Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
Yes, Sari Bob.
It's the fastest three hours in media.
And there's only one left.
And we make the most of it.
I, El Rushbaugh, L for short.
Saying more in five seconds than most hosts say in a show.
Great to have you here.
It's Open Line Friday.
Talk about whatever you want.
Telephone 800-282-2882 if you want to be on the program.
But it is also our annual cur-a-thon done in conjunction with the Leukemia Lymphoma Society of America.
22nd year.
22nd year that we are engaged here in raising money to ultimately cure these blood cancers.
The donation telephone number is 877-379-8888.
Or you can donate at rushlimbaugh.com.
We are, as of the two-hour mark, a short time ago, we are up 30% over last year.
That does not include my donation that I announced in the first hour, which I only announced the figure one time.
But I always kick things off.
But the number that we're working on is strictly yours, strictly your donor.
We're 30% up over last year.
Just literally amazing.
The people in the volunteers here from the Leukemia Lymphoma Society, they get on the intercom every commercial break and they give me an update.
And their voices are cracking when they do this because of you.
We do this once a year.
We've raised over $30 million in less than three hours a year.
And we don't even go wall to wall with it.
You're the greatest audience in the world.
And the great part of this effort, why your donations to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society are so important is because blood cancer drugs and treatments and therapies funded by this society are providing hope and survival for other cancers and diseases like Glevec.
By the way, I'm getting a lot of emails from people who are reporting they've been diagnosed.
They are undergoing treatment, some with drugs they consider to be miracle drugs that are arresting the progress of the disease.
There's so much good work being done here.
There's so many advances taking place.
Survivability rates are expanding, are increasing.
New drugs are being created.
Clinical trials are taking place.
Advances are marching forward.
All of it taking place in the free market of medical research.
Glevec, big, big, big drug.
We spotlighted Gleevec's development during one of our curathons years ago.
Now, the initial focus of Gleevec was on a really tough form of leukemia called chronic myelogenous leukemia.
Five-year survival rates were less than 50%, which means that less than 50% of those diagnosed lived for five years.
Now, very, when it was first introduced, Gleevec.
Now, a very exciting recent long-term study at the MD Anderson Center in Houston, which is one of finest cancer hospitals in the country.
Recent long-term studies now showing a major increase in these numbers.
Its study now is not under 50%.
It's a solid 67% of CML patients on Gleevec are now surviving 10 years longer, not five.
But that's not all that Gleevec is doing.
It's also approved to treat a rare form of stomach cancer with the acronym GIST, G-I-S-T.
Since these drugs are developed, they are found to have applications elsewhere, cancers that are not blood cancers.
And they're eagerly shared.
There's no proprietary hold on these things.
Everybody in the cancer world oriented toward the same things here.
Blood cancer therapies are pioneering treatments for other cancers because the blood cancer treatments use blood instead of invasive and risky procedures that aren't feasible for some solid tumors.
So researchers are able to study primary cancer cells from the actual patient rather than relying on cell lines that have been extracted or animal models and then hoping to extrapolate.
So this gets a better chance of producing effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategy.
In other words, treatment, increased treatment, improved treatment, come up with better drugs and options.
And this kind of progress is going on each and every day.
It's like everything else, it takes money, and that's where you come in, and that's where you always have triumphed.
There are immunotherapies.
This is where immune system cells are genetically modified to attack cancer, but leave healthy cells alone.
That's the result of Leukemia Lymphoma Society research.
Immunotherapies.
Do you realize what is involved in it?
Just stop and think of that for a minute.
Immune system cells, genetically modified to attack cancer cells, but leave the healthy cells alone.
And of course, beyond all that, the Leukemia Lymphoma Society provides a lot of services for patients and families of those who are at the moment being treated.
Many of these people working at the Leukemia Society have been impacted personally by the disease, so they know and they're able to provide support groups and counseling and financial aid, as well as information provided by oncology professionals on the most current disease and what's going on with clinical trials and so forth.
And the knowledge continues to expand.
The compassion is always there in terms of helping families deal with this, in addition to the patient.
The disease affects everybody who knows the patient.
In a psychological way, it can be as devastating, if not more so, to family members than the patient.
The patient has no choice.
Patient has to gut it up and deal with it.
Family members sometimes stay in denial, don't want to be any part of it.
That puts all kinds of additional pressure on the patient, particularly if the patient's a parent.
Tendency when you're diagnosed is to feel sorry for yourself and you want everybody to focus attention on you and you want sympathy.
And then some people don't.
Some people don't want any attention.
They're embarrassed to be the focus of attention, don't want anything at all.
And such a distance develops between the patient, family, friends.
That's where the counseling comes in.
There's a lot of denial that first happens.
But the patient sometimes appears to be in denial, which is attempted courage or what have you.
But at some point, it all hits the reality of it.
And that's when support people are there to help and deal with this.
And they let things play out as they normally do, and they know when to step in and get things back on track.
It's so encompassing the work that they do, in addition to research for treatments, drugs, therapies, this kind of thing.
There's also the counseling aspect of this that goes on.
It's an amazing thing that happens.
And every one of them knows what to do because they've all been personally impacted by it.
They've personally been, they've had the disease themselves, do have it.
Family members have had it.
And the same people we've been working with since this started back in 1990.
Leukemia Lymphoma Society.
Now, we have premiums that we're giving away.
Now, all this is detailed at rushlimbaugh.com, but here you go.
A donation of $75 to $99.
Get you an official Rush T-shirt.
It's white.
It's got the Rush Limbaugh 2012 logo on the front.
Only comes in one size, XL.
Don't complain.
A donation of $100 to $359.
Here you go.
The commemorative t-shirt plus an EIB hat, Royal Blue.
Official EIB signature and 2012 logo in red and white thread.
This is adjustable.
It's got a Velcro sizing strap in the back.
One size fits all.
It fits my head, it'll fit yours.
Don't complain.
And then a donation of $360 or more.
Now you get the official Rush Limbaugh EIB golf shirt and the cap.
The golf shirt is an ultra-cool fabric with climate-cool things.
It doesn't get wet.
Keeps you dry as well.
It's a polo shirt.
It's royal blue.
The official EIB logo embroidered in white on the left chest and the Rush signature.
And the year 2012 embroidered on the left sleeve.
And this is custom sizing from small to triple X.
And that's what we're doing today, curing the blood cancers and doing everything that we can to advance the cause.
And you've come through again here in ways that have shocked and surprised everybody.
As I say, 20 minutes ago, we're up by 30% over last year, not counting my personal donation, which I announced in the first hour.
We just tabulate your funds and compare them from year to year.
So, 877-379-8888 is the telephone number to make a donation, or you can go to rushlimbaugh.com and do it there.
Either way, no solicitation.
Your name is not sold to anybody or given to anybody.
You will not be hit up.
A couple of audio sound bites here.
Hillary Rosen.
Just a couple more on this.
And then we'll move on to other things.
Again, last night on CNN with Wolf Blitzer speaking with Hillary Rosen about her insult of Ann Romney.
And Wolf said, have any of these people or others in the White House, the DNC, the Obama campaign, contacted you?
Have they spoken to you about any of this today?
Do you know if Obama called Ann Romney?
And this is what Hillary Rosen said.
I've had several supportive calls.
Supportive.
What are they saying?
Well, you know, people understand.
People know me.
They know that I wouldn't attack a stay-at-home mom, and that that's not what I think this debate is about.
Except that she did.
Not only did she attack a stay-at-home mom, that is one of the basic tenets of feminisms in the modern era, late 60s, early 70s, was built on two things, equal pay for equal work and attacking stay-at-home moms.
That hasn't changed.
So they know that's not who I am.
They know I wouldn't attack a stay-at-home.
They sent her out to do it.
Or maybe they didn't have to send her out.
Maybe she's part of the strategy team.
They came up.
They did this, and they wanted this said.
At some point, this was going to be said.
Don't doubt me on this.
The Romneys are the kind of people that Obama and Hillary Rosen, Democrat elitists, just resent the heck out of.
Just resent the heck.
They look at them thinking life has been easy for them.
They're boring.
They're nerds.
They're just, they are Ward Cleaver.
You imagine, if you made a liberal sat down and watched Leaver at the Beaver Today, can you imagine what would happen to them?
Well, that's what they see in the Romneys.
And they see it in Newt Gingrich.
They see it in Santorum.
They see it in every traditional conservative.
Old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy, unhip, judgmental, moral, all those things that just scare the heck out of them.
David Axelrod, this is classic.
CNN, John King, USA, interviewing Axelrod.
Axelrod's one of the Obama campaign strategists who threw Hillary Rosen overboard.
Yes, he was one of the first, along with Jim Messina, to throw her overboard.
So John King says Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz is among those who criticized her friend Hillary Rosen and has said some things that have made the White House cringe in the past.
Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz, your Democrat National Committee chairwoman, why so fast to trash somebody like Hillary Rosen?
Why so fast to trash somebody who is a trusted ally of Obama?
Been out there defending the president quite a bit.
Why are you trashing her?
She actually is your employee, not ours.
She works for CNN.
I think CNN would not allow her to be an operative for our campaign or the DNC.
She's not.
She never has been.
She's certainly a supporter of the president's, but the Romney campaign has throughout the day portrayed her as an advisor to the president, and that's simply not true.
Do you believe?
So here's Axel Rodd.
No, she's one of your employees, not ours.
Hillary Rosen's one of your employees, not ours.
And not even John King can't handle that.
John King, he can't let that one go by.
It's audio soundbite number nine.
She's been part of the political community in Washington for a long time.
I'm sure she's visited the White House frequently under other presidents.
John Boehner visits the White House all the time, too.
He's not in the middle of the day.
That's where a lot of your friends are getting cringing, though, David, because Hillary Rosen is not John Boehner.
She has a lot of friends in the Obama White House.
This is the part of the moment.
She's my friend.
Hillary herself has acknowledged that she misspoke, and she said something that she regretted saying in the way that she said it.
And I accept that.
John King, not even trying to.
What do you mean she's a CNN employee?
She's a pundit.
She's a commentator.
Anyway, that's publicly.
They want you to think they've gotten rid of her and thrown her overboard.
But just know this.
Hillary Rosen was paid over $120,000 last year by the Democrat National Committee.
Got a break.
Be back after this.
Don't go away.
Yeah, so Axelrod, when Axelrod tells John King, hey, look, Hillary Rosen's your employee, not I, so CNN is thus attacking stay-at-home moms.
I mean, that's how I'm going to interpret it.
David Axelrod accuses CNN of attacking stay-at-home moms because Hillary Rosen is CNN's employee.
Thus, CNN attacks stay-at-home moms yesterday.
Not Obama, not the DNC.
And the White House, they don't care about CNN.
Who does?
MSNBC is their network.
By the way, people telling me that Blebs was on MSNBC today, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
What they're telling me is, I didn't see it.
What they're telling me is that they ironed the curls out of her hair and they darkened it a bit.
And it looks, it looks, I mean, it's a total makeover, apparently, of Debbie Wasserman Schultz in the aftermath of the Hillary Rosen controversy.
So it looks like Debbie Wasserman Schultz's curly hair is another casualty, the war on women.
Waged by CNN.
CNN engaging in the war on women with Hillary Rosen attacking moms, CNN attacking stay-at-home moms.
Here's Lisa Tallahassee, Florida.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Thank you.
I want to say that it is a pleasure to talk with you, and I want to thank you for your generosity and all that you're doing for the lymphoma and leukemia society.
Let me tell you this, this audience is really doing things.
I appreciate your comment, but they're the ones that are really, they're dwarfing me.
Well, that's good news.
It is.
But what you say about cancer touching everyone, that is absolutely true.
In November of 2003, my husband was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and that is a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and it's non-curable.
It's a cancer of the plasma cells of the blood.
Exactly.
And because of the stage that his cancer was in, they gave him two and a half years to live.
And at that time, our daughter was two and a half months old.
She was just born when he was diagnosed.
And, of course, we do what everyone else does.
We look for hope and we look for information.
And the lymphoma and leukemia society, they had a lot of great information for us, and they gave us a lot of hope when we went through all the information.
He had two stem cell transplants in 2004 and has been in remission since September of 2004.
Oh, congratulations.
So you've gone way past the two and a half year expectation.
He sure has.
And of course, his relationship with your child is entirely different than he thought it was going to be.
Exactly.
She was too young to have any clue.
He had no chance.
Even in those two and a half years, he wouldn't have had a chance to really have an adult conversation with her.
But now he has probably, right?
Oh, yeah.
Well, we haven't had those critical conversations yet.
We want to wait until it's apparent that he's sick.
I mean, you know, she knows that he doesn't feel well a lot of the times, but she doesn't know.
But he's in remission, correct?
He is.
But, you know, the side effects of his remission, his blank here.
His maintenance therapy.
Yeah, I know.
It's not easy.
The remission doesn't mean cure.
It doesn't mean return to normal health.
National Institutes of Health standards, five-year survival.
That's considered cure in this disease.
Ha!
How are you?
Welcome back.
It's Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number for the Leukemia Lymphoma Curathon is 877-379-8888.
More and more people are using the website, rushlimbaugh.com, to donate that way.
And it's up and running.
And also, when you go there, you'll have full explanations, graphical representations of all of the premium item giveaways, t-shirts, golf shirts, caps, and so forth for certain levels of donation.
So yesterday, everybody assumed and everybody on the Democrat side got it.
All right, you blown.
The war on women backfired on you.
Just like the North Korean missile busted in midair, so did with Hillary Rosen a couple nights ago, actually.
The war on women just blew up.
But somebody didn't get the memo.
The president of the NAGs, our affectionate term for the National Organization for Women, the National Association of Gals, Terry O'Neill, and obviously a Democrat surrogate.
I mean, the NAGs are part of the Democrat Party.
Did you hear about this?
Terry O'Neill said, she was on MSNBC last night.
She said that Ann Romney, along with Mitt Romney, lacks the life experience and imagination to understand most Americans.
So after the flub up of Hillary Rosen and after the hubbub and after all of the attention that got, the NAG babe goes on MSNBC last night to say that Ann Romney and Mitt both lack the life experience and imagination to understand most Americans.
Now, I'm not a beggar.
You know me.
I don't beg for anything, but I might get on my knees and beg Democrats to continue to bash Ann Romney.
I mean, I think they should keep it up.
And I'm happy taking the lead from David Axelrod to welcome CNN now to the war on women.
CNN leading the war on stay-at-home moms.
What do you mean, Mr. Limbaugh?
How can you possibly think it's absolutely absurd?
No.
David Axelrod, who's running Obama's re-election committee, was on CNN last night.
He said Hillary Rosen doesn't work for them.
Hillary Rosen's a CNN employee.
From that, I conclude that this is a CNN war on women and a CNN war on stay-at-home moms because Hillary Rosen is their employee.
Mr. Limbaugh, that's just absurd.
I don't know how you can make that.
No, it's not absurd, Mr. Neil Castrati.
It works.
By the way, Maxine Waters was on the same segment with Terry O'Neill from the NAGS on MSNBC.
Maxine Waters called Mitt Romney Mitt Rotney.
Now, with Maxine, you don't know if it was accidental or if it was on purpose.
But we're going to say it was on purpose.
So MSNBC didn't get the memo.
Terry O'Neill didn't get the memo.
Maxine didn't get the memo.
President Mitt Rotney.
Who's next?
This is Janelle in Topeka, Kansas.
Welcome.
You're on Open Line Friday.
Great to have you here.
Hey, Mega Ditto's Rush from God's Country.
Thank you.
Kansas, Midway, USA.
I think President Barack Hussein Obama has got it all wrong on the Buffett rule.
I think the Buffett rule allows everybody to take 10 years to pay their taxes.
And even with that, surely Wesley Snipes and Willie Milton would vote for it.
Well, you know, it's a good point.
Snipes found guilty in a Florida court, Willie Nelson.
That's right.
The Buffett.
What she's talking about here, folks, thanks very much for that, Janelle.
What she's talking about out there is that Buffett owes a billion dollars in back taxes and has for a while, and he's fighting it.
Now, folks, anybody is allowed to fight the IRS if they think the IRS is overcharged.
That's fine and dandy.
But don't then come along and allow your name to be put onto some phony tax increase bill when you're out there fighting what the IRS claims is what you owe.
It's a little hypocritical.
And so what Janelle here is saying is the Buffet rule is that you get 10 years or more to pay your taxes, which is what's happening to Warren Buffett and so on.
Let's grab soundbites 15 and 16.
I mentioned Jack Welch earlier.
He's a former CEO of General Electric.
And he was on with Larry Kudlow on CNBC last night.
We've got a couple of sound bites.
Kudlow said, let's talk about the tax increase.
Not my favorite subject, but something very much in the news.
I want to get your opinion.
President Obama out there campaigning for the Buffett rule.
Put a 30% minimum tax on millionaires.
A lot of harsh rhetoric, including Vice President Biden today vilifying rich people.
What do you think of this, Jack?
You've got a choice.
One is a centralized government with a clear-cut central control and a European-style socialism.
That's Obama's play.
Romney's free market capitalism.
So on ideology, there's a choice.
Then you move to leadership style.
In leadership, the Obama style is divide and conquer.
Today, it's the rich hedge fund managers.
But let's stop for a minute and go back.
It was the insurance executives in healthcare.
It was the bankers in the collapse.
It was the oil companies as oil prices go up.
It was Congress as things didn't go the way he wanted.
And recently, it's been the Supreme Court.
He's got an enemies list that would make Richard Nixon proud.
Jack Welch, the former CE of General Electric, CEO of General Electric.
And he's exactly right.
The enemies list, not just of Obama, but the Democrat Party.
But he's exactly right the way he puts it in perspective here.
Things don't go his way.
He goes out and attacks these people.
It's the insurance company, rich hedge fund managers.
It was AIG for a while because of bonuses, the banks, oil companies, Congress, Supreme Court.
And I'll tell you, the reason why it's good to use Nixon is because they hate Nixon.
Oh, Nixon was the epitome of the absolute...
Nixon, to them, is like Mao Zedong was to us.
Or Castro.
Nixon to them, it's like showing Dracula the cloth.
They just hate.
And when you compare, you compare the one to Nixon.
I mean, we'll never see evidence of it, but I guarantee, behind closed doors, they are throwing darts at pictures of Jack Welch.
They can't stand that comparison.
Kudlow said, Jack, bluntly, you think Mitt Romney can win this race versus Obama?
Would it be good for the economy?
Would it be good for the stock market?
Is that clear?
Would it be great for the country?
We'd be a stronger country.
We'd have more jobs.
We'd have more people getting a piece of the pie.
And we wouldn't have this divisive nature that we have with this president screaming at one group and then screaming at the next group and a high-pitched voice.
He was in Florida this week screaming and yelling about rich people.
He went after the Supreme Court.
We got to stop this, Larry.
Yeah, you know what?
I want to know is all of this was knowable about Obama before he was voted for.
I don't know how Jack Welch voted.
This is not about him, but this you and I are not surprised by one thing Obama's done, by one thing he said, by how he conducts himself.
But there are a lot of people who are, and they're the people for whom I have questions.
Where were you?
What were you possibly thinking?
Because none of this should be a surprise to anybody.
And Jack said it up there in the first bite.
Look, we got to look at the ideology.
Exactly right.
And once you do that, there's no way you could not have agreed with me in hoping Obama failed.
We'll be back.
It's our annual curathon, trying to find a way to put an end to the blood cancers via the leukemia and lymphoma society.
And by the way, the donation number and the website will be available all weekend.
I can imagine some of you, I should have mentioned this earlier.
It's not easy coming up with money in this economy for something like this.
And everybody understands that.
That's why we are so humbled and, I don't know, blown away by how much our donations are this year.
The percentage increase is still way up.
And by the way, last year, if I may be so bold as to remind you, Donald Trump called last year and threw in $100,000.
That has not happened this year.
And we are still beating last year.
And that's all you, folks.
This does not count me and what I've put in.
And it's just heartwarming as it can be to be part of this.
And to have you, we have this familial relationship, you and I. Have this continue to be this roaring success every year is overwhelming.
And maybe, you know, you don't think you have to make up your mind here in 10 minutes from now when we end the program.
You've got all weekend.
The number 877-379-8888 will be active throughout the weekend, as will the donations page at rushlimbaugh.com.
Here's Brian, Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Great to have you on the program, sir.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Mega Dittos from Baton Rouge.
Thank you, sir.
Hey, I just wanted to thank you for hosting this fundraiser for 22 years.
I can't hate, can't wait to hear the final total.
Hell, it's going to be big.
It's going to be really big.
I can't wait.
I'm going to get right to the point.
I'm a cancer survivor of 27 years.
At three years old, I was diagnosed with leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia, A-L-L-and-I-W-S-S-S-S-T-St. Jude in Memphis.
I was given two weeks to live, but God had other plans.
Two weeks?
Two weeks.
How old were you?
I was three, and I'm 30 now.
Wow.
And I've had no relapses.
And I give glory to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I was pronounced cured by the hospital.
And treatment is expensive.
And so fundraisers like this are tremendously important.
And so from all the childhood survivors, I wanted to thank you.
Your generosity is just overwhelming.
And because of your effort, such a difference is being made.
Well, I really appreciate that.
In fact, you have reminded me of the statistics that are involved in the childhood.
Brian, thanks much.
Congratulations.
You're cured, not just remission, but they pronounced you cured.
I went to the hospital once a year until I was 18.
And at that point, they discharged me.
And so I've been cured.
Back in the 80s, remember, we were the guinea pigs, but treatment has evolved since then because of the research.
Yeah, exactly.
The survival rates are much higher now.
So medicine has given you your life.
Yes.
Medicine.
And I'm sure your faith all tied together, but medicine has given you your life.
Well, Brian, congrats, and thanks for the call.
Here's some interesting.
I really appreciate your sentiments.
And I'm glad you got through.
Let's run through this very quickly.
Leukemia is cancer of the bone marrow and the blood.
Causes more deaths than any other cancer among children and adults under 20.
Now, just keep that stat by itself.
Causes more deaths than any other cancer among children and young adults.
Yet, one-third of cancer deaths for children are from leukemia.
The disease kills 10 times more adults.
So as much as it affects kids, it's 10 times more so for adults.
Then there's Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is cancer of the lymph system.
And non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Then myeloma.
That's cancer of the plasma cells.
The Hodgkins and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, cancer of the lymph system.
And what, again, I think one of the most important things that I've tried to emphasize today, because we here, and I'm sorry for being redundant, but people are joining the program throughout it.
We've been touched by this disease this year here at the network, and the whole notion of survivability rates has taken on an entirely different meaning for us.
Take whatever example you want, however age, whatever age a person is, parent with a couple of kids, their age could be relatively young, diagnosis, and the survivability rate is such.
Again, our example here is 40 years old, young children, patients, just give me 10 years, just 10.
I want to see my kids graduate.
I want to be able to have certain conversations.
Just give me 10 years.
It used to not be 10 years.
It used to be in the three to five year range.
Now, in some of these cases, it's up to 10 years.
And that's where this really, really matters.
There are cases such as Brian who gets cured.
It does happen.
Some people in remission for a long time.
But those are the exceptions that wish everybody wishes to make the rule.
So the money that you donate has almost, it can be tied to the research, the drug therapy that has led to the increase in survivability rates in significant numbers of years, which matters to people.
And once it happens to you, it's no longer academic.
It's no longer a statistic.
It's real.
And it changes your life forever.
And one of the things that really matters to people is knowing that there is constant research going on that can change the diagnosis even years after it's been made, if they can just hold on.
So that's what you've been doing today is helping accomplish that at 877-379-8888 or rushlimbaugh.com.
Thank you, folks, more than anybody has the ability to express.
Remember, folks, we are accepting donations throughout the weekend.
877-379-8888 at rushlimbaugh.com.
And there's also a hashtag at Twitter at Rush Limbaugh or at Limbaugh.