And as usual, half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
So yet another Democrat has come forward and proved my prediction true.
In fact, James Taranto, one of the best, one of the funniest, one of the most incisive internet websites, best of the web today, it's a Wall Street Journal piece.
James Taranto runs it.
And he's actually running a category in his Daily Post now called We Blame George W. Bush.
If you recall last week when it was announced that one of the now deceased terrorists who killed 12 people at the Paris magazine said that he had become radicalized after he saw pictures of Abu Ghreb.
I immediately predicted on this program that you're going to see the American left, the worldwide left, and the Democrat Party all take their cue from this and start saying this whole French thing is traceable right back to George W. Bush.
That's all they've got, folks.
That's all the Democrat Party has.
It's all Bush's fault.
Abu Grab and the pictures and Club Gitmo.
That's the reason we have terrorism.
Bush made it happen.
Bush is responsible.
And here comes another one.
It was a Rachel Maddow show on PMSNBC last night.
Democrat Senator Chris Murphy, Connecticut, blamed the existence of the Charlemagne Du terrorists on George W. Bush, citing the fact that one of the terrorists quoted, was quoted as saying that the pictures from Abu Greb, he was a fun-loving, just clubbing guy.
He was running around just enjoying life, having occasional scotch and soda.
And then he saw those pictures of Abu Grab, and he went to the nearest mosque, had an imam give him the truth, and Bamo becomes a terrorist.
As one of my easier predictions to make, I have here, ladies and gentlemen, my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, an abbreviated list of summits at the White House hosted by Obama, because there's another one coming up in February, a summit on violent extremism.
But don't think it has anything to do with terrorism.
This was scheduled originally for October, and it got moved for obvious reasons.
But it was to focus on the cops and their behavior in Ferguson, Missouri.
And of course, the grand juries and their reluctance to indict cops, which gave legitimate rise to legitimate violence and legitimate extremism.
So Obama is going to host a summit on all of this at the White House on February 18th.
The plan is to bring together social service providers, social service providers, including education administrators, mental health professionals, religious leaders, law enforcement agencies, to address violent extremism as part of the broader mandate of community safety and crime prevention.
Okay.
Well, we've had job summits, and we know what's happened to jobs.
Some of the other summits that have been held during this administration, Women for Obama, get ready, the White House Summit on Working Families.
Remember that one?
The White House Africa Summit.
The Nutrition Summit.
White House Summit on Nutrition featuring Michelle Obama.
The White House Kitchen Table Summit, which was a summit on working families.
We had the African Leader Summit.
We had the Nuclear Security Summit, forging consensus on getting rid of nuclear weapons.
We've had the Higher Education Summit.
We've had employment summits.
We've had job summits.
We had an early education summit.
We had a job and economic growth forum and summit at the White House.
And this is just a partial list.
And after each summit, what happens is the president announces that we had working groups, study groups, each got sent to a corner, discussed the issues, came up with battle plans, reported back to him, and problem solved.
And as far as the photo op nature of this is concerned, for the low-information crowd, that's all it takes.
Obama did a summit.
Government's on the case.
Jobs are going to be coming back.
In this case, they're going to have a summit on violent extremism.
It's going to happen in one day.
And by the time the day is over with, we're going to have dealt with it until the next violent outbreak occurs.
And that means we'll need a new summit.
From the Washington Free Beacon, Muslim leaders to hold Stand with the Prophet rally in Texas.
Muslim leaders from across America will gather in Texas this weekend to hold the annual Stand with the Prophet in Honor and Respect Conference, a weekend forum being billed as a movement to defend the Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message.
The Saturday event which seeks to combat Islamophobes in America.
Where is that happening?
Where is this Islamophobia?
Where is all of this Muslim backlash or backlash against Muslims?
I mean, every time one of these events happens, like in Paris, the left starts wringing its hands worried, oh my God, oh my God, oh no, this is going to raise some more backlash against Muslims.
Except there never is any.
In fact, there is so little backlash that when they do have a rally, it's such big news because it's the first time there's ever been such a rally.
And it became even bigger news because Obama didn't attend.
Now, these are so-called moderate Muslims.
Now, one of the things that this administration tells us, and the State Department has told us for years, and the drive-by media tells us is that Islamist extremism is not anything to do with mainstream Islam, and it has nothing to do with moderate Muslims.
And in fact, we're told that moderate Muslims oppose Islamist extremism as much as anybody.
They're just a little bit afraid to say so, but don't doubt us, they say.
Moderate Muslims oppose all of this jihad, and they oppose all this extremist behavior and so forth.
If that were the case, why wouldn't these moderate Muslims be gathering to condemn what happened in Paris?
Now, I know it's an annual thing, and it's not been convened because of what happened in Paris.
But it nevertheless is being reported as Muslim Leaders to Hold Stand with the Prophet rally in Texas.
And it seems like if what we're told about these moderate Muslims is true, that they can also maybe condemn the extremists who take action in the name of their religion that we're told they oppose.
I don't know.
It's just me.
It's just me asking.
Here's another one.
This is from Cybercast News Service.
Nine of the 10 worst countries for persecution of Christians have 50% or greater Muslim populations.
Nine of the 10 countries with the worst records for persecution of Christians have populations that are at least 50% Muslim, according to the assessment of persecution in the Open Doors USA World Watch list, 2015.
Communist North Korea topped the list for the 13th straight year for the regime's extreme persecution of Christians.
Approximately 100 million Christians are persecuted worldwide, making them one of the most persecuted religious groups in the world.
More than 70% of Christians have fled Iraq since 2003.
More than 700,000 Christians have left Syria since the civil war began in 2011, according to this group.
I would venture to say, I don't know this.
I would venture to say something, however, and feel free to disagree with me if you wish, because it's just off the top of my head based on just a quick flash assessment.
But my guess is that Muslims and practitioners of Islam are treated better in Christian countries than in non-Christian countries.
I mean, look what's happening in Iraq.
Look what's happening in Syria.
Look what potentially could happen in Iran, where the primary population is Islam.
And look at Saudi Arabia.
Look what happens there to Muslims compared to what happens to Muslims, say, in Great Britain or in France or here in the United States.
It's just off the top of my head.
It's just a little observational off the top of my head.
But it is kind of curious when you look at it that way.
Last night on the Fox News channel, Megan Kelly's Pro, a program, one of my all-time favorite State Department officials, Marie Harf.
This woman, I mean, is the classic Ivy League female graduate out of female studies, out of foreign policy studies.
This woman just takes the cake in every aspect.
From her appearance to the way she speaks to what she thinks.
I mean, she is Julia in that ad the regime ran during the war on women thing.
And here, she was being interviewed about why the regime will not call what happened in Paris Islamic extremism.
Question.
It seems like it's so difficult to say what everybody around the world seems to feel so clearly it is.
And what the leaders have said in Canada and Australia and Paris, where they have felt it so potently and personally, they've all said quite clearly the battle is against Islamic extremism.
Why is that so hard for this American government to say?
Well, it's not hard to say, but it's not the only kind of extremism we face.
I would recommend to folks looking at this administration's counterterrorism record, I would remind people that more terrorists who claim to do acts of violence in the name of Islam have been taken off the battlefield in this administration than under any previous one because of our counterterrorism operations and our efforts that we've put in place.
But that's not the only way that you counter this kind of extremism.
Much of it Islamic, you're absolutely right, but some of it not.
So we're going to focus on all the different kinds of extremism.
But you still won't call it what it is.
And what is this idea that Obama has taken more militant Islamists off the battlefield?
If that were the case, then why all of this talk about closing Gitmo?
If that were the case, why all this concern about so-called torture?
I thought Bush set the record on all this.
I thought Bush was violating all his human rights.
I thought Bush was misbehaving and all this stuff.
And here comes this woman from the State Department claiming credit here on behalf of Obama for having taken off the battlefield more acts of violence in the name of Islam than any previous administration.
That's got to come as a shock to Obama voters.
So you see, they are hell-bent.
They are not going to call this Islamic extremism.
Next question.
There's a common thread here, though, of radical Islamic extremism.
And until President Obama or John Kerry or somebody else in their position stands up and says, look, we're now facing a global threat of radical Islamic extremism.
We have to band together.
We must fight it.
That's what everybody is longing to hear, Marie.
It's what governments around the world have no problem saying it.
You won't say it.
Where's the message?
I think all of these leaders have made very clear the serious threats we face.
If you look at the president's speech at West Point, if you look at the things Secretary Kerry has said, it's not as easy as defining it the way you just did.
We have to look at each threat individually.
All of those threats you just mentioned are from different groups.
Do you believe that there is a common thread in everything that I just mentioned?
Is there a common thread?
I think that's a little overly simplistic, to be honest with you, Martha.
Yes.
And so when you nail them to the wall and you actually force their own words back on them, they come back and tell you you're a simpleton.
You're small-minded.
You don't have the ability like we do in the regime to understand all of the nuance.
Of course, there is a common thread.
The common thread is Islamic extremism.
This regime will not say so.
Does anybody really have any question about why?
Let me ask you folks, seriously, do you think it's because let's start at the top.
Let's go to the why.
Is Obama afraid of them?
Is Obama refusing to call them what they are because he's so afraid.
I mean, this is the political correctness of this is that, oh, no, we can't do that.
That would make them even madder.
You know, we're not supposed to chase bad guys and the tenets of political correctness.
You don't identify them.
You don't call them out.
You don't try to capture them.
That's just going to make them meaner.
That's just.
No, the way we deal with people like this under the precepts of political correctness is we take guns away from the law-abiding so that we make it clear that we present no threat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what we do.
We take guns away from the law-abiding, leaving guns to be had for the criminals, the Islamists, whoever wants to get them.
But political correctness says, no, no, we can't agitate.
Oh, no, we can't do it.
Oh, no, it doesn't make them even madder, and it'll make them even more violent.
Do you think that's really why Obama will not call them what they are?
Certainly.
Do you think that's why Obama will not call them Islamic extremists?
I can understand some Marie Harf, and I can understand some college professor, professor, or I can understand some people in the media.
Do you really think Obama is afraid of what they'll do if they're properly identified?
I don't either.
I don't think fear has anything to do with it.
It does with a lot of people.
The media people who will not properly identify.
So a whole bunch of people who do not want to make themselves targets.
But that's not going to explain Obama.
Here is Marco Rubio, who was on Fox and Friends this morning.
Brian Kilmead said, why is it the French, the British, the Australians, everybody, they're all calling this attack Islamic extremism, but we don't.
Does that bother you, Senator?
Well, we do.
The president won't.
And I don't understand.
I really still do not understand why.
And it's important to call, I mean, this is not an attack on Islam.
You know, it is an attack on Islamic extremism, which is a very serious problem.
I hope the summit is about not just the threat that's posed by people in other countries, but increasingly the homegrown violent extremists who are motivated by jihadist websites or by traveling abroad and coming back home.
That is the fastest growing, most dangerous new dynamic of the war on terror.
Another thing they won't say, by the way.
Okay, so Rubio is drawing a distinction here between Islam and Islamic extremism.
Now, I think the answer to this, when talking about some people, if you're asking why won't some people call this what it is, is because they know or believe that there isn't any difference in Islam and Islamic extremism.
And if it's not that, then it's clearly something else.
Anyway, I got to take a break.
Time again, folks.
Be back after this.
Don't go away.
Greetings.
Welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network, and David Southside Chicago.
Great to have you next in the program, sir.
Hello.
Good afternoon.
Thank you for taking my call.
Yes, sir.
I was listening to your comments about Boehner before, and I was just wondering: do you think it's possible that he's been compromised?
Because at the beginning of his tenure, he had been the poster child for conservatism.
He's done it a complete about-face.
He's a rubber-stamped Democrat now.
He's done an about-face on immigration, an about-face on tax reform, an about-face on Obamacare.
I think somebody's holding the sword of demastic piece over his head.
Do you think it's possible?
Well, yeah, but I don't think that's the explanation.
It happens to too many people up there.
Once again, let me cite for you O'Sullivan's law: anything that is not actively conservative every day will eventually become liberal.
Boehner was a ranking leader in Mr. Newt's leadership.
I mean, that was as a pedal of the metal conservative as you can get.
And then, I mean, let's face it, the budget battle of 1995 just destroyed a bunch of these guys, David.
It just destroyed them.
And conservatism is constantly under attack.
And one by one, the leadership in Newt's group began to fall away.
One by one, it began to.
I think this got bit by what the dominant culture, political and social, in Washington is.
Now, I know the simple explanation that people would like is that there's blackmail going or that there's some shaming going on or what have you.
I think it happens gradually and is a little bit more subtle than that.
And at the root of all of it is going to be donor money.
When you get right down to it, at the root of it is going to be donor money.
Back after this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right here.
Hang on, just looking for something.
Got it?
All right.
Back we are, Rush Limbaugh, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
I have here a CNN statement.
CNN has made a statement about what happened in Paris.
You know, the magazine is out with a new issue.
Charliebdo is out with a new issue and a new cover.
And it kind of has a parody caricature of the Prophet Muhammad on the cover.
They are not backing down at the magazine.
This has prompted other news organizations to react.
And I am holding here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, CNN's reaction.
CNN described its reasoning for not showing the latest cover of Sharle Ebdu, the first issue to be published after last week's massacre, in a broadcast this morning.
One of the anchors at CNN read a statement and said the following: CNN will not show you the new cover, which depicts the Prophet Muhammad, because it is our policy not to show potentially offensive images of the Prophet.
Not potentially offensive images, period.
No, no, CNN said it is our policy not to show potentially offensive images of the Prophet.
This is, this is, I don't know, this is eerie.
This is really, you remember in World War II, did anybody doubt that we were at war with the Nazis and the Japanese?
And we said so.
In fact, we faced a threat beyond just the Nazis and the Japanese, and yet we still mentioned that our enemies were Nazis and the Japanese.
In World War II, we faced multiple threats and we identified them.
But we're not going to mention extremism today.
We're not going to talk about Islamist extremism.
We're not going to talk about extremism.
And now CNN says, CNN will not show you the new cover which depicts the Prophet Muhammad because it is our policy not to show potentially offensive images of the Prophet.
Does this mean they will show potentially offensive images of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
Probably so.
In fact, CNN probably would not even refer to Christ as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
But they would obviously publish or show potentially offensive images.
Do you think they would show potentially offensive images of Buddha?
You think they might?
Clearly, they would not have a problem with reviewing a movie that was anti-Christian and celebrating it.
They would not have a problem with denigrating anything to do with Christianity, abortion, pro-lifers, anything to do it's associated with, it thought to be associated with Christianity, but this.
It is our policy not to show potentially offensive images of the prophet.
Can I rephrase the CNN statement?
Here's what it really means.
Our policy is not to show any images potentially offensive to one religion that will kill us if we offend them.
But all other religions are fair game.
So CNN has clearly been affected.
They won't do it.
They're not going to go there.
And so nobody appears to want to stand up to this.
Everybody wants to count to it.
It's an amazing thing, but go back in time, World War I, World War II, you name it, the communists in Vietnam.
We had no problem identifying our enemy.
We had no problem telling people about them.
We had no problem showing pictures of what they did to other people, the Nazis particularly.
We had no problem whatsoever.
You know, you can go to CNN's website right now.
If you dig deep enough, if you click and keep clicking on links, do you know what you can find at CNN's website today?
You can still find pictures of a crucified Jesus in a jar of urine.
That famous work of art by Andre Serrano called Piss Christ.
You can still find that at CS.
CNI still has a picture of that illustrious work of art posted.
But they're not going to show potentially offensive images of the prophet.
Now, last week, I found a story in The Economist, and I have been toying with trying to get it into the program ever since I saw it.
And I've been holding it and holding it and holding it.
And I think finally it may have a place here.
It's called Home of the Unbrave.
And it is basically about the increasing cowardice and fearfulness of more and more young people and Americans in general.
And it's dated the 5th of January.
And it's a story that has an incident in it.
Apparently, there's a place in America where it snows a lot, and the community has forbidden young people to ride their sleds.
It's, well, come on.
They say it's a liability issue, and I have no doubt there's fear of lawyers, but it's also they're afraid the kids might hurt themselves.
Now, I remember when I was a kid, Southeast Hospital, up there on top of the hill, and it overlooked Broadway.
And I remember one year my dad, when I got my brother and I flexible flyers.
Now, if you know anything about sleds, they were the Cadillac of sleds.
And we sat around and prayed for snow because that hill from the top of the hospital down to Broadway, oh, it was ideal for sledding.
It was two levels.
It had its first incline.
It leveled off for a while to slow you down, then another incline.
And I remember going down that hill a couple of times, and it was the most fun in that flexible flyer.
You could steer it.
It was so slick, I actually ended up in the curb of the street.
I got nowhere near moving cars, but I got so far as the curb.
I went back and told my dad about it, and he said, well, you went a little too far.
You don't want to go on the street, son.
But he didn't take any action.
He goes through the hospital or any such thing.
He just told me how to avoid getting the sled in the street.
Well, this story is about how, to stop all this, no more sledding.
And the economist theory is that fearfulness is overtaking America.
Pull quote from the story, this crackdown on unregulated sledding, how about that?
Unregulated sledding, a crackdown on unregulated sledding for crying out loud seems of a piece with the recent American tendency to curb marginally perilous childhood pleasures like tricycling without body armor or venturing alone into the back garden without a mossade train security detail.
Shuttling down sledding hills or shutting down sledding hills is inspired by the same sort of simpering caution that keeps Americans shoeless in airport security lines and closer to home keeps parents from letting their kids walk a few blocks to scroll alone despite the fact that America today is as safe as it was during the Leave It to Beaver golden age.
Now The Economist is a Brit publication.
It goes back and forth, but for the most part it leans kind of left, which makes this story kind of cockeyed.
Normally they'd be in favor of this kind of political correctness and fear, but they are really taking after us.
The ominously named Winter Storm Gorgon is set to dump scads of snow across a broad swath of America, from the Rockies to the Poconos.
Law-abiding families must not rush to break out the toboggins, however, for there is a trend foot to outlaw sledding.
That's another thing.
We're now naming snowstorms like we name hurricanes.
Faced with the potential bill from sledding injuries, some cities have opted to close hills rather than risk large liability claims.
No one tracks how many cities have banned or limited sledding, but the list grows every year.
One of the latest, Dubuque, Iowa, where the city council is moving ahead with a plan to ban sledding in all but two of its 50 parks.
You know what?
The headline of the story is Home of the Unbrave.
Not Home of the Brave, Home of the Unbrave.
Other wholesome locales like Des Moines, Lincoln, Nebraska have also restricted sledding to within certain hills posted with a sled-at-your-own risk warning sign.
This crackdown on unregulated sledding seems of a piece with recent American tendency to curb marginally perilous childhood pleasures like tricycling without body armor or venturing alone in the back garden without a Mossad-trained security detail.
I mean, they really rip us over the coals for this.
And then at the end of the story, The Economist says, perhaps this is not as surprising as it may seem.
Americans are not so much unusually litigious as they are unusually fearful.
And this fearfulness extends to the prospect of lawsuits.
The occasional draw-dropping award in a personal injury or class action lawsuit creates, like the occasional terror attack, a salient sense of pervasive danger.
It's not that Dubuque or Des Moines suddenly faces a new and extraordinary risk of getting sued into oblivion.
It's just that the risk, as small as it is, now looms larger in the imagination, becoming too great for the longer bold American spirit to bear.
Shutting down sledding hills is inspired with the same sort of simpering caution that keeps Americans shoeless in airport security lines and closer to home keeps parents from letting their kids walk a few blocks to school alone.
And I'll tell you, when you look at the behavior of institutions and like CNN, our policy is not to show any images potentially offensive to one religion that will kill us if we offend them.
So we will not show potentially offensive images of the prophet.
Everywhere you look, the economist raking us over the coals for being a bunch of cowards.
And get their point about lawsuits here.
It's not that we are afraid per se of the settlement.
It's not that they think we're afraid of the actual lawsuit.
We're just, our imagination goes wild and we keep constructing things rooted in fear that tell us, no, don't do that.
No, don't do that.
No, like, don't let the kid go in the backyard without body armor.
You never know what's out there.
Don't let that kid sled.
You never know what might happen.
Don't do this.
And I think they have a point.
And I think it's really relatable to people that run political correctness.
When you see evidence of it, and you go back and look at America in a different time, you don't see evidence of this kind of fearfulness.
We had no compunction whatsoever calling Hitler what he was, detailing what Hitler was doing, showing pictures of what happened, and defining it as Nazism.
We had no compunction.
Same thing with the Japanese.
None whatsoever.
Another break.
Back to the phones where we get back.
Don't go away, folks.
Sit tight.
Back to the phones to Dallas.
This is Paul.
Great to have you, sir.
I'm glad you waited.
EIB Network.
Hello.
Hey, Rush.
It's great to be on here.
Thank you.
Very well, sir.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Good.
So actually, your last point from the article in The Economist really kind of segues pretty well into my point.
I really agree.
I think most Americans live in kind of a security bubble.
Like, I served in the Marine Corps.
My dad did.
My brother's still in.
And, you know, we know that you have to sacrifice safety and security for liberty.
And our forefathers know that, knew that, and they did that.
But the vast majority of Americans don't understand that.
Benjamin Franklin actually told someone that people who would sacrifice a little liberty for security and safety deserve neither.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
And that's the point.
I think most Americans now, they've flipped that.
They would be willing to sacrifice liberty to get safety and security.
Oh, hell yeah.
It's been going on for years now.
There's nothing yet.
Yeah, absolutely they have been.
And it shows in a million different things.
And kind of the main point I was going to bring up that I called for is I think this whole Obama not going to France stuff, that's a distraction.
We are currently, we have over 10,000 troops in Afghanistan right now.
We have around 3,000 in Iraq right now.
I mean, we are still fighting a war or a semi-war or police action or whatever you want to call it.
It's going on.
And we're still, you know, we get so focused on these, oh, you know, kind of almost social engagements.
You know, when I call it the Daily Washington soap opera, you're exactly right.
This is the latest chapter or edition of the soap opera, the latest episode that we're all supposed to pay attention to because it's the news of the day and it really isn't.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And, you know, it upsets me because I know that we should be focusing on completely different things on how to win, you know, regardless of what the motivation are for, you know, like the Abu Ghraib incident and all that stuff.
You know, whatever, that's almost neither here nor there.
The fact of the matter is there's a very large group of people who are willing and able and trying very hard to kill us and to kill our allies and to make trouble.
But we can stop that if we would simply be nice and stop criticizing them and leave them alone.
That's what the belief is.
They're totally wrong.
That is the belief.
But ultimately, it's the exact opposite.
If you're going to fight a war, if you're willing to put lies on the line and kill other people, you have to go all in.
You have to fight a total war.
You can't just like, oh, you know, we kind of want to fight, but we don't really want to set clear objectives and win.
We just kind of want to be there and hopefully eventually it'll all work out.
Well, if you're a liberal Democrat and you've got a pacifist image and all you care about is shoring it up to show you're a tough guy, sends some people off to war, don't worry about winning it.
Just the act of doing that's supposed to reverse your image as a pacifist.
And that's what has largely been going on here.
Absolutely.
There's no effort to win this stuff.
Look at the rules of engagement for crying out loud.
Yeah, yeah.
And it's a broad issue.
It's an issue now, but it's been an issue for decades.
Going back to Korean War, Vietnam, our action in Somalia, all of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The only war that has been close to fought in a way where we had a clear objective and we won and we didn't overextend ourselves was Desert Storm 1.
But even in that, even though we won, you just absolutely blew away the enemy.
We pulled out and just kind of let Saddam do his.
That's right.
We quit.
We quit right at the moment we could have wiped him out to not have to deal with him again.
Thank you, Colonel Powell.
I'm sorry, General Powell.
Told George H. Bennett, if you engage in a massacre now when they're retreating and heading home, no, the world won't hate you.
No, no, no.
Let them be.
And then Schwartzkopf told his negotiators, do not gloat when they come to sign the surrender papers.
Anyway, now I get your point entirely.
Everything is for show now.
Everything's buzz and PR and image.
Very little substance, really.
It's not just The Economist, the UK Daily Mail, headline, cosseted children growing up unable to cope with failure.