Free Republic

RUSH: Now, you could be mistaken if you are confused. Greetings, my friends. Great to have you with us. It’s Rush Limbaugh, the EIB Network and yet another three-hour excursion into broadcast excellence. Telephone number here if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882. Now, today is supposed to be the start of the opening arguments in this so-called impeachment trial. Never mind the Democrats could not wait, they turned a debate that was supposed to be about whether to call witnesses before or after opening arguments into their opening arguments. They did their opening argument yesterday as part...

RUSH: Now, you know I have always believed that the Democrats have known that Trump was not gonna be convicted in an impeachment trial in the Senate. So why do this? What’s the purpose? The worst thing that could happen is for Trump to be acquitted. I mean, here they’ve got this three-year investment into Trump being a traitor and a Russian spy, a Russian agent, whatever else they have said he is. With all of it, they don’t have an impeachable offense. They’ve got these two really pathetic articles of impeachment — and in order to keep the base...

RUSH: This is a CNN story. I assume all of you know who Jeffrey Epstein is — uh, was. Jeffrey Epstein was what? He was the king of pedophiles. He was also the king of the Democrats. He was the king of Democrat partying, the king of Democrat fundraising. This guy was flying Democrats all over to his properties in Paris, in the Virgin Islands, in his New York apartment, and he was engaging in pedophilia and enabling them to engage in whatever action/activity they wanted to that he was providing. So Jeffrey Epstein is dead. That’s not what this...

RUSH: Hey, folks, how’s everybody? I’m great, and it’s great to be back, and I really apologize for missing last week, but it’s actually not that big a deal. I mean, it seemed like it was a big deal at the time. I didn’t want to be out, but I had no choice. I had to be out. It was unexpected. It was unannounced. So I apologize for it. But I’m looking back and a lot seems to have happened in the past week. But not really. I mean, how much can really happen when I’m a here? Especially when...

RUSH: This is kind of funny. This is… (chuckles) Do you remember Operation Chaos? What year was Operation Chaos? (interruption) You don’t remember Operation Chaos? Operation Chaos was 2008. John McCain won the Republican primaries early. By the early spring of 2008, there was no more drama left in the Republican race. But the Democrat race? Eh, Hillary Clinton was still hanging in. She was looking tough, still hanging in. It was down to the wire between her and Barack Hussein O, and Hillary was ticked off because she had been promised the nomination. But then the young, energetic, vibrant...

Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson has secrets. The man who green-lit the Ukrainian whistleblower’s complaint despite zero first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoing gave damaging, sealed testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. According to ranking member Devin Nunes, the information Atkinson revealed information that hurts the Democrats’ impeachment case. He spoke to Sara Carter about the investigation into Atkinson’s dealings. Nunes, R-CA, spoke to this reporter for Monday’s podcast. He revealed that transcripts of Atkinson’s secret testimony will expose that the Inspector General either lied or he needs to make corrections to his statements to lawmakers. The transcripts has been...

RUSH: We’ll move on to the economic news because, man, that is just unparalleled. It’s incredible, 29,000 at the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Are you ready for this statistic? One-third of the gain from 28,000 to 29,000, Dow Jones Industrial Average, is due to people buying Apple stock, and of course Apple products. One company. One-third of the gain, 333 points of that 1,000 is Apple. Apple, the company, now worth $1.4 trillion. Other companies that have driven up the market are McDonald’s, Microsoft, American Express, Johnson & Johnson, American classic companies. The unemployment news is great, and particularly the...

RUSH: Yesterday we played a clip of Trump. He was talking to reporters in the Oval Off… Well, no. It was at the infrastructure event that the president had, and we may have been the only ones to point this out. Trump said yesterday that Soleimani was planning to blow up the U.S. embassy, and I remember asking, “Is that not news?” Nobody in the media touched on it. Nobody in the media covered it. Now we know why today. It’s because they’re trying to claim that Trump is lying or that he’s wrong about it or that he’s making...

RUSH: You remember during the campaign, Trump asked people…? Well, he didn’t ask. He told people that, if they vote for him, they’re gonna someday become tired of winning. That we were gonna be winning so much that we were gonna call him and say, “Mr. President, slow down. We can’t handle all this winning. You gotta lose a couple just to keep people honest.” Remember that? I have a question for the Democrats. When are you people gonna get tired of losing? (laughing) Do you even realize that you are losing, and you are losing magnificently, and you are...

RUSH: U.S. intelligence officials — I always have an asterisk in my mind when I say that now. U.S. intelligence, I mean, you talk about the Clapper and Brennan chapter of it, these are the people that tried to run this coup against Trump, but this is a different bunch here. U.S. intelligence believes that Iran accidentally shot down that Ukrainian Boeing 737-800 with a Russian-made surface — do you know where Iran gets its missile tech? You’d be wrong if you think Russia. They get some, but they get a lot from the North Koreans. The Iranians have all...

RUSH: I want to get some of the audio sound bites here of the some of the Drive-By Media that happened last night and this morning after Iran launched its impotent little salvo at a couple of bases in Iraq where Americans were stationed. We have a montage here — this is audio sound bite number 3. This is literally the Drive-By Media praising Iran for intentionally causing no casualties and saving the world from the madman, Donald Trump. Now, let me give you the timeline of this. Last night when Iran launches its missiles, which we all saw in...

RUSH: Here’s a little bit of President Trump today from the speech. We’ll start at audio sound bite number 6. He made a dramatic entrance. Oh! A lot of people are wondering why this particular area of the White House. This was not the Diplomatic Reception Room. It was not the Oval Office. It was not the East Room. It wasn’t a room, actually. It was a hallway. I’ll tell you where this was. If you remember watching some presidential prime time press conferences, you see the president come out of a door and walk down a long hall with...

RUSH: Hi, folks. We didn’t have a chance yesterday to do a post mortem on the Trump interview because the show ended, so we didn’t have a chance to discuss it. Now, I thought the president made news at least three times in that interview, maybe four, if news coverage of the president were conventional. But news coverage of the president isn’t conventional. Most of the coverage, we’ve done a review of it, it’s kind of hilarious. Most of them are ticked off that he was on with me and not with them. And that’s what drove them in their...

RUSH: I made mention of the fact yesterday that General Soleimani was flown back to Tehran in a cardboard box. There was no body. There were body parts. There was a hand with an identifiable ring. Flown back there in a box that was laid out across three coach seats in the Iranian airline. Well, it turns out now that this coffin, Soleimani’s coffin was later put on the hood of a Chevrolet truck — not a Toyota, a Chevrolet truck — for part of his funeral procession. So Chevy got some product placement here, edging out Toyota, which is...

RUSH: Now we get to some media reaction. This is local Boston News, WHGH-TV 7 News today in New England this morning. MADELINE HUNT: The president may be impeached, but that’s not stopping him from enjoying Christmas at Mar-A-Lago. President Trump spotted with his sons and conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh RUSH: And that’s that Twitter photo out there, that Politico photo that was tweeted. It was not at Mar-a-Lago. Maybe I shouldn’t be saying, but the White House hasn’t announced it, so I’m not really permitted to say anything about what it was. And, man, would I...

RUSH: As I scour the cable news networks, I saw all of the backup hosts, all the second- and third-tier hosts that you never see except whatever, and here we are. I always love being on when everybody else is taking a vacation day or vacation period or what have you. It’s always been that way and if I could have been here tomorrow, I would have, but the staff revolted, claiming that I was turning into Scrooge if I made it all about me, they’ve got things — which I understand, I understand. So today will be it. You...

RUSH: You may not believe me on this, but don’t doubt me. They’re panicking big time on the left. They are panicking over Pelosi not sending the articles over to the Senate. One of her big witnesses in the Schiff committee has written a piece claiming, “You can’t even say he’s been impeached yet if you don’t send those articles over there.” And then there are two polls out today that finally reflect what we all know to be true. JOHNNY DONOVAN: And now, from sunny South Florida, it’s Open Line Friday! RUSH: Yes siree, wrapping up yet another barnstorming...

RUSH: Here is Mitch McConnell. I mentioned he had a great line about the accusation from Pelosi that she’s the one that has all the “leverage” now because she’s refusing to send the articles over to the Senate. This is last night on the Senate floor, two sound bites from the Turtle. Here’s the first one… MCCONNELL: We remain at an impasse because my friend, the Democratic leader, continues to demand a new and different set of rules for President Trump. My colleague wants a special pretrial guarantee of certain witnesses whom the House Democrats themselves did not bother to...

RUSH: To so to summarize in the Economist/YouGov poll, Trump leads Biden by six, Sanders by 26, Elizabeth Warren by 30, Pete Buttigieg by 41%. This is not a preference poll. It’s an electability poll. It’s voters, registered voters being asked, “Okay. In this matchup, who wins? That matchup, who wins?” It’s not a, “Who are you gonna vote for, who do you want to vote for, who do you want to see win.” It’s what do people think. And these margins, as I’ve said, make sense to me because the Democrats are offering nothing. We live in undeniably economically...

RUSH: Chicago. Steve, great to have you with us, sir. Hello. CALLER: Hi, Rush. Just a quick question. Is it possible for Nancy Pelosi to withhold articles of impeachment from the Senate until after the 2020 election, wait for a possible Democratic win, then submit?RUSH: I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know. This is uncharted territory for a lot of people. The idea of holding these articles until after 2020 — you’re presuming Trump’s reelected?CALLER: Yes. Of course. Yeah. RUSH: My off-the-cuff answer to this is gonna be that unless specified, like legislation, an act of Congress ends when...