Realmscapes

Rush: Liberalism and the Sub-Prime-induced Meltdown

You know that fairness is one of the liberal foundation building blocks, the reason they say they're doing everything. The subprime mortgage crisis was all brought about by the concept of fairness, the Democrats thinking, "It's not fair that poor people who can't afford homes don't have them."

And so they set about long ago to rectify the situation, to put people who have no business owning a home because they can't pay for one nevertheless being given mortgages that are today worthless, and then those same people in the interests of fairness forcing lending institutions to invest in these subprime loans -- and the lending institutions knew they were worthless, and so they had to start packaging them and selling them around to each other as assets. So All these financial institutions -- to keep the government off their back and trying to turn these worthless assets into something -- were packaging them and selling them, hoping that somewhere down the road that the housing bubble would continue, the prices would continue to rise and at some point these mortgages would be worth something somehow; if not mortgages, as securities.

None of it happened because the price of housing plummeted. Well, it wasn't gonna work because it was all a fraud to begin with, it was impossible. It was not possible for this to work. Obama's fingerprints are all over this. He was working with ACORN and the people who pressured Congress -- well, they pressured the Democrats in Congress -- and pressured the lending institutions to make this happen. And Barney Frank knows what's up, and Barney Frank's out there now saying that the attacks on all this are just racism. Republican racists are now making these attacks. Barney Frank and the leftists believe it's totally appropriate for people who can't afford homes to live in them as long as they're paid for by you and me. It's not fair that you and I have homes and they don't, and so they're going to see that people have homes.

It's impossible to overestimate the importance of the liberal concept of "fairness" in being a motivation for what they do. And, of course, who's opposed to fairness? It's sort of like the environmentalist wackos claim all they're doing is trying to get clean water and clean air and save the planet. Well, who wants dirty water? Who wants dirty air? Who wants a destroyed planet? Nobody does! By the same token, they're out there saying, "It's only fair that the rich pay more taxes. It's only fair that CEOs only be able to make so much. It's only fair that some people get thrown in jail for..." Of course, who's opposed to fairness? So this is just one of the many tricks that is being used. But what you have to remember is that their definition of fairness is not yours. Their definition of fairness is most of the country getting screwed in order for liberals to continue to make more and more Americans dependent on government for their daily existence.

--Rush Limbaugh

Rush: Seven Years Later

This is the seventh anniversary of the terror attacks on September 11th of 2001. Everybody says you shouldn't politicize this day. Sorry, can't help it. My remembrances of the September 11th attacks do not just stop on the day of 9/11. There have been a lot of things that have happened since those attacks, and I think we need to remind ourselves of them, because it was seven years ago, ladies and gentlemen, that we were blindsided. Nineteen terrorists possessed by evil, hijacked our airplanes using box cutters. They stopped an election that was taking place in New York City. They brought down the twin towers. They blew a hole in the Pentagon. They crashed a plane in Pennsylvania that they were trying to get back to Washington to crash into either the Capitol or the White House. At the end of it all, nearly 3,000 Americans were dead. But up 'til that point, Al-Qaeda's war on America had already claimed hundreds of American lives, through embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing in Yemen, and countless other attacks.

The Clinton administration treated them as criminal cases, deliberately handicapping and handcuffing our intelligence agencies, and eschewed any kind of a strong military response. And, of course, Jamie Gorelick, the then vice attorney general, whatever, deputy attorney general, erected the now famous wall that prevented the CIA and the FBI from sharing information because they were gathering it in grand jury testimony, which must remain private and secret, limiting our ability to figure out what was up, what was next. In the immediate hours after the 9/11 attacks, Drive-By journalists sneered that President Bush was running scared aboard Air Force One. The late Peter Jennings lamented on ABC, after the president spoke, (paraphrasing) "It's just obvious some presidents are better at this than others," referring to, of course, Bill Clinton. Within days, ladies and gentlemen, Clinton associates were quoted as saying they wished these attacks had occurred on Clinton's watch so he could have had a chance at greatness, so that something momentous would have happened on his watch. The Democrat leader, Tom Daschle, attacked George Bush in the days after the attacks, within weeks, two weeks, for doing nothing.

On the day that Daschle launched his attack into Bush for not doing anything, Bush was planning that very attack. Daschle's attack on Bush for doing nothing came on the eve of our military operations in Afghanistan. Democrat political memos suggested that the president's popularity could be diminished by branding him a liar on weapons of mass destruction and any number of other things. The Democrat Party began to politicize this event within days. They were doing everything they could to come up with a strategy, to end up blaming this on Bush, head into the 2002 elections so that they could retake the House and the Senate. Democratic political memos, in addition to suggesting that Bush could be branded a liar, Democrat political memos surfaced from Jay Rockefeller, strategizing how to use the war for political gain, and I, to this day, have that memo from Jay Rockefeller on my desktop of this computer in my studio here at the EIB Southern Command. I have not filed it away so that it will be tough to find, and even with my Spotlight search feature, I have put it on my desktop, and it's never left.

Hillary Clinton echoed the conspiracy-based claim that Bush knew about the attacks beforehand. We had a Democrat-voting poet laureate from New Jersey claiming the Jews did it because all of the Jews got out of the World Trade Center. The Drive-By Media amplified this guy's theory. All over the place, theories were expounded and amplified that suggested George W. Bush not only knew about it, but if he knew about it, he had to be in on it, let it happen. The Democrat Party seized after just a couple days, couple weeks the opportunity of these attacks on 9/11 to politicize everything so as to reacquire their power, and they did not stop, and they have not stopped for seven years. Left-wing Hollywood's revisionist history movie, Michael Moore, Fahrenheit 9/11 was released. It won the big award at the Cannes Film Festival. I am convinced to this day that to whatever extent the American president, our population, our country is hated and despised around the world, it's because of who around the world has seen that lying propaganda piece of garbage movie that Michael Moore made. And then Jay Rockefeller's memo surfaced.

Seven years later, where are we? The president's property is diminished, video of the 9/11 attacks rarely seen, although MSNBC today replayed it all in real time. Our victories in this war on terror are downplayed. Let us not forget that the Democrat Party sought defeat in Iraq. They were waving the white flag of surrender. They were condemning our troops. They were suggesting our troops were rapists, murderers, and thugs. They were compared to Nazi thugs. Meanwhile, the same Democrat Party doing that embraced the rights, the congressional rights, the US constitutional rights, I should say, of the people who wanted to do to us again what they had done to us on 9/11. They became the sympathetic figures. We became the brutes. We were violating their rights. They were planning numerous 9/11s, but they haven't happened, have they? There have been no more attacks on this country. Not one train's been attacked, not one bus, not one bomb has made it through a port, not one airplane's been hijacked. We don't know how many terrorist attempts have been blocked because we cannot brag about our successes. We can only brag or publicize our failures, which the Democrat Party is willing to do.

Even to this day, the Democrat Party, as a political item in its new platform is claiming we are no safer. In fact, we are at greater risk than we've ever about, despite the fact they have done nothing to help protect this country. They've ended up voting for things, but they opposed them. When the rubber hit the road, the Democrats did the right thing, but not until they had ginned up so much anti-American hatred within this country, so much anti-administration hatred, so much anti-war fervor with their buddies in the Drive-By Media. Our victories have been profound. They have been downplayed. But the truth is that tens of thousands of Al-Qaeda terrorists are dead. There have been no more attacks on American soil. That, among the remembrances of the dead and the recollections of where you were and what you were feeling and what you saw that day, in addition that those, remember one thing: despite anything you've heard from the Democrats and their associates in the Drive-By Media for the last seven years, not one more attack on American soil has occurred. Remember that.

Rush: The Arrogance of Nancy Pelosi

"As an ardent practicing Catholic, uh, this is an issue that I have studied for a long time.  And what I know is over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition, and, uh, Senator -- uh, I'm -- Senator -- Uh, St. Augustin' (sic) said at three months.  We don't know.  The point is is that it shouldn't have an impact on a woman's right to choose.  Roe v. Wade talks about very clear definitions of when the child -- uh, eh, er, first trimester, certain considerations second trimester, not so third trimester. The -- the -- there's very clear distinctions."
--House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)

You know, folks, this is just embarrassing. As I've often wondered, is she genuinely this uneducated, uninformed, silly, stupid, whatever -- and I've concluded there isn't a word to describe the status of her brain. The Catholic Church doesn't know? The Catholic Church hasn't stipulated? The "doctors" at the Catholic Church? You mean the pope goes and consults the doctors to find out when life begins? Really? The doctors have more to say than God-d? I mean, Nancy, cite anybody. Don't cite the Catholic Church. You're putting them in an untenable position. You're fixing it so every priest, no matter how wacko left the priest might be, cannot support you. Good grief, ladies and gentlemen! Life begins at conception. Where else can it begin?

Peggy Noonan had a great way -- I'm going to have to paraphrase what she wrote -- of reducing this to its most simple, its most elemental. If life doesn't begin at conception, then why the hell wear a condom? If life doesn't begin at conception, then why the hell take the pill? Well, the church doesn't allow the pill. I know the church doesn't allow the pill because life begins at conception -- and the church is not cool on condoms, either, logoed or otherwise. But that's the point. This is not something that we've been arguing about for centuries. St. Augustine said life begins at three months? St. Augustine knew that Roe v. Wade was going to come along and basically say the same thing? Ed Morrissey, writing at the Hot Air blog, has done yeoman's research into this.

He writes today: "The notion that the Catholic Church declared abortion a sin at the same time as the Pill is patently absurd, and shows that Pelosi has either lied about studying the issue in terms of Church history or lied about what she found. Church writings specifically naming abortion as murder appear as early as 70 AD in the Didache, the first written catechism of the Christian church: ... 'Tertullian, sometimes known as the Father of the Latin Church, wrote with equal clarity and force: "In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance.'" This is AD 179, the year 179, following year 70. "The Catholic catechism is extremely clear on the nature of its position on human life, and has been remarkably consistent on this point for almost 2,000 years, and it finds that position in the Old Testament. Human life begins at conception, not at birth, and not at some point consistent with Roe for convenience.

"In Psalm 51, David refers to his sinfulness beginning at the moment of conception, and sinfulness requires physical life and a soul to exist." So there you have it in the Old Testament. The Catholic Church has not thrown the Old Testament under the bus, the last time I looked. This is a giant embarrassment, or ought to be. Where's Brokaw? Where is the media on this? She got away with this kind of inane, insane rambling, trying to fit one of the most sacred religious beliefs held by Catholics all over the world into a political issue that would conform with a rogue Supreme Court decision called Roe v. Wade in 1973. Now, that is hubris. That is arrogance like I cannot believe. She has placed herself above the doctors of the church, above "St. Augustin," as she said. She has placed herself above the pope and everything the Catholic Church has ever said about this.

--Rush Limbaugh

Rush: On the Supreme Court Decision to Grant Rights to Captured Terrorists

"The Supreme Court decision with Gitmo and habeas corpus, I'm outraged beyond anything I can think of. For them to confer our constitutional rights that we have fought for and died for on those barbarians is just beyond the pale. And these people could not possibly, these five liberal elitists, five lawyers cannot possibly have shown a greater disdain for the Constitution and still say they love America."
--Caller from Norwalk CT, 06/13/08

The Supreme Court ruled this morning that foreign terrorism suspects held at Club Gitmo have rights under the Constitution that challenge their detention in US civilian courts. It was a 5-4 ruling, Anthony Kennedy, the fifth vote, wrote the opinion, handed the Bush administration its third setback at the Supreme Court since 2004 over its treatment of prisoners who are being held indefinitely and without charges at Club Gitmo. "It was not immediately clear whether this ruling, unlike the first two, would lead to prompt hearings for the detainees, some of whom have been held more than 6 years. Roughly 270 men remain at the island prison, classified as enemy combatants and held on suspicion of terrorism or links to Al Qaida and the Taliban." As I said, a military lawyer for Bin Laden's ex-driver has sought dismissal of his case after the Supreme Court ruling this morning. Now, this is an abomination. This is just outrageous. Never before in the history of US warfare have we had to go out and Mirandize prisoners of war. That's what we're going to effectively have to do. We're going to have to read prisoners of war their rights just as we would a thief at the local convenience store. I'll tell you what this means. This means, don't capture 'em.

There is a reaction for every action, and what this means is don't capture 'em. And if you're going to rendition 'em -- and, by the way, that's something started by Bill Clinton in the mid-nineties, rendition is where you send these people to unknown locations where they are held captive by the leaders of those nations who are your allies. Of course, an eager beaver press will be eager to find out where these prisoners have been taken as long as there's a Republican president. What's going to happen now, if these guys, these 270 guys now have access to the US Constitution as though they are citizens, these clowns at Club Gitmo, now the American servicemen and women who captured them going to have to be brought home for trial to explain their actions? I mean, a lot of unanswered questions here, but Ed Morrissey writes at the Hot Air blog, he says in our 232-year history, when have we ever allowed this kind of access to enemy combatants not captured inside the United States itself? These people have been captured in the battlefield. These people have been captured in Afghanistan and in Iraq, certain parts of Pakistan, they're brought to Club Gitmo, and now they are having conferred upon them US constitutional rights.

Rush: Thoughts on Commencement

[Once] long ago, I prepared a commencement address way back when I was still in Kansas City, what I would say to students if they were graduating high school. I've thought about it and I've updated it since. Ten to 15 minutes is tough, but the first thing that I would say is the world does not revolve around you, yet, and you are not the future leaders of this country, yet, just because you've graduated. Now it's up to you to decide what to do with the education that you have. And I would launch into a spirited celebration of the American capitalist system.

I would tell 'em how much of a head start they have over quite a few other people because of their education. Their education was for a purpose. It was to get them into the free market and engage in capitalism and secure the growth of this country because, like their parents, they someday are going to be worried about the future for their kids and they're not going to improve the future of their kids by joining protest marches or wearing ribbons or putting bumper stickers on the backs of their cars. They're going to have to go out, roll up the sleeves, and start working and become productive and further the capitalistic engine of the United States of America. That's how growth is created. I'd probably just continue with that theme. I'd spend some time inspiring them and teaching them a little bit about America to counteract what I thought they had been taught in their classrooms over the course of these past four years or five, depending on how long they've been there. But it would be optimistic, it would be upbeat, it would be positive: You live in the greatest country in the world, and you're gonna hear every day how we're the worst, you're going to hear how we're responsible for global warming and we're destroying the world.

We are not anything but the world's solutions. We are not the problem in the United States of America. I would try to instill in them a pride for being Americans, something that would swell their chests. I would take them through this country and various things that they should be proud of and can be proud of, because it's necessary, because they're going to be bombarded daily, in news, coworkers and so forth, with people whining and moaning and complaining it can't get done, America is evil, and basically my objective would be optimistic inspiration. I would hope -- this is a little bit of a stretch -- but I would hope that immediately after the graduation they would eschew the party and head right to a job interview. They wouldn't do it of course, and I want them to go to the party, but love for the country, appreciation for it, understanding their role in it, and someday they are going to be responsible for its greatness, but that has to be earned. It doesn't just come to you because you're an American.

   -Rush Limbaugh

Rush: On the Great Depression

Folks, it's time for a little history lesson. Now, we're going to get to the phones here in just a second. Please be patient. But I want to do a little history lesson, because also, while in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, yesterday, Barack Obama said this: "I don't think that we're necessarily going in the direction of the Depression," in response to a question during a visit to a suit-making factory. He said, "There are some similarities, though, to the Great Depression, to what happened back in the late twenties and the early thirties and what's been happening now, and the biggest similarity is how we've been dealing with Wall Street and what's happening in the financial markets. As your president, my job is to regulate what happens in the financial markets to make sure that people aren't taking these kinds of risks and that we're having full disclosure." Now, I have a question. How in the world is the Democrat Party about to have this degree of an uneducated man run for president of the United States? How in the world do you graduate from the best university in the world and not know more than this about the Great Depression?

For a presidential candidate to assess the current US economy, as showing similarities to the Great Depression and what happened in the late twenties and the early thirties, is mind-blowing. I do not know how you come out of Harvard not knowing anything more than this about the Great Depression. And then, he said the US housing crisis resulted from a lack of regulation and mortgage lenders, investment banks who ended up with worthless assets. Do you know what we're learning about this subprime business? We are learning that quite a few of these people who are abandoning their homes never lived in them, they were speculators, got caught in a flip. All this talk about people walking away, there's a term now, walk-away mortgages, people walking away because ostensibly they can't afford them. They're walking away because they know they're going to be made whole. They're walking away because they don't have to pay for them. They never lived in these houses, they were flipping them, they were speculating.

But back to the Great Depression. Okay, "Obama Compares Housing Crisis to Great Depression," that is the headline for Reuters. "Obama Compares Housing Crisis to Great Depression." I'm wondering how many of you know what caused the Great Depression and what ended it, and after it started, what it was that exacerbated it. Now, I was trying to figure out last night -- you gotta remember here, I am steaming when I left here yesterday, you can ask Snerdley, I walked outta here, you know, we go out, get in the cars, usually tell each other, "Good show." I didn't say a word. I got in the car and sped off. Snerdley stayed here to play with the new computer. I got home, I was stewing. I take it very poorly when I do what I think is a subpar broadcast, and yesterday was, in terms of mood. Content may have been okay, but anybody can show up on the radio and be mad. That doesn't take much. My mood is better today. Can't you tell? Of course my mood is better today. So I got to thinking, what in the world could Barack Obama have been taught about the Great Depression if he compares today's economy and the housing crisis to it?

Rush: The Left & American Oil Exports from Anti-American Countries

All right, here's Ariel Cohen, and this was published Sunday in the New York Post on the op-ed page. "Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow in International Energy Security at The Heritage Foundation and the author of The Real World, a weekly column published in The Middle East Times." It begins this way: "As you go deeper into debt filling up your tank with $4 gas this weekend, look on the bright side -- you're helping to fund countries that hate you. From Russia to Iran to Venezuela, America's adversaries are splurging on oil windfalls, while programs directed against Uncle Sam and his allies are funded by petroleum revenues. Big bucks are allowing the oil sultans and dictators to intimidate US allies, buy politicians and academics, and purchase election outcomes. Oil prices are going up partly because of supply and speculation -- but also because these countries can decide to punish the US or limit our influence, particularly when they disagree with policies toward Iraq and Israel.

Accepting the Nature of Islam

Rush interviewed Andrew McCarthy on his show yesterday. Andrew was the leading U.S. attorney in the prosecution of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the villain behind the 1993 WTC bombing.

The interview reminded me of an important issue--and frequent misconception--surrounding the religion of Islam. Being a Christian, I obviouslly believe my faith to be "the one". But the Islam religion is very different in the pantheon of faiths. Since 9/11 we have heard many times over that the Muslim jihadists (or "Islamofascists" as I prefer to call them) have hijacked the Muslim faith. This in fact is not true. I know this is not politically correct to state, and I can see a conservative Christian such as myself being accused of sabre-rattling, but the facts are the facts; and the fact is, the nature of this 1500-year old religion is often emasculated by the media and "experts".

MCCARTHY:  Well, I was the lead prosecutor, and [an] informant turned out to be the main witness in the case, and he was my witness, so I spent, you know, quite a bit of time studying what he had done and also, you know, having to do the other odds and ends that you do when you do a case like this, one of which was to try to get prepared in the event the [Sheik Rahman] decided to testify, which, you know, ultimately he didn't do but that didn't mean we didn't have to prepare for it.  And that was an eye-opener.  In fact, the whole experience in watching the dynamic of him and other people in the Muslim community throughout the trial was a real eye-opener for me.  I wanted to believe in 1993 the stuff that we were putting out, you know, that he basically perverted who was otherwise a peaceful doctrine.  But what I found was going through all of his thousands of pages of transcripts and statements, was that when he cited scripture to justify acts of terrorism, to the extent he was quoting scripture or referring to it, he did it accurately, which shouldn't be a surprise.

... There's no other way of putting it.  And it shouldn't have been a surprise.  I mean, he was a doctor of Islamic jurisprudence, graduated from Al-Azhar University in Egypt.  Why in the world I would have thought that I or the Justice Department would know more about Islam than he would is beyond me now that I look back on it, but back then I was pretty confident that we must have been right when we said that he was basically perverting the doctrine.

So the truth is, when Iran's president or the leaders of the Taliban and Al-Qaida, admonish the Muslim community for being traitors or soft when helping the West combat terrorism--the truth is they are correctly rebuking their fellow Muslims according to their scriptures; Muslims who practice their religion as a peaceful faith are really the ones hijacking Islam (in the eyes of the greater muslim world). Take this exchange:

RUSH:  We live in the United States of America, and the people who live here, many of them have not traveled abroad; and as a result there are many things that they take for granted and one of the things I think a lot of people take for granted is that we're pretty much like the rest of the world, except they're very impressionable and they're told that the rest of the world hates us. They despise us because of our affluence, because our productivity, because we are a small portion of the world's population and we use a majority of the world's resources. All these things, and the education system labels guilt throughout our society.  You mentioned these people in the fourteenth century.  One of the things I constantly try to tell people is that -- to demonstrate the true greatness of western democracies, representative republics and a western civilization, a culture. We are all born as little savages.  If we were not raised by parents -- if we were not instructed in right and wrong, morality and so forth -- we would turn out however we did.  These people remind me of just that.  They're being raised to behave and think as they do.  I'm talking about the jihadists, this culture that's 1400 years old.  Human beings are not by instinct, not by nature good.  That has to be programmed into them, it has to be raised in them -- and these people of course have a different definition.  They think they are good, they're doing everything in the name of God, and yet their crimes are against humanity.

MCCARTHY:  You know, Rush, that's exactly right.  It actually brings me to another memory of the dynamic between [Sheik Rahman] and the community, which was an eye-opener and a frightening one to me.  We had very long defense case in the case. It actually went on for about two months; and during the course of it, any number of moderate people came in -- and they really were authentic moderate people.  There's no way on God's green earth they ever would have crossed into terrorism activity. But every now and then when they were on the stand, a question of theology would come up, of doctrine. You know, "What does jihad mean? What does this concept mean?" and at least three different times, they answered, "I wouldn't be competent to say. You'd have to ask someone like [Sheik Rahman] about that."

Andrew added this important point at the end of the interview:

"Even if you don't agree with why we went to Iraq in the first place -- and, you know, say we should never have been there --the fact is that the worst thing we ever did was pull out of Lebanon in 1983 when the Marine barracks got hit.  The next worst thing we probably ever did was pull out of Somalia when that got ugly.  These people -- and when I talk about "these people," I mean people like Bin Laden and [Sheik Rahman] -- if used to a fair thee well as a recruiting tool this notion that they're the strong horse, we're the weak horse; and if they make it ugly enough and bloody enough for us, that we will pull out.  It's like when a very strong team plays a very weak team in sports.  The strong team can never give the weak team a sniff, because the minute you do and they start to think they can win, and they start to believe in themselves, they become much more efficient. It becomes much more easy for them to recruit, to raise money, to do all the things they have to do to take on a superpower.  What they have going for them that we don't, is they have basically eradicated our threshold idea of what is civilized behavior.  They are willing to do anything to win, and they're absolutely sure that history is on their side.  Unless we become more sure than we are now that we're right, and that we have a need to show them that however long it takes, we're going to do what has to be done to win; you know, we can't rely on the fact that we're a super power and that it's inevitable that we'll win this thing."

Even a brief walk through history reveals that the Muslim world exists today through its military conquests and sectarian world-view. Do you think it a coincidence that the war between Islam and the West is almost as old as Islam itself? The first real step towards combating Islam is first understanding that at its core it is not a peaceful religion. Its followers are not brain-washed lemmings, but zealous followers of their teachings. Talking about them in this fashion makes Christians such as myself sound extreme...like we are calling for a crusade of our own. Ironically that is exactly what they like to hear because it justifies their inhumane actions.

I am not calling for a crusade, but we do have the right to defend ourselves and support our allies who desire to live in a world of freedom. This we should do without the veils of political correctness or ignorance, and with the firm conviction that we are right in doing so.

Rush: Democrats, the Media & Voter Manipulation

Ladies and gentlemen, let me address something here. I know more and more of you are writing me e-mails about the possibility of you being indicted or charged with voter fraud. I, of course, am under the same threat, just now contained in the state of Ohio. It's bogus. I wouldn't worry about it. Look at this as a badge of honor, ladies and gentlemen. If anybody gets indicted, if anybody has to go jail, it will be me -- and I'll do my program from jail for the short amount of time I will be there before I am excused and the charges dismissed. Let me ask you a question about this, seriously. Who has been manipulating the voting public for the last many years? Who has been planting fake documents and stories to influence elections? Who has been making up phony polls and poll questions before elections, pushing a particular point of view? And who has been ignoring important stories affecting the candidates they favored?

Who has been running puff pieces on their favorites? Who's been running trumped up hit pieces on those candidates they despised? And now, a harmless, lovable little fuzzball like me comes along, and explains and exploits a loophole in Democrat primaries, and that information has impacted the nominating process. The result? All hell has broken loose. That's because voter education was not supposed to be my job. Manipulating election results has been the sole responsibility of the Drive-By Media. At least that's the tradition. They are the ones who reserve exclusively for themselves, the right to tamper with and monkey around with election results, to manipulate them. Now I have come along, gotten in the game, and they are frosted. I had the temerity, ladies and gentlemen, to tinker with a tradition, a liberal Democrat tradition: voter manipulation. I had the temerity, I had the audacity, I had the courage to get in that game myself, to tinker with what they thought was theirs. And they say, "How dare Limbaugh do this?" and they say, "Limbaugh, you will pay. Your job is to shut up and leave electioneering to the Drive-Bys."

When you stop and think about the continuous, massive stream of propaganda put out by the Drive-By Media for the express purpose of influencing the outcome of elections -- local, state, national -- it has been legalized, false advertised. It has been propaganda. It has devolved into an acceptable form of voter fraud. That's what Dan Rather was trying to do with the Bush National Guard stories. All this talk about we can't win the war, all this talk about how rotten the economy is, all this reporting that has no factual basis whatsoever, in an election year? It's all designed to manipulate votes, and the Drive-Bys had reserved this for themselves exclusively. The facts prove the liberal bias of media. What does "liberal bias" mean? It means blatant attempts to fix elections. It means donating time, space, and money to Democrats. It means smearing Republicans, especially conservatives. It means poisoning the political process for their own liberal ideological purposes. All these polls that they claim are news; they are attempts to make news. They are at the same time to formulate and manipulate public opinion. The media today is one giant propaganda machine for Democrats and liberals, and that's especially true during elections. Fixing elections? Why, that's a Democrat Party tradition, ladies and gentlemen.

Dead voters voting, massive propaganda, dirty tricks, stuffing ballot boxes, walking-around money, you name it. Did I give out any information that was factually incorrect? No. Did I create fake documents? No. Have I smeared anyone? No. That hasn't been an EIB tradition. That is a liberal Democrat Party tradition. The Democrats wrote their primary rules. I wasn't in the room. I had no hand in it. I had no say-so in it. They wrote their own rules. But guess what? Those rules do not preempt the First Amendment. No one has done anything illegal, even though the fix was in for Obama. The Drive-Bys picked their winner. They protected Obama. They puffed him up. They never vetted him. They put him on a pedestal. Then Operation Chaos kicked in. The fix got unfixed. The candidate the Drive-Bys made the designated loser won Texas and Ohio. All the propaganda, all the bias, all the electioneering planned and executed by the Drive-By Media got flushed down the toilet. Their manipulations got manipulated, and they are mad about it. So what's the problem with Operation Chaos? Well, until now, influencing elections in clever ways has been the exclusive purview of the Drive-By Media.

   -Rush Limbaugh

Rush: Health Care, Rights, and Obligations

"[W]e have accepted too many premises of the left in all of these social problems that we have and we want to massage their basic solution just enough that we can call it ours. And we might want to throw in, as you are doing, a little touch of capitalism or free market to it, but it basically is going to stay a socialized system. Going back to your business about health care is not a right. No less than Mr. Buckley said that to me. He has said it to a number of people, "Health care isn't a right, it is a privilege." Now, what are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to sacrifice language, are we supposed to give up on definite concepts in order win votes and win elections? It's like I had a column from the American Spectator the other day from a guy that lives in Nebraska, very big on ethanol. We're not supposed to criticize ethanol. We're not supposed to criticize this stuff because we'll not get votes. So we're supposed to go along with something that doesn't work, is more expensive.

"We just had a story yesterday that if these ethanol tankers driving around happen to have an accident and they blow up, the foam to put out an ethanol fire is 30% more expensive than the foam required to put out a gasoline fire and communities are having to ramp up for this. The cost of corn is going through the roof. The cost of wheat's going up. A bagel on Long Island a year ago that was 60 cents is now a buck, all of this because of a hoax. And yet to keep the farm vote we're supposed to not criticize something that doesn't work. A friend of mine in a state on the East Coast sent me a note. This is yesterday: "I heard a rather liberal GOP political consultant here in Raleigh say today that health care is too complicated to be a deciding issue in the elections; it can't be summarized in 30 seconds, it's just too hard." So we're not even supposed to talk about it, don't even go there. Liberal Republican consultants, don't even talk about health care, it's a losing issue, just as you are saying, Tony. I don't accept that it's a losing issue, and I don't accept that we have to accept things about it, like it's a right or it is too complicated.

"In less than 30 seconds, I can explain health care in a nutshell. No employer, no insurance company, no politician or government bureaucrat knows better than you about your family's health needs. You should have the right to purchase health care and health insurance as you see fit without governmental restrictions or penalties, and you should not be of the mind that your neighbors have to buy it for you. Less than 30 seconds I've just explained the concept of fixing health care. It is not complicated. It is very simple. We get liberalism out of it; we get socialism out of it; we disabuse people of the notion that liberals have impressed them with that it is a right. I'm starting to hear a lot of this, "We can't say that we're going to lose the election. We can't say that. We can't say his middle name. We can't call him a liberal. We can't be critical of health care as a right." Pretty soon our own people are going to succeed in shutting enough of us up that liberalism is going to win without having to say a damn thing.

Rush: Energy Costs and the Global Warming Hoax

This entry is dominated by a caller named Michael, who is a restaurant owner from Wilmington DE:

...CALLER: Rush, I've been in business for 30 years. I've been successful. I have been delivering food to the state of Delaware economically, spectacularly, winning awards. My credentials are impeccable. I can't bring the food any more to the table at the price I'm bringing it because of Delmarva Power and Light, which is really not their fault, it's our governor. It's Joe Biden. These people are out of their minds, Rush. We don't need free health care. That is not the problem in this country. We're being crippled with energy. We can't bring oil out of ANWR, we can't drill off your estate at Palm Beach. No one wants to look at a derrick.

RUSH: I wouldn't mind.

CALLER: I know you wouldn't mind. But there's something crazy taking place. The price of my kilowatt is a dime because they want to take the CO2 and put it into a cave and save it. They can deliver it at three cents. American Electric Power has been in business for a hundred years. They know what to do. Governors telling them what to do, how to build the plant, not to use coal, demonizing oil, a woman named Jane Fonda sits on a cannon and stops an entire world from delivering nuclear power with this movie she made --

RUSH: Exactly right. In fact, I watched a little bit of that yesterday. It was on HDNet movie --

CALLER: How does this happen, Rush? How does this happen?

RUSH: Fear.

CALLER: How do intelligent Americans allow -- why can't we build nuclear? We can create 40,000 jobs by bringing oil in from ANWR. We bring it by a pipeline, not with a tanker, no spill, no Exxon Valdez, what is going on, Rush?

RUSH: What's going on, it is --

CALLER: Twenty-nine states with 29 different grades of gasoline? We're paying over three dollars for regular. Rush, I don't care. I got the money. I drive only 12-cylinder cars.

RUSH: Thank God.

CALLER: I wouldn't put my grandchildren in no little mini-boxes. But I'm not talking about me, and I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about working America. They think they need free health care? They need two dollar a gallon gas, this country will explode. They're heating their houses. You think there's a subprime crisis, Rush? Yes, there's a subprime crisis. That's not the problem. People bought a house they thought their energy was going to be $250. They get a bill, it's $385. They go to the gas station, they spend another $40, so they stop coming out to my restaurant. They stop buying 24/7. They don't buy a newsletter. Rush, there is a domino effect taking place. It's energy. We bring down the price of a plasma television set. I bought one for $10,000, a Fujitsu, it's now $1,100.

RUSH: I've been there.

CALLER: We bring down the price of phones. We bring down the price of computers. Why do we bring up the price of energy? Why do you allow the Sierra Club to run this country? What is going on? These people are walking through the country and telling us to go on a bicycle? I need Larry David to drive around for four years in Curb Your Enthusiasm with Priuses? What is going on, Rush? We're out of our mind. People are calling up and saying he's liberal, he's conservative, he's this, he's that. They're driving themselves into a barrel. They're not going to get out, the Bo Snerdleys of the world. I'm talking about young couples. I've got two young boys. They're trying to bring children up. They're getting energy bills that are knocking their homes out of sight. Nothing, nothing is more important than to bring -- energy is what makes this world tick. We're beholden to Chavezes and Castros and Putins, we want to go dig here, dig there. Can you dig in Alaska? Oh, no, we're going to kill a caribou. This is nonsense. This doesn't make any sense. How do we allow these idiots to get on television and talk about foreign oil? There is no -- Rush, you have got to lead a charge. It is not that McCain is reaching over the aisle, he's a global warmer!

RUSH: I know!

CALLER: Rush, if this man gets in, he will not help the American family. If Obama gets in, there will be no American family. Rush, the point is energy. You've gotta get the bureaucrats out of the energy business. I know American Electric Power. I knew in 1980 that this country would never drill for oil again. I went out and bought Esso before it was Exxon, I bought the stock. I get my gasoline for free. I get dividends from ExxonMobil. They're a spectacular corporation. Rush, they have 27 energy projects going in the world today, zero in North America.

RUSH: I know.

CALLER: Why? Why is this allowed? How do we stay captured by a moron who wants to save an owl, a fish, a bird, a dog, a snake, a rat? What about my grandkids? What is going on Rush?

Rush: The Disillusionment of "Hope"

You've heard me say it: "The most expensive thing we pay for in this country is ignorance." (sigh) Because of ignorance, Hillary Clinton's viable. Hillary Clinton's the least qualified. She has no business being anywhere near the Democrat Party nomination -- nowhere near it, for any of the right reasons. Zilch, zero, nada. For that matter, neither is Obama. But Obama's got this soaring, JFK-like, totally vapid, vapid rhetoric. "It makes me feel so good, Rush!" Fine. You want to feel good? Enjoy it while it lasts, 'til he gets elected. (interruption) What? What now, Snerdley? (interruption) Snerdley says, "You keep underestimating the value of hope." I guess this is going to perhaps rub people the wrong way, and I don't like rubbing people the wrong way. I really don't.

I like to rub you the right way. I don't like being rubbed the wrong way. There's a specific way to do it that I like. I wouldn't want it done wrongly, incorrectly. I'm underestimating the value of hope, did you say? What are you hoping for right now, Mr. Snerdley? What are you hoping for? If you're going to talk to me about hope, how much time a day do you spend hoping, and for what do you hope? By the way, any of you on the phones want to try to answer this question, tell me what you're hoping for. What do you hope for? You're hoping for a better country. Okay, you are hoping for a better country. You think I'm not? Well, I'm not "hoping" for it! I'm trying to create it! I'm trying to make it happen. What do you mean, "hoping for"? I want it. Hope... You go look up the definition of "hope." Hope is valid. It's a valid emotion. You can't avoid it. We all have, "Gee, I -- I hope the plane's on time." "I hope my -- my refund check arrives next week to pay off my subprime sub-loan so I can go out and get my new refrigerator." Hope is the stepchild of sympathy. It's like sympathy. You can have sympathy for somebody.

Rush: The End of the Reagan Era?

I think the brokered convention would pick one of the people who had filed for president, but I think the process, after all, it was... You know, Abraham Lincoln was running third and won the convention. He didn't come in first on the first ballot, and so, I think there's nothing unhealthy about the Republican Party having a serious discussion. We are at the end of the George W. Bush era. We are at the end of the Reagan era. We're at a point in time when we're about to start redefining -- as a number of people started talking about, starting to redefine -- the nature of the Republican Party, in response to what the country needs.   --Newt Gingrich, "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" (13 January 2008)

All right, now, this conversation is fine and dandy, and before I have any comments here, I want to remind everybody and preface this with the fact that, as you know, I have supported Newt Gingrich, and I've had a lot of respect for him, still do, over the course of many years. I first became aware of Newt Gingrich when I was in Kansas City, and he was a back bencher Republican in a very small minority in the House of Representatives. This was during the second term of Ronald Reagan. Actually, it was the first term. This would be before 1984, and Newt popularized the Special Orders. These are speeches from the floor of the House at the close of business. Often he was the only one there with a couple of other Republicans. C-SPAN was required to televise them, and it was some of the most spirited defense of the Reagan policies, vision, administration that I've ever heard. It was entirely inspiring, and I was working at a news station in Kansas City at the time -- a station that carries my program even to this day, KNBZ -- and I had my first interview with Gingrich at that point. He was clearly inspirational. Now, something has changed since then. I have suspected -- I've not known, but I have suspected -- that Newt is advising the Huckabee campaign.

Rush: Liberalism, Religion & Freedom, and The Founding Fathers

I want to go back to some of the lib reaction to a passage in Mitt Romney's speech yesterday. It just has the libs up in arms. In fact, let's go back and, Ed, grab sound bite five. We'll just start at the top here because this is worth hearing again. This is Romney from the speech yesterday in College Station, Texas, and he is quoting one of the founders, John Adams.

ROMNEY: In John Adams' words: 'We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people. Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.'

Rush: Liberalism and Christianity

Let me take another stab at this Romney business.  And, again, at the outset, as I have said repeatedly over the course of many previous years of service to America behind this, the Golden EIB Microphone, I endorse no candidate during primaries, unless somebody comes along and you just know.  It hasn't happened.  So keep that in mind as I say this.  The speech today by Romney is being ripped to shreds.  Some of the most specious manners and techniques, the craziest analysis by conservatives, and a lot of conservatives out there, in the media and otherwise, have already chosen sides.  You have your Rudy camp, your Mitt camp, your Huckabee camp, the McCain camp out there.  You have the Fred Thompson camp.  I'm looking at some of this stuff -- and it's politics -- and I wouldn't be surprised if some campaigns are behind this.  This speech, the kind of stuff he said today is the kind of stuff I've been dreaming of hearing in a presidential campaign in a long time in terms of what this country is and where we're headed.

Rush: The Difference Between Vietnam and Iraq

There's a series of differences. In the first place, Vietnam, that was a war started and run by Democrats. Iraq was started, of course, by the terrorists.

Rush: Senselessness of Worry

Worrying is telling yourself a negative outcome of a future event. And you can't possibly know if the outcome of a future event is going to be negative. So what does that lead to? Well, it leads to distraction, it leads to suffering, self-imposed suffering. It leads to paralyzation in some cases and you end up causing yourself all kinds of grief. Then you get depressed, get miserable and so forth and become self-consuming, or all consuming.

   Rush Limbaugh

Rush: The Liberal View

I want to say something for the record here, folks, and I want it to be recorded. Today, April the 12th, the day of the cigar dinner, let it be recorded that we conservatives are the ones standing for free speech. We conservatives are the ones standing for diversity of thought and honest communication. You do not hear a conservative anywhere suggest that anybody be taken off any radio station, television station, movies or what have you. We do not urge censorship because we are not afraid of the free flow of ideas. Liberals are. Thomas Sowell said something that is so brilliant. It's a brilliant insight. Dr. Sowell said, "The liberals' favorite argument is that there is no argument. Nothing uttered in opposition to liberal beliefs exists, in their minds, at least nothing worthy of their intellectual engagement." That's why global warming, we can't argue about it! There are global warming "deniers." We gotta shut up! We cannot have alternative views of global warming. There is no alternative view. There is only the liberal view. Liberals fail on talk radio because they can't make their case!

They don't dare make their case in public. They can't anyway. They can't argue it. That's why liberals fail in talk radio. It's why they fail anywhere where they don't dominate. It's why they refuse to go on Fox! There is no alternative to liberalism. They refuse to acknowledge it. They are the ones trying to censor. They're the ones trying to indoctrinate[...] Liberals want to shut down radio programs. They want to shut down Fox News. They want to shut down political speech.

They want to shut down anybody who doesn't embrace their ideology, and they want to criminalize those who don't embrace their ideology. Today it's the race baiters. Tomorrow it's going to be some other cause, but liberalism is what it is, and it exists to silence people who don't agree. [...]If they can shut down talk radio -- and they'll try -- they'll shut it down tomorrow. Make no mistake. They cannot compete, folks. Air America was an embarrassing, blithering, total bomb-out of a failure. Every liberal talk show that's been tried is insignificant, at best. They can't silence their opposition, so they take a run at it here and there through proposals to renew the Fairness Doctrine or use intimidation or the threat of sponsor boycotts or whatever to demand the things they don't want to hear, not be allowed to be said. They can't compete in the open marketplace of ideas because their ideas are flawed and airing those ideas makes it clear that they are flawed.

   Rush Limbaugh

Rush: The Difference Between Conservatism and Liberalism

Let's accept some givens, that all people -- and I'm going to be very charitable here, because in some cases what I'm going to say is not applicable to some liberals, but just for the general discussion here, we all -- want economic prosperity.  We all want opportunity.  We all want a chance at the American dream.  We all want to be left alone.  We don't want to be hassled.  We don't want to have obstacles placed in our way by government in the pursuit of our dreams.  The question and the argument that we have in this country is how best to provide it.  That's where the line of demarcation is broad, because on the left, liberals do not believe that a majority of people have the ability to realize the American dream on their own.  Liberals have general contempt for the average American and average human being.  Liberals have a condescending contempt for the abilities, the intelligence, the ambition, and desire of average human beings.

They must hold that view in order to be liberal, because liberalism is assuming people are helpless and hopeless and then growing government and all kinds of state power structures to "assist" people in their incompetence, and in the process you actually make your philosophy a self-fulfilling prediction.  You disable the competitive nature; you disable the entrepreneurial spirit; you disable the American dream; and you force people to focus on government and whatever benefits they can get as a means of getting by.  Conservatives have the ultimate faith in the individual.  Conservatives believe that the individual, rugged individualism is what defines excellence and its pursuit is what made this country what it is.  We believe that people can be better than they even know themselves or think themselves capable of being.  We want to do everything we can to educate and inspire and motivate people along those lines.  We want a great country!  We want people who are individually able to raise families, to support them, to inspire them because they themselves are that way. 

We want optimistic people of good cheer who have a hope that is realistic: that they can triumph over the obstacles that all of life throws at us.  Liberals think those obstacles are insurmountable because they must.  Now, that's the basic difference.  So, okay: how come some people are not conservative and some are?  Well, you have to get to specific issues like abortion and gay marriage and this sort of thing, and that would be one way of doing it.  But any Republican who is oriented toward growth of government, the growth of the state, and the idea that people need infinite amount of help because they're incapable of doing things on their own, doesn't qualify as a conservative to me -- and there are plenty of those.  There are liberal Republicans all over the place.  It's not hard to make these distinctions or to draw up these definitions. 

By the same token, this is one of the big problems we face: the liberals, in their pursuit of this agenda, use government. They train their youth. They train their college students. They get them into "nonprofits." They get them into Harvard and Yale for the express purpose of going into government, being a bureaucrat forever, growing government, and controlling it and taking over.  Republican conservatives look at government as something that ought to be out of the way and invisible most of the time.  So we don't target our people to go there because when you go there you want to use it to enact your philosophy.  Conservatism does not use government to enact what it believes.  It uses individuals.  It empowers individuals.  Conservatism wants to limit government -- and often going to government to limit it is not an attractive option for young people, but it is for the left.  So it's challenge.

   Rush Limbaugh, to a "moderate" from MO

Rush: The Role of Jesus in Liberalism

"I want to move on to something that's just as disgusting as the Libby travesty, and that's Mr. John Edwards. During his first failed bid for the presidency, John Edwards, the Breck Girl, was touted as a brilliant trial lawyer -- in part because he channeled the words of a dead child during his summation on a big case, and got a huge award. Well, here at the beginning of another presidential election cycle, retread candidate Edwards has set his sights higher. He has appointed himself spokesman for Jesus. Edwards said that Jesus would be upset with America's willingness to go to war “when it isn't necessary.” He further said, “I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. I think he would be appalled, actually.

"Mr. Edwards, would he be appalled at your 82,000-square-foot mansion that nobody can get to because it's gated? Would he be appalled at your 2,800-square-foot beach house near Wilmington, North Carolina? That's close to 85,000-square-feet of living space for you and your family, and you dare sit there and accuse everybody else of misplacing their priorities and saying they're not doing enough to help the unfortunate? Jesus might be appalled that you have the guts to speak out and point fingers anywhere but yourself, sir. Senator Edwards, let me tell you something. This is why your campaign is going to fail big time. Americans are the most giving people in history, not just during times of calamity like tidal waves and hurricanes and tornadoes. Americans give daily to cure people we never met, here and across the world. We feed, we educate, children in cultures who are taught to hate our guts, Mr. Edwards! Every day Americans offer countless acts of kindness to strangers, because that is our nature. Not to mention the gifts granted to others from all of the taxes we pay.

"Yet you, former Senator John Edwards -- patron saint of stiff hair, hair spray, and empty heads -- you use Jesus to mischaracterize Americans as selfish warmongers, with no right to defend our country when attacked? Senator, would you dare ever attack our enemies? Would you ever say one negative word about our enemies? Just one time, would you ever try to characterize our enemies as they are? What is it about you, senator, that when you look at this country you see nothing but failure and selfishness? Could it be because you're looking at this country in the mirror, sir, and you see yourself? If anything is appalling, Senator Edwards, it is you and your shameful view of your fellow citizens and your transparent and sophomoric attempt to use Jesus and to suggest that Jesus would be appalled at this nation as a whole. You, sir, need to get out there. You think there are two Americas? There might be, and you are in the one part of America -- and I don't see any sacrifice from you, sir. You think your words and your compassion expressed verbally, count for something? You think it makes the poor and the downtrodden better off? Words are not deeds, nor are they actions. In your case, sir, in addition to what they aren't, they are also empty.

"I have one more thing here for the esteemed former senator from North Carolina. Hey, senator, you want to talk about Jesus being appalled? You ever heard of abortion, senator? You ever heard of euthanasia? Have you ever of a culture, led by your side, which decides who lives and dies based on the convenience to the living, sir? You want to talk about Jesus being appalled? Don't make up a bunch of BS about Jesus being disappointed about the way Americans treat the underprivileged. The entire world has a better living standard than it would otherwise, have because of the existence of the people of the United States of America."

   Rush Limbaugh

Rush: Racism in America

Recognize that there are great strides that have taken place and will continue to take place, and understand that everybody in life has certain kinds of obstacles. There are any number of people who are discriminated against because of various aspects of their existence. And we all face them. My point is that rather than sit around and tell people to continue to wallow in the past and think that that creates some sort of an entitlement, that is not a service to people. That is keeping them down and keeping them in a place where they're never going to realize their full potential.

There are countless millions of examples throughout this country of black Americans who have overcome all of this, who are realizing their dreams, who are doing it by their own hard work and their initiative. The market is there for achievement and for excellence and accomplishment. I want every individual to be the best they can be. I want every individual to understand the potential that resides inside them -- because I want a great country. I cringe when I see anybody, any group or any individual being told that they don't have a chance to become anything because of X, when this country disproves it each and every day.

Derek, there are certain undeniable facts. There are Asians that have immigrated to this country who are running rings around Native Americans born here, white, black, what have you, because they don't have any of these reference points of discrimination and history. In fact, if they wanted to, they could. They could go back and say we were imprisoned and we were mistreated building the railroads. They don't do that. They just come here and they run rings around everybody. The University of California had to reorient its admission system because the people scoring highest on entrance exams were Asians, and it still is a problem. Achievement orientation, becoming better than you think that you can be, any of these things, these are great human characteristics. Human, not white, not Asian, not black.

They're in all of us. But when somebody, or especially a group of people, is told by a political party for 50 years that they don't have a chance unless they vote a certain way, I react the same way as when I hear that people suffering incurable diseases only have a chance if Democrats are elected. It offends me, it enrages me, and for those of you in Rio Linda, it makes me mad. All I'm saying is that the desire I have for every human being to use the opportunity of life, to maximize their enjoyment and the opportunity to achieve -- this is how we define ourselves -- is in all of us, and when it's denied because of a political party desiring to get a bloc of votes from people by keeping them dependent, I am offended, I am outraged at that. That, to me, is human bondage, Derek, and it is still going on. If there's a plantation in this country today, it's owned and operated by white liberals.

   Rush Limbaugh, to a caller from Detroit MI

Rush: The Politics of Global Warming

"[Al Gore.] Every time he opens his mouth the temperature drops ten degrees no matter where he goes, and yet, not a word, folks! Not a word about the fact that there might be even some curiosity -- not even some skepticism -- because [global warming] is not about science and it's not about weather and it's not about warming. It's all about politics. It's about left versus right. It's about liberal versus conservative. The Drive-By Media today, they're no longer really journalists. They're not reporting news. ...

"There's no science in this global warming. It's politics and consensus, and you have to understand: you're not capable, I'm not capable, none of us are capable of destroying the planet. All this is, is an attempt to make you feel guilty for the efforts you are undertaking via an advanced lifestyle to destroy the planet so you'll go for big government and big taxes to supposedly fix what isn't broken. It's asinine."

   Rush Limbaugh, responding to a caller from OK

Rush: Race & The Sports Media

"You stop telling me about all the social problems that exist in the NFL based on race and so forth, and I will keep doing what I do by not noticing those things, and I'll stop making fun of you guys for doing it."

   Rush Limbaugh, in response to Peter King's recent Sports Illustrated column

The Separation of Church and State

Porbably one of the most misinterpreted American ideal in our history, Rush Limbaugh lists some solid facts in this conversation that he had with a 13-year old caller.

The most noteworthy of Rush's comments were:

[The separation of church and state] is based on an abject fear of Christianity on the part of the American left and activist judges, Kayla. Thomas Jefferson coined the term "separation of church and state" in a letter to the Danbury Baptists, but there are two things about this. His letter has been taken out of context, and he was not even a framer of the Constitution. Jefferson was in France drinking wine at the time that the Constitution was drafted.

...

Liberals don't like the word "not" after "thou shalt." They don't like any proscription on their behavior whatsoever. They want to be fee to do anything, any time, anywhere, with nobody judging them, and they look at Christians as a bunch of hayseed hicks who are constantly sitting in judgment of them and condemning them to hell and this sort of stuff. But you're right, brilliantly so. There is no right in the Constitution not to be offended. Yet the courts and the liberals are so paranoid about Christianity, they've been willing to suppress one of our most important freedoms and you have brilliantly at age 13 deduced this on your own, and that is the free exercise of your religion, and they're doing this to protect a nonexistent right -- and that is the right not to be offended.

So you got that? No one has the right not to be offended.

LIFACS: Limbaugh #1 Hard News Source

Man this is great. A Pew survey lists Rush Limbaugh's show as being the leading source for those that follow hard news--that means both for Conservatives AND LIberals. Of course, the Liberal Media is reeling at this, as evidenced at a recent panel discussion at the Bob Schieffer School of Journalism. Of course, Dr Limbaugh had some clips of this panel discussion (broadcast on CSPAN) as well as responses to the clips that. First the full Question and Answer:

QUESTIONER: The topic that hasn't come up tonight is Rush Limbaugh. They have assaulted the objectivity of newspapers, television, in the case of Limbaugh, I don't know, 15 years. They label our industry as "drive-by media," with a hidden agenda, and yet there's really no response to that that I'm aware of, other than individuals like myself, who continue to argue with good friends that what they're doing is like McCarthy did in the fifties. Will this pass? Are they doing incredible damage to our industry? What's their future, and how will that impact journalism?

LEN DOWNIE (Washington Post editor): I don't think they impact journalism very much at all. They're building their own audiences, and they're entertainers. People who agree with them and like to hear those things reinforced on the right or the left will pay attention to them more. We can say 'til we're blue in the face that the Washington Post is not liberal, and the Washington Post is accurate, and the Washington Post is not what Rush Limbaugh says it is, but readers are going to judge us by what we do. We have to do our jobs well.

One of my favorites responses was Rush's on the questioner's first couple of statements:

Okay. "the topic that hasn't come up tonight is Rush Limbaugh. They've assaulted the objectivity of newspapers." See, I'm a "they" now. The topic that hasn't come up is Rush Limbaugh. "They" have assaulted... I am a "They." I am talk radio. I am a multiple-headed beast, ladies and gentlemen. "They have assaulted the objectivity of newspapers, television, in the case..." No, we haven't. We've simply pointed out the lack of it, and you guys have done the job for us. The only difference is that there is a group of people now that has the ability to analyze what you do. You guys used to have a monopoly where you got to set the agenda. You got to report what people didn't dispute that you had said, thereby making it true.

You got to play all kinds of tricks on people. I mean, we could cite countless examples. You blew up trucks to make it look like it happened accidentally on NBC. You did the Dan Rather story. I mean, the litany of stories has been documented. The thing that you guys have gone wrong with is you pretend to be objective. Just admit who you are like we do, and you'd have far fewer problems. Your audiences are dwindling and your audiences are dwindling because you're not trusted anymore. It is known that you now have an agenda, always have had. We can look at what you're doing in Iraq, and with Bush, and see that you're trying to relive the glory days of Vietnam and Watergate. You are all are going back to your past, to your glory days, trying to find reasons to convince yourselves that those days can be again, but they can't. They are over with.

(To read the full transcript from this segement after April 12th, you will have to subscribe to Rush Limbaugh's "24/7" service and go to the archives. Whether you are Conservative or Liberal, the archives provide a wealth of information and dozens of relevant media-source links everyday.)

You're Never Too Old OR Young

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this caller from Thurday's edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show. At age 19 he finally discovered the truth about today's Democratic Party and the media--and even more, the importance of research and finding things out for yourself as opposed to listening to the lib media and the biased crap they cram over the airwaves and on the newsprint.

"So I went to college. I went to a small private school in North Carolina, and I went, and I joined like campaign for Kerry, and I'm very sad to say I voted for Kerry and '04, and after that -- I mean, very shortly; I'm talking like even a month after that -- I started to study. Somebody said Ronald Reagan was just the crappiest president ever so I actually studied and looked at some of his numbers and the things that he said, and it's exactly like you're talking about. I mean, it's emasculating how the Democratic Party is, just because, I mean, Reagan and Bush, they have that in common. They see something and they know it's right, they're going to do it no matter what and that's what a man does, and the Democratic Party, I mean, that's the reason I left [them]"

LIFACS: Convenient Incompassion

Rush recently screened March of the Penguins. Here he's commenting on one of the special "making of" features that showed some baby penguins that have fallen into a crack in the ice. Three feet away are the French filmers documenting this...

"[I] was sitting there amazed. Here are these animal rights people, these big libs, and they're content to have these three little chicks die unnecessarily just to prove the point that men were killing them, in which case they were right." --el Rushbo, 01.05.06

And libs think that we conservatives are incompassionate worms! It's interesting what a wacko environmentalist Liberal will do to prove their points. They will do whatever it takes to get their point across--that Man is the Environment's mortal enemy--even if it means making martyrs out of their staunchest supporters in the Animal Kingdom to further their political agenda. (Sounds chillingly familiar, this whole state-imposed martyrdom-thing.)

"But it's nature," they say. "You can't interfere with the natural course of nature!" Now imagine if it had been a Conservative filmmaker shooting these baby penguins...

This is how the liberal mind thinks: "Is this convenient"

Global Warming as Politics

It's rare that I will use this blog to make an opinion post not written by myself. This is one of those rare times.

A few weeks back, when the political and scientific fall-out from Hurricane Katrina was still in the air, I was fortunate enough to tune into The Rush Limbaugh show (on Wednesday, August 31st) just as "el Rushbo" was commencing one of his passionate diatribes.

This particular one addressed several issues, especially the theory of global warming and its impact on human thought and belief. This soliloquy came as a response to a caller (Paul, from Burlington CT) who agrees with the theory of global warming and its "cause of" hurricanes, and who believes Bush and America are to blame for its "role" in the process.

Rush made some magnificent points in his reply, and I'd like to pass this monologue along to the readers here as a service to my fellow Americans and International brothers and sisters so that they might better understand the Conservatives' stance.

"[Global warming is] not obvious that it's happening in the sense that you guys mean it. The only stipulation I've made is, "There may be global warming, because I'm not an idiot. There have been warming cycles of the earth and freezing cycles, ice cycles, for as long as the earth has been around. We may be in a naturally warming cycle." Where I part ways from you is that man is causing it. There is no evidence of that, zilch, zero, nada. There's nothing more than a 25-year shrill campaign to create subconsciously the idea in everybody's mind that when it gets hot in July and hot in August it must be global warming; when it gets cold and a snowstorm happens in January, and happens to be a little bit more intense than it was last year, it must be global warming. Nobody can prove it. Nobody can prove that man is causing it. To me the proof that man is not causing it is there's nothing we can do to stop it. This hurricane was said to be caused by global warming. Well, this hurricane weakened right before it hit and it had nothing to do with the ocean temperature. It had to do with some dry air that it had encountered and pushed it further east.

But the problem that I have with you guys on global warming is it's become a political issue by which you seek to advance the liberal agenda. It's nothing more than a platform for you. Whenever I see anything designed to advance the liberal agenda, I'm going to oppose it because I hate the liberal agenda. I disagree with it. It's destructive; it's damaging, and it doesn't do anybody any good -- other than if you define it by spreading misery equally as the New York Times accurately headlined today in their coverage of the hurricane. If you want  to believe it, go ahead, but I'm not going to accept your premise that there is man-made global warming. And therefore what's the conservative solution? Everything does not have a solution. Everything is not a problem. Everything that happens on earth is not a manmade problem, nor an American-made problem. If it's hot one day and not hot the next day someplace where it's cool, it's not man made. It's not our fault. And I'm not going to sit here and accept the premise that somehow we are to blame for this. And that's what worries me the most about you liberals. Why can't you just accept that there are powers greater than us, greater than we have that may have influence over this over which we have no control? There's not one climactic event that we can stop, that we can alter, that we can detour. We cannot stop it raining harder; we cannot move thunderstorms; we cannot weaken hurricanes; we cannot steer them out of the way; we can't stop snowstorms; we can't stop drought; we can't do diddlysquat about all this, so in my mind there's no way we can cause it. You can't have one without the other. If we're causing it, then we can stop it. We can't stop it.

And this fossil fuel business, burning fossil fuels? It's absolutely nothing more than a theory, and there are countless scientists who disagree with it. There are countless scientists who oppose it. Why do you think we haven't signed Kyoto? Because we still have some sanity left in this country in the scientific movement. The Kyoto Accord, if you want to know the details, the Kyoto accord claims that the Celsius temperature rise over the next hundred years will be three degrees without Kyoto. With Kyoto it will be 2.86 degrees. So we're talking about four-tenths of a degree centigrade if we sign Kyoto. Do you know what that's going to matter to a hill of beans? Zero, diddlysquat, and it wouldn't have had a thing to do with stopping this hurricane or making it less intense. There are forces greater than man, Paul. There are forces far greater than man that created all of this. We do not have dominion over it all. The idea that we do is a descent into vanity that I can't relate to. On the one hand you people on the left claim we're no different than rats; we're no different than any other animal that's on earth. In fact some of you say that this would be a far better place without us. On the other hand, when we're no different than rats, and no different than other animals -- who certainly don't do anything to cause global warming -- we all of a sudden still are more powerful than they are because we can stop this, because we're causing it?

The focus in this disaster ought to be on the destruction and the lives and the people, and the rebuilding and everything that we see on TV. But the focus with the left is on affixing blame, affixing blame that cannot be proven, cannot be established. Global warming, if the listen to Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center, he's an expert, William Gray, they're getting tired of the question. There's no relationship to hurricanes and global warming. It's a natural cycle that these storms go through, and the cycles are 40 years long, and they're irrelevant to global warming. The question that I have for people like you, Paul, is: "Why are you so gullible? Why are you such a sponge? Why are you so willing to soak up news and information that blames your country, that blames your lifestyle, that blames your species? What is it about you that wants to sit here and accept all the blame and then after you've accepted it transfer it to Republicans who disagree with you?" That's what I want to know. What kind of life must you live, to have to want to sit here and accept all the blame for these things? There are countless disasters the world over. To blame America, to blame fossil fuels, when these disasters have happened throughout time. When you understand that a volcanic eruption will spew more destructive pollution into the atmosphere than all automobile pollution since the history of the invention of the car combined, you have to understand that we are pretty inconsequential when it comes to the climate system and the ecology system of this planet. We are residents. Yes, there are things that we can do, and I'm not opposed to keeping things as clean as we can -- and we do a better job of that than any country in the world. We clean up our messes better than anybody in the world, and we spread that assistance and the technology that we have developed and the things that we have learned, and we have shared this with the rest of the world that has the ability to incorporate it. The idea that it all comes back to us, that it all comes back to be our fault, and it's all Bush's fault? Do you realize how absurd this all sounds, particularly when you say it next to the pictures we all see on TV?

...

[Liberals] don't offer solutions. They don't fix things. They only make things worse -- and that's why I oppose the liberal agenda."