Steyn in for Rush Today!

by Mark Steyn
The Rush Limbaugh Show
August 26, 2019

https://www.steynonline.com/9661/steyn-in-for-rush-today

Happy August Bank Holiday to our readers in England, Ireland, Wales and the Crown Dependencies (but not Scotland). Meanwhile, back on this side of the Atlantic, today, Monday, I'll be back behind the Golden EIB Microphone for three hours of substitute-host-level Excellence In Broadcasting on America's Number One radio show. The fun starts at 12 noon Eastern/9am Pacific. As Rush himself put it on Friday:

My syndication and broadcast partners have decided that next week is an irrelevant week and that, if there is any week for me to not be here, to be sat down, to be protected from injury or other calamity, I should take next week off, just as the starters in the NFL preseason game three are taking time off.

It's genuinely a nothing week. It's the week leading into Labor Day... So now that there's no shock and no surprise when next Monday comes, and the people who will never play the game for real are hosting the program.

Fortunately, I have no idea what these NFL analogies mean.

Anyway, we'll do our best to make it a not-quite-nothing week. So I hope you'll dial us up either via the iHeart Radio app or on one of over 600 stations across the fruited plain, such as our old friends at WNTK New Hampshire, where you can listen to the full show from anywhere on the planet right here.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to barnstorm the nation. This weekend he was in my neighborhood - a couple of hours south of me in Keene. That's a town in the critical first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire. As Joe told his putative voters:

I love this place. Look, what's not to like about Vermont?

Close enough. And it has more of a brilliant comic precision than his usual stumblebum campaign style:

We'll talk Sleepy Joe and all the other news for a full three hours starting at midday Eastern.

~We had a busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with my surprise and delight to discover that I'm scientifically-verified peer-reviewed Climate Change Contrarian Number Twenty-Two. Speaking of which, we continued our audio adaptation of the IPA's environmental bestseller Climate Change: The Facts with episodes on the shunning of the sun, the complexity of climatology, and giving the earth the benefit of the doubt. Kathy Shaidle's Saturday movie date went Fritz Lang film noir with Scarlet Street, and our Sunday song selection marked the eightieth birthday of The Wizard of Oz. If you were too busy campaigning for the New Hampshire primary in a holed skiff on Lake Champlain, I hope you'll want to catch up with one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.

The latest episode of Climate Change: The Facts airs here very shortly just ahead of Rush. This.series is made with the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club. As I always say, Club membership isn't for everyone, but it does come with some special benefits, including:

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~and the chance to support our print, audio and video ventures as they wing their way around the planet.

See you on the radio at noon Eastern, and on the telly with Tucker tonight.

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35 Reader Comments

Walt Trimmer • Aug 26, 2019 at 23:31

I caught part of your first day of nothing week and just wanted to say you met or exceeded expectations. I think you hurt Mike's(?) feelings with your full-throated response to his impassioned plea for keeping American plastics out of the Oceans. I love it when your voice goes up an octave!

Kate Smyth • Aug 26, 2019 at 23:07

As this was "while you were sleeping" for some us, I will definitely subscribe to Rush 24/7 with conditions: The sinister foreign guest host should discombulate listeners on regular basis (Canadian-American-Australian-Britisher that he is... that exchange was pretty funny to say the least).

By the way, back in May I tried calling the number to tell Mr Snerdley my "Rush Global" idea - but it didn't work from overseas.

Mark replies:

Sorry about that, Kate. I have taken calls over the years from the Turks & Caicos and other parts of the British West Indies, so technically it does work from "overseas". You just have to move Australia a bit closer. A bit more global warming and surely the landmasses will all be drifting around.

Kate Smyth

Kate Smyth • Aug 27, 2019 at 07:15

I think the plan is to move the continent closer to the South Pole to offset the warming, Mark. That will no doubt make the long-distance call problem worse.

As of today, I'm officially a Rush 24/7 member: noticed the long list of "overseas" countries in the drop-down menu (but forgot to check for Burkina Faso and Bangladesh). I would've considered calling in this week with a question, but frankly I'm a bit scared after the (well-deserved) roasting that Mike got (Idiot Mike, as opposed to Normal Mike).

One thing he got right (though he meant it in the pejorative sense) was "Canadian-American-Australian-Britisher"... I love that!

PS. Typo above: should be *discombobulate*

Lowell Walker

Kate Smyth • Aug 27, 2019 at 10:38

Thanks to my dyslexia I read it as "discombobulate". Thanks to there no longer being such a thing as proof readers, I do that a lot.

Kate Smyth

Lowell Walker • Aug 27, 2019 at 20:27

It's amazing how the brain can deceive the eye (or the other way around) isn't it? I submit a comment, and on rereading wonder how I missed a glaring error.

Andrew A • Aug 26, 2019 at 21:50

I enjoyed Sleepy Joe's reference to Democrocs. Good one. I hope he wins the nomination just to see him defend the Democrocs against Trump's Draining of the Swamp.

Andy • Aug 26, 2019 at 21:11

I took off work a little early for some automotive maintenance. What a treat to turn on the radio and hear Steyn riffing on the hazards of stainless steel drinking straws! As for the football analogy, I've preferred the college game to the NFL since the strike-shortened season of the 80's...and prefer to hear Mark anyway, as that's where I first discovered him years...and many books...ago.

Perry Pattetic • Aug 26, 2019 at 20:19

A good friend of mine - raving pinko Democrat that he is - is from Da Burgh. He sounds identical to Sleepy Joe. Same accent, same BS blustering style. But I love him.
He had a stroke a year ago, and has those Biden blanks and stumbles.
When I first met him, over 30 years ago, he was rat-a-tat fluent and still politically wrong. But I did not have a dog in the American political fight back then, because I was British.
Biden is trying to not be Obama - wooden, teleprompter, not too bright, scripted. All he is doing is taking out the teleprompter and forgetting the script. Too much coaching and not enough of the brain cells are doing what he wills them to do.
It reminds me of The Last Samurai: " Aruguren-san! Too much mind!"
Biden will be fortunate to go suddenly of a major aneurism - worst case, he will linger and fade in the public eye, at which point the many skeletons in his family cupboard will come out, and he will be unable to protect his corrupt family and his failed, incompetent, corrupt legacy. Biden's is a lifelong political career, and we know how they all end, as Enoch Powell observed.

Fran Lavery

Perry Pattetic • Aug 27, 2019 at 10:21

I have a very good friend who suffered a series of mini strokes. She lived alone so we never knew when they occurred but little by little she became unable to reach for words she wanted to use. We noticed it at her 80th birthday lunch eight years ago when she was unable to say what she wanted for lunch even though she had a menu and could read and see fine. I think the term might be aphasia, but I don't have any medical training to say with certainty. I've never even heard her official diagnosis.

It's very sad because it has deteriorated little by little since then. Otherwise she is in good physical health other than some memory issues that could be associated with this one condition but could also be separate. The worry is now she can't really socialize well because of being unable to say most all words other than a few pronouns and words we all learn when we begin to read. It's very heartbreaking to see happen to someone who previously had a brilliant wit and was an accomplished pianist.

I wouldn't wish any medical emergency on anyone, not Mr. Biden, no human being. I'm not one of his fans but when you see something like this go on and on, it's absolutely inexplicable to me that loved ones would allow it to continue. Are people close to him really this heartless? It may tickle the funny bone to see and hear the gaffs but at some point this is not a good thing that this is not recognized as relating to major mental and physical complications occurring to seniors everywhere and in some cases to people much younger than you would expect.

P. Gao • Aug 26, 2019 at 20:09

Ha-ha! It's like language competency level 4-5 when one demonstrates one can understand the 'sayings' as worked in normal conversation. It wasn't until we had to work in a bi-lingual environment then we realized how many people trying to speak to non-anglophones, but were using sports terminology - completely unaware - and completely baffling to the non-anglophone... US footbal vs world futbol for starters, then cricket terms... and it's both sides of the language divide... everyone using everyday expressions, not realizing the reasons for the confused looks on the hearers' faces.
But, then it's funny how many Americans think 'the whole nine yards' is US football terminology, when it's dumptruck (tip) cubic feet loads.
Second grumble comes from the other topic... will brain wandering be the Joe excuse for not noticing the fingers, hands, nose and lips wandering all over any females within arms' reach? Oh! Those are arms... my arms?

Walt Trimmer

P. Gao • Aug 26, 2019 at 23:23

Dump trucks typically hold ten cubic yards.

The Canadians play football too. It's like they only got half the rule book and made up a bunch of stuff to fill the gaps.

Perry Pattetic

P. Gao • Aug 27, 2019 at 00:16

9 Yards; years ago, an American claimed it was because there were 9 yards of bullets in a US Navy F6F Hellcat's wing-mounted gun magazine.
They were wrong too.
3 Masted Royal Navy Ship of The Line - 3 "yards" per mast.
Nine Yards of sails. The whole nine yards. Everything aloft.
Of course, then you can add the studding sails... I guess that would be 11 yards..

P. Gao

Walt Trimmer • Aug 27, 2019 at 17:14

Ouf! Between sails and U.S. dumpster volumes, that would put our English at no more than a 4 non-English-speaking ranking. :D

Nicholas Strathy • Aug 26, 2019 at 16:52

While the elites are out enjoying a quiet cigar off the grid, what better choice to resuscitate the deadest week in radio for the other 99% of us than the Substitute King of Cable News.

Fran Lavery • Aug 26, 2019 at 16:35

He'd probably be better off as Lamb Chops with Shari Lewis up his bottom," said Mark, talking about one of the Senators needing to be mothballed, be it Biden or Markey.

The perks to having an undocumented alien guest host for The Maja Rushie during the dead time of the season are clear to me now.

Michael Seth

Fran Lavery • Aug 26, 2019 at 20:13

Crystal clear indeed, Fran! I almost fell off of my office chair with Lambchop!! And I had just gotten up from, "The Yangtze River is the world's longest toilet...". I don't think I'll still have a job after a week of this.

Fran Lavery

Michael Seth • Aug 26, 2019 at 21:21

Gives a new dimension to being "perked up" from the doldrums, Mike, not that I don't feel similarly during Rush's three hours of EIB broadcasting. Lamb chops was my first favorite entertainer after The Three Stooges and Rocky and Bullwinkle, it'a Just I never thought of him having Shari Lewis's hand up his bottom until today. I used to think like a Girl Scout once upon a time.

Josh Passell

Fran Lavery • Aug 27, 2019 at 06:29

It was Ma(la)rkey in this case. I can still hear Mark's takedown of the junior (in so many ways) senator from Mass in the Senate hearing room. Not even the fine motor skills of Shari Lewis could have rescued Mister Frosty (about the only legitimate job he ever held) from flapping his gums idly, like a gaffed fish. If you never heard it, it was similar to Mark's demolition of the caller who challenged him Monday on ocean pollution. Never pick an environmental fight with someone who's serializing Climate Change: The Facts on his website. It will not end well for you.
PS: One of the Kennedys--who cares which one, Robert VII, Joe IX--is likely to primary Markey next year. I won't have a dog in the fight, but I will enjoy the blood sport of it.

Fran Lavery

Michael Seth • Aug 27, 2019 at 08:10

We know now where one of the future Mark Steyn cruises is not going, Michael. And it's fine by me. Never been to China. Will only consider it if they clean up their pollution, and human rights and animal rights groups make progress. That will not likely happen in the rest of my life.

Fran Lavery

Josh Passell • Aug 27, 2019 at 09:10

"Never pick an environmental fight with someone who's serializing Climate Change: The Facts on his website."
No, no, I won't do that for sure. I was sure glad I didn't want to talk about polluted oceans yesterday. I listened to it taped anyway with my Rush app. And even though local and national conservative talk radio is coming back after three years of Mexican soft rock replacing it, I'm not giving up Rush 24/7 because it has other cool features. It's the best radio app ever developed.

This particular caller had an annoying combative style that seemed inappropriate. If you have a different point of view, it does makes good radio, just have proof ready to fire. I'm willing to hear the other point of view, but the caller wasn't going to be educated by Mark. He didn't have any sound evidence and he was just hurling verbal javelins.

I do remember when we had a rental house in South Jersey back in the 70's we had multiple beach closures from garbage barges dumping from NYC. Needles and other unsavory items were washed along the beaches and that was awful especially if you only had a place for a week and you waited a year to get to the beach. I guess the barges went somewhere else. I'm very concerned about keeping the oceans clean, but how does that happen when the other big polluters take no substantive actions to alter their habits. As Mark pointed out, why are we always the punching bag.

P. Gao

Fran Lavery • Aug 28, 2019 at 11:04

Always amazed at the New York City unreality-based mass garbage disposal. Out of sight out of mind or the supertitious belief that once it's over the horizon, somehow ocean water makes it dissolve 'pouf' or that so many companies with highly sketchy ownerships could be trusted to 'do the right thing?' This is decades and decades of this vile nonsense, if not a century of it, and it's still being done? It's so easy, it gives the usual suspects too much free time to bully-lecture and fine the rest of us to shut up and bend the knees to them.

Fran Lavery

P. Gao • Aug 28, 2019 at 12:05

Did NYC just dump into the Hudson River before they started hauling out to sea? Until that episode about Canada's trash being refused in The Phillipines, it never would have occurred to me that trash was shipped that far away. A father of a friend was in Pacific arena of WWII. Before the war he was a long distance swimmer living in Manhattan. He used to train in the river and he said he would just push the trash floating in front of him out of his way with every stroke. His chopper was shot down and most of the crew did not make it but he swam for miles to the nearest island and survived. There's no connection between the trash going into the oceans and this swimmer's experience but I think of him every time of think of trash and our waterways. It think it's radio time!

Babs from Cali • Aug 26, 2019 at 14:53

I wish I had received as many work holidays growing up as bankers and government workers. Now they get even more. Pretty soon they'll just work one week out of every 52 - which is good for Mark.

But I actually liked to work, and even now in my old age, I'm still working (self employed) because I would be bored to tears otherwise. It keeps me creative and alert and generates a low level of exercise too. I've never been able to understand lazy people.

Josh Passell • Aug 26, 2019 at 14:01

I don't know who's the Rush Limbaugh of Bangladesh, but Don Imus used to have Shecky Bahuda, the Wacky Packy, on from time to time. Will he do?

Susan Havey

Josh Passell • Aug 26, 2019 at 18:28

Wish we knew how Don is doing. Miss him much.

Jay Barney • Aug 26, 2019 at 13:42

Four More Days! Four More Days!

Chris Hall aka MCF • Aug 26, 2019 at 13:37

Mark's description of Macron's imperial approach to the French presidency made me think that the whole EU structure appears to resemble an empire as opposed to a representative democracy. This got me to thinking about possible new labels for the enterprise. How about: The Third Empire, The Fifth Reich, The Union of European Socialist Republics, or my favorite, The Unholy Roman Empire?

RAC

Chris Hall aka MCF • Aug 26, 2019 at 16:33

I'll take the third option Chris - but they're all good. I don't consider a single member as a true ally of America and every leader save Boris despises our president. Why do we still have 30,000 troops in Germany to protect them from the Russian bear when they stab us in the back at every turn? How many NATO members supported Trump's moving our embassy to Jerusalem in that anti-Israel UN resolution condemning his action. Not a one. Ditto for the EU including the Brits. Shameful!

Fran Lavery

RAC • Aug 27, 2019 at 10:41

Some of these things you mention do boggle the mind. Germany recently pulled their forces who trained out of Holloman AFB here in Southern New Mexico. They apparently can now train and supply their own forces in their own country. It was good for the economy of the small New Mexico Borderland railroad town adjacent to the base. They even opened a very large and beautiful private German elementary school there.

But a new friendlier country will perhaps replace them soon and things will come back a little for the town. But why would we still have troops there in Germany other than for other strategic global reach purposes? There's so much the average citizen probably doesn't know and won't know for decades.

P. Gao

Chris Hall aka MCF • Aug 28, 2019 at 11:26

Oh yeah. They're entrenched in Belgium. Who's the most famed humanitarian in Europe? King Leopold of Belgium. Look up the legend of the statue in the port of Antwerp, the one with the severed hands. One can buy little gourmet Belgium chocolate hands - in white chocolate or milk or dark chocolate. A bit creepy because in more modern times, Leopold's agents would cut off the hands and feet of Congolese children as punishment if their parents or their villages didn't fill their assigned quotas of rubber and ivory, massive quanities of forcibly extracted loot that was shipped into Antwerp and sold to pay for Leopold's edifices in Belgium and across Europe. Reportedly, it took over a week for him to burn the accounting records, so even to this day, no one is sure exactly what he owned. The Belgium People were innocent, but not the elite power stucture, which protects itself. Seems unsurprising anymore that the E.U. is HQ'd there and quite un-accountable to the public throughout all of Europe? Always remember Belgium's top two exports: 1) Hypocrisy 2) Landmines.

Denis • Aug 26, 2019 at 12:18

Irish August Bank Holiday was way back on the 4th of the month, Mark. We are now twiddling our thumbs until Halloween for our next lá breá.

Simus1canada • Aug 26, 2019 at 10:57

Fear "Crazy" Joe and fear his VP choice even more. That would be a good plan.

Fran Lavery • Aug 26, 2019 at 10:39

Fortunately for Rush 24/7 i'll be able to catch Mark in for Rush after my four hour flight. There'a No place like home, there'a No place like home, there'a No place like home.

Ron Waln

Fran Lavery • Aug 26, 2019 at 13:26

Careful, Fran. You could end up in Kansas.

Fran Lavery

Ron Waln • Aug 26, 2019 at 15:51

As long as it's the US of A, it's home to me, Ron:)