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Aug. 28, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:41
August 28, 2012, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Okay, folks, it's a moment of truth.
We are mere hours away now from Tropical Storm Isaac, which everybody's desperately hoping becomes a hurricane.
I can't believe this.
They are.
They're desperately hoping that it becomes a hurricane.
It's the Democrats' wet dream that this thing hit New Orleans.
So.
You know me.
My middle name is Solutions.
I have some ideas for the Republicans.
And how to deal with the tropical storm slash hurricane hitting New Orleans.
First thing we do is offer to send 500 bus drivers to New Orleans, paid for by us, to make sure that the buses that were not used by the Democrat mayor during Hurricane Katrina will be used to evacuate people should it become necessary.
The second thing that I think the Republicans ought to do is send bags of money instead of sand.
Bags full of money to shore up the levees in New Orleans.
This would accomplish many things.
A, it would show our compassion.
B, we could have Romney's five sons who CNN last night asked, what's it like to be rich as sin or whatever?
They did.
Piers Morgan asked Romney's filthy rich, stinking rich, what's it like to be stinking rich?
So we have Romney's five sons deliver the bags of money to shore up the levees.
Now, this will accomplish much.
It will show our compassion.
And it'll do something else.
Once we publicize that we have sent 500 bags of money, well, whatever number of bags, bags filled with money to shore up the levees, what will happen?
The poor of New Orleans will storm the levees and steal the bags, thereby putting themselves at risk for the eventual flooding that'll happen once they remove the bags of money.
And that way the Republicans can get rid of even more Democrats in Louisiana and shore up the state for themselves.
How about those two ideas, folks?
Am I not thinking or am I thinking?
Great to have you here.
EIB Network, El Rushbo, 800-282-2882.
The email address, LRushbo at EIBNet.com.
Please stop sending me emails about Chris Matthews.
I'm not going to play the Chris Matthews soundbites.
I'm not going to get into it.
We've got a ban on MSNBC.
The ban is in force.
Matthews went nuts yesterday just accusing every Republican from the RNC chairman down to Newt Gingrich to being a racist for simply daring to even mention Obama's name.
You can't even criticize Obama.
Now, race.
And of course, let me tell you what this is all about, folks.
It's real simple.
Chris Matthews is not lunatic.
He's not crazy.
He's not insane.
And he's not losing his mind.
Well, I don't know about that, but there is a purpose to this.
And the purpose behind this is to pressure the Republicans into not even mentioning Obama at the convention.
Here, the first time in many years that the nation will be focused on the politics of our country.
And the Republicans go first with their convention.
And the last thing in the world that the Democrats want is for the Republicans to talk about Obama and his record.
Obama and the kind of guy he is.
They don't want it.
They're trying to intimidate.
All that was yesterday was an attempt to intimidate every speaker at the convention to modify the speech so as to not talk about Obama.
It's a warning.
You do it, and we're going to call you racists.
And you know how you hate that, and you know how we can make it stick with our friends in the media.
They know that Obama's the biggest liability they have going into this election.
They are trying to intimidate the Republicans from the RNC chairman to Romney on down the list not to say a thing about him.
And my fear is that it's going to work to one degree or another.
There's an AP story here today.
This is, and oh, yeah, this rules change that everybody thinks got solved yesterday.
Let me briefly, as I understand this, tell you what's going on.
There was an attempt, the rules committee yesterday to change the rules of the convention in determining who the delegates to the convention are from the various states and to strip away all of the BS.
The purpose of the rules change, which was orchestrated by Ben Ginsburg, but he's working for Romney, but it's the establishment GOP.
The express purpose is to eliminate any influence of Tea Party activists or grassroots people or conservatives, essentially, from having any power at future conventions.
It would allow the presidential nominee to determine who the delegates to the convention are in future conventions.
That was the purpose of the rules change.
And as of last night, it was supposedly beaten back.
Now, there is talk of an end run at 2 o'clock this afternoon.
Brian York has a piece on it at the Washington Examiner.
Despite reports of a compromise, there is still substantial unhappiness among many delegates to the convention over a package of party rules changes proposed by the Romney campaign.
The fight could break into the open today as delegates debate various proposals to resolve the conflict.
Now, the short version of the story is that the changes would give the party's presidential nominee more control over how individual states choose their delegates to go to the convention.
Now, in this cycle, there have been a lot of fights in some states as Ron Paul supporters, didn't win any primaries or caucuses, tried to exploit local rules so that he could have some delegates on the floor at the convention and thus try to influence things that happened.
If the proposed new rules had been in effect this year, for example, Romney, as the nominee, would have had significant control over the delegate selection process.
And the latest is that while it was apparently beat back yesterday, they're trying again in an end run that's that's not ostensibly the same rules change that was being attempted yesterday.
The details here are not really important.
The thing that we all need to know is why this is going on and what the express purpose, why the establishment wants control of the delegates.
And folks, it's very simple.
The establishment Republicans want to kick the conservatives out of the party.
They don't want the conservatives having any say-so in the party whatsoever.
And I'll give you one example why.
It's an AP story.
The Republican establishment will read this AP story rather than get mad at the AP, rather than get fighting mad at the impugning of members of the Republican Party, rather than get mad at that, they cower in fear and say, how can we make the AP stop writing this stuff?
And they conclude that the only way to pull that off is to get rid of any conservative influence at all.
And one way you can do that is keep them out of the convention and keep them out of the platform fights.
So here's the AP story.
Republican Party that's showing its face to America this week is a restless institution that relies heavily on the uncompromising passion of Tea Partiers, anti-immigration activists and social conservatives.
In other words, let me translate this for you.
Republican Party that's showing its face to America this week is a restless bunch of white racists who hate Latinos, hate women, don't want any abortions, don't want any amnesty, don't want any immigration reform, and want old folks to die.
Now, the Republican established will read this story and rather than get livid at it, they'll say, we've got to get rid of these conservatives.
They're killing us.
That's what they say.
That's why the effort to change the rules.
The next paragraph of the AP story.
These forces propelled the GOP to big wins in 2010, and they might even help Romney win the White House this fall, but they operate largely beyond his control, sometimes igniting brush fires and pulling his campaign off message.
Even more troubling for the Republican Party in future elections is that these fiery conservatives seem to be turning off many Hispanic voters, the fastest-growing segment of the American electorate.
The challenge facing GOP leaders as they hold their nominating convention to look to the future, trying to win elections and push their agenda through Congress by harnessing the energy of these conservatives without letting that energy turn on them and without letting it put the party badly out of step with a nation that's rapidly becoming less white.
And so you see, according to the AP, when you boil it all down, the biggest problem with the Republican Party is its whiteness.
They are racist, anti-women, anti-Hispanic, and damn it, they're the reason the Republicans win.
And so we got to get rid of them.
The AP wants us gone.
The Democrat Party wants us gone.
And the Republican establishment doesn't want the hassle of dealing with this.
In Romney, the convention goers in Tampa are nominating a former corporate executive who fits somewhat uneasily in the party's decades-long rightward shift, which manifests itself most clearly in Congress.
Republican lawmakers' adamant opposition to tax increases, even on the wealthiest families, writes the AP, puts them at odds with most Americans.
see most Americans want to raise taxes on themselves and on their grandparents and on everybody else, including the rich.
But these white conservatives want the government to have less money and be smaller and don't want any Democrats around.
And so these white conservatives are the problem.
And they've got to go.
They've just got to go.
This isn't about Ron Paul, much as the media would like you to think it is.
It's not about Ron Paul.
It's not about his delegates.
It's about the establishment finally being at its wit's end over this war on women.
Rather than try to rebuke it, they want to try to stop it.
One thing I learned, and people ask me all the time, how do you put up with all criticism and all the lies that people tell you about this?
Well, it was tough at first because I thought I could stop it.
And somehow, I don't know, I learned I can't stop it.
So it has to be beaten back and defeated.
But you can't stop.
The Republican establishment had better figure out they can't stop this stuff, even if they were able to cleanse the party of all these white conservatives.
You think the AP is going to start writing love stories about you?
You think the AP is all of a sudden going to love you?
The only way that's going to happen is if you become perpetual minority losers.
And then they'll love you like crazy.
As long as you accept your role, minority, constant losers.
We'll give you a couple pieces of legislation here and there.
The days of Bob Michael in the House when the Republicans had 135 members.
You get back to that and we'll love you again.
That's really what this is about.
Much more problematic is the Republican Party's strained relationship with minorities, especially a fast-growing Hispanic population alarmed by the sometimes sharp tone of conservatives on illegal immigrants.
The party may need to address that problem before long to avoid falling behind Democrats in key states.
They were winning everything, though.
See, that's the problem.
The 2010 elections, the midterms were a landslide loss for the Democrats and the left.
And this election could be and should be a landslide loss for the Democrats.
But with stories like this, attempted rules changes such as those yesterday, Chris Matthews going nuts, you can see what's happening here.
The full arsenal of the left, including the media, is doing everything it can to intimidate everybody at this convention into shutting up about Obama, about the Democrat Party, about its policies, about the things that it has done that are ruining the country.
Just shut up.
Otherwise, you're going to pay a price like you haven't seen.
We're going to make this country hate everyone.
You may win, but we're going to make everybody hate you and think you are the most despicable enemy this country's ever had.
And when the party's not made up of a lot of fighters, how many times have I told you the story?
Early 90s, in the Hamptons.
Dinner party, mostly establishment Republicans, a major figure.
You'd know the names.
Big donors, fundraisers.
Come up to me, point their finger in my chest, actually jab my chest.
What are you going to do about the Christians?
What do you mean?
What am I going to do?
It's abortion.
It's killing us.
We're never going to win a damn thing.
They listen to you.
You got to get them to shut up about this.
I said, there are only 24 million votes.
You can't win anything without them.
We don't want them.
It's not, it's embarrassing.
Well, that's 1992, 93.
We're now at 2012, is 20 years.
That's how long it's been building.
That is something that existed then.
It existed during the 80s with Reagan.
There was embarrassment over Reagan.
By the way, I got sound bites coming up on Reagan, what he did at his convention in 1980.
I'll show you how it's done.
Let me show you how you talk about a failed president.
We'll show you how you talk about an abject failure who is your opponent in the White House.
But I must take a brief obscene profit break now.
We'll be back and continue after this.
Don't go away.
Stop the presses.
Stop everything.
Stop the music.
It's a hurricane.
It's a hurricane.
They just named it.
All right.
Funk with a hurricane.
Death and destruction during the Republican Convention is now on tap.
I just demonstrated for you the activity that probably went on in every newsroom in this country.
Stop everything.
It's a hurricane.
Death destruction while the Republican convention is going on.
How can anybody dare strove to the microphone and make a speech while this is going on?
There's going to have split screens.
That's right.
It's exactly if the Republicans don't cancel the convention.
You know what's going to happen?
Well, you're going to have the big speaker tonight.
Whoever it is.
Is it Christie or next?
So Christie just strode in there, and there's going to be a split screen.
You have Christie doing his speech, firing brimstone, whatever he's going to do, says he's not going to make any changes in his speech.
And the split screen will show flooding and replays of Katrina.
If this one isn't bad enough, they'll go get Katrina footage.
They'll go anywhere they have to to get flooding.
People standing on planks of wood in puddles of water, desperately waving for hurricane helicopter rescues, whatever it takes.
With Chris Christie on the other half talking about what a rotten guy Obama is.
Then the split screen back to Obama getting off the plane in New Orleans with the FEMA director.
You can see it.
I mean, it's not a word, not a single word about drought relief in the Midwest that will happen as this category one, Katrina was a three, I believe, as this category one hurricane moves up the Mississippi Valley and dumps some much-needed rain on many parts of the fruited plain.
Nope.
Death, destruction, homelessness, disaster while the Republican convention is going on.
Oh, my gosh.
Ellen Barkin's exactly what she wants.
Samuel L. Jackson getting exactly.
These two actresses, actors have prayed for this on Twitter, and they're getting it.
We'll be back.
Don't go away, folks.
Just starting the fun.
I'm not exaggerating, folks.
In newsrooms and the networks all over America are celebrating.
A tropical storm has become a hurricane off the coast of Louisiana, and they are happy.
They can't believe it.
Their wildest dreams have come true.
And what are those wildest dreams?
Poor people get wiped out.
Apparently, the Democrat Party, which cares so much about the poor, the Democrat Party, the media, with all their compassion for the downtrodden and the hungry and the thirsty, are excited beyond their ability to contain themselves at the idea that they might suffer.
Yes, a hurricane's going to pour in there, category one, death, destruction.
What a great day, they say.
But who lives in New Orleans?
A bunch of Democrats.
Apparently, folks, the Democrat Party doesn't care how many people suffer if it'll help their political agenda.
The media doesn't care how many people will suffer if it allows them to ratchet up their assault on the Republicans, who supposedly don't care because they're going ahead with their convention.
In the old days, I was thinking about this early, in the old days, the early days of this program, we laughed at all this stuff.
Every time one of these inane things happened with the media dev, we laughed at it.
You know why we laughed at it?
Because it was absurd.
We thought everybody recognized that it was absurd.
Everybody's going to laugh with us.
Now we still laugh, but we think, how many morons are falling for this now?
Is what we ask now.
We used to be confident that all this crap would be seen through.
Now we're not.
I don't know if you've heard this or not.
You know, at Penn State during home football games, one of the traditions since the early 70s, maybe even late 60s, has been to play Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond.
Song came out in 1969.
Neil Diamond, by the way, recently confirmed that the song was inspired by Caroline Kennedy.
He's sitting in a motel room in Memphis, starving.
Career wasn't doing all that.
He had a couple hits, but thank the Lord for the nighttime cherry cherry, but it hadn't really taken off.
And in less than an hour, he wrote the lyrics and the music to Sweet Caroline.
That song has been picked up and it's played at sports stadiums all across the country, including at Penn State, which has announced that no longer are they going to play Sweet Caroline at home football games.
They're not going to put, you know why?
Because in the song, there's a lyric line that says, touching me, touching you.
They fear that that will be related to Sandusky.
Now, in fairness, we must always be fair.
Penn State officials are denying that that's the reason.
They are saying it's just time to update playlists.
Playlist, we've had say playlist here for years.
It's gotten stale.
We need to update it.
New songs during home football games.
But people doubt that.
People think it really is.
They're just so politically correct and so frightened now of the Sandusky thing that they got to get rid of that song because of the lyrics Touching Me, Touching You.
Sweet Caroline.
Here's how you do a convention.
We're going back to July 17, 1980 in Detroit, Michigan, the convention which nominated Ronaldos Magnus.
At this convention, Jimmy Carter, who was the sitting president, was eviscerated.
Now, Jimmy Carter wasn't black, and so at that time, there were no allegations that criticizing Carter equaled racism.
But I'll guarantee you that at that time, Republicans were every bit as racist as they are today, according to the allegations of the media and the Democrats.
I paid close attention, 1980.
I paid close attention all during the 80s.
Reagan was every bit as despised as George W. Bush or any other Republican.
And Reagan was a racist, sexist, bigot home.
Reagan was responsible for AIDS, by the way.
And you know why Reagan was responsible?
Because he didn't talk about it.
And because he didn't talk about it, the disease kept on spreading.
They said this.
My point is, they did everything they could to shut Reagan up.
They did everything they could to frighten Reagan.
They did everything they could to get Reagan to be quiet about Jimmy Carter.
The only thing they couldn't do was call it racism.
Carter wasn't black.
Here's Ronald Reagan telling the nation, July 17th, 1980, the truth about Jimmy Carter, the Democrat Party, and the country.
The major issue of this campaign is the direct political, personal, and moral responsibility of Democratic Party leadership in the White House and in the Congress for this unprecedented calamity which has befallen us.
I will not stand by and watch this great country destroy itself under mediocre leadership that drifts one run crisis to the next, eroding our national will and purpose.
Back in 1976, Mr. Carter said, trust me.
And a lot of people did.
And now many of those people are out of work.
And by the way, it was Mr. Carter throughout this speech, not President Carter.
The Democrats and the media all demand that Obama be referred to as Mr. President, President Obama.
That's not how Reagan did it.
Here's the next soundbite.
Many have seen their savings eaten away by inflation.
Many others on fixed incomes, especially the elderly, have watched helplessly as the cruel tax of inflation wasted away their purchasing power.
And today, a great many who trusted Mr. Carter wonder if we can survive the Carter policies of national defense.
Trust me, government asks that we concentrate our hopes and dreams on one man, that we trust him to do what's best for us.
Well, my view of government places trust not in one person or one party, but in those values that transcend persons and parties.
Why, folks!
Notice how relevant that speech remains.
This is Rinaldus Magnus in 1980 rejecting the idea that we should put our hopes and dreams in one man.
Back then it was Jimmy Carter.
Today it's Barack Hussein Obama.
And yet that's what the Democrats' message is.
Put your hopes and your dreams and your trust in one man like you did four years ago.
And Reagan said, hell was that?
We don't put our hopes and dreams and trust in one man or in government.
We invest our hopes and dreams in ourselves.
We are the ones who make them happen.
Mr. Carter is not going to make your dreams come true, nor is Mr. Obama.
The United States government is not going to make your dreams come true.
Only you can do that.
That was Reagan's simple message, and it still applies.
Amazingly so.
Now, this convention was held during the Iranian hostage crisis.
There were 54 Americans being held hostage, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.
Reagan was not afraid to criticize Carter and call him a liar.
And he certainly would not have let a rainstorm stop him.
We are given weakness when we need strength, vacillation when the times demand firmness.
The Carter administration lives in a world of make-believe, every day drawing up a response to that day's problems, troubles, regardless of what happened yesterday and what will happen tomorrow.
But you and I live in a real world where disasters are overtaking our nation without any real response from Washington.
This is make-believe, self-deceit, and above all, transparent hypocrisy.
Wow, it doesn't sound like Reagan was dialing it back, any.
It doesn't sound like Reagan was afraid to tell the truth about Jimmy Carter.
It doesn't sound like Reagan was afraid to tell the American people what their options were, what their choices were in that election.
Doesn't sound to me like Reagan backed off.
Doesn't sound to me like Reagan was afraid of what the media was going to say about him after the speech.
I'll tell you, at that convention, it was in Detroit in 1980, July 17th, when Reagan made this speech.
There was nothing good about Jimmy Carter at that convention.
The Republicans didn't spend time talking about what a nice guy he was.
They didn't spend time talking about what a, yeah, he said, good old Jovie Logan.
They just didn't know what he's doing.
There wasn't any of that.
Jimmy Carter had not one good thing said about him in that election.
And if you'll recall, Reagan won that election in a landslide.
If you had to attach a theme to the Republican convention in 1980, it would be, we've had enough of Jimmy Carter.
Here's Reagan one last time.
Can anyone look at the record of this administration and say, well done.
Can anyone compare the state of our economy when the Carter administration took office with where we are today and say, keep up the good work?
Can anyone look at our reduced standing in the world today and say, let's have four more years of this?
I believe the American people are going to answer these questions as you've answered them in the first week in November, and their answer will be, no, we've had enough.
Enormous magnus in 1980 in Detroit, July 17th, at the Republican National Convention.
Every day, exactly right, everyday language.
Everyday language.
Not what you would call soaring rhetoric, but everyday language.
It was Reagan that came up with, are you better off today than you were four years ago?
But anybody say we want more of this?
Anybody out there say we want four more years of this?
Anyone out there saying, well done to any of this?
And of course, no, nobody was saying well done to any of it.
By the way, this morning at the White House, President Obama spoke about federal preparations for tropical now.
Whoa, hurricane.
It's a hurricane now.
Isaac, here's a portion of our dear leader's remarks.
At my direction, FEMA has been on the ground for over a week, working with state and local officials in areas that could be affected, from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to Florida, and more recently, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi.
I approved a disaster declaration for the state of Louisiana so they can get the help that they need right away, particularly around some of the evacuations that are taking place.
And right now, we already have response teams and supplies ready to help communities in the expected path of the storm.
I've been working on this for a week.
I'm the guy who cares.
I'm the guy desperately hoping this hurricane goes in there and breaks something so I can be seen as a guy fixing it.
I hope people lose their homes.
I hope there are floods.
I'm a Democrat and I live off other people's misery because I've got them all fooled into thinking I'm the one who fixes it.
Ellen Barkin, the actress, one of the many ex-wives of the Revlon chairman Ron Perlman.
Ellen Barkin openly said that she hoped the hurricane kills every pro-life, xenophobic, gay-bashing SOB at the Republican National Convention.
In the aftermath of the Family Research Council shooting, prominent voices on the left have not tamped down their violent rhetoric against their opponents.
Two baby boomer celebrities have taken to Twitter to hope pro-life, pro-family individuals, and U.S. Congressman Todd Aiken suffer a drowning or a same-sex rape, respectively.
On Sunday, Ellen Barkin expressed her hope that Tropical Storm Isaac would smash up the Republican National Convention in Tampa and drown all the delegates.
Her tweet read, Come on, Isaac, wash every pro-life, anti-education, anti-woman, xenophobic, gay-bashing, racist SOB right into the ocean.
She retweeted it, and it was retweeted.
She didn't think about it.
Samuel L. Jackson on Monday, noted actor, tweeted that it was unfair that Tropical Storm Isaac had spared the Republican convention in Tampa and instead appeared to be heading for New Orleans.
Jackson said in a profanity-filled tweet that he was, quote, not understanding God's plan, close quote, given the fact the storm was not disrupting the Republican convention.
Unfair bleep, he wrote.
GOP spared by Isaac.
New Orleans probably bleeped again.
Less than a half hour later, he apologized for the earlier tweet, writing that it had stirred up a hornet's nest.
He wrote apologies to God, Tampa, the GOP, and Isaac.
He apologized to the hurricane as well.
Remember now, this is the party of love and tolerance, compassion, all that rotguff.
These are the people.
They're better people than we are, folks.
And they're cool.
They're hip.
They're likable.
Even the likable people.
They are.
They are the real party of hate.
And they hate us more than they have ever hated.
And their hatred is real.
Their hatred for us is visceral.
They despise us.
I'm not exaggerating.
Okay, to the phones, to Texarkana, Texas.
Alan, you're up first.
It's great to have you with us today.
Hello.
Thank you.
Hey, Rush.
God bless you, sir.
Thank you, sir.
I'm really angry about this RNC effort to freeze out conservatives from having influence as delegates.
I'm personally, I'm a registered Republican for 22 years, active with the Tea Party for over 30 years.
Personally, I preferred Kane or Santorum or Bachman, but I'm voting for Romney.
Really love Paul Ryan to save the Constitution.
And despite the fact that the RNC froze out Texas and most conservatives from the process of picking the nominee to get their establishment candidate, the RNC got their pound of flesh.
They got Romney, so they need to piss off and stop trying to freeze us out because without us, there is no Republican majority ever.
We made the House majority, not the RNC.
And they better step off if they know what's good for them, or the Green Party is going to be their closest parody competitor in future elections.
Well, you sound wired up out there.
Very.
I can see it.
I can hear it.
Well, I have to take a break.
I wish I had a chance to respond now.
I will react to your call.
You're expressing the sentiments of many.
And when people, as they learn what this rules change is and why it's taking place, there is an appropriately accompanying wave of anger that's developing over this.
I have to take the break, though.
Thanks for the call very much, Alan.
We'll be right back, folks.
Don't go anywhere.
Okay, folks, I want you to stay glued to where you are.
We have only just begun.
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