RUSH: My father, back when my brother and I were kids, wrote a speech that he delivered all over southeast Missouri called The Americans Who Risked Everything. It was about the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Americans Who Risked Everything: Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor. He researched the speech, and it was about what happened to the 56 men and their families who signed. And he read it, he read the whole speech. It’s about an hour. And that’s what he was talking about there.
My brother sent me a quick note. He woulda tweeted me, except I don’t tweet. Well, I don’t tweet in the way people tweet. (interruption) What’s that? Well, we tweet, we got followers, don’t misunderstand. But I don’t say, “Gee, the eggs were good today. I’m off to work, folks, see you in three hours.” I don’t do that kind of tweeting or Facebooking. But, anyway, my brother sent me a tweet saying that Cruz was reading the speech. And then Cookie said it was great. She put it together. So we’ve got some excerpts here, and I was gonna save those until after we spoke with the Senator. I didn’t want to air those beforehand so as not do damage to the total objectivity of the interview.
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RUSH: You know, I may not get to these Ted Cruz sound bites until tomorrow. I’ve been intending to, but my first duty was to the callers, not me. So Cookie will have to hold those over.
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RUSH: Just grab sound bite number one. I’m gonna set this up. We’re not gonna have time to get to these ’til tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow we can play more than just this, ’cause this takes an hour, and we’re gonna not gonna do the whole thing, but here’s how Senator Cruz intro’d it today.
CRUZ: Fans of Rush Limbaugh know that every year he reads something that his father wrote about the true story of the price paid by the signers of the Declaration of Independence. I think it’s fitting to read this morning. It’s called the Americans who Risked Everything. “Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.”
RUSH: It is an amazing piece of history, what happened to the signers of the Declaration. One man had his entire family kidnapped. He had two sons, and the world was ahead of them, and the British were the kidnappers. The short version of the story is that the British offered to release his sons unharmed if he would renounce his signature on the Declaration, if he would renounce the Declaration.
Now, on one hand he’s got his two sons and their lives; on the other hand his pledge. The Declaration does include the words, “We pledge our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor.” Most people, it’s a no-brainer, right? Your two kids are kidnapped, you know, you do whatever you have to do to save them. The man stuck with his pledge. (interruption) Oh, yeah, Rush Revere’s gonna visit all of this at some point in time. Rush Revere can go anywhere in American history, absolutely, with the talking horse Liberty, absolutely.
At any rate, folks, that’s just one example. There are 56 such stories of all signers. Ted Cruz read the whole speech during his filibuster today.