Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Hey, stop the music.
Stop the theme.
But would you play audio soundbite number one for me?
I have to hear this before I actually use it in the show.
When Aretha first told us what RSPECT meant to her?
Yeah, okay, that's good.
Hit the music again.
All right.
And I just had to determine how much laughter there was on that.
Because I think the laughter goes on and on.
And he doesn't know why.
He doesn't know why people are laughing.
Because the guy was just reading it off the teleprompter.
He probably never heard of this.
Well, I don't want to go there.
I really don't.
Well, actually, I'd love to go there, but I'm not going to go there.
Folks, it's going to be one of these days.
I am harried.
I am distracted.
My mind is going every which way.
And now I have to immediately laser focus on the program.
It's Friday.
It means that just hit it.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
What it means is that when we go to the phones, you get to determine what we talk about.
Do you realize what a golden opportunity that is?
The only hosts that allow that are the ones you don't listen to.
The only ones that allow that are the ones that don't try and don't care and are basically lazy.
But I do it as a gift.
Because Monday through Thursday, this is a highly screened program.
You get on the program here.
You have to talk about something I care about.
But on Friday, I get rid of that requirement.
And so whatever you want to bring up is fair game.
It holds a lot of potential.
Some days, Fridays don't sound any different than any other day.
You just never know.
Phone numbers 800-282-2882, the email address ilrushbow at eibnet.com.
So we are being told, ladies and gentlemen, that Obama so far has had a 90-minute phone call and a 60-minute phone call with Vladimir Putin.
Probably wrong, but I can't help but wonder what Bill Clinton would have been doing during those phone calls if he had been.
90 minutes, 60 minutes, and that is going to fix everything.
Anyway, folks, it is great to have you here.
Again, phone number is 800-282-2882.
And the reason I was distracted, we had a guy call here, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, and he had heard me say that I had one of his new Mac Pros.
And he thought he had heard me urge people not to get one.
And I did not say that, but it was curious that that was his takeaway.
So I thought maybe I need to re-explain what happened.
I do have the new Mac Pro, and it's a fabulous machine, but it's, I don't want to go into tech here, but you really have to, depending on how you use a computer, make sure you get the right processor for it.
Or a much cheaper machine could actually be faster if you don't use a lot of video and graphics.
Anyway, Apple has not made, they have not manufactured a retina display for the Mac Pro.
You have to go out and buy your own monitor for it.
And they've got a 27-inch display that's not retina, but they're also selling a 4K display, which with the proper scaling is retina.
But the thing is, it didn't come with the proper scaling.
And so the best scaling, the best resolution, everything is too tiny on the screen to use it regularly.
You have to set a different screen resolution size, and the resolution is horrible.
And it's just, it was.
So I've been waiting for them to patch this.
And they did.
And for me, the patch doesn't work.
And I've been trying to make it work all morning.
There are, I don't look at the only thing you need to know here.
I'm just trying to explain why I've been distracted.
There are four different resolution settings, including the default.
The default, which they claim is best for display, is the one that's too small and you need a microscope, magnifying glass to see it.
The next setting up is almost perfect size.
It's 20% too big.
But the pixel resolution is actually just now.
This is beta, and I'm sure they're going to get it right.
I'm just not complaining.
I've been trying to make it work.
And so I've been doing show prep and working on that.
And I love this stuff.
But at the same time, time flies when you're trying to fix this stuff.
And so I find myself here in a little bit of a distracted sense, but now it's time for laser focus.
And don't anybody get there.
I'm sure they're going to get this right.
This is what beta software is for.
I just had my hopes up real high.
And they will eventually get it right.
Now, this clash that took place on the House Government Reform Oversight Committee with Isa and Elijah Cummings, exactly what I feared and predicted and mentioned at the time has indeed happened.
Here is the Washington Post, and they're just enraged here.
This is the Lois Lerner hearing.
Lois Lerner was supposed to show up and answer specific questions about why she had in emails referred to the Tea Party and Tea Party activities in such disparaging and critical ways.
The IRS is not supposed to single out groups for punishment.
The IRS did sabotage Tea Party fundraising.
So Lois Lerner was brought back a second time and she took the Fifth Amendment.
And the way it went was she's brought in, she's sworn in.
ISA asked her five, six, maybe seven questions.
She took the Fifth Amendment on every one.
He said, that's all we're going to get.
It's over.
There's nothing to be done here.
And their opening statements were made.
He made an opening statement.
Others did.
Elijah Cummings made an opening statement.
He's the ranking Democrat, little Elijah on the committee.
He made an opening statement.
Then they, then Isa asked Lerner the questions.
When she took the fifth, that was it.
And Isa adjourned.
And as he adjourned, Elijah, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
I have a question.
I have a question.
And the meetings adjourned.
What do you mean?
I have a question.
I want to ask questions.
And the meeting was adjourned.
And then Isa relented and said, okay, well, what's your question?
And Cummings launched into a statement.
And those were over.
The meeting had been adjourned.
And so Isa cut Cummings' microphone off.
And this just enraged Cummings.
I think this whole thing was planned.
And I think the whole thing was planned and strategized so as to make this thing about Isa and not about Lois Lerner.
And they succeeded.
It is now totally about ISA.
And guess what?
Also easily predictable, Isa is now a racist.
Now, Daryl Isa has been working with these Democrats in the House for I don't know how many years, and nobody has ever accused him of racism.
The Reverend Zach has tweeted that he thought it was really mean what Daryl Issa did, and he said it was racist, which is about the only thing Jesse Jackson can say anymore that will make people stop and listen.
Other than that, Jesse Jackson's not involved anymore.
You don't want to talk about time having passed somebody by.
It is indeed the Reverend Zach.
So now the whole thing has shifted, and there's not one word of any substance of any kind about Lois Lerner and the IRS and what they did vis-a-vis the Tea Party.
Now it's all about how mean Isa was, except the racist charge has been thrown in.
Washington Post headline, clash between Isa Cummings' latest partisan spat to divide House Oversight Committee.
The war between Democrats and Representative Daryl Issa, Republican California, the controversial chairman of the House Oversight Government Reform Committee, took on a new intensity Thursday when some Democrat lawmakers called for Isa to be stripped of his committee chairmanship.
Note that it is Isa who's controversial.
It was Cummings who lost control.
You look at a video, it's Cummings who's yelling and screaming and looks exactly like what Republicans are told never to do because it's going to scare the independents and it's going to scare women at 25 years old and they're going to be running to the independence room.
You take a look at the video and you will see an enraged Elijah Cummings behaving in a way that Republicans are told don't ever do that because the independents don't like that.
They don't like that kind of fisticuffs and getting mad and so forth.
And that'll cause the independents to go running right back to the Democrats.
But when Cummings does it, hey, it's Isa who is controversial.
Marsha Fudge, a Democrat from Ohio who leads the Congressional Black Caucasians, sent a letter to John Boehner, said, Mr. Isa is a disgrace.
He should not be allowed to continue in a leadership role.
So this is it.
Aside from Ukraine, this is the main storyline in the media's soap opera for today.
Daryl Issa, a rich white Republican, dissed the esteemed Elijah Cummings, a poor, powerless black man who escaped the bondages of slavery only decades ago.
And now here is Elijah Cummings, a poor, powerless black man, being reminded of what it was like to be on the plantation just a few short generations ago because of the behavior of Daryl Issa.
Never mind.
Never mind.
I am convinced all of this was contrived from the get-go to end up being a distraction.
You know, Cummings is a seasoned veteran and professional.
He waited until this thing.
He knew what Lerner was going to do.
She took fifth.
He knew that ISA was going to shut it down.
And that's when he decided to make it look, oh, wait a minute.
I have a question.
After it was, he knew exactly what was going to happen.
He was counting on ISA to shut down the hearing.
Maybe it was a bonus that ISA turned his microphone off.
They probably didn't think that would happen, but that was a bonus.
But this entire staged event was about three things.
Number one, distracting from Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth Amendment and all the damning evidence that's recently come out about the IRS targeting the Tea Party.
The second thing this was about, discrediting ISA by casting him as a racist in order to remove him from any position of power because they're serious about that.
They do want to get rid of ISA.
This is what they do.
They don't want to get any rid of ideas and have debate like Governor Christie says, we need to roll up our sleeves and show the country that we can get things done.
Are we going to work together?
They don't want to get things done with us or work with us.
They want to, in ISIS case, eliminate him, get him thrown off the chairmanship, and if possible, even off the committee.
The third thing it's about is rekindling the Democrats' war on the House Republicans.
And that is the centerpiece of their midterm campaign strategy.
And that is war on the House Republicans.
They characterize the House Republicans as racists and meanies and uncooperative bullies.
It's all part.
You watch that video.
I'm telling you, watch that video closely.
You'll see Cummings is reading from notes and you'll see how phony his outrage is.
And he gets real, the outrage that he exhibits is so over the top.
Now, about Lerner, despite the efforts of the drive-bys to cast her off into invisibility, we have not lost sight of her.
Let me take a brief time out, and I'll tell you what Lois Lerner is doing.
And an interesting take about this.
Does anybody not find it strange?
When you take the Fifth Amendment, what are you doing?
You're saying, I'm not going to answer because I don't want to incriminate myself.
Now, we're not supposed to assume anything from that because the fifth is a constitutional right.
But come on, in the real world, it means a lot.
And that is why they've done everything they can to sweep this off the front page and replace it with ISA is a racist pig being really mean to a poor, powerless black man who is only trying to do what's best for his country.
Carol Platt LeBeau writing at Town Hall, Lois Lerner is answering questions for the Department of Justice, but she is invoking her Fifth Amendment rights before a congressional committee.
And it's an interesting decision, not without precedent.
It's happened before.
But here's the thing.
Either Lois Lerner feels that the committee is doing nothing but setting perjury traps for her, or else she thinks the DOJ, quote-unquote, investigation is really not serious, and it's just nothing more than an exercise to make the whole thing go away.
And so she'll help the DOJ because that's Holder.
That's her buddies.
She'll gladly talk to them if they're oriented toward just getting rid of this.
Maybe both.
Maybe she's worried that they're setting perjury traps for her at the ISA committee.
So he goes to DOJ.
But there are a number of good reasons.
Ms. LeBeau says here that there are a lot of good reasons for people to suspect that her motives are less than pure.
Number one, the DOJ investigation, which is where she's talking, is led by an Obama donor.
That is not usual.
It's typical for this regime, but it's highly unusual.
So she's being, quote unquote, investigated by real Sympaticos.
The FBI has already signaled that it's not going to file charges against anybody.
So what harm is there in talking to the Department of Justice?
But the DOJ investigation is a sham.
And I'll tell you about this Ms. Lerner.
I have shared with you my interpretation of her based on the way she carries herself, what she says, the way she acts.
This woman is a seasoned liberal activist veteran.
She knows exactly what she's doing and she's getting away with it.
The Washington Examiner has an editorial.
Lois Lerner stays silent to protect someone outside the IRS.
The theory in this editorial, and it's something, by the way, that the drive-bys in real-world circumstances would be all over this.
I'm growing tired of saying it because everybody says it.
Nothing ever comes of it, but it is.
Can you imagine if this were a Republican administration, the IRS had been sick on, say, Acorn or some global warming people?
Some environmentalist blankets.
Can you imagine?
And then the person they found was the brains behind the operation takes the Fifth Amendment.
And then the investigation is a friend of George W. Bush, the guy running it is a friend of George W. Bush's.
And the ringleader freely goes and talks to them, but will not talk to the Democrat-run committee.
The chairman would be Elijah Cummings.
Can you imagine?
The media would be all over this.
The media would be demanding to know who is Lois Lerner trying to protect.
That would be the real focus.
If this situation reversed, they'd be finding out that the only media would care about was did Bush or whoever the Republican president would be in our example.
Did Bush order this done?
That would be all they would care about.
They wouldn't care about the Republican equivalent of Lois Lerner.
They'd be all over it.
In this case, they're nowhere to be found.
They don't care.
We're back.
El Rushball and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Yeah, what they'd be looking at is, okay, you've got the IRS investigating, examining, stonewalling Acorn.
You've got the IRS demanding that a bunch of environmentalist wacko groups prove that they're tax exempt, and you deny them their tax-exempt status, and the environmentalist wacko groups are not able to raise money for campaign.
Let's turn this all around.
You have some Republican president and his minion is running the IRS, and they are refusing to grant tax-exempt status to all just two or three of these favored, accredited Democrat activist groups.
And then the Democrats find that there's one person behind all of this, the Lois Lerner equivalent.
You think the media would be satisfied just knowing that there was a Lois Lerner equivalent?
You know damn well that they would be trying to trace this.
They'd be trying to prove that this IRS scandal went all the way to the Oval Office.
They wouldn't stop.
In fact, before they were able to prove it, they would be alluding to it.
And all over cable news, guest after guest after guest would be, I'm certain that an underling like Lois Lerner wouldn't take it upon herself to do this.
No.
An underling like this, no matter how high-ranking, Chris, would certainly have to have approval from the highest levels of the administration.
And every other guest would agree and applaud in the host, and there would be an onslaught and an unceasing everyday 24-7 effort to tie the president to this because this is the IRS.
And it would have been demonstrated the IRS had been taken over by the president and was being used as a political weapon.
That is exactly what happened here.
Except in this case, all it means today is that Daryl Issa was mean to Elijah Cummings.
That's what the story is.
That's the drive-by soap opera narrative.
You know darn well reverse parties would be just the exact opposite.
But here the Washington Examiner does have an editorial, and they say this is a question that the media ought to be all over.
Who ordered the IRS to get involved?
Who at the IRS responded to that order?
Who were they ordered to target?
What actions did they take?
Now, Lois Lerner, this is key.
Lois Lerner cannot answer those questions because, as she herself said, it would be incriminating.
What does that tell you?
She can't answer these questions.
Who ordered the IRS to get involved?
Nobody.
I did it myself.
Really?
Okay.
Well, who in the IRS responded to this order that wasn't given?
She's been asked these questions, and she's been asked even more specific questions about why in her emails did she say this Tea Party thing is dangerous.
I respectfully decline to answer on the advisory council.
And I'm inserting my Fifth Amendment privilege because the answer could incriminate her.
So she's not talking about it to the committee, but she is talking about it up at the DOJ.
The investigation there is being run by a Clinton donor.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Being asked, what about Christy?
That's another thing about the media.
I don't know if you've been paying attention.
It's one of the biggest comebacks in the history of politics.
Chris Christie is back.
Chris Christie is the frontrunner.
Chris Christie had a home run, Grand Slam home run at CPAC yesterday.
Wherever you look in the drive-by media, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Washington Post, New York Times, you name it, Chris Christie nailed it.
Chris Christie is back.
Chris Christie on top of the GOP field.
Chris Christie has put Bridgegate behind him.
Chris Christie told Republicans what they needed to hear.
It's time to start focusing on winning elections.
Chris Christie told CPAC what they needed to hear.
It's time to stop saying just what we're against and what we're for.
It's one of the most amazing turnarounds.
Well, if I didn't know better, I would think that all these drive-by outlets want Christie to be the nominee.
Wouldn't you?
And then after I figured that out, I would then say they must really want us to win.
The drive-by media must really want the Republicans to win, right?
And they must really want Christie to be the next president because that's the way they're portraying the guy.
He kicked it.
He got back on top.
He bridgegated it back into oblivion and he made mincemeat of every other potential candidate at CPAC yesterday.
So the media is making it look like Christie's the guy to beat and they're making it look.
We know the Democrats want our guys to win, right?
We know that.
We know that the drive-by media is really eager for our side to win the White House.
So what does this total reversal and almost slavish support for Christie, what does it tell us?
I will let you figure it out.
I want to go to some audio soundbites backing up to the ISA thing.
Well, I mentioned the Christie business because somebody shouted at me.
What about Christie and CPAC?
So I just, that's the table setter.
There'll be much more on that.
We've got soundbites coming up on that too.
But here is Cummings.
Now, this is last night.
This is the poor, powerless black man that was treated rudely and meanly with disrespect by that racist Daryl Issa.
And he was on Aaron Burnett out front last night.
She said, should Congressman Issa lose his chairmanship because of the way he treated you?
That's going to be up to the Republican caucus.
I cannot imagine a Democrat chairman cutting off the might of a Republican.
I cannot imagine it.
And I would never do it.
I respect their voices, and I want to hear their voices.
I will fight to hear their voices.
Right, right, right.
Sing me a song.
Give me the strativarius.
That's so big a load, I don't know how to describe it.
They have cut off microphones.
They've done worse, and I've got the evidence coming up.
If you'll sit tight, hang in there, and be tough.
He doesn't want to hear their voices.
No Democrat does.
That's just one of these outreach efforts to the low information voter.
I can't imagine a Democrat.
It wasn't that long ago that the Democrats sometimes refused to let Republicans even attend the committee back in the Bob Michael days, back when this program started.
In 1988, the House Republicans had 135 members out of 435.
Bob Michael was the Republican leader.
It was so bad that the Democrats oftentimes just wouldn't even let Republicans in committee hear.
I would never cut off the microphone of a Republican.
I would fight for that Republican to be heard.
I would fight for one to hear that Republican to be heard.
I would fight.
I would fight.
And they do it all the time.
So then, see, Aaron Burnett said, well, over the summer, Issa faced some heat for what many said was an inappropriate comment.
He referred to you, Congressman Cummings, as a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar.
Now, some people questioned his use of the word boy.
They said that there was some sort of racial motivation.
Do you think, Mr. Cummings, that there is a pattern of disrespect to you specifically from Daryl Issa?
He disrespected my colleague, Mr. Tourney, and Mr. Tourney is white.
I'm not going to get caught up in the racial piece because that simply ends up being a distraction and it becomes the headline.
The translation, I don't have to.
My allies are doing that for me.
I don't have to sit there and charge racism.
I got the Reverend Jackson doing it.
I got you people in the media doing it.
Aaron, why should I do it?
You just did it.
That's what Mr. Cummings was saying.
That's just a distraction.
I'm not going to get into whether or not he's racist.
Well, you just did.
You just called him a racist.
And my buddy Jesse Jackson tweeted he's a racist.
I don't need to enter the fray.
Let's go back.
January 11th, 2007.
On the floor of the House, Barney Frank is running the House at this moment.
He's the chairman of the proceedings at that moment, and he and a Republican from North Carolina, Patrick McHenry, have this little back and forth.
Yes, the gentleman may state the inquiry.
So the chair is saying that I may not offer an amendment exempting American Samoa.
The gentleman is making a speech and will suspend.
The chair is not saying anything.
The chair will let me finish my question.
The gentleman will suspend.
The chair has answered the gentleman's question.
The gentleman will state the point of order.
How many times did I suspend?
No, the gentleman, the gentleman, how many times could not conceivably be a point of order?
The chair will not answer my question.
The gentleman will not interrupt.
Is exempted from this legislation.
Well, the chair is presiding.
The gentleman will not make speeches in the guise of a parliament inquiry.
Committee.
No, the gentleman will suspend.
The gentleman from Texas.
The gentleman from Texas was out of the lawyer in the past.
No, I would never turn off a Republican's microphone.
I would never let them, not let them say what they want to say.
I don't get caught up in that.
That's Barney Frank refusing to let Patrick McHenry say anything.
Jake, that sounded very mean to me.
I mean, Barney Frank really sounded mean to me there.
Isa didn't sound mean when he talked to Elijah Cummings.
But Barney Frank sounded power mad mean there.
So let's listen to Isa.
And then, well, Waxman, Henry Waxman, in May of 2008 threatened Isa.
Let's listen to that.
This is about seven seconds.
it goes by quickly.
Members, it could yield you time.
I would ask that you I will have you physically removed from this meeting if you don't stop.
That was Henry Waxman of Daryl Issa.
That was in 2008.
I will have you physically removed if you don't stop.
What was it coming saying?
Oh, we would never cut off anybody's microphone.
We would never shut anybody up.
We would never throw anybody out of here.
Would fight to make sure that that didn't happen.
Here's Isa, Fox News last night.
The Kelly file asked about this.
I broke no rules, and he broke the decorum of the House.
But I might mention that several years ago, Henry Waxman pounded a gavel and said he would have me removed because I was pointing out that he was breaking the rules.
We didn't launch any sort of a house attempt, and I certainly didn't say that he was somehow anti-Arab American.
The fact is that I did things according to the rules.
I followed a script, and then Mr. Cummings decided to have quite a hissy fit.
The truth is, if he wants to talk, I give him lots of chances to talk.
Yeah, but you see what this has become.
And over here is Lois Larner, who's taken a Fifth Amendment because she won't incriminate herself in whatever it was this administration had the IRS doing to the Tea Party.
That's what's over there, and this other meaningless pap is what this narrative has become.
Did Isa treat little Elijah mean with disrespect?
And was he racist?
It's so beneath.
It's just pathetic.
Just absolutely pathetic.
Media is just destructive agents like I haven't seen before.
Back after this vote.
And I turned to the most listened to radio talk show in America, Rush Limbaugh, and the excellence in broadcasting Netherlands.
All right, people have asked me to play these again.
They went by fast.
Grab Soundbite 17 and 18.
And again, this idea that the Republicans are race, it's so formulaic and predictable.
It's just absurd.
And then the media picks it up and runs with it and expands on it.
And then the idea gets out there that the Republicans are exclusionary and they don't let the Democrats.
Who was it that did not have a single opportunity to vote on Obamacare?
The Republicans had nothing to do with it.
What has Harry Reid been doing the way he's running the Senate?
It's just absurd, this idea.
The Democrats are these angels, cooperative, bipartisan, agreeing creatures, and mean Republicans are scaring everybody and racists and exclusionary, not letting the Democrats come out and play and all this.
Barney Frank again, 2007 on the House floor, Patrick McHenry, Republican North Carolina, wants to say something.
Yes, the gentleman may state the inquiry.
So the chair is saying that I may not offer an amendment exempting American Senate.
The gentleman is making a speech and will suspend.
The chair is not saying anything.
Mr. Chair, let me finish my question.
The gentleman will suspend.
The chair has answered the gentleman's question.
The gentleman will state the point of order.
How many times did I say?
No, the gentleman, the gentleman, how many times could not conceivably be a point of order?
The chair will not answer my question.
The gentleman will not interrupt.
Is exemptive from this legislation.
Well, the chair is presiding.
The gentleman will not make speeches in the guise of a parliament inquiry.
Comments.
No, the gentleman will suspend.
The gentleman from Texas.
The gentleman from Texas is out of order in the past.
So Elijah Cummings says he can't imagine a Democrat not respecting the voice of a Republican colleague.
He can't imagine it.
Would never happen.
Little Elijah, he would fight for a Republican's right to speak in the House of Representatives.
I'm not going to get caught up in it, Aaron.
I mean, whether or not Isa was racist, I don't have to say anything.
You just did.
You did it for me.
And again, 2008 on Capitol Hill, a House committee hearing, Henry Waxman is the chairman.
The Democrats are running the House.
And you'll first hear Daryl Issa speaking, followed by Henry Waxman.
Members that could yield you time, I would ask that you will have you physically removed from this meeting if you don't stop.
Oh, wow.
Waxman, you heard him.
He even threatened Isa.
Was that rude?
You know, is it racist?
I mean, after all, isn't Isa of Arabic descent and Waxman's Jewish?
I mean, isn't there some sort of charge we could make there against Waxman, maybe?
And by the way, folks, let's remember what this is all about.
The IRS scandal is all about the Tea Party being silenced.
That's the whole point of the scandal.
Silencing hundreds of Tea Party groups via the IRS.
And Elijah Cummings, he doesn't have any problem with that.