Opening Monologue Sets the Table

RUSH: And what time is it and what day is it? Tuesday, it’s show time. It’s only Tuesday, okay. It’s only Tuesday. Yes, greetings, my friends, music lovers, thrill-seekers, conversationalists, I am acknowledged national treasure Rush Limbaugh, hosting a real radio program here from behind the Golden EIB Microphone. Three hours of broadcast excellence straight ahead, and of course we’re looking forward to talking to you. Telephone number is 800-282-2882. e-mail, I do check that during profit center time-outs, e-mail address, Rush@eibnet.com.

So my brother and his wife and their five crumb crunchers are in town all week. I brought them back with me from Missouri on Sunday. It’s great having them in the house. I mean, they’re all over the property. They’re staying in their own place down the sidewalk, but they come over, they want to hang around Uncle Rush. So last night, it’s 11:30, 11:45, and they come pouring into the library, ‘Uncle Rush! Uncle Rush! Can we watch a movie and have some popcorn?’ Oh jeez. ‘Sure! It’s 11:45, lets fire up the popcorn machine. What do you want to watch?’ So I went through the disc selection. I found that commie lib penguin movie ‘Happy Feet,’ because there’s a three-year-old in the group. We can’t watch The Sopranos. I still haven’t seen the Sopranos! (Laughing) I still haven’t seen Sunday night’s Sopranos. Now, it’s not like I send ’em in there and say, ‘Okay, kids, when it’s over turn off the lights.’ The media room is set up, if you don’t — because it’s a Blu-ray player, got an HD DVD and I had to add them to my system and they don’t coordinate well because they’re brand-new machines. They don’t mix with the scaler real well, and it took a real jury rig to get them worked in there. So if you’re gonna use the Blu-ray or the HD DVD, you gotta turn things on in the right order. You gotta put the disc in at the right time, and you shut down the same way. So I had to wait until Happy Feet was over. I think I strolled upstairs about 2:15. It’s great having them in there. It’s fun. They’re having a great time, but I tell you, it was a late night. I got a lot of show prep done.

For example, there’s a story today, Kim Gandy of the NAGs, the National Association of Gals, blaming me for spousal abuse. I’ll give you details as the program unfolds before your very eyes and ears. I don’t know how it’s possible she blames me for spousal abuse, predatory male behavior, and she says what really worries her is that there are a lot of progressives out there that she knows — i.e., liberals — who, if you listen to them speak, why, you might think you’re listening to me. I think it’s a totally deranged piece. You just wait for the details, and I’ll give you all of the details. President Bush, either as we speak or soon, up on Capitol Hill to meet with GOP senators to try to revive the amnesty bill. I probably will get blamed in that meeting for — (laughing) — so this is my day. (Laughing.) And Dingy Harry, the guy who actually runs the Senate, says he can only get 38 votes. He’s got 51 Democrats in the Senate. He can only get 38 of them. It’s up to Bush to get these 22 other votes and if they’re going to get these 22 other votes there’s going to have to be some compromise in there that Ted Kennedy might not like — well, we’ll talk about all that.

You heard everybody’s going nuts here about this latest poll? It’s a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll that has Fred Thompson, who hasn’t even announced, in second place now, 27 for Giuliani, 21 for Fred Thompson. McCain, to nobody’s surprise, is slipping. And Romney — let’s see, well, I’ll give you the details as the program unfolds. I’m just going to give you highlights of what’s happening. Congress’ approval is the lowest in a decade. It’s 27%. Congress approval is lower than President Bush. As we mentioned yesterday, Dingy Harry’s personal approval is at 19%. Get this.

From Evanston, Illinois, ‘U.S. medical scientists say they have discovered a drug that slows — and might even halt — the progression of Parkinson’s disease. Northwestern University researchers, led by Professor D. James Surmeier, found the drug isradipine rejuvenates aging dopamine cells, whose death in the brain causes the symptoms of the disease.’ This is from MonstersandCritics.com website, by the way. It’s a UPI story. Drug may halt Parkinson’s. This is great news because I thought only killing babies would do this. Well, that’s what embryonic stem cells are, and apparently this is going to be — this is exciting stuff. We’ll see what transpires here.

Try this headline. This is from Marshalltown, Iowa. Listen to this headline: ‘Butts Charged With Stealing Toilet Paper’ (Laughing.) I’m not making it up. AP story. ‘Police blame a woman named Butts for stealing toilet paper from a central Iowa courthouse, and while they’re chuckling, the theft charge could put her in prison. ‘She’s facing potentially three years of incarceration for three rolls of toilet paper,’ Chief Lon Walker said, stifling a laugh as he talked to KCCI-TV about Suzanne Marie Butts. ‘See, I can’t say it with a straight face.’ Workers had noticed the rolls disappearing from the Marshall County Courthouse much faster than usual, Walker said. Butts, 38, was caught last week after an employee saw her taking three rolls of two-ply tissue from a storage closet, Walker said.’ Well, she had to leave a paper trail. That’s how they caught her. It’s like Jackie Gleason in Smoky and the Bandit, goes in the bathroom in the diner and the toilet paper is attached to the back pocket or something and is walking out. Three years. No ifs, ands, or buts about it for stealing three rolls of toilet paper. What do you bet Sheryl Crow is involved in this somehow? I mean, not directly, but if you’re going to blame me for spousal abuse, you blame Sheryl Crow for toilet paper theft from a courthouse, of all places, to get caught stealing toilet paper.

Anyway, environmental website, the Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, unfortunately for you Prius buyers, your ultimate green car is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America. Yes! I love this story. I love it when these do-gooders, these little social little things that are concerned about, they’re not making a difference with whatever they do, I love it when they find out that what they’re doing is — because (doing lib impression) ‘I want to make a difference.’ Well, you are making a difference. You’re polluting the planet, more than a Hummer! This thing, it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than it does a Hummer. ‘The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines, a standard 76-horsepower, one and a half liter gas engine, just like those found in most cars today, and a battery powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whopping 295 foot pounds of torque below 2,000 revolutions per minute.’

Anyway, the story, we’ll have details as the program unfolds. It talks about how much it costs to build one of these things, the nickel, the battery and all this that goes into it. It costs more to produce one of these things than a Hummer. Don’t you just love that? I absolutely do. All right, let’s take a quick break. We’ll come back and talk about all the political news that’s out there. We found, by the way — well, I had a friend send me a blurb from YouTube yesterday of Algore back in 1992 ripping George Bush 41 over the coals because of his Iraq policy. You know what Gore’s complaint was? That Bush 41 wasn’t taking Saddam’s terrorist ties seriously enough, nor his weapons of mass destruction.