Rush Limbaugh and the cutting edge of societal evolution, emitting vocal vibrations coast to coast on Friday.
Let's hit it.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday, Open Line Friday.
And whatever you want to talk about, fair game.
Great to have you on the program.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 and the email address lrushbo at eibnet.com.
So it's going to be fascinating to see where this Trump story goes because right now, much as I hate it, I hate it when these people get away with this crap, and crap is what it is.
Where we are right now, virtually everybody who has seen that story, who has not listened to this program, thinks it's true.
Everybody, and you can't miss the story.
I mean, it's everywhere the low information crowd reads.
It's at the Wall Street Journal, it's at the AP, it's at Yahoo News, it's all over the place.
And the whole thing is that Trump advocates a national registry for Muslims and they have to wear some kind of signage or symbol that they are and so forth.
And he never said it, never, ever said it.
In fact, the question was a trick question, and Trump still didn't go there.
It's totally made up.
It's just, it's, but look, I'm not going to spend another 30 minutes explaining it and going through it.
It'll be up shortly at rushlimbaugh.com.
We update the site now a little bit more frequently, and you'll be able to revisit.
And I would suggest you do it.
And I would suggest that you Facebook and tweet everything you heard me say once it's tweetable and Facebookable.
Once we have it ready on my website, I suggest that you get it out there as best you can, if this matters to you.
But even at that, I think they're all going to be shocked and surprised.
But look, there's a companion story.
Before that even hit today, I had this.
It's a politico story.
Now, we know the politico is where the Republican establishment goes to leak.
The politico.
That's where the Republican establishment leaks their plans.
That's where they leak their intentions.
That's the mainstream, the Republican establishment has chosen the politico as their jumping off point to have people in the establishment know what they're doing, as opposed to leaking it to me, as opposed to leaking it to take your pick of a conservative, but they go to the politico.
So here it is, the headline.
GOP group plans most aggressive anti-Trump campaign yet.
And there is a companion story here that how frustrated they are.
There's a companion story that they can't find any donors, that they're out of donors.
They just can't find anybody to fund their anti-Trump activity at the establishment.
The Republican establishment is just at their wit's end.
They thought Trump would be gone by now, and they can't find anybody willing to help them because nobody thinks it can be done now.
And amidst all of that is this story from the Politico.
It's by Alex Eisenstadt.
And what this is, is a pro-Kasich super PAC is on a mission to take down Trump once and for all.
And again, they've leaked all this to the Politico.
Here are the details.
John Kasich has attacked Donald Trump relentlessly in debates, and now his super PAC is planning to invest $2.5 million in the most aggressive takedown of the poll leader yet on behalf of an increasingly anxious Republican establishment.
The attack, according to a blueprint shared with Politico, they haven't even leaked it.
They shared it with them.
The attack will play out over the next two months on radio, TV, mail, and online in New Hampshire.
Strategists with the pro-Kasich group called the New Day for America say that the budget for the anti-Trump campaign is likely to grow.
The offensive comes as some in the GOP are beginning to plot how to combat Trump, who many are convinced would essentially deliver the White House to Democrats if he were the nominee.
In launching the effort, the group hopes to position Kasich as a central Trump antagonist.
Matt David, a spokesman for the Kasich Super PAC, said, yep, we're going to be the tip of the spear against Trump.
But rather than go after Trump for his business dealings or his past support for liberal causes, as some of his opponents tried to do, the Kasich Super PAC will depict Trump as someone who would be a deeply ineffective commander-in-chief and ill-suited for the demands of the Oval Orifice.
Fred Davis, the group's colorful Hollywood-based ad maker who is best known for producing the demon sheep ad in the 2010 California Senate race, is working on a pair of anti-Trump TV ads.
The commercials are designed to accelerate what we believe would be buyers' remorse that would arise from a Trump presidency.
So they're readying ads out there at the Kasich PAC, Super PAC, that will be showing people regretting they voted for Trump at a mysterious time post-Trump inauguration.
The group's first volley came yesterday when it released an ad that pictured Trump side by side with Obama.
On-the-job training for presidents does not work, says the ad, which invokes last week's tragic Paris terror attacks.
The group is currently spending about $600,000 to air the commercial, though the strategerists said that more airtime is being purchased.
Now, for all the nervousness about Trump's candidacy, there are few in the GOP have directed resources toward defeating him.
This would be one of the first real intense efforts.
That's, by the way, bogus.
I mean, in each of the first two debates, we heard how this Republican faction or that was assigned to take Trump out.
Maybe they mean this is the first serious expenditure of money.
Republican groups such as the Chamber of Commerce.
Really?
The Chamber of Commerce or Republican groups still?
Who wouldn't know it?
Yeah, here we go.
Prominent Republican groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove's American Crossroads have not spent any money against Trump.
Yet with the Iowa caucuses just a little more than two months away, with Trump still riding high, this calculus may be changing.
This week, as top party operatives and donors gathered in Las Vegas for the Republican Governors Association meeting, many contributors privately expressed unease about Trump's consistent lead in early state and national polling.
Trump responded to the news by lashing out at Kasich on Twitter.
Trump responded to the news.
Well, anyway, so there you have it.
The GOP, and I can't find the companion story here, but I thought I printed it out.
It's over the, yeah, here it is.
Here it is.
It's a Breitbart story, and it's headline pretty indicative here.
It says, GOP admits it can't raise money to defeat Trump.
GOP establishment operative can't get donors for anti-Trump super PAC.
Now, this is not New Hampshire.
This is South Carolina.
This is a whole different super PAC.
This is not the Kasich Super PAC.
Apparently, Kasich Super PAC have got no trouble here getting money.
Or maybe they've already got the money.
They're just allocating how they're going to spend it.
This story says this.
On Tuesday, in an unwitting and probably grudging admission that Trump's power is not going to erode anytime soon, Politico published an article acknowledging efforts by Caton Dawson, the former chairman of South Carolina GOP, to form a super PAC for the express purpose of derailing Trump.
Can't find any donors willing to commit.
Caton Dawson acknowledged, I specifically did not find the right donor to get me to that effort.
The GOP establishment, befuddled at Trump's resilience, expressed confidence that Ben Carson's discomfort in answering foreign policy questions, seeming, oh, you hear what Carson said?
They're all over him, too.
Yeah, he talking about Syrian refugees and others at this moment in time.
He said, if you had a rabid dog in the neighborhood, what would you do?
And so they're now running around saying that Carson compared Syrian refugees to rabid dogs.
And again, everybody knows that's not what he meant.
If he was comparing anybody to rabid dogs, he's talking about these terrorists that just wantonly kill like a rabid dog does.
But these are the broad-based generalizations and assumptions the media is only too happy to make about Republicans.
Let's take a brief time out.
We'll come back.
It's Open Line Friday.
We try to squeeze in a few more phone calls than usual, and that's coming up.
Don't go away.
Great to have you back, Rush Limbaugh Open Line Friday.
By the way, I found one story.
Fox News is a story running now that says, wait a minute, did Trump actually say what it's being reported?
He says, so there is some pushback other than here from here taking place.
The real problem with this country in terrorism is that our leadership is the Democrat Party.
Our problem is not Donald Trump.
Donald Trump's fingerprints are not on one thing that's put this country at risk.
The Democrat Party owns that.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton, smart power.
She defined smart power as empathizing with our enemy, getting to know them, learn what it is about them that upsets them so we can form common ground and reach peaceful solutions.
That's smart power.
That's how Hillary Clinton would deal with it, folks.
So the drive-by media seizes on Donald Trump, makes up a story, makes it outlandish as a means, because they know Trump gets ratings.
It's a perfect distraction from Obama's incompetence and Obama's highly dangerous actions that are placing this country at great risk and trying to say that Trump's some great enemy of freedom and liberty and so forth.
It's how it happens.
And it's their attempt to do two things: take out Trump and cover and distract everybody from the glaring incompetence, the dangerous incompetence of Obama.
Okay, back to the phones.
It's Open Line Friday, and we are going to start in.
That'd be Dan in Chicago.
Dan, great to have you.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
A pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you, sir.
I would just like to hear from any of these Democratic leaders, the liberals, anybody, to explain to me how, in such a liberal country as France that doesn't allow its law-abiding citizens to even own firearms, pistols, or rifles, or any kind of weapons of any kind, that such a tragedy could even happen.
I mean, if it's outlawed and banned, how did the bad guys even get that?
Well, it's a great, great question.
And they did use standard ordinary guns.
There weren't any rocket launchers or mortars or nuclear suitcases.
So in a country where you can't get guns, there was gun violence.
How does that happen?
I don't know.
That's what I'd like to know.
But in the same light, a country that has been over backwards welcoming these people, a country that has basically surrendered.
I mean, that's been the joke about the French.
They have surrendered and they've been open and they've let all of these people come in and settle almost in some cases exclusive parts of Paris.
Why hasn't how nice they've been?
Why didn't that count?
Why didn't the terrorists go someplace else?
Because France has been so understanding and tolerant.
And there's any number of other.
Oh, by the way, I saw something.
I've got to track this down.
Apparently, there are record numbers of young people in France signing up to join the military.
I just got a glimpse of a story shortly ago, and I haven't had a chance to track it down, and I didn't print it out, so it's not right in front of me.
It'd be interesting if that's true, that there is a record number of, maybe not a record, but just an overwhelming number of young people showing up at registration offices seeking to join the French military to fight these people.
Why are you frowning?
You find that unbelievable?
Oh, you're talking to some dunderhead on the phone.
I'm sorry.
You can't blame me.
I mean, Snursley's looking directly at me and frowning while I'm making a brilliant point.
What would you then?
I had to stop and think.
He's having to coax somebody, setting them up for a future appearance here on the program.
Sit tight.
We'll be right back.
And Saga continues.
It's a Reuters story.
France sees a surge in army recruitment inquiries after attacks.
And from the article, requests for information about joining the French army have surged following the November 13th attacks in Paris.
Colonel Hervé Shenet, head of the Air Force Recruitment, said that the numbers visiting his unit's hiring centers have tripled since the attack.
He said all the armed forces are seeing increased numbers of requests about registration and so forth.
Pretty much what happened here after 9-11.
And this has been confirmed too.
I first heard about this last night, Fox News special report.
Get this.
So here's what happened.
I didn't have any backup for this.
I've just got TV on in the background doing other things.
And during special report last night, there was a reason provided for why we have not hit any ISIS oil centers or transportation depots or trucks or any of that.
And I was incredulous when I heard it.
And I said, this is this.
I said, it's got to be true.
It's Obama, but I just, part of me couldn't believe it.
We have not hit any oil tanker trucks specifically for the last several years because the Obama administration had decided the drivers were civilians and therefore could not be killed.
You know, after the French attacks last Friday, the French went in and had a big hit on Raqqa, which is the ISIS headquarters in Syria.
And there was a question that was asked shortly after that.
Why is Raqqa still standing?
I mean, it's been the ISIS headquarters for who knows how long.
Why is it still there for the French to take out?
And we find out that Obama never hit it, and he hasn't hit anything to do with the oil fields, the oil industry, oil wells and fields in areas that ISIS has commandeered.
It's the primary source of money to fuel and fund their operations.
And we haven't hit it.
And the usual explanation is one found in environmental concerns.
Well, we don't want to hit those oil fields.
My God, can you imagine the eruptions and the potential fires and the pollution and the economic or ecological damage?
No, no, no.
We can't go out and hit the oil field.
No, no, no, no, no.
Well, it turns out none of that was the reason that we left them alone.
Despite the fact that these oil trank tankers are transporting oil that has been used to pay for ISIS's murderous projects, we didn't hit those trucks because the regime said they're more than likely driven by civilians.
And here's the backup for it.
It's from the Washington Free Beacon.
U.S. military pilots who have returned from the fight against ISIS in Iraq are confirming that they were blocked from dropping 75% of their ordnance on terror targets because they could not get the clearance to launch a strike.
This is according to Congressman Ed Royce, Republican California, who's chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Strikes against ISIS are often blocked due to an Obama administration policy to prevent civilian deaths and collateral damage.
It looks like it's more of the restrictive rules of engagement that has our hands tied in Afghanistan.
And now the policy is being blamed for allowing Islamic state militants to gain strength across Iraq and to keep waging terror strikes throughout the region and beyond, according to Ed Ross, Royce, and former military leaders who spoke Wednesday about the flaws in the U.S. campaign to combat the Islamic system.
So we're not even serious about this, folks.
Remember the purpose of armies and the reason for war is to kill people and break things.
Now, in this PC era, I can imagine some of you out there, particularly you young millennials, who have not grown up in a particularly contentious, militarily contentious time.
And you hear something like that, and it's maybe the meanest, most extremist, outrageous thing you've ever heard.
And you can't believe I'm getting away with saying it.
And you can't believe it.
Somebody's not going to make me pay for saying it.
What do you mean the purpose of armies is to kill people and break things?
That's outrageous.
That's so mean.
I can't believe you could say that.
It's exactly the truth.
The purpose of armies is to kill people and break things.
And there's even more to it.
You keep killing people and breaking things until your enemy surrenders and apologizes to you for starting the whole thing in the first place.
That's how wars end.
And this is a world governed by the aggressive use of force.
And we are in the middle of a war and we're not fighting it.
We cannot hit oil tankers.
We cannot hit oil depots.
We cannot hit oil fields because Obama says there are civilians there.
And they would end up being collateral damage.
And therefore, they're off limits.
Well, if they're off limits, there's no end to this.
And if they're off limits, there's no way we're going to win this with these kinds of rules of engagement.
It simply isn't going to be possible.
You take a look, go back.
What am I saying?
Take a look.
Nobody's going to do this.
I happen to, I don't know how I even came across this.
Believe it or not, I think it was.
I was reading something on one of my tech blogs, and there was a story in one of the tech blogs about particular operations in World War II over the English Channel and some of the technology that was involved.
And the story had to do with all of the civilian targets that were taken out, German targets in France that they had taken over, that had to do with supply lines and depots.
The point is, you cannot wage a war without hitting such targets.
You hit fuel depots.
You hit factories where they are making weapons.
You hit factories where they're building airplanes.
And this is what you do in war.
It's what's always been done.
We've been so peacey about it that there were times in World War II, we dropped flyers warning average citizens to get out of the area within the next 10 minutes or 12 because we were coming.
We warned them we were going to be dropping bombs.
But civilian casualties.
This is really going to shock some people, particularly our young college children who want to feel safe.
Many wars have been won precisely because of the number of civilians killed.
That's why Japan surrendered near Hiroshima Nagasaki.
That's why the Japanese surrendered.
And there were a significant number of civilian deaths in our bombing of Germany.
And by the way, the Germans were trying to kill civilians in Britain.
That's what it was all about.
That's what the blitz was all about.
The purpose of armies is to kill people and break things.
And now we're governed by these surgical strikes, where if we can't be guaranteed of only hitting a military soldier, then we don't do the attack.
In fact, you young college children, that's one of the reasons Osama bin Laden was still alive to direct the attacks on 9-11.
He was in our crosshairs numerous times before 9-11.
Bill Clinton and the gang would not pull a trigger on bombing where he was because there were women and children around.
Purpose of armies, kill people and break things.
And here we have Barack Hussein Obama with restrictions on targets that we can't hit because there might be civilians there.
Look, the bottom line is, all that means is that there's no way we're going to win this.
We're not going to slow it down and we're not going to get close to even stopping it.
And this is what gives rise to questions.
How serious is Obama about this?
This is why so many people think it's really getting dangerous out here.
We're being led by somebody who may not even be serious about winning this.
I mean, he's out there talking about how he's got them contained and how their base of operations is actually shrinking.
He also said that at the same time he said he's got them contained.
The drive-bys are not reporting the second part of that.
They're just reporting.
He said that ISIS is contained.
But he also said their base of operations is shrinking.
Their sphere of influence is shrinking.
Yeah, now look, and I got to take another break.
Be patient, friends.
Coming right back.
Don't go away.
Thank you for patience.
Those of you waiting on the phones, we get back to Peyton in Greenville, South Carolina.
Hi, Peyton.
Great to have you here.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, been listening for 25 years.
Just to get right to my point, I was wondering what you thought about what I'll call the Gowdy factor.
I live here in the 4th District of South Carolina.
And Trey Gowdy being the most popular conservative figure, do you feel like he holds the keys at all to who actually wins here in South Carolina?
Do I feel like he holds the keys to who wins in South Carolina?
You mean what, you mean anything, or the governorship?
What I'm saying is, do you feel like who he endorses?
He was on stage a couple days ago at Bob Jones University with Ben Carson.
Who he endorses, do you feel like that's the person who will win here in South Carolina?
And if so, what is in that for Mr. Gowdy?
Okay, I'm having to read what you said here.
I get your saying some things I didn't know.
Did he endorse Ben Carson on the stage?
Is that what he said?
No, no, he didn't.
He was just up there with him.
He was up there with Ben Carson at Bob Jones University.
And so you're asking, does his standing side by side will that is he so powerful that that will influence people to support Carson?
Yeah, number one, or who he eventually comes out for in public support?
Do you feel like South Carolina will follow the lead of Trey Gowdy?
Well, it's possible.
I've, you know, I interviewed Trey Gowdy for the Limbaugh Letter, seems like now a couple years ago.
I have always believed, and I told him so, by the way.
And by the way, I should tell you, you couldn't, you might not have picked this up reading the interview, but when it was over, I had been so favorably impressed.
And I had been up things I'd seen him do in terms of the committee chairmanships that he had run and hearings he had run.
And just his general public statements, I'd been really impressed.
And I told him how at the time we did not own the house.
I don't think we had taken the house back yet, so it may be longer ago than that.
And I was really giving him a lot of praise for the way he was conducting himself.
And he was talking about what a lonely place it is and how he missed his family.
And sometimes he questioned whether it was worth it because I'm pretty sure the Republicans were in the minority.
And I remember just encouraging him and telling him that he had much more support out there than he probably knew.
And he was extremely, I mean, very appreciative of it.
And I always got the impression from that interview that he was serious, committed, former prosecutor, was talented and qualified to be a combatant against the Democrats, which was something the Republican leadership wasn't inclined to and still may not be.
So I don't know if he has achieved the kind of power Strom Thurmond had in South Carolina.
When Strom Thurmond endorsed you, you were done.
He could pave the road for you.
I don't think Gowdy is there yet.
I don't know that he's seeking that, but he's, I think he's a great guy.
He's a class individual.
I've heard some people say that he was too close to Boehner or got too close to Boehner and the leadership.
But don't forget the leadership put him at the chair of the committee.
I mean, it's a lot of masters that you have to balance and pay.
But I never got the impression that he had been compromised or was compromising what I always thought was a genuine in-his heart conservatism.
So I hope that helps.
I'm still not sure what the question was.
Well, I'm not aware he's endorsed anybody.
Has he endorsed anybody?
Yeah.
You know what?
Peyton, I'll tell you, the best answer to your question is wait for the day that he does endorse somebody.
When that day comes, then what you can interpret from that is that he thinks he has achieved a significant amount of power that his endorsement would matter.
That's the thing to keep an eye on.
Mark in Naples, Florida.
It's great to have you here.
Hello, sir.
Thank you very much for taking my call.
Yes, sir.
My concern is with all these governors who have not allowed Syrians to come in.
I applaud them for that.
But where is the logic in drawing a parallel between when the Cubans were a threat to us?
We closed our borders and didn't allow refugees from Cuba and just recently opened it.
But, you know, why is it that Hillary is saying, oh, this isn't American.
This isn't who we are.
That is who we are.
When someone poses a threat, we close our borders.
Or that's how we should be doing.
Is that a correct?
Well, you're right.
This is why I have spent so much time this week going over the actual history of immigration.
Let me repeat it.
Perfect opportunity here with this question.
By the way, the real question you ask is, what is Hillary Clinton talking about when she talks about that's not who we are?
Obama's the same way.
It's just words.
It's Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama attempting to tell you that liberalism is the American way and it isn't and it never has been.
And it's not going to be if any of us have anything to say about it.
Once again, folks, 1924 to 1965, you know how much immigration there was?
Zip.
We shut it down.
We closed the borders.
Can you imagine doing that today?
The next thing you're asking, well, why, Rush?
Why did we do that?
Because we had just immigrated, allowed to immigrate millions from Europe, war-torn Europe.
And it took time to assimilate them.
What does that mean, Rush?
Well, it means that when they got here, we had to teach them how to be Americans.
They wanted to be Americans.
They maintained their original identity, of course, and culture, but they wanted to become Americans.
Well, that takes time.
America was a distinct culture.
It was unlike any other place in the country.
The difference is those immigrants wanted to be.
And even during the days of no immigration, we had anti-immigration protests.
There were anarchists doing domestic terror attacks in this country.
And we deported them.
We found out we deported them.
We've done everything that Hillary and Obama say, that's not who we are.
That's not America.
That's not our values.
Everything they're saying.
We've done it.
We have religious tests, statutory, required United States federal law, religious tests for refugees.
And we have routinely employed them.
The religious tests.
There's nothing being proposed that we have not done in the past to defend and protect the country, particularly in times of attack or war.
I'm going to tell you something you may not know.
Barack Obama closed the Iraqi refugee program for six months back in 2011.