusion, assault, attack, distortion, lies, and even the good times.
Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchor man here at the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Now, the last time around on this strategic reserve, when Obama released oil from the strategic reserve, that was last June.
Gasoline prices, oil prices did go down for a couple of weeks.
But they rebounded and were higher again by July.
Less than a month later.
I have this from CNBC, July 5th, 2011, the headline, oil prices climb back to pre-reserve release levels.
Crude raced higher Tuesday as energy bills pushed NYMAX oil back toward the $100 a barrel mark.
Prices last seen before world governments said they would release crude from their reserves last month.
So it's uh it's a spot move.
It's a temporary move, it's a move-oriented in panic.
It is political, and it is uh it's based on the on the fact that Obama is seeking political gain because everybody's saying presidents can't do anything about the price of gasoline.
Obama himself said it this week and last.
And members of his administration said there's really nothing the president can do.
And we've remarked on that because these same people derated George W. Bush for years for not doing anything about the price of gasoline.
Now the National Journal has it exactly right.
They just put up an article with this headline.
Obama's energy speech in Maryland showed he's in full crisis control mode on gas price.
Let's go ahead and play some of the sound bites from this this uh appearance today.
National Journal is part of the state control media.
National Journal is the hotline.
National Journal is owned up, well, not owned, but it's run and operated out of the White House for all intents and purposes.
When the Democrats are there.
That's a remarkable headline.
Obama's energy speech in Maryland showed he's in full crisis control mode in gas prices.
We've got four sound bites.
This is the first.
We're starting an audio sound by 25.
I gotta make sure the broadcast engineer can keep up with me here.
Here we go.
Every time prices start to go up, especially in an election year, politicians dust off their three-point plans for two dollar gas.
I guess this year they decide we're gonna make it 250.
I don't know where why not 240?
Why not 210?
But they they tell the same story.
They head down to the gas station, they make sure a few cameras are following them, and then they start acting like we've got a magic wand, and we will give you cheap gas forever.
If you just elect us every time, been the same script for 30 years.
It's like a bad rerun.
National Journal's right.
He's in panic over this, which I mean.
I must ask you, which Republican candidate, Don Little Pop quiz, which Republican candidate is assuring everybody that he can get the price down to 250 a gallon.
You don't know?
Brian, you know who it is?
Brian's got an excuse.
He's been sick.
You know who it is?
It's Newt.
That's exactly Newt, who's not gonna get the nominate.
Here's Obama reacting to Newt.
Newt's out there saying he's gonna get the price of gasoline down to 250.
So Obama goes out and makes a speech to try to knock this one back.
Must bother him.
He must think that there's traction.
Folks, again I tell you, these two polls, the New York Times and the Washington Post on Monday of this week, have thrown this White House for a loop.
But I have sound bites coming in mere moments, where members of the state-controlled media are now attacking the intelligence of people who are polled.
And asking, are the polls broken?
We get some state controlled media polls look bad for Obama.
Another run are these polls broken?
Are the people in the polls stupid?
They have what they think is the smartest, slickest, most polished professant president, politician ever in the history of the country.
They have total propaganda control over the media.
And in their minds, that means they have total control over what America thinks.
And Obama's approval number at 41%, even after last week I was supposed to be banished and finished and gone forever.
Conservative talk radio is supposed to be dead and buried.
The last remaining opposition to Obama, by the way, plus some brave, courageous conservative bloggers.
Conservative media at large, Obama's not so much concerned about them.
Last week, all this was supposed to finally, the dream was to have come true.
And instead, what's happened?
What's happened is here.
Grab audio sound by number five.
What has happened?
We've got the polls.
We've got the White House in panic.
Gasoline prices.
Talk radio limb, supposed to have been finally taken care of, banished and gone forever.
No more serious opposition to Obama.
And instead, here is Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday.
The latest casualty in the fire storm engulfing conservative radio talk show host Rush Limba could be the liberal comedian Bill Maher, who's now getting a lot of heat from Republicans and some Democrats alike for his own recent inflammatory comments.
The latest casualty from the fire storm engulfing me is not talk radio, it's their own Bill Maher.
They're lamenting.
Oh no!
What's happened here?
Now everybody's focusing on Moore and some of the other outrage, truly, truly base, disgusting, vile, everyday stuff coming from Democrat media people.
That now is being looked at.
That now's none of this was supposed to happen.
So Obama has to release all from a strategic reserves, has to go out and talk to some college kids about energy and so forth.
People in the know realize Barack Obama is the number one obstacle to cheap energy in this country.
Don't doubt me.
Here's our second soundbite, Obama in Largo, Maryland.
Do not tell me that we're not drilling.
We're drilling all over this country.
I mean, I guess there's some other few spots where we're not drilling.
We're not drilling in the National Mall.
We're not drilling at your house.
I guess we could try to have like, you know, 200 oil rigs in the middle of Chesapeake Bay.
Well, that's the question.
We are drilling at a record pace, but we're doing so in a way that protects the health and safety and the natural resources of the American people.
All right, so that's point number one.
If you start hearing this drill, baby drill, drill, drill, drill.
If you start hearing that again, just remember you've got the facts.
We're doing that.
I tell you, this is that that's a gold mine.
That is another example of the panic that the White House, here is a guy who has personally placed a drilling moratorium throughout the Gulf of Mexico, who will not permit drilling in Alaska, who will not okay.
The Alaska or the Keystone Pipeline, which is not even drilling.
That's just pipelining oil.
That doesn't even involve drilling.
The oil that's being drilled in this country is under leases granted by George W. Bush in previous presidents.
The oil production taking place in this country is taking place on privately owned land, not government-owned land, where Obama is not permitting any drilling.
I I don't.
You know, for those of you new to the program, I genuinely do want to persuade you.
I've got a golden opportunity here.
But I don't want to um say things here that are gonna make you scratch your heads or say, now that can't be true.
But I I don't know how to how else to say.
When he says, do not tell me we're not drilling, we're drilling all over this country.
I mean, I'll policy has been to shut down as much drilling as possible.
The only place he can't shut down drilling is that which is occurring on privately owned land in America, like land that might be owned by an oil company, or an individual entrepreneur, a wildcatter who is drilling his own oil.
But he most definitely has shut down drilling.
And he has refused new permits for drilling.
And up until this sound bite, he's out there explaining why.
Well, we've only got two percent of the world's reserves.
It doesn't make sense to drill.
Now all of a sudden, in a state of panic, he wants to tell people how he's Mr. Drill.
He is all over the ballpark each and every day saying whatever he has to say in reaction to a crisis that is engulfing him.
And this is a classic, and this is so unpresidential.
This is so childish and immature.
We're not drilling a national mall.
We're not drilling your house.
I guess we could set up a couple rigs in the Chesapeake Bay.
Nobody's talking about doing that.
Nobody wants to drill in a national mall.
Nobody wants to drill a Chesapeake Bay.
Nobody's suggesting this.
Classic Obama technique of setting up a straw man, you know, an imaginary troll out there, an imaginary evil guy, an imaginary evil party, an imaginary evil radio host.
The number one obstacle to the free flow of oil at market prices in this country is Barack Obama.
Himself and by virtue of his own policies.
We're drilling at a record pace.
We're not drilling at a record pace.
We are drilling on lands he doesn't control.
And we've been drilling in ways to protect the health and safety of natural resources for 35 or 40 or more years.
I remember as a kid, nine or ten years old, watching the NFL at home in Missouri, and I see a Texaco commercial.
And the Texaco commercial was all about how they're protecting deer in Texas.
And this is in the 60s.
The Texaco commercial wasn't about how much oil and how great they are at it and how much gasoline's out there.
No.
Even back in the 60s, the oil companies were running commercials to tell the American people what they were doing was clean and safe and so forth.
This is nothing new.
This is nothing new.
And again, if you're new to the program for 30 years, the Democrats have been saying we can't drill.
Drilling's not the answer.
It's going to take two to three years.
Thirty years ago, two to three years is today.
Thirty years ago, two to three years is now.
Thirty years ago, look at all the oil we would have.
And by the way, in the stack that I have for the rest of the program is a shocking story on just how much oil we do have in this country.
It's perhaps the oil that's now retrievable, known to exist and retrievable, puts us on a par with Saudi Arabia.
Well, not have a shortage of oil.
I gotta take a break.
I'm a little long here.
Next segment's gonna be a little shorter than usual because of that, just so you know.
It's kind of funny to ponder the question.
Will Bill Maher be the first casually in a war on women?
Who would have thought, folks?
But there's old Wolf Blincher.
First casually latest casually, the fire storm Bill Moore.
So this uh mythical war on women takes out Bill Maher, perhaps.
Uh, ladies and gentlemen, note too back now to Obama, he has to go to a community college to make these claims on energy.
He doesn't go to an audience of adults.
He goes to a community college.
While I have you here, let me remind you of something else.
Do you remember a guy by the name of Judge Feldman?
You may, some of you may remember Obama has been cited as being in contempt of court because of his refusal to issue permits to drill for oil in the Gulf.
This story is from last February 21st, uh 2011.
A federal court ordered the Obama regime, Thursday, to act on five deep water drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico within 30 days, calling the delays in issuing new decisions on reasonable, unacceptable, and unjustified.
A year ago, there were this is Judge Martin Feldman, he's a uh district judge, Eastern District of Louisiana.
He ruled that the four to nine months that these oil companies have been waiting for a decision on the permits is simply too long.
A lot of oil companies after the BP oil spill asked to go back in and start drilling.
Obama would not grant the permits.
And a federal judge cited the Obama administration as being in contempt of court because of its refusal to issue permits.
Then this judge, I think it was this judge, after issuing his decision, Ken Salazar, the Secretary of Energy, the cowboy hat guy, basically said to hell with a judge.
And we're just going to ignore this to heck with it.
So I'm telling you, and there's nothing in it for me to make it up.
And there's nothing in it for me to be wrong.
I don't know how that benefits me or anybody actually, that some people live off being wrong, but it doesn't help me to be.
The idea that Barack Obama is Mr. Drill.
The idea that Mr. Obama is our last best hope of getting oil finally circulating sufficiently to reduce price is an absolute lie.
It is Barack Obama standing in the way of new drilling, and he has been for a year on these permits.
It is just what it is.
It's nothing more, nothing less.
And what he's telling these college kids is simply, I don't know how else to say simply not true.
Blatantly not true.
So none.
Well, I can't say none.
Prop 90% of what we discussed here in the first hour was not even part of show prep.
So I've got the whole stack left.
Plus some things from the previous days that uh work well if we have time to get to them.
So the point is, lots still to go.
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