Rush Returns: Opening Monologue

RUSH: All right. So I have not seen the staff in a week. Ten days since I last saw the staff. What’s the first thing Brian says to me? No. He asked me, ‘How did you do on your diet on your golf trip?’ The answer is I lost three pounds during the golf trip. But of all the things to say! What, were you worried? Did you think I was going to balloon back up when I was gone? Anyway, greetings, folks, America, obviously, happy to have me back. Have you seen Wall Street? It’s up 130 points today after lackluster performances last week. So not only are you happy to have me back but so are investors. It is great to be back. We are here behind the Golden EIB Microphone. Telephone number, 800-282-2882, and the e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.

We are in for a fast and wild week, folks. The pundits are still totally missing it on Sarah Palin except for Willie Brown. Willie Brown, with a column in the San Francisco Chronicle over the weekend understands Sarah Palin. Of course the Sotomayor hearings got off the bat this morning, got started, and, you know, she’s probably a lock in there because the Democrats have a majority of the votes but the Republicans are really unified in their message. They’re making this all about her record, her public comments, liberal judicial activism. Jeff Sessions was fabulous. We’ve got audio sound bites of this coming up. They’re going after her on substance and the differences between judicial restraint and liberal judicial activism and the Democrats are on defensive on this. The chairman, Pat ‘Leaky’ Leahy started out by making it about race and background, and Leahy said something that was the most — let me look at this here. I was watching Leahy in his opening statement today, and he said that the classics were unavailable to her.

He started out trying to make this all about her life and how hard it’s been and how poor she was and how hard she worked, and the classics were unavailable to her. The classics? My fear is that most Americans watching this are saying classic whats? Given the public school curriculum these days, but nevertheless, she went to Cardinal Spellman High School. Cardinal Spellman High School, the classics were not available? She couldn’t go to the library if she wanted to access the classics? That is one of the most tear-jerking let’s play the Stradivarius and get the tears going for poor Sonia Sotomayor, she was denied access to the classics. My guess is she’d have found racism in all the classics. She’d have found bigotry in all the classics. If she read the classics she’d wonder why the hell are these classic, this is western civilization white dominated culture, to hell with this, (blowing a raspberry). I don’t know, folks.

The Republicans are staying united on this. As I say, Sessions was good. So after a couple of Republican senators were united in their comments on her record on racism, bigotry — they didn’t use the words, of course, but the wise Latina thing, guns, abortion, racial preferences, even Ricci, the Democrats are now trying real hard to walk back her statements and her record, and they’re trying to paint her as a proponent of judicial restraint, the rule of law, separation of powers. I mean, you listen to Democrats and they sound like they’re big fans of Clarence Thomas; they sound like they’re big fans of Antonin Scalia here, originalism.

So, anyway, cap and trade, the EPA says it won’t work. Have you heard T. Boone Pickens out of the alternative wind market? Did you hear about that? T. Boone is out. T. Boone’s given it up. All that money he spent — yep, Snerdley, don’t doubt me here. I’m telling you the truth, T. Boone is giving up the wind business in Texas ’cause there aren’t any power lines from the windmills to wherever they need to go but he’s getting out of it, and he spent a whole lot of money there. Just not happy. Cap and trade, of course, that’s all about redistribution of wealth, health care, all these tax increases that the House Democrats are talking about here. And Wall Street’s most accurate analyst the last couple years, Meredith Whitney is now predicting 13% unemployment. Obama is now seriously talking about Stimulus 3. The current stimulus is number two. Don’t forget, Stimulus 1 was the Bush-Pelosi package, $168 billion to send everybody but us here at the EIB Network a check that would, what, buy you a muffler, whatever it was? That was done in April, over a year ago, 15 months ago. Unemployment was 4.8% when the first stimulus happened and, of course, we’re now at what, 9.5 after two stimuli and now they’re talking about a third stimuli.

Anybody with a brain, ladies and gentlemen, anybody sane has to admit that this is not being done to revitalize an economy. Everybody with a brain knows this. This is what is so outrageous about this. There’s world history, American history, recent history, this is not how you stimulate growth in the private sector. The Federal Reserve, don’t forget, they’ve already pumped a trillion dollars into the economy and how is that working out? I don’t know. We’re going to continue to fight it here. So much to talk about here. Is the Michael Jackson funeral over? Is it? Well, I’ll tell you — (interruption) who was great? The memorial was great.

I had a great golf trip. I’m going to tell you about it but not right now because if I tell you about it right now the stick-to-the-issues crowd will be bombarding me. Tom Fazio was in the group. He is the premiere golf course designer in the country today, and he put together an itinerary of five Fazio-designed courses, starting in Montana. Went to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Redmond, Oregon. Here are the courses. Stock Farm in Montana — they’re all great, and the people at these places were just… I’d like to be a member at every one of them. Stock Farm in Hamilton, Montana, we flew into Missoula. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Gorgeous place, 99.9% conservative. Gorgeous, gorgeous place. Gozzer Ranch is the name of the development, the golf course, and it’s on Lake Coeur D’Alene, some of the most beautiful vistas from the golf course. It was just stunning.

Then we went to Pronghorn, which was in Redmond, Oregon, from there we went down to Martis Camp, which is in Truckee, California, north of Lake Tahoe. And we ended up in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at a course that just opened the day after we played it, officially opened, Shooting Star. And then we winged our way back. Five places in five days. It was just a hoot, it was just a hoot. (interruption) Well, that’s what I was going to say. In the airplane, you know, going to these various places at the end of the day, and, yeah, you couldn’t miss it. In fact, one of the problems with the Jackson memorial is that it took some really important Obama news off the news. I think that’s why the State-Run Media gorged on Michael Jackson news. They gorged on Jackson news long after there wasn’t any because it allowed them the opportunity not to report on some of the negative stuff happening with Obama and the administration.

But I did not see any of the official memorial. I saw the hearse leaving Forest Lawn and heading to the Staples Center. But I didn’t see anything of what happened at the Staples Center. I did hear that Magic Johnson said that Michael Jackson made him a better basketball player. I always thought that was Arsenio Hall. But nevertheless, didn’t you say it was good? I didn’t see anything. It’s not that we purposely didn’t, we couldn’t miss it no matter what channel we tuned to, even sci-fi network was covering it. I’m kidding, but so much happened in just one week. I’ve had so many people e-mail me, ‘It just wasn’t the same without you here talking about this. It didn’t seem as vibrant.’ Is that true, Mr. Snerdley? Well, what’s most current? That’s Sotomayor. But I mean some of things, Biden, ‘we misread the economy.’ This is the second time he’s said this, ‘we guessed wrong, we misread the economy.’ This is so predictable. Couple of polls. The Gallup poll sees more Americans moving right, but don’t get your hopes up on that. It’s just because it’s physically impossible to go more left right now. (laughing)

Rasmussen poll: voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight of ten key issues. I’m not sure I trust any of them. Let’s see. G8 rejects global warming. Is that true? I thought they accepted it except for China and India. Undeveloped nations — well, there’s another thing. See, if indeed developing nations and their carbon emissions are destroying the climate, how in the world can you come to a climate agreement with two of the largest developing nations, China and India, exempt? So it’s not about changing the climate, folks, none of what Obama wants to do is about the stated purpose. Health care is not about health care. Cap and trade is not about cap and trade. Cap and trade is about making Goldman Sachs trillionaires. I got it right here.

I offered that opinion last week. I was stealing from Nina Easton. She’s the one that gave me the thought. I was watching her on Fox, had a story in here — in fact, Rolling Stone — who is that, Jann Wenner? Rolling Stone, big left-time liberal music — long, long story, just ripping Goldman Sachs, blaming Goldman Sachs for every bubble we’ve had: the tech bubble, the housing bubble, the gasoline price bubble, and now the cap and trade, they stand to make — well, cap and trade, trade is trade, that’s what happens on Wall Street. Who’s going to be the broker of the trades, taking commissions on both sides of the story? They say it’s going to be Goldman Sachs.

Also, there is a story from the New York Times. This is why you people should be very happy and appreciative that I’m back, because most people read this story and they won’t even bring it to the air. It’s from the sports section of the New York Times: ‘Built to Win Now, the Mets Face the Future at Their Peril.’ Now, stick with me on this. You have to understand here, I don’t care whether we’re talking sports, whether we’re talking entertainment, whether we’re talking hard news, journalists are leftists. ‘Even before the Mets were swept in Philadelphia last weekend –‘ now, July 7th is the date of the story, so this is six days ago ‘– some of their fans were calling on the team’s general manager, Omar Minaya, to wave the white flag. They had seen enough inept play, deflating losses and debilitating injuries to call for Minaya to trade the team’s older players and stars for young prospects and try to field a more competitive team next season. ‘Throw in the towel and break up the Mets,’ said one blog entry. ‘A midseason fire sale is needed.’ The Mets are in third place, four and a half games behind,’ blah, blah, blah. Now, here’s the take.

I’m not going to read the whole story to you. But sportswriters who are as leftist as any other journalists, they can sit here, they diagnose the financial problems of a struggling big market baseball team with no problem, the New York Mets, they come down, they’ve gone through this, here’s the Mets, payroll problem, here’s the financial problem, they’re in big trouble in the future, they are paying all these old guys that aren’t producing a whole bunch of money, and they’re in deficit, what are they gonna do? They offer the exact proper prescription for Mets to be fixed. But they can’t seem to see the same thing when it comes to Obama’s economy. They can look at a baseball team and they can see just outrageously poor financial performance, planning and so forth, and how it’s all going to lead the team to sink further down the train and come up with the solutions to it. Cut costs, get younger players, develop and so forth, but when they look at the Obama economy, they don’t see it same way. It’s just — I don’t know. I thought it was interesting.

Everywhere we went, by the way, global warming, 35 or 40 degrees at night, never got to 75. I don’t think it got to 80. The lack of humidity is hard on the cigars, absolutely. Unless you know what you’re doing.