RUSH: So I’m watching TV this morning, and what a wonderfully great nuke seminar we had. Would somebody explain, we’ve disarmed Canada, we got another pronouncement waving a piece of paper like Neville Chamberlain, ‘Yeah, Canada has agreed to disarm,’ as though they were ever going to attack us. Meanwhile, you want to be haunted? We had a call the other day from somebody who wanted to know why Syria is never held to account for anything going on in the Middle East. Guess 
what Syria just did? Syria just transferred a large number of Scud missiles to — dadelut dadelut dadelut dadelut — wait for it — Hezbollah. These scuds have a 400-plus-mile range. They can hit Tel Aviv; they can hit Jerusalem. The rockets, the scuds that the Hezbos were launching last time they attacked from Lebanon and so forth had a range of 40 to 60 miles. And of course they had lousy guidance systems, the Hezbos had no idea where they were going to go, aimed them in a certain area and let fly. But now Bashar Assad has transferred a bunch of scuds, 400 mile range, 450 mile range. Who cares? Obama is not worried about it. I’m sure Obama might even not find a problem with it.
What is this nuke business? Why all of a sudden are we ramping up and talking about nukes? Why? Out of nowhere we have this giant nuke summit. And then after the nuke summit was over yesterday Obama proudly proclaiming, ‘China has agreed to join us with sanctions on Iran.’ And so the ChiComs said, ‘Oh, yeah? Well, watch this.’ They didn’t join us with sanctions on Iran, nor have the Russians. And just today, a Chinese, a ChiCom state oil company has sold two full cargos of gasoline to Iran, one day after Obama’s summit in which he came out and said, ‘Yeah, they’re going to join us out there, they’re gonna join us in the sanctions movement against Iran.’ So after it’s been announced that the ChiComs sold two full cargo ships, big tankers full of gas — because the Iranians cannot refine it, they don’t have a refinery. They have all that oil but they have to ship it out and have it refined and reimported. The ChiComs, I mean, is this not a slap in the face? ‘Oh, yeah, you’re telling the world that we’re joining you in sanctions in Iran? Ha. Watch this.’ Two full cargos of gasoline.
So the Obama administration is now saying, ‘Well, it’s going to be very difficult to get China and Russia to agree to sanctions.’ Of course they’re laughing at us. There’s a story today, I think it’s the Washington Post, on how marvelous Obama was, he’s at his best when he’s teaching, he’s at his best when he’s lecturing, and it’s not very many presidents who could assemble all these rogue nations in one place for two days. Meanwhile, Dana Milbank, have you seen this in the Washington Post? Dana Milbank says — I’m paraphrasing, I’ll get to the piece in a minute — says, ‘I feel like I’m living in Moscow. The press is being shut out; the press is being shunned; Obama doesn’t want us anywhere near. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was the old Soviet regime.’ It doesn’t matter. What are they going to do? They’re just trying to get Bam to be nice to ’em, that’s all it is. But it’s interesting, I’m watching TV today after the nuke summit yesterday, there’s a giant meeting at the White House over this financial regulation reform bill, Chris Dodd’s, which if this thing passes, it dumps into Obama’s lap veritable power to take over or shut down any American business based on his impression alone of whether or not it’s risky or it’s making too much profit or it might be in danger of going under. Congress has ruled themselves out. They’ve written themselves out of this. So he said something that is just typical at the White House, meeting with a bipartisan congressional leadership to discuss financial reform.
OBAMA: I’m also going to be interested in talking to them about our ability to move quickly on a financial regulatory reform package. I think all of us recognize that we cannot have a circumstance in which a meltdown in the financial sector once again puts the entire economy in peril, and that if there’s one lesson that we’ve learned, it’s that an unfettered market where people are taking huge risks and expecting taxpayers to bail them out when things go sour is simply not acceptable.
RUSH: Now, one of the things that — and Pete Wehner writes about this — Obama is going to run for reelection, the Democrats are going to run for reelection on trashing Wall Street all over again, demonizing Wall Street because they’re convinced that a majority of the American people hate Wall Street, especially when Wall Street is announcing big bonuses and big profits like JP Morgan Chase announcing $3 billion first quarter profit today, that’s not going to sit well, they think, so they’re going to milk that for all it’s worth. But this is very typical of Obama. He’s just said here, we cannot have a circumstance in which a meltdown in the financial sector once again puts the entire economy in peril. He wants to be in charge of that, making sure that the peril doesn’t happen, by closing down a business or firing the board of directors, he’s going to have unrivaled power over regulated financial institutions in the country. And then he said if there’s one lesson that we’ve learned, it’s that an unfettered market where people — we don’t have an unfettered market. We haven’t had an unfettered market in I don’t know how long.
See, this is the Obama tactic. You create straw men and run against them, you act against them. So what’s he running against now? An unfettered free market. We don’t have an unfettered free market. We have a massive regulatory and entitlement state right now. We have over 50 years of laws built upon laws, departments built upon departments, taxes built upon taxes, and he acts as if we’re living in a theoretical free market where all these robber baron types are allowed to steel and anything else they want to do from middle class, unsuspecting people. And when he says things like this it demonstrates his willingness to say anything to advance his agenda. Can anybody in this audience name for me a single industry that is unfettered? Name for me a single industry that’s not regulated or that is not taxed or that is not worried about being regulated or taxed. Government. That’s it. Government gets away with all kinds of things that if they occurred in the private sector the CEO would go to jail. Name for me an unfettered business, name for me an unfettered industry. Big Oil unfettered? Big Pharma unfettered? Big Tobacco unfettered? Big Finance unfettered? Big Retail unfettered?
Will somebody tell me where we have this unfettered free market? Here’s the dirty little secret, though. Obama’s not so much attacking the free market or capitalism as much as he is attacking the individual and liberty here, because that’s the ultimate loss when you start piling on more regulations and higher taxes, and then you build taxes on taxes and regulations on regulation, when you get to the end of the equation, it is individuals who lose liberty and freedom. What he’s saying is, with this little sound bite, what Obama is saying is we cannot have a free people going about their own business anymore. That doesn’t work. Reaganism doesn’t work. We cannot have a free people going about their own business anymore. We need an all-powerful, centralized command government, command control economy where I and my ideological soul mates determine what’s right and what’s best for the masses. What Obama is saying in this little quote here, this little sound bite, individuals cannot be free to live and interact as they see fit because in Obama’s view, that’s what’s caused the economic problem that we’re in. You and freedom, individuals taking too many risks with not enough regulation, you can’t be trusted to spend your money the wise way. Only Obama, with now a seven-minute career and no experience whatsoever anywhere in the private sector, has deemed himself to be the only one, and his ideological soul mates, qualified to make the most important decisions and priorities for the nation. It’s that simple. Here, listen, play number 12 again. I’m just translating this for you. This is what statists believe when they say this.
OBAMA: I’m also going to be interested in talking to them about our ability to move quickly on a financial regulatory reform package. I think all of us recognize that we cannot have a circumstance in which a meltdown in the financial sector once again puts the entire economy in peril, and that if there’s one lesson that we’ve learned, it’s that a unfettered market where people are taking huge risks and expecting taxpayers to bail them out when things go sour is simply not acceptable.
RUSH: That’s Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government-run private sector entities — ha-ha-ha — they’re now just public utilities, as Barney Frank has said. So individuals, you and me, you and I cannot be free to live and interact as we see fit. Individuals cannot be free to do what we want unless it contributes to what Obama believes to be the most important priorities for the nation. So at the end of the day here, folks, Obama does not view himself as merely the president. He’s delusional. He is power hungry. He is attacking each and every individual in this nation and is accusing all of us of being suspects. We are the reasons and our freedom are the reasons the US economy is where it is, and it all started with Reagan. There was too much freedom going on out there and too many of the wrong people got wealthy. So it’s not only time to cut this nation down to size as a superpower around the world, it is also time to cut this nation down to size domestically and economically. He is attacking each and every individual in this nation. The free market, capitalism, if you will, is nothing more than a system by which people are free to pursue their economic interests, their dreams, and what have you and provide for their families. That’s what it is.
I got a brief time-out here, folks. We just got the ball rolling.
RUSH: Okay, since the signing of the treaty over there in Russia (and this provided the Senate ratifies it) the Democrats and the rest of the left have seen to it that the United States cannot retaliate in a chemical or biological attack in kind. We cannot do it. They’ve even shut down the manufacturing — the testing even — of biological, chemical weapons just like they’re about to do with our nuclear capability. So Obama is out there saying he’s going to end business cycles. That’s what this financial regulatory reform bill is all about. We’re gonna end the business cycle. We’re going to end the business cycle because we’re going to end risk-taking. We’re going to have a state controller. He’s going to have a straight line. So that means, if we translate this literally, that Obama’s going to fix it so that a political party can’t destroy the economy to get themselves elected, because that’s exactly what’s happened here.
A political party set out to destroy the economy and damage it, starting in 2005, 2006 in order to win an election. You want to know why he bows to the ChiComs? He can’t help admiring them. He admires the total control and power the ChiComs have over their people. Let’s get something straight here. The housing market collapsed because of government regulation. The banks in this country are the most heavily regulated industry of all, and they were before Obama became leader of the regime. Same with insurance. The workplace is regulated in all businesses. Toilets, lightbulbs, water usage, energy production and use, the automobile, appliances, schools, all are heavily regulated. The Feds regulate clothing, baby seats, all kinds of products and devices. They regulate hospitals, highway speed.
They regulate blankets. They regulate food and drugs. They regulate hair spray cans. They regulate the oceans. They regulate lakes. They regulate rivers. They even regulate temporary ponds on your land from a heavy rainstorm calling it a wetland. They regulate the air. I mean, the question here isn’t whether the government regulates but what the hell it does not regulate. For Obama to suggest that we live in an unfettered market and that people like you and me are the cause of the economic problems we face today shows just how radical this man is and ignorant as well as ideological. This is an interesting sound bite. Last night on PBS’ Charlie Rose Show, he spoke with the White House correspondent of the New York Times, David Sanger, about China. And Charlie Rose said, ‘What’s going to happen to the nonproliferation treaty review here?’
SANGER: The Chinese arrived here in Washington, and the first thing they asked for was a detailed briefing about the health care proposals that were underway in Congress. And everybody was a little bit shocked by this, and it became clear to them pretty soon that the Chinese didn’t really care about the public option or anything else. They simply wanted to know how much they were going to be asked to pay for this. And they still want to know the answer to that question.
RUSH: That’s why he’s bowing down to Hu Jintao, the head ChiCom. You know, in fact if you take a look, if you go back and look at all these people Obama bows to, they all are filthy, stinking rich. The king of Saudi Arabia, Hu Jintao, the ChiCom guy: They are all filthy, stinking rich. So the ChiComs get off of their plane at the nuke summit, and the first thing they want to know is health care and who’s gonna pay for it and how much they’re going to have to pay for it — and they still don’t know. It is said they don’t care about a public option? Well, they sure as hell better care about a public option. The sooner we get to public option, the sooner we get to single payer, the more expensive it’s going to be for the ChiComs and the more expensive it’s going to be for everybody else. Because, folks, the reason why it’s gonna cost the ChiComs is we don’t have the money for this. We’re already running a $1.5 trillion deficit this year. We don’t have the money for another $2.5 trillion program over ten years. So the ChiComs want to know how much it’s going to cost them.
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RUSH: Donna in Hanford, California, great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Thank you, Mr. Limbaugh.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: I was checking out Obama’s numbers yesterday, and I got down to Iowa, and I just kind of quit looking because I’m not surprised his poll numbers are dropping like this, ’cause I figured maybe three years in that was what was going to happen. What amazes me is how fast it has happened. I mean he is basically in the toilet right now, if you look at his poll numbers. It’s incredibly bad.
RUSH: I know there’s only one poll, that’s CNN, that has him at 50% approval.
CALLER: I think it was Rasmussen that I was looking at.
RUSH: Oh, yeah, well, Rasmussen doesn’t have him as low. Somebody’s got him at 43 out there, I forget — maybe it is Rasmussen 43, Gallup’s at 45 or 46. The numbers are cratering. The point of the financial regulatory reform bill which he started touting today, it’s time now to start running against Wall Street. He’s banking on the fact that you despise Wall Street and if you don’t, he can make you hate them, because if you look right now, Wall Street is doing pretty well, the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The thing that Republicans need to do to counter this is that everybody is in Wall Street. We have an investment economy. If you have a 401(k), I don’t care what’s happened to it, you are in Wall Street. It makes no sense for you to hate the place that you park your money as an investment.
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RUSH: Seth Leibsohn, National Review Online, sums up Obama’s nuclear summit this way: ‘We had a summit that accomplished nothing except a) angering the American and international press corps, b) closing down Washington for two days, and c) misleading everyone for 24 hours that China and others were on board with something to help stop Iran when that just wasn’t true. This just isn’t serious foreign or defense policy. In fact, it’s a dangerous, even Neronian policy — except it won’t be Rome that will burn.’ It will be America.
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RUSH: Seth Leibsohn, I just read you his summary of the nuke summit. I’ll read it to you again because he made a pretty apt illustration here. So in sum: ‘So, in sum: We had a summit that accomplished nothing except a) angering the American and international press corps, b) closing down Washington for two days, and c) misleading everyone for 24 hours that China and others were on board with something to help stop Iran when that just wasn’t true. This just isn’t serious foreign or defense policy. In fact, it’s a dangerous, even Neronian policy — except it won’t be Rome that will burn.’ Nero is an actual great comparison to Obama. Nero wanted to destroy old Rome and build a new city state in his image. He couldn’t think of any way to do it until he seized upon the happy idea of simply setting the whole place on fire and blaming his biggest opposition at the time, the Christians. So that’s what he did, and he sat around and played the fiddle, hence the phrase Nero fiddles while Rome burns.
Now, we know from his two autobiographies that Obama has long sought to remake America in his image, and the way they chatted about the way things should be in the Harvard facility lounge. But before you can remake America in your own image you have to destroy its economy. And luckily, Obama has a convenient group to blame there: Wall Street, Wall Street bankers, everybody hates them anyway. And then when you lop onto the fact that they caused all of this economic stress, they’re the ones, they got rich while everybody was losing their jobs, it’s a built-in winner, he thinks, to start ripping into the bankers at Wall Street. So it’s round two for that and it started today. But it wasn’t the Wall Street bankers who set the fire that now sees the US economy burning. It was Obama and the rest of the Democrats who wanted to bring down the system to advance their own political agenda. It’s very apt, this comparison to Nero. It’s exactly what is happening here.
Now, from the Washington Times: ‘The Obama administration is warning that the danger of a terrorist attack with nuclear weapons is increasing, but US officials say the claim is not based on new intelligence and questioned whether the threat is being overstated. President Obama said in a speech before the 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit, which concluded Tuesday, that ‘the risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of nuclear attack has gone up.’ The two-day meeting concluded with an agreement by participants to take steps to prevent non-state actors like al Qaeda from obtaining nuclear weapons.’ This is patently absurd. If the Iranians ever do succeed in nuking up — and now we’re told it’s going to be a year, wasn’t long ago they told us it was going to be five years. Now they’re saying it’s gonna be a year. Other people say it’s imminent, within weeks. Whenever and if ever Ahmadinejad and the mullahs get nukes, do you think they have any doubt, any problem giving Al-Qaeda nuclear weapons? And Iran, of course, doesn’t show up at the summit.
‘– tougher security to prevent terrorists, criminals and others from acquiring nuclear goods. But Henry Sokolski, a member of the congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, said that there is no specific intelligence on ongoing terrorist procurement of nuclear material. ‘We were given briefings and when we tried to find specific intelligence on the threat of any known terrorist efforts to get a bomb, the answer was we did not have any.” So we don’t have any intel on increased threats, and yet Obama says the nuclear risk is growing. Why all this talk of nukes all of a sudden? I know the summit was scheduled for a while, but all of a sudden now nukes are on the front page as they were back in the eighties, and aside from continuing angst causing chaos, keeping everybody in the country unsettled, I think that’s probably what all this talk is about, the more unsettled people are, the more filled with angst, the more chaos there is out there. In Obamaville, the view is that that will cause people to call on the regime for even more assistance to quell all of these threats and get rid of the chaos and bring order.
Then USA Today, interesting story here: ‘The White House has warned state and local governments not to expect a ‘significant federal response’ at the scene of a terrorist nuclear attack for 24 to 72 hours after the blast.’ Yes, that’s exactly right. The White House, the regime, has told state and local governments not to expect a significant federal response at the scene of a terrorist nuclear attack for 24 to 72 hours after the blast. ‘President Obama told delegates from 47 nations at the Nuclear Security Summit on Tuesday that it would be a ‘catastrophe for the world’ if al-Qaeda or another terrorist group got a nuclear device, because so many lives would be lost and it would be so hard to mitigate damage from the blast. A 10-kiloton nuclear explosion would level buildings within half a mile of ground zero, generate 900-mph winds, bathe the landscape with radiation and produce a plume of fallout that would drift for hundreds of miles, the guide says. It was posted on the Internet and sent to local officials.’
Now, this is interesting. What about after a hurricane like Katrina? Same thing? Don’t expect the Feds for 24 to 72 hours? Tell me something, folks. What is the number one job of the federal government? Is it to spread the wealth? Is it to redistribute the wealth? Is it to nationalize industries? Is it to take over the doctor-patient relationship? Or is it to protect the public? See, the problem is the government is now so big, it is so involved in so many things, including the most minuscule aspect of our lives, it’s not focused on what it’s supposed to do and what it can only do. And this is what we get, a breakdown in failure, and they say, ‘Look, our number one objective here, the thing we are really chartered with, public safety, protecting the people, protecting the Constitution, but we want you to know, if you get nuked, we’re not showing up for 24 to 72 hours.’ What has Obama actually achieved here, honestly? I mean, big deal. So Canada, Mexico, and other allies give us their uranium? Are they threats?
It’s not the amount of nuclear material out there. It’s who has it. That’s why we care about Iran. That’s why we care about North Korea. We don’t care if the Canadians have it. We don’t care the Israelis have it. Well, we do now. We don’t care if Mexico, India. We don’t worry about allies, but we are concerned about the ChiComs having these things; we’re concerned about North Korea; we’re concerned about Iran. It’s who has the stuff. Obama’s not accomplishing anything by having these countries that have no intention of ever attacking us to give us their uranium. He’s just weakening everybody. And the people we do not want having nukes were not even at this summit, and a lot of our allies were not there. The Brits, the Germans, the French, they weren’t there. No, they’re less important than Nigeria. This man wastes so much time. You know, it’s no wonder he gets nowhere when it comes to Iran building nukes or Venezuela trying to acquire advanced weapons from Russia.
Hezbollah is now being armed to the teeth in Lebanon, I mentioned this last hour. Syria has transferred a bunch of Scud missiles with 400-mile ranges. Now the Hezbos can launch these things if they want and hit Tel Aviv and Israel. And Obama is out there, ‘Look at what I’ve done, look at what I’ve done. I’ve got Canada, I’ve got Mexico to give us their uranium. Why, we’ve removed a threat.’ Doesn’t matter. Those people did not threaten us. The people who threaten us and our allies are arming up. They’re in the process of nuking up. Listen to this sound bite. (interruption) What is our foreign policy? Snerdley, where have you been all week? Our foreign policy is the United States has been the problem in the world. We are no longer going to be the problem in the world because I, Barack Obama, realize we’ve been the problem in the world and we’re going to change the things about America that have made it the problem in the world. So, we’re going to get rid of our conventional nuclear forces. We are going to stop standing up for freedom and liberty around the world. We’re going to eliminate this notion of American exceptionalism. He was asked once, ‘Do you believe in American exceptionalism?’ Oh, yeah, but I’m sure the Spaniards believe in Spanish exceptionalism. So we are no different, we’re no better, we’re no worse — uh, take it back. We’re no different, we’re no better, and in fact we are worse than some other nations around the world.
So our foreign policy is based on a presumption that if Obama can show his morality, a morality that comes from leftist radicalism, with chitchat going back and forth in the Harvard faculty lounge, that will demonstrate to the bad guys of the world that they really don’t need to fear us and they don’t need to do these bad things anymore. American foreign policy today, Snerdley, is based on the assumption that we have created all of the bad guys in the world because of our superpower status, our allied status with Israel, our nuclear arsenal, our standing up for free people around the world. We don’t just mind our own business. We try to make the world’s business ours. It’s none of our business so we’re going to dial it back. That’s US foreign policy. We’re gonna stop being the problem of the world. And when people see that we’re no longer guilty of all the things that have justified them in their terrorist actions or their aggressive actions then they’ll stand down. There won’t be any more reason to hate us. The only reason they’re doing what they’re doing is because they hate us and they have a legitimate reason for hating us because we were too big and too powerful and we squished ’em and stomped on ’em.
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RUSH: Here’s Brad in Naples, Florida, as we go back to the phones. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to point out that I’m quite surprised that the president has not gone after Russia or China, let alone some of the other countries such as Pakistan or India for upgrading their nuclear weapons program — specifically Russia for upgrading their anti-ballistic missile defenses around the Moscow. Now, I’m not a lawyer, but according to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, both of our countries are allowed to have 100 interceptors to destroy incoming ballistic missiles. Now, Russia has continuously testified their new missile systems which have nuclear weapons to destroy ballistic missiles that would be coming into their country —
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: — which no one talks about. And it’s just very confusing to me how we’re disarming our ballistic missile systems which do not have nuclear weapons to destroy other missiles but we do not talk to Russia about this, and it’s quite confusing to me.
RUSH: Why is it confusing?
CALLER: And furthermore, China is testing anti-satellite weapons openly — and, you know, they’re further modernizing their ballistic missile systems.
RUSH: Why is this confusing to you?
CALLER: Well, it’s not confusing but no one discusses this with them.
RUSH: Why is that confusing?
CALLER: We’re disarming; they’re not. I mean that’s the issue right there.
RUSH: And who’s running the country?
CALLER: Right. Absolutely. But even during president — in all fairness — President Bush did not approach Russia about this, either. You know, instead he increased our ballistic missile defense systems, which — which I think was the appropriate measure to do.
RUSH: Of course. And Bush authorized the installation of a defensive missile shield in Europe to protect those countries against an attack from Iran.
CALLER: Mmmm.
RUSH: Guess who’s just cancelled it? The regime, the Obama regime. People are going to have to get the fact that this man’s transformation of America is to cut it down to size. He believes we have been the problem of the world. He’s going to end our superpower status economically and militarily. That’s his objective. He’s not going anywhere ’til he gets that done, folks.