RUSH: There’s a story that I found last night, Cox newspapers, and I found this because the story mentions me, and it’s the weirdest thing. It’s from the Seattle Times but it’s datelined West Palm Beach, Florida. And the headline: ‘Drilling Off Cuba Could Be Sticky Proposition.’ Now, listen to the way this thing starts: ‘Despite the warnings of Dick Cheney, George Will, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, the Russians are not drilling for oil off Cuba. Neither are the Chinese. In fact, no one — not 
even Cuba — is drilling for oil off Cuba. The pesky and persistent rumor, bubbling back up with the Deepwater Horizon disaster, is still nothing more than a pesky and persistent rumor — aired in 2008 by former Vice President Cheney (who got the misinformation from conservative columnist Will), repeated on Fox News and recently revived by conservative radio commentator Limbaugh, who told his listeners 10 days after the spill: ‘The Russians are drilling in a deal with the Cubans in the Gulf. The Vietnamese and Angola are drilling for oil in the Gulf in deals with the Cubans.” Now to this point in the story I guess we all made it up. There’s nothing to it, nothing but a pesky rumor. George Will started this chain of disinformation, it went to Cheney, and then went from Cheney to Fox News, and then somehow I picked it up. But it’s not true. It’s just a pesky rumor.
However, the next paragraph, after that lead: ‘However, as oil from BP’s exploded well continues surging from the Gulf floor and washing onto Panhandle beaches, the rumor is poised to become fact.’ I read this, I was incredulous. ‘Drilling Off Cuba Could Be Sticky Proposition.’ The first two paragraphs deny that there is any drilling in the Gulf with the aid of the Cubans. It’s a pesky rumor; it’s disinformation. George Will’s responsible, Cheney’s responsible, I’m responsible, Fox News is responsible. There isn’t any drilling in the Gulf with the Cubans, Angola, the ChiComs, the Vietnamese, nobody. Got that? ‘However, as oil from BP’s exploded well continues surging … the rumor is poised to become fact.’ Well, how can it ever be a rumor? Who wrote this? Christine Stapleton. I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve seen everything that the Drive-Bys have done but I have never seen anything like this. It would be like me coming up, ‘Psst, psst, have you heard that rumor the Cubans and the ChiComs and the Russians are drilling in the Gulf?’ ‘Yeah, I heard.’ ‘Well, it’s not true. It’s not true. Except next week it’s going to start.’ What the name of Sam Hill is going on here?
Here are the details of this pesky rumor: ‘Repsol, a Spanish company, expects to begin drilling off Cuba in 2011, according to published reports and oil-industry analysts. Companies from at least 10 other countries, including Russia and China, are negotiating or already have signed lease deals to drill off Cuba.’ And yet the first two paragraphs of this story say it’s nothing but a pesky rumor, spread by people like me and George Will and Dick Cheney and Fox News. The rest of the story is details of all of this drilling that’s going to go on with the Cubans, the Angolans, the Vietnamese, and the ChiComs. And then there’s this question: ‘Should the United States be concerned about drilling off Cuba?’ Why should we be concerned, Christine? It’s a rumor. It’s an unsubstantiated rumor spread by me and George Will and Dick Cheney and Fox News, and now after telling everybody in the lead of your story it’s just a rumor now all of a sudden you’re offering details and asking if we should be concerned about it? So after asking the question, should the US be concerned about drilling off Cuba, yes, she writes, is the answer, ‘according to Jorge Piñon, former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and now a visiting research fellow with the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.’
Okay, so now we’ve gone from a pesky rumor, unsubstantiated started by George Will, picked up by Cheney, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh, to the confirmation that it’s not a rumor, it’s happening, and that it’s bad news for the United States, all of which you know already because you listen to this program. But these Cox news people write a story saying what you’ve heard up to now is not true, Limbaugh, Cheney, Fox News, George Will lied to you. We’re telling you the truth. What they said is true, but they’re liars and they’re rumormongers, listen to us at Cox. This guy Jorge Piñon said, ‘Let’s face it, the oil industry is a risky enterprise and there is always concern for a Deepwater Horizon incident. If we are going to be afraid of drilling off Cuba, we need to be afraid of the 3,500 rigs drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.’ Wait a minute. Whoa, 3,500 rigs? There are 33 rigs that are ours. It’s a rumor? It’s just a pesky little rumor, and it’s been fed by people like George Will, Dick Cheney and me who have no credibility, then rest of the story is, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s happening,’ and there’s an expert at a Florida International University that says it’s not a good thing.
‘How much oil lies beneath Cuban waters is unknown. Only one exploration well has been dug and hydrocarbons were detected. A U.S. Geological Association survey indicated there are significant reserves.’ Can I read the first paragraph again? ‘Despite the warnings of Dick Cheney, George Will, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, the Russians are not drilling for oil off Cuba. Neither are the Chinese. In fact, no one — not even Cuba — is drilling for oil off Cuba.’ It’s a pesky rumor bubbling back up. However, the rumor is poised to become fact. I’m reading verbatim from this convoluted absolutely incompetent piece. ‘The troubling question for companies hoping to drill is what to do with the oil after they get it out of the ground.’ What in the hell, the troubling question for companies hoping to drill is what to do with it after they get it? I think this person works for me. This is how stupid she is. This is unbelievable!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: You know, it’s fascinating to watch this stuff, the oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. ‘Cause I think I figured out what’s going on. This story… I’ve been slandered. I have been libeled. I’ve been out-and-out lied about. Character assassination. But they have never done it so feebly, so incompetently. I mean, Christine, if you’re going to rip me, do a good job of it. Don’t have two paragraphs about how I’m spreading lies then the rest of the story is how I’m right! It’s just incredible. This is about this Cox News story, said Cheney and George Will and I spreading rumors about Cubans drilling for oil in the Gulf with the Russians and the Angolans and the Vietnamese. It’s not true, but it’s about to become true. It’s about to become true.
In fact the Wall Street Journal: ‘Cuban Drilling Poses New Threat to Florida Beaches — Maria Ritter, a spokeswoman for Spanish oil company Repsol YPF SA, said it plans to drill off Cuba, about 60 miles south of Key West, Fla., early next year. If successful, this would likely kick off a spate of exploration.’ Now get this: ‘The U.S. controls coastal waters up to 200 miles from its shores, but,’ but under the Carter administration, ‘a 1977 treaty it agreed to divide the Straits of Florida equally with Cuba. That means [the Spaniards] can drill a deepwater well about the same distance from Key West, Fla., as the Deepwater Horizon was from the Louisiana coast. … Cuba imports about 110,000 barrels of oil daily and produces an additional 52,000 barrels, mostly from onshore and shallow-water fields, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.’
Now, why do this? Why give the Cubans an equal right to drill for oil in the Straits of Florida? (interruption) Well, it’s not just so that they will like us. Here’s the dirty little secret here. The left is trying to use the prospect of oil, having all these oil deposits off of its coast… Cuba! I mean, look, the Cubans are gonna drill with the Russians. The Cubans are going to drill with the Spanish. The Cubans are going to drill with the Angolans. The Cubans are going to drill with the ChiComs. Why Cuba in this? Cuba can’t do diddly-squat on their own! So when I see this, the little gray cells start firing in there. So talking about all of these oil deposits off the coast of ‘Cuba’? Why? Could it be…? Could it be that this is a way to get the United States to lift the trade embargo with Cuba. The left is saying it would help us.
It would allow US companies to go in there and get oil as well. Not just the ChiComs, and not just the Russians, and not just the Spanish, and not just the Vietnamese and the Angolans but we could go in there as well. You can see the priorities here. They are willing to let the United States further defile Mother Nature if it happens in Cuba. It’ll help the workers paradise in Cuba and might lift the embargo. Now, I may be pulling a rabbit out of my hat here, but with all of this talk here…. We got a moratorium, folks. We have a drilling moratorium. A judge has just overturned it. The Obama regime is going back to court trying to get a stay so that the moratorium will stay in effect, and, meanwhile, everywhere else in the Gulf of Mexico, everybody else is drilling, and we’re not.
Yet at the same time we’re told, ‘We gotta get rid of our dependency on foreign oil.’ Something… This is just pure diabolical. No other way to describe this. (interruption) It’s not stupid. No, no, no. It’s not stupid. It’s diabolical. This regime is shutting down not just in the Gulf, but they want a moratorium on drilling in Alaska. Existing wells. Now, try this story — and, by the way, it’s not just the administration. The media is doing everything it can to frighten everybody to agree with the moratorium. This is from the Associated Press: ‘More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one — not industry, not government — is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows. The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.
‘The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells — those characterized in federal government records as ‘temporarily abandoned.’ … As a forceful reminder of the potential harm, the well beneath BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig was being sealed with cement for temporary abandonment when it blew April 20, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation’s history. BP alone has abandoned about 600 wells in the gulf, according to government data. … BP alone has abandoned about 600 wells in the Gulf, according to government data. There’s ample reason for worry about all permanently and temporarily abandoned wells — history shows that at least on land, they often leak.’ Now, never in this article — not once — do they cite a specific well that’s leaking. Not once, folks.
They cannot and they do not cite a specific well of these 27,000 abandoned wells. (Gasp!) We should be really frightened. Wait ’til your kids hear about this, and they will hear about it in school, 27,000 abandoned wells! Why, the Obama administration, they’re really brilliant. They’re compassionate and caring. We ought to shut down all the oil drilling in the Gulf. We’ve got 27,000 abandoned wells out there. What if they all turn into a Deepwater Horizon gusher? Meanwhile, the Cubans and the Russians and the Spanish, the Angolans and the Vietnamese are going to start drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba and we’re not. No, we’re gonna scare our population into never, ever going and getting any oil ’cause there’s 27,000 abandoned wells out there, folks. The Associated Press, I read this story twice, does not cite one leaking well. Not one.
And yet, ‘More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that’s been ignored for decades. No one is checking to see if they are leaking an AP investigation shows.’ Well, if no one’s checking to see, how the hell do you know, AP? ‘The oldest of these wells was abandoned in the late forties.’ So you’re supposed to get scared to death, folks! Twenty seven thousand wells out there! Potentially 27,000 Deepwater Horizon. Yeah. 27,000, and you’re supposed to go along with the moratorium. No drilling. Meanwhile, you’re not supposed to know that the Cubans, the ChiComs, the Russians, the Angolans, the Vietnamese and Spanish are going to be drilling off the coast of Cuba, in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, that’s just a rumor. That’s just a rumor spread by George Will and Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, except it’s a sticky problem ’cause it could come true.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
I checked e-mail during the break. ‘Man, Rush, you’re reaching now, you’re really reaching. All this drilling in Cuba is about the embargo.’ All right, all right. I’ve often said, don’t doubt me. Here, my friends, in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, the Associated Press, July 29th, 2006, Miami. Now, remember all this is just a rumor, according to Cox, disinformation, rumor spread by me, George Will, Dick Cheney, Fox News. ‘Cuban Oil Renews Embargo Debate — Discovery of sizeable reserves means U.S. trade ban may finally have a cost. Some facts about America’s trade embargo with Cuba: It’s been U.S. policy since 1961. It has yet to loosen Fidel Castro’s grip on power,’ although his colon did. ‘It has cost America little strategically or economically. Until now, that is.’ Four years ago.
‘From here on out, say a growing chorus of experts,’ and despite rumors to the contrary of Rush Limbaugh, George Will, and Dick Cheney, ‘America will pay a price for maintaining its 45-year trade ban with the communist nation — a strategic and economic price that will have negative repercussions for the United States in the decades to come. What has changed the equation? Oil. To be more specific, recent, sizeable discoveries of it in the North Cuba Basin — deep-water fields that have already drawn the interest of companies from China,’ despite it being a rumor that Limbaugh said, ‘India, Norway, Spain, Canada, Venezuela and Brazil,’ Russia, Angola, Vietnam. It’s just rumors, though, spread by Limbaugh.
‘Embargo past its prime? This, in turn, has reheated debate in the U.S. Congress and the Cuban-American community on an old question: Has the time finally come to shelve the embargo — given America’s need for more sources of crude at a time of rising gas prices, soaring global demand and the outbreak of war in the Middle East?’ Maybe we need to strike a deal with Cuba. There you have it, AP, 2006. We’re going to stop drilling? We have stopped drilling, got a moratorium. The Cubans are prepared to go hog wild drilling.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Who’s next? This is Drew in New York City. Great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Good afternoon, sir. How are you?
RUSH: Very well.
CALLER: I just wanted to point out that I recently took a cruise through the Caribbean and on to Cozumel, Mexico, and back, and we went on over northern Cuba, and there were sites where drilling was taking place in the international waters, and in Cuban waters, and I did ask, and to the captain’s knowledge and to the crew’s knowledge, they were not American. So somebody’s there already.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And there are future sites being set up.
RUSH: The Spanish are there right now in conjunction with the Cubans, the Angolans, the Vietnamese are coming in and the Chinese. Even this Cox news story which tries to dispel it as just a rumor, says, ‘But it’s about to come true.’
CALLER: I just want to state, sir, the extensive record has shown to me that you’ve never been one to lie to your listeners because that’s not your goal or your intention, and I understand that and I just want you to know that I believe you and I believe in you and I listen to you every day and I always will. God bless you.
RUSH: God bless you, Drew, thanks very much. I don’t lie. If I make an error or if somebody on the staff, more correctly, makes an error, then I correct it as soon as I know that it is a mistake.
They’ve filed a lawsuit down in Arizona on immigration. How come Holder and Obama have not gone down there to look at the situation? They haven’t. They have not gone down to Arizona; they have not gone to the border. Why do they not want to see what’s going on with their own eyes? There’s no evidence to back up their argument, and they don’t want evidence contrary to their argument staring them in the face.