Rush: Global warming is a “hoax,” a “scam”

By Adam Shah

Welcome to “Open Line Friday!” Rush's weekly event in which he says he takes calls on a variety of subjects even when he doesn't want to talk about those subjects. Rush opened the show saying that President Obama has a secret plan to get him to retire because he's not stopping until every American agrees with him, and Obama is making that happen. Rush added: If Obama is on a mission to get every American to agree with him, the Democrats are working hand in hand. Just months ago, it felt immoral to take a day off, but now -- Christmas Eve was even tough to take off because the assault on the country was in full swing.

Rush then started on the weather and its supposed effect on global warming. It snowed in Rome, he said, adding that global warming becomes a real problem with the snow in D.C. People point to Vancouver. Rush read the snow forecast for Whistler Mountain where the alpine events for the Vancouver games are being held. But there is still no snow where the freestyle events are. Of course, temporary, local weather events do not prove or disprove global warming; otherwise, we'd be tempted to counter Rush's anecdotes with the sad news that there is a deadly heat wave occurring in Brazil right now.

Rush said that the global warming folks say that both a lack of snow and a lot of snow prove that global warming is real then played audio clips of people over the last decade saying that a lack of snow proves global warming exists. He called global warming a full-fledged leftist hoax.

Rush elaborated, saying global warming amounts to criminal, political corruption:

LIMBAUGH: Very seriously, ladies and gentlemen, this global warming hoax, this climate change stuff borders on criminal corruption -- criminal political corruption. You think of all of the billions that have been spent ostensibly to protect things and people from global warming and it's all been a scam. It has been a huge -- nothing more than a huge transfer of wealth. It is a giant scam. It is political corruption, what has happened. It's funny to listen to these people make fools of themselves, and I love doing it, and it's not very hard -- just play their own words.

Rush then moved on to Brazil. We thought he'd acknowledge the heat wave, but no, all he mentioned was a report that the mayor of a southeastern Brazilian state has banned funk at Carnivale.

After mentioning a Quinnipiac poll saying that Americans deeply disapprove of Congress and are deeply split on Obama, Rush went back to questioning climate change, saying Climategate proves that global warming is fake. He added that Al Gore is nowhere to be found, not even in the igloo Sen. James Inhofe and his family built for him. Rush then asked: Which has caused more damage, 1960s weathermen or modern global warming weathermen? Rush then spun a conspiracy theory about BBC investing pension funds in climate-change related investments. Remember, he said, CRU emails were first sent to a BBC weatherman, but he had to send it elsewhere.

Rush to vegetarians: “Screw you people”

Next, Rush veered to talking about vegetarians, saying he was mad at them. He added that Birkenstock wearers in Berkeley need to stop going to Burger King and protesting for the company to serve veggie burgers. He read from a Telegraph article saying that tofu is more harmful to the environment than beef and that it could collapse British farming. The tofu has to be imported, which harms the environment. Rush then said to vegetarians: “Screw you people.”

“Fairness” is a dangerous concept, so is “equality,” so is “clean air,” so is “clean water”

Rush read extensively from a column by Thomas Sowell that began: “If there is ever a contest to pick which word has done the most damage to people's thinking, and to actions to carry out that thinking, my nomination would be the word 'fair.' It is a word thrown around by far more people than have ever bothered to even try to define it.”

In the middle of the column, Rush interjected to say that he makes the same point often: The word fair is the primary word used by the left to coerce people into following their policies. Who's against clean water? Who's against clean air? Who's against fairness? It's all part of the same trick, he said.

After a brief commercial break, Rush continued talking about his favorite topic of the day, using the recent snowstorms on the East Coast to attack Obama. Is it fair that all this snow happened on the East Coast twice, he asked. Shouldn't someone redistribute the snow? It's not fair, especially since this is where Obama lives. Obama should redistribute temperatures. The climate was forced on him. Hawaii has an unfair advantage. Where would you rather be, Yugoslavia or Hawaii? What's fair about that?The first caller of the day asked Rush whether he still believes each day will be better than the last, like when he was younger. Rush replied that he's still optimistic, saying he's done better than his parents believed he could. They believed he wouldn't succeed because he didn't finish college. His father also believed that the only way to become really wealthy was to inherit it.

Rush closed out the first hour teasing the Kansas state senate's approval of a resolution asking that the feds cease and desist from passing unfunded mandates and the New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie freezing spending. Rush says he can't wait to discuss them in the next hour.

Rush's new chant: “Roll back Pelosi”

As promised, Rush opened the second hour by repeating his excitement that without Patrick Kennedy, there'd be no Kennedys in Congress. Rush then said that Christie has frozen spending and Democrats are apoplectic, because Christie has done what he promised. That's what people want, not sea levels to be lowered. State after state will have to do this. Every time a state does this, Obama will look more and more ineffectual.

Rush then quipped, look how many nonessential federal workers there are. They told nonessential workers to stay home during the snowstorms. And look how many of them did.

Going back to Christie, Rush stated that we could do this on the federal level. Do you know what an insult it is to submit a budget with a $1.7 trillion deficit? We could balance the budget right now if we could reduce spending to 2007 levels. Christie said that he'll cut transit, union members salaries, etc. Rush said, “is it wrong to love another man, because I love Chris Christie.”

2007 was before the liberals took Congress. Look at the explosion since 2007. They turned a manageable deficit into a nightmare. Just roll back spending to 2007 before Pelosi took over. Rush then repeatedly stated: “roll back Pelosi.”

Rush then read a proposal from the “Cambridge Climate Congress” such as Vegan Monday and taxes on plastic bags. Going green would become mandatory if the Cambridge Climate Congress gets its way. How does “mandatory” jive with individual liberty? AEI said that there were redundancy problems with the proposals. Rush said who cares about this intellectual stuff? What about the First Amendment aspects?

UK Guardian reports that Phillip Campbell was forced to resign from the investigation regarding the CRU emails after he said that based on media reports there was no cover-up. Rush said they were supposed to investigate why they were hiding the decline.

Rush calls Biden “an abject fool”

Rush came back from commercial and said “we almost missed this story.” He then read a Cincinnati Enquirer story about a stimulus project that Biden had touted was bogged down. Rush added: “The problem? Are you sitting down?” The problem was that banks were unwilling to lend money to the project. Rush calls Biden an “abject fool” in response:

LIMBAUGH: The project would create 100 construction jobs, proof, Biden said, that the stimulus was putting people to work. Seven months later the project remains stalled and has yet to make good on that promise. The problem? Are you sitting down? While 1.6 million in federal money will help the developer clean up the site the project still needs more than $4 million in private capital to get going and so far the banks have been unwillingly to lend it. The vice president's office conceded the project has not moved as quickly as it had hoped. Well we didn't get into this mess overnight, we're not going to get out of it overnight. What an abject fool, Joe Biden.

Rush read stats showing that the economy has gotten worse since 2007, when Democrats took over Congress, including unemployment, the deficit, and the debt, saying there have been three years of damage like we have never seen.

Rush then returned to the open line phones. A caller asked if they'll be a major defection by Blue Dogs because of the “Trotskyite” agenda of Obama. Rush said that he's been warning the Blue Dogs that they can't vote for Obama's programs and then pretend that they're fiscal conservatives. Rush predicted a “major upheaval.” The caller added that we have birthers, the tea partiers, and the Tenthers. But you are a truth-teller, Rush, the caller said. You are exposing Barry for who he is.

Rush on what Back to School can tell us about the Obama administration

Talking about the Obama, Rush said he has an arrogance and superiority complex like I've ever seen coupled with total ignorance about how business is run. The guy is an absolute disaster, he added. He then brought up the movie, Back to School. There's an arrogant pipe-smoking professor with a British accent. Dangerfield is a successful waste management guy. You gotta watch this, he said. The professor hates Dangerfield also because he's made a move on the professor's daughter. Vonnegut gets a D for the finals he writes for Dangerfield. The professor is describing how business works. Dangerfield says the professor left a whole lot of stuff out. You have to start by talking to the people who want to take your trash away. You've got to be willing to do stuff “under the lie.” Dangerfield kept making mincemeat out of the professor. When you read the Bloomberg interview, it's dangerous. The people who elected Obama “owe us big time.” Rush then goes to commercial, allowing us to look up when Back to School is next going to be on cable TV.

Nobody's trying to pass a constitutional amendment to pass gay marriage

Back from commercial, Rush sent out best wishes to former President Clinton. All of us need to be thankful we don't yet have Obamacare because the death panels might have killed Clinton. Rush then took a caller who said he learned growing up that liberals are against tyranny. But it's really the conservatives. The caller said liberals parrot stuff robotically. Rush said that the caller is absolutely right. The caller asked whether he can still be a conservative and oppose a constitutional amendment to oppose gay marriage or abortion.

Rush said yes, you can. He added: Nobody is trying to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. False. These things should be voted for at the state level. These are social issues. Not all conservatives agree on the subject. Rush also complains about the “militant homosexual” community, which has been pushing things.

Rush later admitted he was wrong to say that Dangerfield was in the waste management business in Back to School.

Rush then hawks a Stossel documentary about a person who was running a home business and was told that she was actually a government employee and a union worker. It's about home-based daycare workers who are being unionized. Rush said no one wants unions. They have to increase their numbers “by force.” Rush said, “Card check anybody?”

Back from break, Rush said that it was cool last summer too. So it's not just this winter. Rush then played a clip from Back to School with Dangerfield taking on the professor. Rush said that Obama doesn't know as much as Dangerfield's professor.

Rush moved on to a Wall Street Journal article reporting that luxury spending is up because unemployment among the affluent is just 3 percent. Rush said “that's just not fair,” hearkening back to last hour. Rush repeated the point a few times for emphasis. Then he took a caller who wanted to talk about the Camelot allegory. If you follow the play through to the end, he said, Camelot is destroyed by King Arthur's illegitimate son. He sings a song called the Seven Deadly Virtues. It's a perfect song for Obama's voice. Rush said that Theodore White created Camelot.

Rush asked, who Obama is -- the Queen of the fairies? No, said the caller, Obama is Mordred who destroyed Camelot. Rush then tried to get the caller to spell fairy, but the caller never did.

Closing out the hour, Rush corrected himself again -- saying he was misled by staff -- it was Ted Sorenson who created the Camelot myth with Jackie, not Theodore White.

In the third hour, Rush talked about RealClearPolitics quoting Jay Rockefeller saying that Obama is beginning not to be believable to me. Obama said that he's for clean coal. But there's no action. Limbaugh tells Rockefeller, Obama hates clean coal. Do you think any kind of coal fits his agenda? It doesn't compare to his mythical green energy sector. This is worse than a menace. Rush then read from an American Thinker post saying that Obama can't drop health care reform because the issue for him is finishing the work of Martin Luther King.

Rush interjected: Obama is going to settle scores and return its wealth to its rightful owners. It's been stolen by evil people. He then returned to reading the American Thinker piece.

Rush said the civil rights aspect is part of it, but it's about Obama being a full-fledged radical and wanting to empower the Democratic Party to control our lives. They already have a plan, a trick, in place: the Summit. He again instructed Republicans not to go and be the party of no.

Rush then ran an in-show commercial for Pro Flowers for Valentine's Day. Rush noted a D.C. flower seller saying that he wants all of next week to be declared Valentine's Week because the snow has hurt business. Rush said he is the only one with the power to do this.

The next caller wanted to discuss why liberalism, statism, and Marxism are all going to fail. The caller said that it was warm enough in the First Century AD for the Romans to grow wine in England. It's only become that warm in the last 30 years. He experienced the National Health Service in England. Now, he's named one of his children Rush. Rush agreed with almost everything the caller said except that it's hard to educate youth about this because the public education is so bad.

Rush then found the Jay Rockefeller audio and played it for his listeners.

Rush is still trying to justify his McNabb quote

Rush played audio of a guest on ESPN's Mike & Mike in the Morning saying that McNabb has been overrated nationally. Rush then said on the show that Obama has been overrated. Rush's aides corrected him off-mike. Rush corrected himself and asked what he had said. When informed that he had said that Obama had been overrated, Rush said that fits too. But Rush is excited because he thinks it proves his point that McNabb is overrated because of race. Sadly for Rush, the clip did not include any discussion about race.

Rush then took another caller who said Rush was right about unions. Rush said to the caller that whether Obama wants people to suffer or not, his policies are causing suffering.

Returning from commercial, Rush attacked Lawrence O'Donnell for his back and forth with Mark Thiessen on MSNBC, who is on a book tour trying to rehabilitate the Bush administration's torture and terrorism policies. Rush played a clip of Thiessen asserting that the “library tower” plot was thwarted by Bush administration interrogation techniques. O'Donnell said that Bush invited the first attack by having no idea about Al Qaeda before 9-11.

Rush later repeated that Obama is shockingly arrogant, reading a Business Week interview in which Obama said his policies are not anti-business. Rush said that it's clear Obama thinks he's the best thing that's happened to business and that he's utterly clueless. Rush hit Obama for saying that he had to shut the government for a week because of the snowstorm. Rush said Obama didn't do this, the Office of Personnel Management did this. Rush said that the first thing is that businesses shouldn't be subject to the “Crap and Tax” bill. How anti-business can you get, asked Rush.

Rush then hit Obama for saying “let me be clear” often. Rush also said Obama often raises straw men, pointing to Obama saying there are some who say we should do nothing. Rush said no one is saying we should do nothing.

Coming back from the break, Rush moved on to a story from The Hill about Sen. Dick Durbin saying that people who live in D.C. should be better able to handle the snow, like people in Illinois can. Rush said the problem is newscasters and weather forecasters.

Rush then took a call from someone hyping Pro Flowers. Rush teased the caller about whether he works for Pro Flowers, but then declared that it was a genuine open line Friday call. Rush sighed and admitted that he was tired. And that's the week, folks. We'll see you next week.

Michael Timberlake, Michael Burns, and Christine Schwen contributed to this edition of the Limbaugh Wire