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RUSH: Barry in Princeton, New Jersey, hello, sir. You’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program on Open Line Friday, hello.

CALLER: Nice talking to you, Rush, I appreciate the chance to speak with you. I want to bring up something to you about why it is this guy Frieden should be fired. Can I share this with you?

RUSH: Yeah, sure.

CALLER: They talk about, oh, Ebola can travel, it’s really hard to track these people. Rush, in the line of work I do — I can’t describe it — but let me tell you something. The passport never lies. The country of origin is always there. We simply have to say, “Look, you’re from these countries, you can’t come in.” It’s that simple. “It doesn’t matter where you went, if you went to Timbuktu, nothing matters. I’m sorry, you’re from these countries, there’s a danger to our citizenry right now. We have to hold off in allowing you into the country.” If you’re an American that has a right to come back, let’s open up Ellis Island again. We’ll give you free Wi-Fi and TVs. We want to hold you here for three weeks to make sure that you’re safe to come back in the country. I just want to see your thoughts on that.

RUSH: (laughing) You have people applauding out there, I’m sure, Barry. Thanks for the call. You remind me of something here. Before the Daily Beast story hit, let me tell you what I had at the top of the Stack today, which dovetails exactly — it was an Ebola Stack. The top of the Stack was Ron Klain. The top of the Stack was we’ve got a politician, I mean, a raw, just bare knuckle politician, as an Ebola czar. I can’t tell you how hopeful I am that at some point people figure all this out. But, anyway, the second thing I had was this story, and I alluded to this yesterday afternoon. I think it was in the second hour of this program. I told everybody I had stumbled across something out there.

AP had a story that they were embargoing until after four p.m., and that story is this. “Africa Stems Ebola Via Border Closings, Luck.” I found out that this story was in the pipeline, and it was gonna run after four o’clock, and I was violating embargo. I said, “What the heck, I’m not a subscriber.” And here’s the story. “Health officials battling the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 4,500 people in West Africa have managed to limit its spread on the continent to five countries.”

They’re very proud of their efforts there. These African leaders are very proud they have contained Ebola to five countries. Let me take a brief pause to make an illustration. Isn’t it kind of refreshing to encounter leaders of nations who are thankful the disease has not spread to other nations. What I mean by that is, there are people in this country who think these African leaders ought to have a little bit more compassion and not start talking about how happy they are the disease didn’t spread. It would be okay if it spread beyond these five countries. Why shouldn’t other people get it if the people in these five countries have it.


This politically correct attitude that exists out there in that regard is going to sink us, too. And that attitude manifests itself thus: We can’t close our borders. It isn’t fair that we don’t have Ebola and they do. Okay, so five African countries have Ebola and we’re gonna close our borders to them, they can’t come, that’s not fair. If they get it, we should get it. Why are we any better than them? We’re not any better. Just because they have it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get it. If we take steps not to get Ebola because they do, that’s discrimination against them. That is an active politically correct theory today.

And yet I had the story yesterday afternoon, these five leaders, these five African nations, very happy they have contained the spread of the disease to their five countries, and they’re eager to tell everybody how they did it. The officials, the leaders of these five African countries “credit tighter border controls, good patient-tracking and other medical practices, and just plain luck with keeping Ebola confined mostly to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.”

I don’t know how much plain luck is here. The most important thing they did was close their borders.

“Senegal did so well in finding and isolating a man with Ebola who had slipped across the border from Guinea in August that the World Health Organization on Friday will declare the end of the disease in Senegal if no new cases surface.” Now, Senegal is just a hop, skip, and trip from these three African nations where Ebola has broken out. They closed the borders. Only one guy snuck in. They found him, addressed it. These people are very proud of their efforts.

But the reason the story is such an important and meaningful one is because it’s the only common sense thing that’s happened here. People have closed their borders. Other nations have. Belize has announced that they are not going to let a cruise ship dock.

UK Daily Mail: “Ebola Scare on Caribbean Cruise Ship: Woman Quarantined in Her Cabin.” The passenger is a health care worker at the Texas Presbyterian Hospital. She handled clinical specimens from US, patient zero, Thomas Eric Duncan. She’s in good health. She’s shown no symptoms of the virus, but they have her quarantined on the cruise ship.

It has also been revealed that Belize, the Caribbean superpower, joined us in one of our Iraq war coalitions, it’s been revealed that Belize is refusing to allow the ship or any of its thousands of passengers into port due to fears over Ebola. That’s a common sense thing to do. Here comes a cruise ship, thousand, 1,500 people, that’s a big economic opportunity. I guarantee you, downtown Main Street Belize is looking for that ship to disembark, and they want these people coming through and finding what’s there in the Lalique shop, right?


But Belize is saying, no way. You’ve got somebody on that ship that might have Ebola. We’re not letting the ship dock. We’re not letting anybody get off that ship and come into our country. And nobody’s calling ’em racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. Philippines, the same thing, a lot of countries. But us? Oh, no. No, no, no, no. That wouldn’t work. Oh, no, no, no, That would be discriminatory. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, we can’t do that, it wouldn’t be fair. Oh, no, no, no. That’s not how you stop it. It’s a Carnival cruise ship. “Belize refuses entry to cruise ship carrying Texas hospital worker who may have handled Ebola victimÂ’s specimen.”

I need to ask a question. So far it seems to me, and I know it’s early, a lot of people, Thomas Duncan, patient zero, came into contact with a lot of people outside the hospital, right? But as far as we know, only those in the hospital have become infected so far, right? We have two nurses. That’s it, right? Obviously he came in contact with people living in the apartment complex. He came in contact with people on the airplane en route to Dallas. He was sent home from the ER. There were people in the ER that he was seated next to.

I’m trying to look for glimmers of hope here. I don’t want to be premature, but Thomas Duncan did come into contact with a lot of people, and so far only people who treated him are showing symptoms. So far. That’s what I mean, that we know of. Is that true or am I grasping at straws here? (interruption) Well, that could be a hopeful sign, if it holds up. ‘Cause he’s come in contact with a lot of people. It may indicate that just casual contact is not enough. We’ll have to see. But I want to be right about it. I’m not sure I’m right. Is it just two people? (interruption) Okay. All right. Just the two nurses who treated him so far have come down with it. Okay.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I know the incubation period, they say 21 days, so it’s premature to say, but it’s a hopeful sign and we hope it holds. And the nurse, the two nurses, the second one on the airplane, Dallas-Cleveland, Cleveland-Dallas, 132 people, hose down the airplane, a lot of people have come in contact with people who have the disease. So far only a couple of nurses who treated a patient are showing symptoms. So we’ll wait with bated breath.

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