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Aug. 28, 2012 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:50
August 28, 2012, Tuesday, Hour #3
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Time Text
Yeah, I just double-checked it.
And it looks to me, ladies and gentlemen, like Democrats not going to get exactly what they want with Hurricane Isaac hitting New Orleans.
And they want Hurricane Isaac to hit New Orleans.
And they want disaster.
They want floods.
They want homelessness.
They want despair.
They want human misery.
So that they can contrast that with the Republican convention.
They want to split screen it.
And that's the key.
Here's the only problem.
As I have looked at the hurricane track, by the way, greetings and welcome back.
El Rushbow at 800-282-2882.
The hurricane is not forecast to make landfall until around 8 o'clock tomorrow morning.
At 8 o'clock tonight, according to the latest forecast, which is as of 11 o'clock this morning, well, there's been an update now, too.
But yeah, latest update at 2 o'clock.
At 8 o'clock tonight, when the convention gets going, the hurricane's still offshore.
And unless the media has cameras out there to show upset fish, there really isn't a whole lot they can do except run highlights of Hurricane Katrina, which they will do if they have to.
The only question is when they run highlights of Hurricane Katrina, will they say so?
Or will they try to make it look like that's happening now?
So you're going to have Christie up there doing his speech, and it'll be split-screened.
On some networks, it'll be split-screened with disaster preparations, maybe Obama talking to FEMA people.
Who knows what?
The landfall is expected at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning.
Now, there's nothing going on at the Republican convention at 8 o'clock in the morning.
So there's no live damage.
There's no live destruction to show.
And the hurricane will then proceed to move through town.
And by 8 o'clock tomorrow night, it will have finished its swath of destruction through New Orleans and will be further upstate up the Mississippi Valley.
And outside of New Orleans, they don't care what happens to it.
It's got to be New Orleans.
I mean, they'll show some cows in distress if they have to.
But they're not going to get, according to the latest forecast, of course, these things can speed up or slow down unexpectedly.
But they're not going, it looks like now they're not going to have live death and destruction in New Orleans during the actual primetime televising of the Republican Convention.
And that's what they were hoping for.
So they'll have to make use of the videotape.
And I just, you know, I enjoy the fact that they're not going to get exactly what they want.
I think it's, folks, I think it's fascinating that they are perfectly comfortable with the idea of a hurricane going in and wreaking havoc on poor people again just for the express purpose of advancing their agenda.
Let's go to the audio sound bites.
This is yesterday and last night we got a little montage here of the media trying to relive Katrina and bring it back to life for this Republican convention.
New Orleans bracing with the memory of Katrina still so fresh.
Clearly the memory of Katrina is in everyone's mind.
I'm at the 17th Street Canal seven years ago during Hurricane Katrina.
The levees failed here.
Seven years to the day after the day that Katrina hit, I remember it well, was there in a parking garage for a couple of days.
Here along the coast of Mississippi riding out, Katrina.
And I remember I worked that night here in New Orleans in the lower ninth ward when Katrina came, and they didn't send the buses.
Seven years after Katrina, the memories that brings back for people.
I'm getting chills thinking about it.
Yeah, chills thinking about it, thinking what we can do to the Republican convention.
I'm getting chills thinking about it.
Now, if you missed the first hour, I, of course, Mr. Solution, El Rushbo, suggested that the Republicans head off some of this criticism that they know is coming their way by doing two things.
First thing is send 500 bus drivers to New Orleans right now.
Because remember, it was Mayor Nagan of New Orleans who didn't mobilize the buses to help evacuate the poor citizens.
Bush got blame for it, of course, but it was the mayor who didn't activate the buses.
So we send 500 bus drivers in.
Second thing we do, instead of sending sandbags to shore up these levees, which have ostensibly been repaired since Katrina, we send in bags of money.
We send in bags of money delivered by Mitt Romney's sons.
And we take those bags of money down to those levees.
We even maybe set one bag on fire just to show them we're Republicans.
And this will accomplish a couple things.
A, it'll show we care.
We have sent money directly to New Orleans in bags at the levees.
Now, the second thing will happen is that citizens of New Orleans, when they find out there's money in those bags, will head down there and try to steal the bags, steal the money.
At which time the levees will fail because the bags are being taken away.
And more destruction, damage, and injury.
And in the process, the Republicans succeed in having fewer Democrat voters in Louisiana again, just like they did with Hurricane Katrina.
And everybody knows that was the point.
Steer Katrina in there, wipe out New Orleans, have the people that survive go to Texas and take Democrats away from Louisiana, make it not a Democrat state.
And that's what the media told us the Republicans did with Katrina.
So relive it.
Those are my ideas.
I don't expect them to be acted upon.
But using bags of money would be cheaper than giving taxpayer dollars to the local Democrats who've been in charge of the levies because that money's just ended up in the back pockets of the Democrats and didn't go to levy repair.
They used the money to buy votes, or in the case of William Jefferson, Democrat Louisiana, he just, he put the money in his freezer.
And that was excused, by the way, if you recall.
Well, you have to look at his background.
He's the son of a sharecropper, grew up with nothing.
Everybody else had all the money.
Here's a chance.
He just, it was his turn to score.
We really can't blame him.
We have to understand the socioeconomic circumstances that Congressman Jefferson came from.
Oh, yeah, I remember all this.
Another soundbite, this is a soundbite.
If they can't get the Republicans to cancel the convention, which is what they've hoped to do, by the way, they're not just trying to get Romney to shut up, not criticize Obama.
They have been trying to get the Republicans to cancel this convention for a rainstorm.
How can the Republicans dare do this while this is going on?
Have they no shame?
Have they no heart?
But if they can't get them to shut up, if they can't get them to stop the convention, maybe they'll just split screen the thing.
Here we have another montage yesterday and last night.
The optics of a split screen of people in peril and people at a convention having fun is something they really don't want.
We're now in a split screen mode.
The Republicans are going to be phased here with the next couple of days of a split screen.
You're going to be having a spectacle of a split screen, the split screen convention.
This split screen, which is a speech and the other side is New Orleans getting walloped.
Split screen here in Tampa and Isaac.
It would be pretty awkward to have a split screen with speakers here and devastation.
The worst thing would be that split screen of speeches as people are being evacuated.
That's Aray Fleischer, by the way, Bush's first spokesman in the White House, agreeing, oh, we can't have that.
We can't.
Now, what is Obama going to be doing tonight?
You know what Obama's.
You know what's his exactly right.
Obama's schedule, ladies and gentlemen, he's raising money tonight.
He is out campaigning at a fundraiser.
Will they do a split screen of that?
Would they do a split screen of Obama out fundraising while there's devastation in New Orleans?
And yes.
And it would be timed to the point in Obama's speech where he explains to the people he's trying to fleece, raise money from, all he's done to get New Orleans prepared for this.
No, there's no way that they would embarrass Obama the way they want to try to embarrass Republicans.
NBC Nightly News, angrier Mitchell in an attempt to tie the Republican National Committee to Hurricane Katrina.
A political challenge here with this approaching storm, especially for the Republicans.
No one here can easily forget the iconic picture of President Bush flying on Air Force One, looking out the window and looking down at New Orleans during Katrina.
They're not going to forget that.
Oh, no, not going to forget that picture.
No way.
We're not going to let people forget that picture.
We've got these doofus Republicans here in Tampa.
They won't cancel our convention like we're demanding.
So we're going to put up that picture of Bush flying back to Washington, doing a flyover of New Orleans.
It was a picture of him looking out the window of Air Force One at the devastation.
I remember the picture.
What they don't tell you is why Bush didn't land.
Bush didn't land at that time because he would have taken away a bunch of uniformed officials, security, law enforcement, to make up his security detail away from the recovery work they were doing.
In essence, Bush didn't want to get in the way.
Presidents just can't drop in someplace.
Arrangements have to be made.
Security, Secret Service, telephone lines have to be established.
All kinds of things.
Presidents don't just drop in without causing all kinds of havoc.
But what was the crime of flying over Katrina anyway, New Orleans?
What was the.
I never understood that.
You listen to Andrew Mitchell.
It is a crime just to fly over it and look it out the window.
What was the crime there?
And what they want you to believe is he didn't care.
He tried to make people think he cared by flying over at 10,000, but he didn't care.
Bush never cared.
Bush didn't care about anybody.
Republicans don't care about anybody.
And that's what they're trying to revive.
He couldn't even see the people he was looking down on.
That's right.
He couldn't even see.
He was so high above them.
He couldn't see the pain and suffering on their faces because he didn't care.
And even if he had seen the pain and suffering on their faces, he was in the comfort of Air Force One.
Just like he was a coward after 9-11.
That's the impression they wish to convey, Jonathan Carl.
This was on Good Morning America today.
Jonathan Carl reporting about Tropical Storm Isaac and the Republican National Convention.
Officials are watching warily as it heads towards New Orleans.
What they're worried about is that image of it slamming the Gulf Coast as they have a big celebration here.
Technically, the convention has already started.
The first session lasted just 32 seconds.
Long enough to take the first swipe at President Obama.
We also want to draw your attention to the unprecedented fiscal recklessness of the Obama administration.
That was the swipe.
That was the swipe at President Obama?
That was the Republican National Committee chairman there.
We want to draw your attention to the unprecedented fiscal recklessness of the Obama administration.
Yep, didn't take them long for their first swipe at President Obama.
So the effort clearly underway, and it's in full steam to intimidate the Republicans into shutting up.
This morning on CNN on Starting Point, the co-host John Berman spoke with Representative Randy Forbes, a Republican from Virginia.
It's about the Republican convention and Tropical Storm Isaac.
And Berman had an observation about me and then wanted to know from this congressman's point of view if I was right.
Here's the first of two soundbites.
Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh is saying that the media and the Democrats are making more out of the storm than we should.
The media is now out there saying that Hurricane Katrina is now hanging like a paw over the Republican convention in Tampa.
So this whole thing has been politicized as the Democrats politicize everything.
It's the government.
It's Obama.
Is this being politicized?
So you ask that of Randy Forbes, Republican from Virginia.
And here's Randy Forbes' answer.
Is Rush right?
Are we and the Democrats politicizing this hurricane?
We hope that it won't be politicized.
Our big concern is the victims that could be there.
As I mentioned to you before, Americans all across this country are very, very concerned about getting this country back on the right track, getting the economy going, creating jobs.
And I think they're going to be listening to that message as well.
And, you know, Americans, again, are going to have a lot of challenges as we move through the next several years.
I don't think Forbes answered the question.
He just said, we hope they don't politicize it.
Randy's too late.
It already has been politicized.
It's already being salivating over the split screens tonight.
They can't wait.
Stop and think of that.
They can't wait for devastation and destruction so they can split screen it.
With Chris Christie making his speech, last night, CNN, Wolf Blitzer, special coverage of the Republican National Convention.
The reason why it was special coverage is that there wasn't a convention last night.
They canceled it.
Having a discussion about conducting the convention while Tropical Storm Isaac, now Hurricane Isaac, is hitting New Orleans.
It's Wolf Blitzer and Marco Rubio.
If you were speaking tomorrow night and had to make a decision, do I speak at a time when a hurricane is hitting the Gulf Coast, maybe on the seventh anniversary of Katrina, or do I say, you know what, maybe it's not the best time for me to speak?
What would you do?
Because there are plenty of speakers lined up for tomorrow night.
Need to wait and see what the intensity of the storm becomes or whether that continues to be the path.
But let me say this: the convention's not just a big party, it's a working session.
I mean, there's business to be transacted here.
So, Wolf's beside himself now.
He just basically said to Rubio, you're going to have the guts to make your speech while all this crap's going on in New Orleans?
Don't you understand that it'd be better to cancel your speech?
What business do you have making a speech when that hurricane's hit New Orleans?
Wolf didn't get the answer that he wanted, so he kept on.
It's one thing to do a roll call, which is obviously critically important.
That's the legal, the technical things you've got to do.
It's another thing for people to go up there and start bashing, let's say, President Obama at a time when there's a national crisis.
Well, again, I think this convention is going to be a lot more about the choice that the American people face.
I hate to get into the speculation.
Right.
How can you go bash Obama?
How can you dare give your speech during a national crisis?
It's already a national crisis.
It's a rainstorm.
It's a Cat One.
And I'm not diminishing Cat One hurricanes here, of course, but national crisis.
Anyway, just a heads up: what's coming?
Brief time out.
Much more straight ahead here on the EIB network.
Okay, pop quiz, Mr. Snerdley.
Name for me one thing, and there's more than one, but name for me one thing that kills more people than natural disasters does.
What?
Obesity, perhaps.
Not eating carrots, that's true.
More people have died after eating carrots than have died in natural disasters.
Not the answer I was looking for.
Those are both correct.
Heart disease, yes, kills more people than natural disasters.
But there's jury verdicts in Los Angeles.
That's a toss-up.
That would be close.
But there's one thing that kills more people than natural disasters, and that's poverty.
Poverty kills more people than natural disasters.
Poverty has always been a killer.
Why worry about it otherwise?
Now, who has done more to increase poverty in this country in the last four years?
Barry.
The one, the big O. You could say that President Obama has been tied to more misery than people in natural disasters.
I mean, if you wanted to be real about it, of course, that's being critical of Obama, and we're not supposed to do that.
Because, of course, that's racism.
Anyway, my friends, the time is vanishing.
I don't know where it's going.
We've only got a half hour left.
Don't miss it.
Hey, look at this, folks.
Governor Jindal, Louisiana, is slamming FEMA and the regime over their slow response to Hurricane Isaac requests.
Did you know that?
God bless Bobby Jindal.
Bobby Jindal is out there, Governor of Louisiana, slamming FEMA and the regime over their slow response to Hurricane Isaac requests.
And meanwhile, Obama's out there.
Oh, looky.
Fox is split screening Obama.
Hubba hubba.
Here's Obama fundraising.
Looks like the USC cheerleaders are behind him.
And meanwhile, they've got a split screen of the hurricane approaching Louisiana, the satellite view.
Anyway, Jindal's out there saying that the regime isn't responding to his requests.
And Obama's out there saying he's been working on this all week.
Anyway, where's the outrage?
The regime and FEMA are not responding to Governor Jindal.
Could it be that he's a Republican and might be a factor?
Here's Mike at Salt Lake City.
Mike, glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush.
God bless you.
Thank you, brother.
It owes to you.
I'll keep entering the two-of-I-T contest because apparently I didn't win the last one.
You never called.
Well, but there's always the next one.
And we've got, by the way, since you bring this up, we have a couple of barn burners before the end of the year.
Good.
A couple more sweepstakes.
So hang in there, be tough.
Well, that's the only way I'm probably ever going to meet you.
That's my goal.
You're one of my heroes.
Well, thank you very much, sir.
I appreciate that.
First two hours, I'm in the Middle East a little bit confused.
Why would Romney choose Paul Ryan and then do this at the convention?
Paul Ryan, like Sarah Palin four years ago, I mean, they're energizing a conservative base.
They couldn't contain the crowds.
I thought Romney did partially at least bring the conservatives along like me.
But how much do you think Romney is in on what's going on?
And where's Paul Ryan during all of this?
Well, he's talking about the rules games that the RNC is playing right now with delegate selection at future conventions.
First, as to how involved Romney is, man, I don't know, but all I know is that presidential nominees are the presumptive heads of their parties.
Right now, the Republican Party is Romney's.
He runs it, and has been the case since he secured the nomination.
Now, how intimately involved he is in this, I wouldn't have slightest idea.
But he's got to know what's going on, and he's got to approve it, unless he has no control over his aides, and they're just running around on their own.
As for Ryan, Ryan's on the campaign trail.
Ryan is, you talk about a full plate.
Ryan has one of the primary responsibilities in this campaign.
He's not even at the convention yet.
And I wouldn't expect Ryan to have anything to do with this.
Maybe he is working behind the scenes after he found out about it.
These are things we don't know, but he's pledged loyalty to Romney.
That's what you sign on for when you are the nominee.
He chose Ryan for the exact reason that you said.
Look, with all of this going on, there's one thing, folks, that I have no doubt about, and that is that Romney does want to win.
He's not in this as a placeholder.
He's not trying to pad his resume like maybe Senator McCain was.
I think Senator McCain was satisfied just to have been the nominee.
And if he'd have won, it'd have been icing on the cake.
I think Romney is in this to win it.
And I also think that Romney is in this to make real substantive reforms and changes after he wins it.
I don't doubt that for a minute.
But this business with the you show up and everybody shows up united in Tampa and they start playing these games with convention rules while the convention is just kicking off.
Man, it's dispiriting to a lot of people and it angers everybody.
So Wish that I could tell you more about this and explain to you why it's happening any more than I already have.
I know why it's happening, and that isn't anything new.
The Republican Party is not a conservative party at its leadership levels.
It just isn't.
It wasn't when Reagan became the nominee in 1980, and it didn't become conservative when Reagan was the president for eight years.
So there's nothing new here attitudinally.
What's new here is this strategy and the timing trying to implement this.
Anyway, Mike, I appreciate the call.
This is Catherine in Atlanta.
You're next on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
I'm Half Salong.
I almost forgot why I called.
I was listening talking about all these little negative ads that are going to come out.
And you're talking about how they're going to play Katrina footage over and over.
I hope they remember to play the snakes.
There were snakes everywhere.
They'll probably say they're out there now.
And then I hope that they show the looters how they looted everything they could get their hands on.
And because we're not going to win this if we fight the way they do.
Mrs. Romney, they could show that she donated a kidney and a lung while she was raising those boys.
It's not going to change the outlook of what most of those people that are not even going to vote for us.
So that's all I was thinking about.
I just hope you just stick to your guns.
I have no choice but to stick to my guns because my guns are my heart.
Well, you know, I think, you know, it's like we're preaching to the choir sometime, a lot of those that listen to you, but just give us something, you know, that we can take our well about that.
This is a common effort, a frequently used effort by critics of this program to say that it's inconsequential.
Limbaugh just preaches to the choir.
And then in 2002, after the midterm elections, which the Democrats thought they were going to win and were stunned, that was the Wellstone Memorial.
They could not believe that the Republicans gained seats in the 2002 midterms.
And at the time, the Senate leader for the Democrats was Tom Puff Daschell.
And Daschel was so disconcerted and upset over the outcome that he went public with some of their research data that they normally do not divulge.
And their research data showed that Democrats listen to Rush Limbaugh.
And further, they do change their minds because of Rush Limbaugh.
And he went public with this.
And he was angry about it.
And Dashel's favorite thing to say was, we're concerned, Tim.
We're very concerned.
And he went out at his post-election press conference.
Very concerned.
We've got some very unsettling news from our experts, he said, from our research experts.
And so preaching to the choir does not explain the growth of this program's audience.
It doesn't explain the Democrats' treatment of this program.
It doesn't explain the critics' approach to me.
So don't worry about that.
Sure, there's a large choir here, but it expands.
And the choir is made up of converts as well as people who have always believed what they believe.
Now, one other thing on the you know, there's this mystery speaker on Thursday night at the convention.
There's a time slot, and the official convention itinerary says TBD to be determined.
And so the media has assumed that that means there is a surprise speaker, and they are making guesses, and so are many bloggers making guesses as to who this mystery speaker is on Thursday night.
And the popular names are Sarah Palin, Nancy Reagan, and me.
And I just want to tell you, it isn't me.
It isn't me.
Did you want me to carry forth this thing?
Why?
Why be dishonest?
It isn't me.
I am not the mystery speaker.
Snerdley will never get it through his head.
He is so loyal, and he loves me so much, he just can't believe the truth.
I am looked upon, folks.
You must understand this.
I am looked at by these Republicans that we've been talking about as a liability.
I am not an asset.
There is no way that they would ask – they would be – well, a couple of bloggers, as they speculate who this might be, say there are only two people that would rivet the nation to the event.
One is Palin and the other is me.
They're saying this.
I'm not saying that.
I'm simply reporting to you what I've seen out there.
But I have so many people sending me emails.
Hey, Rush, what are you going to say Thursday?
People think it's me, and it isn't me.
I'm not there.
I have no plans to go there.
So it isn't scheduled to be in Tampa Thursday night.
It is not.
Don't say that.
This is why folks, they don't have micro.
You wonder why you can't hear what they say.
Snerdley is trying to get me to tell you that he's heard that EIB's itinerary calls for it to be in Tampa on Thursday.
There's no truth to that.
On the cutting edge of societal evolution, Rush Limbaugh serving humanity simply by showing up.
Last night on The Tonight Show, Dennis Miller appeared with Jay Leno.
Now, you've got to understand when you listen to Jay Leno's wife is a feminazi.
And I can say this with great affection for Leno.
Leno's been very nice to me every time I've been on his show, but the first time I was ever on The Tonight Show, somehow the discussion totally got off on feminism and so forth.
And I later found out his wife, Mavis, a big feminist, and she runs the house.
There's no question about it.
So that's the, she calls the shots.
That's what you have to know listening to this soundbite, Dennis Miller, on The Tonight Show last night.
I think he has compassion for regular people.
I think that's what I think if the Republican Party is missing anything, it's this sort of war on women and compassion.
With Sandra Fluke, she's 30, for God's sake.
She's still in school.
She wants me to kick in 10 bucks a month for her birth control.
Here, I'll give you a- No, just shut up for a second, okay?
Shama!
I think it is.
Chicks like Monavark.
Come on.
Chicks like Mona Vark.
Anyway, it reminds me that the Democrat convention is next week.
You notice nobody's talking about that.
What is that convention going to be like?
That convention is going to be the Munsters, the Adams family, true blood.
I mean, that convention is going to be a morgue.
That convention is going to be noted for the people who don't show up at it.
Oh, have you heard, by the way, GM has shut down the vault?
They have shut down production of the vault.
They announced it.
And one of the reasons why is the convention is in North Carolina, a non-union state.
You talk all you want about the Republican convention.
I'm telling you, Democrats have got theirs in Charlotte next week, and there's a story here in the stack how disappointed the advanced team of Democrats is because there's nothing to do there, according to them.
Yeah, the Democrat advanced team's complaining and no good restaurants, there are no good bars, there are no SM clubs, and nothing that Bill Clinton's going to be excited about.
Nothing there.
But what is this convention going to have to talk about?
This convention, Democrat convention, is going to be from front-to-back abortion, front-to-back war on women, front-to-back contraception.
And I'll tell you this: I think that the media and the Democrats know that.
I think they, what kind of party can you throw when you're trying to celebrate the last three and a half years?
There's nothing worth celebrating.
All you can do is try to scare people about your opponents.
I got to go.
Quick time out here, folks, but we will be back and wrap it up after this.
Tonight, the split-screen convention, Hurricane Isaac destruction in New Orleans.
Side by side with Governor Chris Christie doing the keynote address to the convention.
There are reports of thousands already without power, according to a local power supplier in New Orleans.
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