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March 22, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:33
March 22, 2012, Thursday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 247 podcast.
I've never seen anything like it, folks.
I've never seen this kind of a mid-course correction.
I don't even think I saw one like this from Bill Clinton.
Suddenly, the biggest believer in the Keystone Pipeline, or half of it, the biggest believer in drilling for oil, the biggest believer in expanding domestic oil supplies happens to be Barack Obama, who just two days ago and every day prior to that hated the very idea.
And was trying to dissuade anybody from believing that drilling for oil or pipelining oil would make any difference whatsoever in the gasoline price.
My gosh, what difference a poll makes.
Another devastating Obama poll that explains all that's going on, and I'm gonna wade through this mess and try to make the complex understandable.
Well, I'm not gonna try, I'm gonna do it.
That's what we do here, the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Another exciting sterling three hours of broadcast excellence straight ahead.
And we'll be talking to you during the course of the program.
Telephone number 800 282-2882, and the uh email address L Rushbaugh at EIBNet.com.
I'll tell you Obama's campaign staff at the Associated Press never sleep.
I don't think they even take naps.
The latest from the Associated Press, I'm just gonna I'm gonna give you a sort of a headline rundown here, and then we'll get into the specifics.
Headline from the Associated Press.
Obama defends handling of Keystone as he puts another key oil pipeline on fast track.
He's the obstacle.
The American people know he's the obstacle.
The media know that the people know that Obama's the obstacle.
And yet here's the folks, if I were you, I wouldn't believe a single word that I read any get any more in any AP story.
I simply would regard it.
And I already do this.
If I were you, I would regard every AP story, particularly this year as nothing more than a propaganda piece for the reelection of Barack Obama.
This is laughable.
Obama defends handling of Keystone as he puts another key oil pipeline on Fed on another when was the first one?
He opposes Keystone.
And what he did today, we told you yesterday this was coming.
What he did today is it was already in place.
He's not even authorizing anything that wasn't happening.
It was already happening.
This particular portion of the pipeline.
This is breathtaking.
Obama defends handling of Keystone as he puts another key oil pipeline on fast track.
There's a story also in in the stack here today that uh the American people.
Take it back.
The CNN story is rising gas prices aren't as bad as you think.
You ever remember seeing a story like that when gas prices were going up with any previous president?
Including Jimmy Carter.
Did you ever see we got gasoline prices going up and here's CNN?
Well, you know, it's not as bad as you think.
Could be worse.
You could live in a different part of the world.
Ed Henry at Fox News has noted that Obama has suddenly dropped the phrase there is no silver bullet on lowering the cost of gasoline from his campaign speeches.
And he was using that as early as this week, as recently as this week.
There's no silver bullet.
Now all of a sudden, Obama has put another key oil pipeline on fast track.
What an amazing guy.
Here's another one from AP.
Breaking news, U.S. President Obama directs federal agencies to fast track oil pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas.
Now, maybe I'm mistaken.
That's doubtful.
Maybe I'm mistaken, but has there been a huge problem getting oil from Oklahoma all the way to Texas?
What a mean feat our courageous presidents pulled off Here.
Do you realize that before he acted there wasn't any way to get oil from Oklahoma to Texas?
Even the states border each other, for those of you in Rio Linda.
The northern border of Texas brushes up against Oklahoma and vice versa.
But up until Barack Obama saw the light, we had no way of getting all from Oklahoma to Texas.
But today, U.S. President Obama directs federal agencies to fast track oil pipeline from Oklahoma.
It's the same story as the previous headline.
Obama defends handling, what's it the same event, two different stories?
Obama defends handling of Keystone as he puts another key.
I think I'm gonna go insane.
I don't I I look at this and I imagine you reading this stuff on your own.
And I hope and I pray that you have the same reaction to this that I do, that it's just patently absurd, pure, it's not even news.
This isn't even journalism, this is not even a pretense of news or journalism.
This is just pure campaign support propaganda from a news organization called the Associated Press.
Speaking of Obama's energy tour, he's not an energy tour out there.
Anybody remember that um Obama doubled the Department of Energy budget in 2009, gave him untold sums of money via the stimulus bill.
What would they do with all that money?
Can anybody tell us what they did?
I mean, apart from giving loans to Obama's donors that soon went bankrupt, like Sylindra and the solar people.
What what what happened?
Oh Steve Chu told us we should paint our roofs white.
That the energy remember that to deflect the heat.
We should paint our roofs white.
That advice probably worth a couple billion dollars right there.
So I guess now what we've got here is Obama lobbied for the Keystone Pipeline before he lobbied against it.
Now there's a poll out.
You might be well, what is this all about?
Well, I hold here right in my formerly nicotine stained fingers, polling data from Gallup.
And this is why Obama's on his energy tour this week.
This is why he's in um in Oklahoma.
Um putting another key oil pipeline on fast truck.
I am, I'm going nuts.
I'm officially going crazy here with this.
Americans who say they are very closely following news about the Keystone XL pipeline overwhelmingly think the government should approve it.
78 to 22 percent.
78 to 22 percent of the American people paying attention to this want the Keystone pipeline.
And overall, 44% of Democrats want the Keystone pipeline.
A solid majority of Americans think that the U.S. government should approve of building the Keystone XL pipeline, twenty-nine percent think it should not.
Republicans almost twice as likely as Democrats to want the government to approve the oil pipeline.
And that is why Obama is in Oklahoma.
That is why, ladies and gentlemen, that there is this so-called fast track to uh have Obama complete this pipeline.
Americans who say that they are very closely following news about the Keystone XL pipeline overwhelmingly think the government should approve the building of it seventy-eight to twenty-five percent.
I don't know what percentage of Americans are closely following it.
It's a ten page poll here, and I just got it, so I've just pulled out the highlights in order to um explain all of this.
From the Nevada Journal, Boulder City, Nevada, President Obama will tout investments in renewable energy at the Copper Mountain Solar One plant, although the plant has only five full-time employees, and it's gonna be bankrupt by the time he finishes.
The plant is owned by the San Diego based energy company SEPRA.
It was built in late 2010 at a cost of 141 million.
Funding included 42 million dollars In federal government tax credits, 12 million dollars in tax rebate commitments from the state of Nevada.
Construction of the plant involved 300 part-time jobs, but currently only five full-time employees operate the plant, according to a Sempras spokeswoman.
It comes out to ten point eight million dollars in tax dollar subsidies per employee.
That's what it cost.
At a solar firm.
A solar plant.
Obama was there yesterday, part of the energy tour.
Back in 2011.
In fact, just a little over a year ago.
Bill Clinton.
From the politico.
Former President Bill Clinton said Friday, delays in offshore oil and gas drilling permits are ridiculous at a time when the economy's still rebuilding.
This, according to attendees at some conference he spoke at.
Clinton spoke on a panel with former President George W. Bush closed to the media.
Video of the moderated talk was also prohibited.
Apparently, Bill Clinton doesn't read the newspapers because if he did, he would know that drilling in the U.S. does not lower the gas price.
One year ago, Bill Clinton's out there said we've got to get these permits up.
We've got to start drilling for oil because it will affect the gas price.
Ever since then, Obama said there's no magic bullet, there's no silver bullet.
You can't go out and drill for it.
It's not gonna, it's not gonna do a thing to the gas.
And the media, there's a story on that.
There's a huge story from some news agency today that drilling for oil over the last 30 years has not mattered a whit to the price of gasoline.
I mean, they've pulled out all the stops.
Buy by fact, buy by curiosity, buy by serving your customers, i.e., the consumers of news.
This is full-fledged.
Whatever Barack Obama says is now going to be backed up with with with publications disguised as news stories.
Nothing more than that.
Obama defends handling of Keystone as he puts another key oil pipeline on faster.
Folks, I told you yesterday.
This key, this this part of the pipeline from Oklahoma, Texas, already in the works.
It's already done, it's already approved.
Obama is doing nothing but showing up and glomming on to it.
But this is not completing the Keystone Pipeline.
The Keystone Pipeline goes to Canada.
Obama is still opposed and has put the brakes on and is not permitting oil from Canada to get to Oklahoma so that it can get to Texas.
There is no approval of the Keystone Pipeline.
Perhaps I should have said this at the top.
And that's what makes this AP headline so incompetent.
It's journalistic malpractice.
Another key oil pipeline on fast track.
The Keystone Pipeline has not been approved.
He still opposes it.
This is a pure political move to satisfy 78% of the American people who want it done.
So he's doing nothing, and he's got a very supportive news media out there trying to convince you and everybody else that he just today authorized the Keystone Pipeline.
That's what's going on.
It's as dishonest as possible.
It's as dishonest and misleading as possible.
Furthermore, I gotta take a break.
When I come back, there's another little piece of information you need to know.
Obama couldn't stop this leg that he's out taking credit for.
It was in the works.
It was happening.
He's simply there gloming on to what was already happening, and furthermore, he couldn't stop it if he wanted to.
And he did want to.
This is totally out of his control.
It's out it it's this is such.
I don't know how to describe this.
This so brazen.
This is this is this is a slap in the face.
The truth of decency.
It's just brazen.
I'll give you details when we come back.
Don't go away.
And we've got, if you want to hear, I got sound bites of Obama pushing Oklahoma.
We may listen to a couple of those, because that'll just add a little fuel to this fire.
Obama could not stop this pipeline if he wanted to.
This leg of the pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas was in the works.
He doesn't have the authority.
Not that that would stop him, by the way, but he doesn't have the authority to stop it.
According to the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, there is only one category of pipeline that requires presidential approval.
That's an international pipeline, like the originally proposed version of Keystone XL, which would be from Canada, which for those of you in Rio Linda would make it international.
Down through Nebraska, other northern plain states into Oklahoma, then into Texas.
So Obama could not have stopped this leg of a Keystone pipeline if he'd wanted to.
It was already in place.
He's simply there.
He's just glomming onto it.
It's like trying to be present when the Ten Commandments are written on the burning bush and claiming you wrote them.
It's just I I'm I'm almost speechless here with the absolute brazenness of this.
I wouldn't be surprised if Obama says I've laid more pipe than any president except Bill Clinton.
That's where we're headed with this.
A guy who steadfastly opposes drilling for oil and has not issued any permits to speak of, particularly since it's Gulf Oil Drilling Moratorium.
The guy who has made his name opposing the Keystone Pipeline is now out.
Taking credit for it and trying to make people believe in this country that the entire Keystone Pipeline today has just been authorized and oil is going to be flowing through it.
Never has it been more obvious.
Without the media, Barack Obama would not have a chance.
Without the media, Barack Obama would be a national joke.
But he has the media.
He has the largest propaganda arm that a president has ever had.
He has people willing to lie.
He has people willing to publish his lies.
He has people willing to work with him against the best interests of the people of this country.
And I've been alive 61 years, and I have never seen anything like this.
I'm telling you, there's always been media bias.
And the media were sickeningly slavish to things like Camelot, JFK, and Clinton.
But this is unprecedented.
Yeah, no, they carried the water for Clinton for a while in Monica Lewinsky, the whole event, but even they drew some lines there.
This has no boundaries.
Whatever it takes.
The only thing that a president can stop, again, is an international pipeline.
In fact, the Keystone XL pipeline's the first international pipeline that has ever been denied by a president.
Keystone is the first international pipeline ever denied.
And he was denying it as recently as Monday.
And he was criticizing it as recently as Tuesday.
And he was telling people that there was no silver bullet or magic bullet to any new oil in this country.
However, we got it, via drilling or via pipeline.
And in a space of less than 48 hours, we have had the equivalent of an atheist become the Pope.
On oil and on energy.
The Keystone XL pipeline is the first time in history a presidential permit for a cross-border pipeline has ever been denied.
And that's why I think it ain't gonna be long before Obama starts bragging about how much pipe he's laid.
Start comparing himself to other presidents.
I've laid more pipe than any president except Bill Clinton.
He's got to throw Clinton in there for credibility.
Obama does not control this segment of the pipeline's permitting process.
It also says something about the guy's carry.
He's gonna go out there and take credit for this when people like him would not allow it if they had the chance.
Hardworking private sector Americans have done this to try to overcome the obstacle that he represents, and now he's out taking credit for their work.
Every bit of this is irritating.
Welcome back.
Great to have you, Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Here's more from the Associated Press in Obama's speech today out in Oklahoma.
In his speech this morning, Obama said producing more oil and gas here at home will continue to be a critical part of our energy strategy.
We'll continue to be.
This is the guy standing in the way of oil and gas production.
This is the guy throwing money away on wind and solar and electric cars.
I saw a story earlier this week.
Will the vault be Obama's Edsel?
And then I thought, how many people reading that story know what the Edsel is.
Will continue to be a critical part of our energy strategy.
Obama Producing more oil and gas here at home.
This is what the Democrats do, folks.
This is what the left does.
Just there is no moral court.
There's no concern for truth.
There's no concern for being caught lying because Obama knows that his number one support group's not going to call him on it.
The only people going to call him on it are people like me.
And they're not worried about that.
They've got the AP on their side.
They've got the Washington Post, the New York Times, they don't care.
But what it indicates, the good news about this is they know how deep the trouble Obama is in.
They know how deep it is.
They know the problems he's got.
They've got, we got this 78% of the people following this want the Keystone pipeline.
And Obama's in the 22% opposing it.
And his 22% counts for 100% because he can stop it and he has stopped it.
So now he's out trying to make this little connection between Oklahoma and Texas appear to be the whole thing, having been authorized.
They're in deep trouble.
They have the support when you boil it all down of no more than 30% of the people of this country.
When you boil it all down, Obama and the Democrats have no more than 30%.
Why do they get more votes than that?
Well, once again, how many people do you think are going to hear this stuff today and think it's true?
He lies.
The lie is carried forward, it's amplified, and it's codified.
It's true.
So we're left to hope that people figure this out on their own.
And therein resides the fear that people have for the future of the country.
It's wrapped up right in that whole concept.
Will a majority of the American people see through this, understand what we're dealing with, not just on the oil gas pipeline issue, but Obama and policy after policy after policy.
Health care, you name it.
Will the American people finally wake up?
Are they waking up?
Will they see through it?
The 2010 election results say yes.
They do.
Let's go to the sound.
Let's listen to some of this.
It's unbelievable, folks.
And incumbent in you listening to this is you must understand that for Obama to go out to Cushing Oklahoma and say what he said today, for the AP to write the headlines, the headlines I've shared with you, they must believe that you're stupid.
They are counting on your ignorance.
They're counting.
They believe you're stupid anyway.
Obama, leftists, Democrats have contempt for self-reliant average Americans anyway.
They go into this thinking you're stupid.
But you have to understand that for him to say the things you're going to hear him say.
The foundation for this is that he believes you're so stupid and so gullible, and you're so ignorant that you will believe what he says about this.
Today I'm directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority.
To go ahead and get it done.
Now, you would know all this from listening to the television set.
I'm sorry, but I can't let this thing go without stopping it.
We're going to have, I guess, cue it back up to the top.
I'm directing my administration to cut through the red tape.
There isn't any.
To the extent that there's red tape in the Keystone pipeline, it's his.
I'm directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucrat hurdles.
Who puts them up?
Who are the bureaucrats?
They're not private sector people, bureaucrats by definition.
Work for the government.
They're his.
I'm directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucrat hurdles, and make this project a priority.
It already was.
It's almost already done.
I Okay, here we go from the top again.
Today I'm directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority.
To go ahead and get it done.
Now, you would know all this from listening to the television set.
This whole issue of the Keystone Pipeline has generated obviously a lot of controversy and a lot of politics.
Our experts said that we needed a certain amount of time to review the project.
Unfortunately, Congress decided they wanted their own timeline.
Not the company, not the experts, but members of Congress who decided this might be a fun political issue, decided to try to intervene and make it impossible for us to make an informed decision.
Now, that's the northern half of the pipeline again.
Remember, what he's out there taking credit for today was already in the pipeline.
It was already in the work.
He can't stop this, and he didn't have anything to do with approving it.
There is no Keystone Pipeline, folks.
The leg from Canada to the United States still in limbo.
He has not authorized it, and he won't until after he's elected.
And now it's blaming this on Congress.
They wanted it done within a certain amount of time.
It's just all it's just every word of this.
I have to find a different way of dealing with this.
I have to find a different way of trying to persuade people.
I have to find some.
This has been doing this for 23 years, and these people they keep getting away with this.
Here's uh the next bite, they get three more to go.
Here's the next one.
Today we're making this new pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf a priority.
So the southern leg of it, we're making a priority, and we're going to go ahead and get that done.
The northern portion of it, we're going to have to review properly to make sure that the health and safety of the American people are protected.
That's common sense.
Yeah, well, these pipelines rupture every day, you know.
I mean, you heard about the pipeline that ruptured yesterday, right?
Killed a bunch of snail darters, uh, it seeped onto a uh Highway 70, Missouri, and it it just you just you should have seen a traffic accident.
All the cars that slipped off the highway.
Because that these pipelines, they rupture every day.
You know that, don't you?
Then we got to be protecting the people and their safety and uh health.
Because as what's in that pipe?
That's oil.
That dirty, rotten, filthy stuff.
Oil, hey, we can't have.
This is such a croc.
Here's the next bite.
If you guys are talking to your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers, your aunts or uncles, and they're wondering what's going on in terms of oil production.
You just tell them anybody who suggests that somehow we're suppressing domestic oil production isn't paying attention.
I want everybody to understand this.
We use 20% of the world's oil.
We only produce 2% of the world's oil.
Even if we opened up every inch of the country, if I put a oil rig on the South Lawn, if we had one right next to the Washington Monument, even if we drilled every little bit of this great country of ours, we'd still have to buy the rest of our needs from someplace else if we keep on using the same amount of energy, the same amount of oil.
None of that's true, folks.
I I've had the documented stories with the facts this week and last and in previous days on domestic oil production.
And here they are again.
Domestic oil production on privately owned land, where big oil has its rigs and smaller oil companies have their rigs.
That oil production is way up.
Oil production on federally owned lands is near an all-time low because that's what he has ordered.
In addition, there are no permits being granted for private sector firms to go drill for, find, explore whatever oil on federally owned lands.
The third thing is, with shale oil and its discoveries in the northern plains of this country, we now have this 2% figure was been blown out of water, too.
We now have accessible to us more oil than Saudi Arabia has.
We now have accessible to us.
I had the news from the investors' business daily, they got it from the oil institute.
We have enough oil in the lower 48.
Well, let's go let's count Alaska in this to provide enough oil at current annual consumption rates to power this country for over 200 years.
That's how much oil we have.
We wouldn't have to buy any.
We wouldn't have to import any.
He's very sensitive to this charge, oil production being down, and he ought to be because it is down on land that he has control of.
So, You guys talking to your friends and neighbors, co-workers, and you tell them anybody who suggests somehow we're suppressing domestic oil, but they didn't pay attention.
See, Mr. President, that's your problem.
We are paying attention.
And we know how you're making all this up.
We know where the oil is being produced in this country and where it's being stifled by you.
Come on, folks, you know that just two days ago and every day prior to that, this man has opposed oil with every fiber of his existence.
He's opposed getting more of it.
He's opposed finding more of it.
He is opposed to using it.
And now with a Gallup poll showing 78% of the American people paying close attention to this want the Keystone Pipeline, guess who's making it happen?
When he isn't.
That's right.
Our brave, courageous president up against such mean people as Rush Limbaugh, overcoming profound obstacles put in his way by mean people like Rush Limbaugh.
Yep.
That's what he's fighting.
Doing it for you.
His logic here is just laughable.
More oil won't help, or it will.
Which is it?
This is shifting now by the hour.
On the one hand, he says we get all the oil in the world, and it's it that we have, all the oil we would still have to buy some.
On the other hand, he's out there trying to take credit for the Keystone plant plant because we need more oil.
If all the oil we have would not change the equation, why?
What's the whole point of this?
More oil won't help, But he's got to go out to Oklahoma to take credit for getting more oil.
How is this possible?
Now, according to the Heritage Foundation, oil and gas production on federal lands under Obama is down by more than 40% compared to ten years ago.
And the year 2010 had the lowest number of onshore leases issued since 1984.
And the Obama administration has held only one offshore lease sale in 2011.
None this year.
One more bite.
Yeah, now let's go to the break.
That would be the responsible thing to do.
We have sponsors who want their messages heard.
Back after this.
Don't go away.
Rising gasoline prices.
They are not as bad as you think.
That's coming up.
One more bite.
This is Obama.
Gas prices have nothing to do with oil.
That's the last buttons.
The last sound by gas price have nothing to do with oil.
He's out there okaying what he wants you to think is the whole Keystone pipeline.
We could get all the oil we have in this country, and it wouldn't matter because we still have to buy some from somewhere else.
But yet we're still got to we gotta go do that.
We got to get this Keystone pipeline going.
Except we don't.
We're not gonna really complete it, but we're gonna, this Oklahoma, the Texas thing, which is already happening, I'm out there, I'm gonna take credit for it, even though I couldn't stop it.
Oh, I'd love to.
It happened without me, but I'm gonna go glom onto this.
I'm gonna insert myself, I'm gonna make sure that I get the credit for this when I had nothing to do with it.
It's Obama.
I'm still gonna invest in all this wind and solar stuff.
I'm still gonna get tax credits and taxpayer subsidies to stuff that you don't want to buy, so you'll buy it.
Keystone pipeline can generate up to 200,000 jobs.
I'm not interested in that right now.
Because I got to keep my base happy, and they don't want that because they hate oil.
So I have to hate oil to get the votes of my base.
So I'm I'm moving heaven and earth today to make you think that I alone am seeing to it that oil gets some Oklahoma to Texas, because we desperately need it.
But oil and gas prices have nothing to do with oil.
The price of oil will still be set by the global market.
And that means every time there's tensions that rise in the Middle East, which is what's happening right now, so will the price of gas.
The main reason the gas prices are high right now is because people are worried about what's happening with Iran.
It doesn't have to do with domestic oil production.
It has to do with the oil markets looking and saying, you know what?
If something happens, there could be trouble, and so we're gonna price oil higher just in case.
So why then are you doing anything?
From the way I heard that, we don't have anything to say about it.
We have no control over the price of oil or gas, and nothing we can do.
So what's going on here?
Price oil still be set by the global market.
Well, this is global oil added to the supply.
CNN Money.com gas prices are once again dominating the national debate, but despite rhetoric, high gas prices aren't hurting as much as they used to.
No, did you know that?
In 1981, when oil prices spiked following the Iranian Revolution, gasoline represented nearly 5% of the nation's spending.
In 2011, only 3.7 of spending went to gasoline, even though prices averaged at their highest level ever that year.
Now, even if that's true.
All this really suggests is that the price of everything else, housing, food, and so forth, has gone up and through the roof since 1981.
Because we all know the cost of living hasn't gone down, has it?
If it has, I would like to know.
We know the cost of living hasn't gone down, yet, supposedly.
Gasoline represented only 3.7 of the nation's spending as opposed to 5% back in 1981.
If the cost of living isn't going down, then the price of something else has to have been going way up, right?
Uh housing, food, uh, other things.
In addition to spending less, we're driving more than ever, 90% more than compared to the early 80s.
I I guess CNN says, don't worry about the gas price.
It's not nearly as bad as you think.
Doesn't really matter as much anymore.
And the only reason why is that there's a Democrat president who needs to be re-elected.
CNN says in this story, folks, that the people are only mad about the price of gasoline because they're being encouraged to get mad by some in the media, political pollsters, and because Republicans are exploiting the issue.
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