Welcome to today's edition of The Rush 247 Podcast.
Say, have you noticed how seemingly eager the drive-by's are to report that Mrs. Clinton has pneumonia?
They're not troubled by that at all.
In fact, they're reporting that she got pneumonia with almost a sigh of relief.
Now there's two things going on.
It looks like she's got much more than pneumonia, and everybody thinks that.
So pneumonia is kind of, oh, it's only pneumonia.
It isn't that bad.
The second thing, it allows them to continue to not report Hillary's deplorable comments, which Trump and Pence are trying to keep in the news cycle.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
It's great to have you here, Rush Limbaugh behind the golden EIB microphone.
The telephone number is 800 282-2882 if you want to be on the program, the email address, Ilrushbow at EIB net.com.
I gave Mr. Snertley a very quick tutorial on just one app that's receiving a major upgrade today when Apple drops iOS 10.
Should be in about an hour if they hold true to the normal schedule that they use.
The tutorial I gave him was in the messages app.
It's indescribable.
I also did a tutorial, actually did a video conferencing tutorial with other staffers this morning, which took me about 20 minutes demoing it on my on my iPad.
I'm telling you, folks, it's a phenomenal, phenomenal upgrade.
The Photos app has a new feature called Memories, and it'll go through your photo library and choose.
And all this is happening on your phone.
It does not happen in the cloud.
It's not a violation of your privacy.
The uh feature goes through all of your photos and selects them by date, by location, by people.
It the facial recognition software in the Photos app will blow your mind.
And it uh creates slideshow videos automatically, finds music, creates them in 30-second, 90-second lengths.
You can pick, you can change the music, you can make it longer, you can create your own slideshows, but it does it automatically.
And you can mail them, message them to people.
It's just incredible.
Now I'm not going to spend much time on this today because there are other things, but I just wanted to, since I'm advocating that you do this, I need to remind you of one thing.
If you upgrade to iOS 10 today, or whenever you do it, do not panic when it seems like your battery life has gone to hell.
Whenever you install a brand new operating system on your iPhone or iPad, it begins a whole new process of indexing data, all of your photos, the spotlight search feature, plus you use the phone more when there's a new operating system, you're curious.
So it has to kind of bake in.
So your your battery life will appear to be really hit the first time you use the phone or iPad after you install it, but then the next charge after your initial usage, you're gonna get better battery life on iOS 10 than you got on iOS 9.
It's uh really phenomenal.
Now, before we get to the latest and greatest on the mystery illness, that is handicapping Mrs. Clinton.
I want to share with you this headline.
This is from BuzzFeed today, because I know a lot of you are getting excited, and I know that it may be making you uncomfortable to get excited because the Democrat candidate appears to be less than 100%.
And I know that a lot of people, because I've spoken to them are feeling a little bit of a renewed hopefulness here.
Because it's abundantly clear that Mrs. Clinton is not well.
And then we've got the stories being whispered about.
Cokey Roberts and a number of others about secret meetings to make contingency plans in case she can't go.
In case she has to drop out.
And then of course, Bill Clinton came along and tried to help and made it even worse.
On Charlie Rose's show, this is phenomenal.
I've always wondered, is the back of my mind, folks.
I have wondered, I have really wondered If there isn't a small part of Bill Clinton that does not want her to become president for a host of psychological reasons.
And this kind of mistake.
Oh, hey, this happens to her all the time.
She's constantly falling on her face.
She falls down.
She has these painting spells.
And uh, she get dehydrated all the time.
And you know what?
She won't drink any water.
You want to get in trouble working for Hillary, you ask her to drink some water.
She will bite your head off.
She doesn't drink water.
You know why?
Because of what fish do in it.
And then she doesn't want to touch it.
And I'm telling you, you you you you you you talked to anybody on her staff, and the worst thing you can do is suggest she drinks, so even if she falls on her face faintness, which I mean it happens all the time, it isn't a big deal.
That made it worse out there.
And he's trying to help, or is he?
But look at this.
While there's this renewed hopefulness, and it's guarded, I must admit.
Republicans privately panic at terrifying prospect of Trump win.
While all of this is going on on the Democrat side, the Republican establishment, and the basically it's the consultants class, which is contained in the political class.
They're getting worried that Trump might actually now win.
No way, Jose, little immigration lingo there, no way they want this to happen.
The Clinton campaign's wobbly performance over the past 72 hours has set off a rash of behind the scenes hand wringing among professional Republicans as they confront an unnerving new possibility.
What if Trump actually wins?
An unnerving new possibility.
Buzzfeed again, this source, tells us the Republican establishment class and the consultants, the elites have never thought Trump was going to win, no matter what happens, and now that Hillary has come down with Pneumonie, by the way, that pronunciation is from the Beverly Hillbillies.
From way, way back in the 1960s.
I had people sending me email.
What can't you say pneumonia?
Yes, I can.
It's P. Pneumonia, just like they call their their swimming pool a cement pond.
Do you remember watching?
Oh, the Beverly Hillbillies was classic.
It was absolutely classic.
Pneumony, anyway.
So now, give you some pull quotes from this.
For months, the prevailing wisdom within GOP political circles has been that Donald Trump stands little chance to win in November.
And a large number of the party's consultants, fundraisers and operatives, privately preferred it that way.
Though many of them are reluctant to say so in public, they argue that a Trump presidency would fracture their party, decimate the conservative movement, and wreak havoc on the global economy, not to mention their own industry.
So the consultant class is panicked over a Trump win.
And you know who these people are.
They are the people who haven't gotten one thing correct.
This entire election.
Everything they wanted, everything they thought would happen, everything they invested in, bombed out.
And as you will hear in mere moments, it's all my fault, by the way.
Jeb Bush is not the nominee because of me.
So stated at an immigration forum at George Washington University Law Center.
That's coming up.
Another pull quote.
It's terrifying, said one GOP consultant who, like others, spoke to BuzzFeed, unconditioned Of course they don't want anybody to know who they are.
Yeah, we can't have people put their names to this.
Why?
Why there might be people want to be mean to them out there.
It's terrifying, said one GOP consultant.
Trump's not qualified.
That's a massive problem.
I'm not a fan of Hillary Clinton, but at least I feel like some of those jobs that are required for president, she can do them.
Holy!
This goes to exactly what we were talking about last week.
This whole like how in the world anybody on our site can do anything that facilitate Hillary Clinton being elected?
That's the end of the Republican Party, as it's known today.
That's the end of everything they that's the end of the country as they know it for at least a generation.
Because it is Supreme Court alone.
Another poll quote.
I've heard a lot of conservatives voicing frustration like, how freaking hard is this, Hillary?
The only reason I'm panic these days, I'm losing faith in Hillary's ability to win with this easy ass elections.
This is a Republican, I think blogger who doesn't like Trump and thinks that somebody half dead could beat him, and uh frustrated that Hillary is botching it.
And here's another cool quote.
Another strategist in a similar situation said he recently found himself engaging in a wishful Google search.
How late can you replace a major party nominee?
I think Joe Biden to be a slam dunk, right?
He mused in a tone that sounded almost affectionate.
Meaning these are Republicans worried that Hillary's gonna bomb out because of her illness.
Who can Republicans help the Democrats find who can win?
That's what this poll quote means.
It's still time to get Biden, right?
Biden could beat him.
Wouldn't that be an amazing track for Biden's career saving the free world by stopping Donald Trump?
That is a Republican consultant.
And they wonder why.
Republican base voters and a whole lot of other people just don't believe in them anymore.
So the headline is Republicans privately panic at terrifying prospect of Trump win.
We've known, I mean, there's nothing new in here, and it's not really, they're not privately panicking.
Since they're talking to Buzzfeed, they're publicly panning.
Uh uh panicking.
They're just not putting their names to it.
Look, there's a lot more in this piece.
It prints out almost three pages.
But that's enough for the flavor of it.
Now, to the audio sound bites quickly.
Yesterday at the George Washington University Law Center during the migration policy institute's annual conference.
You ever heard of that?
Well, you've heard of George Washington University Law Center.
Yeah, I never heard of the MPI, the migration policy institute.
Not immigration, a migration.
And it's their annual conference.
They held a panel discussion about immigration and the Republican Party, and during the discussion, immigrant advocacy group, America's voice founder, Frank Shari spoke and said this.
There is a tenacious, highly aggressive, very mobilized, anti-immigrant wing, a nativist wing of the Republican Party.
There's certain groups that we all know, but there's also the conservative infotainment folks that uh the talk radio folks, the Rush Limbaugh that are really uh using this issue to both uh increase ratings and anger their listeners, and that's a very formidable force.
And in the past three rounds of immigration reform that I've been a part of, each time the populist right has outdoeled the pro-immigrant reformist Republican right.
And uh that is gonna have to change.
Okay, so again, here we are, folks, you and me, we are reactionaries.
These Republicans have signed up with the Democrats, and they want amnesty, and they're calling it they're calling it uh uh immigration reform.
And they're agreeing with Democrats on this.
And I I I don't know how this I'm in my starting my 29th year now, and I guess it isn't gonna be possible.
These people persist in this really uh stupid notion and presumption that what I do here is dishonest.
That what I do here is calculated to achieve rating success.
I guess they just can't come to grips with the fact that the program is number one in popular because I'm who I am.
I don't calculate anything here.
I never ever ask, my gosh, what does the audience want to hear?
I better do that.
I never do that.
I never have done it.
I've never stuck my finger in the wind to try to figure out which way the wind is blowing the direction it's coming from and getting in the way of it or going along with it.
I've never done that.
I just show up every day.
Tell you what I think.
This is all rooted in principle.
It's rooted not in racism.
It's not rooted in color.
It's rooted in culture.
It's rooted in values.
There isn't any assimilation taking place with this mass illegal immigration.
That's a stark difference from the old days.
Immigrants used to assimilate.
They wanted to become Americans.
They're not today.
It's not necessary.
We're becoming a balkanized society.
We're splitting into groups.
Each group tendency to tend toward uh victimology and becoming dependent on the state and thus Democrat voters.
I the idea here that we're using this issue to increase ratings and anger.
Is that what they really think happens here?
I would maintain that, yeah, some of you people are angry, but not at me.
These three hours of the day are the three hours of the day when life seems normal in this country.
And I would maintain that most of the people listening to this program are happy and of good cheer during the three hours this program is on.
To sit here once again, twenty-eight years to have these people say, it's just, you know, limbaugh, he's just trying to tick people off, he just trying to build up ratings, and we sort of find some way around that.
They just think they believe it.
I think it's just what they say.
I think that's what they say.
I think they know the truth, and that's what scares them.
I mean, if if if I were simply calculating and doing all of this to up my ratings, don't you think these people can come and make me a hell of an offer to join them?
I mean, if that's all this was about, if that's really all I was doing was calculating and trying to build audience, these are very powerful people.
They can come and offer me who knows what to get them to join me.
They don't.
Well, they've tried to eliminate it, it's another thing, but they don't do.
Why do they not do that?
Why do they not call me?
Why did they not approach me and say, hey, you know what?
We've got you join us.
We can the world will be your oyster.
They don't even try, because they know that my position on this is principled.
It isn't calculated.
It's not the result of any kind of calculation that's designed to improve ratings or anger you.
It is a couple more sound bites to go on this, but I gotta get out of here for just a second.
Stand by.
I just got a bunch of emails commenting on the size of my show opening cigar.
It is a big one.
It's actually called a Winski.
Triple Robusto.
Okay, back to the audio sound bites.
This again, the George Washington University Law Center during the migration policy institute's annual conference.
Panel discussion about immigration and the Republican Party.
And yesterday, Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles President Alfonso Aguilar spoke and had this to say.
Look, I'm a conservative.
A lot of my conservative colleagues are saying, What are you doing?
You're not going to support Mr. Trump.
What is the alternative?
Well, how can I support Mr. Trump, right?
At the end it's a question of issues and principles.
On the Republican side, there are many who perhaps believe in immigration, but have remained silent, afraid of angering Rush Limbo instead of being courageous.
These are Republicans, folks.
Did you uh one more time, now that you know what this is, again it's Alfonso, Alfonso Aguilar, who is the uh Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles president, and this is at a migration conference At George Washington University Laws Center.
Look, I'm a conservative.
A lot of my conservative colleagues are saying, What are you doing?
You're not going to support Mr. Trump.
What is the alternative?
Well, how can I support Mr. Trump, right?
At the end, it's a question of issues and principles.
On the Republican side, there are many who perhaps believe in immigration, but have remained silent, afraid of angering Rush Limbaugh instead of being courageous.
They're afraid of anger.
How old is this?
So no matter how you slice it, it's my fault.
I am not principled.
I'm calculating.
I'm trying to gr get ratings while making you mad, by the way.
How does that work?
I'm trying to anger you and get my ratings up.
And now I am intimidating other Republicans who would publicly support amnesty, except they're afraid of what I will say about them once I learn that they are for it.
Well, immigration, I know immigration amnesty didn't specify.
Look, gotta go.
Back in a sec here.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to m just to be fair with people.
All the while having fun.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have one more sound bite from the George Washington University Law Center Migration Policy Institute annual conference panel discussion up next.
Linda Chavez, the noted conservative columnist, uh author, activist.
It's her turn to weigh in.
And of course, once again, the entire reason, the entire problem, the reason why Republicans cannot get amnesty passed is talk radio.
One of the most important things I think is to follow the money.
There is a very well-funded network.
It has become an issue that you can raise money on.
And it has become an issue in which you can get listeners if you have a talk radio show, and your ratings will go up.
It gets people mad, it gets people angry.
When a bill comes up, you know, Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity get on the airwaves, and you have a flood of calls into members of Congress.
I think the best way for conservatives to be turned around on this, and I say this as a conservative, is for Donald Trump to have a humiliating defeat in November.
Okay, in order, I do not give out phone numbers.
I do not urge people to send faxes, to send emails, or to call Washington.
You know why?
Because you're gonna do it on your own.
You don't need me to tell you to do it.
I have done it one time to demonstrate to Howard Feynman of the Drive By Media what would happen if I did it.
We shut down the Congressional switchboard.
But I do not do it.
And here is yet another so-called Linda Chavez and I have ostensibly been on the same ideological team for 25 years.
But here we come on immigration.
Now all of a sudden I'm not principled.
Once again, there's big money.
Big money behind me.
Well funded network.
I don't get a dime from any immigration people.
We don't take funding.
In fact, I specifically refuse issue-oriented money.
I refuse it.
I've I've I've it's a it's a policy I've had, we've we've we've made exceptions to it a couple of times, and I've been burned every time I've tried it.
We do not do it.
We sell advertising to American businesses, pure and simple.
And they buy this program because we have a loyal audience.
And my audience does not depend on the issues discussed here.
What can these people not understand?
What can I can they not get through their head?
This is a good show.
It has nothing to do with revving people up and making them mad.
That's never been the forecast.
It's never been the objective here.
Now, it's gonna happen.
I mean, I'm I I have what is called in the media perfect polarization.
That means there are people who hate me who will listen every day in order to seek and find reasons.
They're leftists.
They're liberals.
But nobody's paying them to be here.
Nobody's seeking them out.
And this program doesn't trade in anger anyway.
But anyway, you see, this is this is classic.
These are the people unable to persuade anybody that they're on the right side of the issue.
So they have these seminars where they get together amongst themselves and they wring their hands and they start blaming conservative media.
And why do they blame conservative media?
Because if it weren't for me, you mind-numbed robots, you wouldn't have had your minds poisoned in immigration.
You know why?
Because you're not smart enough to know whether it's good or bad on your own.
So you need a Svengali like me on the radio, revving you up every day.
They looking at you the way the left does.
Mind-numbed robots, incapable of independent thought.
And once again, here are prominent, prominent, so-called Republicans slash conservatives, indicating, demonstrating they have not the slightest understanding of who the people on their team are.
They talk about you the way we talk about any other leftist audience.
My numbed robots, dumb, stupid, incapable of independent thought.
You have to be guided through every issue.
Look at how condescending this is.
And these are people ostensibly on your side.
These are Republicans, these are so-called conservatives.
And even with it, they don't they probably don't understand they by these sound bites having been aired.
I'm not making anybody mad at them.
They're doing that themselves.
They're the ones insulting people.
They're the ones purposely misstating what happens on uh on my program.
I thought I was on these people's team all those years.
I have learned, by the way, in the recent past years that it's not true.
But for the longest time I uh I thought it was.
So that's where we are.
That's what the Republicans are doing.
While while Hillary Clinton is is in deep, deep doo-doo for a whole host of reasons that while Donald Trump is starting to make tracks, he's starting to gain ground.
His audiences are still huge.
They're lively.
There is enthusiasm out the wazoo.
What are they doing?
They're doing two things.
They're strategizing on how to help the Democrats beat Trump.
These Republican establishment types.
And they're also having their hand-wringing seminars on trying to figure out who's ultimately to blame for them being unable to join the Democrats and get amnesty and comprehensive immigration reform passed.
Isn't it it's always somebody else's fault?
What they, I don't know, are they admitting that I am better at persuading you than they are?
Or do they say, well, we don't even have a chance.
Limbaugh's got this massive audience, massive funding, massive microphone, we can't possibly compete with it.
Yes, you could.
It all depends on where you come down on issues.
You people are just on the wrong side of your own party on this issue, and probably a whole host of others.
So that's what's going on.
Trump is surging among independent voters.
The polling data at LA Times USC poll has Trump up three now.
Hillary was uh, I think up 75 electoral votes a week ago or a she's up now 55 electoral votes.
This all in in projected polling data, of course.
Point is Trump's going in the right direction.
He's gaining ground, she's losing ground.
The Democrats are worried to death they're going to have to replace her.
It's worse than pneumonia.
And the way you know that is how easily the ammonia, the media talks about it pneumonia.
I mean, they're talking about pneumonia like it's the common cold.
Oh, yeah, everybody gets it.
Oh, yeah, oh yeah, you're gonna be hydrated, oh yeah, you gotta take care of, oh yeah, you need some bed rest.
Everybody doesn't get it.
They don't get it like people get the common cold.
They don't get it like people get the flu.
But they're trying to pass it off as though it's just one of any number of usual viruses that bops around in the fall.
And Mrs. Clinton's highly susceptible because she's constantly dehydrated and so forth.
And it's so common that he she it happened to her many times before.
Her husband has said so.
The truth of the matter is they are panicking on the Democrat side.
They don't know what's going on with her.
Many of them don't.
The people in the inside may.
Did you hear why they didn't want to go to the ER on Sunday?
I was exactly right about this.
They didn't go to the ER because they didn't want doctors they don't know to find out what she's got.
Because they don't trust doctors at a randomly chosen emergency room to be quiet.
So they made a calculation.
They've got a woman that practically fainted and collapsed and had a seizure, who was unable to get into a van by herself.
They made a calculated decision to make her health secondary to other concerns.
They could not take her to an emergency room.
And by the way, this is probably not the first time for that.
They didn't take her to the emergency room because they are still hiding whatever is wrong.
If a trip to the emergency room would have documented pneumonia, big deal.
They've already announced that.
Yet they didn't go to the ER.
They didn't go to the ER because they don't trust the doctors there.
Somebody in there they think would talk.
Talk about what?
If all she's got's pneumonia, what do they have to talk about?
So there's clearly more than pneumonia.
So they take her to Chelsea's ER.
Her daughter's apartment.
But here's what it boils down to.
They've got her, they've got her sitting.
She's not attending fundraisers, supposed to be in LA, well, California, yesterday and today, can't go.
They are quaking in their boots because they can't predict these episodes, these incidents, whatever, whatever they are.
Do you think that if they had known that attending the 9-11 rally would end up as it did, you think they would have let her go?
You think they would have set her out?
No.
They would have found some way of coming up with an excuse that everybody believed it might have even been rooted in her not feeling well that day and contagious and not wanting to spread the disease.
They could have come up with something.
But they sent her out there because it's 9-11.
It's the 15th anniversary.
You gotta go.
You're running for president, you gotta go.
And look what happened.
They can't predict.
And that means they can't control it, not with medication.
They can't control whatever it is that's wrong with her.
And the poor woman has something seriously the matter.
There's no doubt.
And they are subordinating all of that.
They are subordinating her health.
And she may be in on the decision, too.
I mean, but but everybody involved here is subordinating her health to the larger issue, which is the acquisition of power.
It's not just the presidency.
It's not just winning the election, it's what it means.
It's the acquisition of power.
And the fact that they can't predict these episodes, and they can't stop them when they happen.
Like the four and a half minute coughing spasm episode in Cleveland.
That means they're going to be quaking in their boots every time they send her out, including when the debates come up.
Have you heard the latest?
Does the name um Bennett O'Malu ring a bell?
This'll be an interesting little test market question here.
Does anybody remember?
Does anybody know?
Does the name Bennett O'Malu, Dr. Bennett O'Malu, ring a bell?
Well, nobody here it rings a bell.
With nobody.
Of course I know who it is, and some of you out there do too.
Stand by for this.
Don't go away.
Okay, gonna get to the phones here pretty quickly.
Dr. Bennett O'Mallo is the man who made the connection between concussions in NFL players and CTE, which is the brain damage that occurs from repeated blows to the head that's only diagnosable in an autopsy.
You can't learn when somebody's got it when they're playing, when they're alive.
Dr. Benadomalo.
He's being hailed by left wingers as the most brilliant neurosurgeon, neuroscientist ever.
He's discovered what's making these guys go bonkers, and it's the NFL.
And it's these rich owners who don't care about these people once they quit playing.
Dr. Benedict, they made a movie about him.
It starred Will Smith.
Well, Dr. Bennett Amalu has weighed in with his theory on what's wrong with Hillary Clinton.
You know what it is?
Donald Trump poisoned her.
Not kidding.
Either Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin found a way to poison her.
He tweeted this stuff out.
I must advise the Clinton campaign to perform toxicologic analysis of Mrs. Clinton's blood.
It is possible.
She is being poisoned.
I do not trust Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump.
With those two things, all are possible.
And there are some, of course, on the left, this guy, well, he's brilliant when they made a movie about it.
Why he discovered CTE?
Why he's he he cares about people.
He compares why there's a brilliant, brilliant scientist.
Oh my God, and he thinks that Trump and Putin and Putin has poisoned people.
With polonium-220 or 2-20, whatever it is, polonium, the derivative of uranium, and they did poison a guy, a former KGB agent is out ratting on Putin over in London.
But this is Cookville.
This is straight out of Cookville.
You'd want to talk all these wacko conspiracy theories out there, supposedly held by the right wing.
Yeah, Mrs. Clinton wasn't sick.
There's nothing to see here.
It's just these wacko conservatives and these mad cap conspiracy theories they've got.
And they all end up being validated.
And now I'm one of Mrs. Clinton's defenders come along.
Benedomalu tweeting that Trump has poisoned Hillary and found a way to do it somehow.
And is suggesting she got a toxological report on her blood.
And there are people on the left who think this need to be looked into.
Because this man has such incredible stature.
Such an incredible resume and pedigree.
They made a movie about him after all.
Okay.
To the phones, Robert Naples, Florida, your first today.
Great to have you on the EIB network.
Hello, sir.
Hi, uh, thanks.
How are you?
Um, I just wanted to say that, you know, all these Republicans who are out there, you know, criticizing you and saying that you're stirring up hate speech and all this, they're the ones that are missing the point.
The reason why your ratings are so high is because and why you have such a loyal base of followers and listeners is because you are our voice.
You're the voice of the people.
This is what we believe.
And they need to listen to you instead of criticizing you, and find out who the people they're representing are.
And what they're supposed to be doing instead of just running the muck.
You know what amazes me about these people?
I'm I'm gonna sound incredibly naive here.
And I will admit, even at my age, I can be I can have the naivete of a first or second grader.
My question is why don't they want to become the voice of the people?
They, the Republican leadership, the Republican establishment people at this seminar.
Why the disdain for people?
Why don't they try to become the voice of the people?
Well, the reason they don't is because they're at odds with the people.
These are typical, and I'm I'm I'm surprised that Linda Chavez is in this group, but these are people that we normally associate with liberal establishment types, and that is the kind of people that look down on people that are not in the same uh economic class.
I mean, this there's a lot of classism going on here.
There's a lot of arrogant conceit.
These people think they're more educated, more sophisticated, they're wealthier, they're richer, and therefore they're better.
And there is this general conceit and contempt at people, aimed at people.
Why wouldn't they instead try to become if the objective is to win, if the objective is to secure victory and gain power and then implement your ideas?
Well, I know I'm answering my own question, but they are obviously standing in opposition to the vast majority of people.
There was a Trump rally in Ash Asheville, um, North Carolina last night.
7,000 people, huge for Asheville.
And it was largely peaceful, just a couple of malcontents, and the AP is trying to make it look like the whole thing fell apart when it didn't.