Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
I tell you, folks, the Obama economy is not just affecting people in the United States.
The Obama economy is also affecting people all over the world.
When the U.S. economy goes south, so does the world's economy, with a couple of exceptions like the ChiComs.
But I mean, it's just horrible.
What is happening around the world is just horrible, all because of the Obama economy.
Great to have you here.
What is this?
This is already Wednesday, right?
Wow, I cannot believe this.
Here we are, the fastest week in media already Wednesday.
I feel like I just got back from Las Vegas last night.
Telephone number 800-282-2882 and the email address LRushbow at EIBnet.com.
Speaking of Las Vegas, I really owe all of you in this audience a huge debt of thanks.
The numbers on the Miss America pageant Saturday night were through the roof.
The most watched Miss America pageant ever on cable and the highest rated in the last year.
It's higher even than last year on NBC 2004.
It won the night on all of cable on advertising supported networks other than movie channels.
It was just great.
And you people did it.
And it was great.
I can't thank you enough.
It was worth watching, too.
It was a good program.
Oh, I know, Sterling.
I'm getting to that pretty quickly here.
I knew this was going to happen last night.
Politico started running excerpts in my interview today with Gretchen Carl.
I forgot to tell you I did this.
I sat down Friday after the radio program.
I went over to Gretchen Carlson's suite at Planton Hollywood.
And I did a 15-minute interview that they cut up into two pieces today and tomorrow.
And the part that's just got the politico and all the drive-bys disembobulated is when I said that I thank God every day that Obama's agenda is failing, that it's one of the best things going to happen to the country.
Oh, they're just beside themselves.
After one year, after one year, this still has, I mean, daddy longlegs.
It's gratifying.
We'll get to that in due course in mere moments.
But first, the worldwide economy.
Cultural rot occurring because of bad economic times.
And sadly, my friends, we have to put ourselves, the Obama economy, at the top of the list for explanation.
I mean, listen to this.
A New Zealand teenager auctioned her virginity online for $32,000 to raise tuition money.
Imagine we've come to this.
This is Wellington, New Zealand.
A New Zealand teenager auctioned her virginity online for $32,000 to raise tuition money, but the police said she didn't break any laws.
I don't know if Clinton made a bid or not.
I think Clinton would want a comp.
I don't actually think Clinton would pay.
I mean, his no, no, no, even if it was to help some young lady go to college, this is a good cause.
The cops said that she didn't break any laws, but they did say it might be risky for her to follow through on the deal.
But she didn't break any laws.
The anonymous 19-year-old Spitzer would pay.
Client number nine would pay.
There's no question.
I don't know that he knew about this, though.
The anonymous 19-year-old student offered her virginity the highest bidder on the website inneed.co.nz under the name Unigirl, saying that she would use the money to pay for her tuition.
She said in a post that more than 30,000 people had viewed her ad and more than 1,200 had made bids before she accepted an offer of more than $45,000 New Zealand dollars, which is $32,000.
She said, I'm offering my virginity by tender, by tender, I guess it's better than by tough, to the highest bidder as long as all personal safety aspects are observed.
This is my decision made with full awareness of the circumstances and possible consequences.
It's a shame.
Another outgrowth of the Obama economy harming people.
Worldwide, I mean, this next one is even worse.
A former, this is in Cincinnati, a former Ohio morgue worker in prison for having sex with a corpse, waiting autopsy, has been sentenced to two more counts of sexually assaulting corpses.
A judge on Tuesday sentenced 56-year-old Kenneth Douglas to three years in prison.
Douglas pleaded guilty in October to two counts of gross abuse of a corpse for violating the bodies of two 1991 female homicide victims.
Douglass was a night attendant at the Hamilton County morgue in Cincinnati for 16 years, ending in 1992.
Now, you might be saying, what does this have to do with the Obama economy?
Is it not clear, my friends?
You don't have to take a corpse out to dinner.
You don't have to buy a corpse a drink or a bottle of wine.
You don't have to take the corpse anywhere in the car, so you don't spend any fuel.
You have a pervert here who chooses the cheapest way he can go.
All because of the Obama economy.
And speaking of this, executives in AIG's financial products division are getting $100 million richer, and the White House Pesar calls the bonuses outrageous.
However, Kenneth Feinberg said the payments are contractual obligations entered into years ago.
He pointed out that AIG execs have pledged to repay $39 million out of $45 million in previous bonuses to the U.S. Treasury.
The insurance giant, as you know, hard hit by the Wall Street meltdown in 2008.
Let me tell you what's really outrageous is the White House budget.
The White House budget, the Obama budget is what is outrageous.
There's even bipartisan opposition to it developing, as we informed you yesterday with the statement made by Senator Kent Conrad that this does the work.
Even Chris Dodd, Chris Dodd, and we have the audio soundbite on this later, the administration stepped up demand for tougher restrictions and new taxes on big banks is complicating Senate efforts to write a bipartisan financial regulation overhaul, even drawing a sharp rebuke from the top presidential ally in the Senate, who is Chris Dodd, who's been thrown overboard and told to not run for reelection.
Dodd complained that the timing of Obama's proposal seemed to many to be transparently political.
It is, of course, political.
Everything Obama does is political.
But to have a Democrat say this, and in Illinois, Illinois, ladies and gentlemen, close races on both sides, Republican and Democrat.
But the numbers that you have to look at in the Illinois primary, you know, that's a state counting the dead with so many more Democrats than Republicans, and yet the vote turnout was almost equal.
The Democrat vote turnout was way down, like half a million to $600,000 down from the last similar type election.
And so it's clear that there's a huge energy gap on the Democrat side.
Republicans are fired up and energized.
And we have a sample, we have an ad that is being run in Illinois comparing a candidate to the mob and saying he's actually tied to the mob.
But before we get to that, before we get to my little bomb that I threw on Fox News this morning, Obama has done it again.
He's done it again.
Yesterday afternoon at the Jobs Town Hall Summit, he said this.
These deficits won't just burden our kids and our grandkids decades from now.
They could damage our markets now.
They could drive up our interest rates now.
They could jeopardize our recovery right now.
Responsible families don't do their budgets the way the federal government does.
When times are tough, you tighten your belts.
You don't go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage.
You don't blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you're trying to save for college.
You prioritize.
You make tough choices.
It's time your government did the same.
This guy has got it in for Las Vegas.
There's something about Vegas the guy doesn't like because this is the second time that he's done this.
Here's the first time he did this almost exactly a year ago.
It was February 9th in Elkhart, Indiana.
You can't get corporate jets.
You can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime.
And of course, last year, the mayor of L.A., Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, said, This is outrageous.
Even Dingy Harry yesterday told the president, lay off Las Vegas.
And the mayor, Oscar Goodman, yesterday in Vegas, and we put together a montage of his not very happy reaction to this.
He has a real psychological hangup about the entertainment capital of the world.
And an apology won't be acceptable this time.
I don't know where his vendetta comes from, but we're not going to let him make his bones by lambasting Las Vegas.
That's why you're here today.
He didn't learn his lesson the first time, but when he hurt our economy by his ill-conceived rhetoric, we didn't think it would happen again.
But now that it has, I want to assure you, when he comes, I'll do everything I can to give him the boot back to Washington and to visit his failures back there.
And I got to tell you this, and everybody says I shouldn't say it, but I got to tell you the way it is.
This president is a real slow learner.
That's putting it mildly.
That's Oscar Goodman, who is not affiliated with the political party.
But I mean, that's pretty tough stuff.
Kick him out if he shows up.
Send him back to Washington to visit his failures back there.
And everybody says I shouldn't say it, but I got to tell you the way it is.
This president is a real slow learner.
I'm beginning, you know, Obama, there's politics in everything Obama does.
Now, he was off the teleprompter yesterday, at least for that comment.
Or maybe, I don't know if he was.
But could it be, you tell me, because I don't understand this.
He's got to have something in for Las Vegas.
Maybe he lost a bunch of money there.
I don't.
Maybe he got rolled by a hooker there.
I don't know what it is.
Something happened.
Or it could be this.
It could be that he is trying to get rid of Harry Reid.
Have you thought of that possibility?
That maybe all of this is aimed at getting rid of Harry Reid.
Now, you may be, well, how would this get rid of Harry Reid?
Well, it makes Reed look like a sap.
And everybody in Vegas look like a, like Nevada, in fact, look like a, maybe, you know, Las Vegas is the seat, you know, like Hong Kong is big capitalism in China.
Las Vegas is capitalism on steroids in the United States.
That could be why he doesn't like it.
Okay, we'll come back.
That ad in Chicago and my appearance and the bomb that I dropped on Fox and Friends this morning with Gretchen Carlson right after this.
We're back, Rush Limbaugh, serving humanity here behind a golden EIV microphone at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I dropped a bomb on Fox this morning.
Les Moonvis dropped a bomb in the CBS news division on Monday.
CBS anchor babe and 60 Minutes contributor Katie Couric faces a 50% pay cut.
Les Moonvus determined to save money and trim expenses from top to bottom at the Tiffany network, particularly in the news division.
Couric is the highest paid TV news personality in history.
Right now, she gets $14 million a year, plus a couple bumps for non-evening news appearances.
But her salary is now the direct line of fire, according to network insiders who explain this to the Drudge Report.
And get this, a populist backlash against Couric's cash is said to be forming inside the newsroom.
She makes enough to pay 200 news reporters $75,000 a year, says a veteran producer.
This is complete insanity.
The angry source continues.
We report with great enthusiasm how much bankers are making, how it's out of step with reality during the recession.
Well, we'll look at Katie.
Couric's $300,000 a week paycheck has become the obsession of disgruntled CBS staff, just as deep layoffs rock the newsroom.
Dozens of employees, including staff members in D.C., San Francisco, Miami, London, Los Angeles, and Moscow, are being let go.
No buyouts.
No buyouts.
It's immediate.
And remember, last summer it was Dan Rather that called on Obama to form a White House commission to help save the media.
So this is, she's facing her contract's up soon.
And if she stays, she'll get $7 million, which will put her in line with what Brian Williams makes, cut from $14 million.
And of course, this angry newsroom source has a point.
And these people are out there lambasting profits and salaries all over the place, except theirs.
All of these news people think that their divisions ought to be immune from profit and loss.
That their jobs are so important, so important, that these networks ought to realize, even if they have to lose money to put quality news on the air, even while the news is losing viewers, losing readers, losing advertising support.
But apparently the rubber's hit the road inside CBS.
I am hearing, and you know me, I mean, I'm pretty wired.
A powerful, influential member of the media.
I'm hearing that Katie wants Oprah's gig when Oprah quits.
And Katie Couric wants Oprah's couch.
So we'll see.
Here's the ad.
A lot of people are talking about new ad by the National Republican Senatorial Committee against Illinois Democrat Senate candidate Alexei Giannulis.
Is this change you can believe in?
Over the years, Alexei Janulius has had some shady ties, including the mob.
As a bank executive, he loaned $15.4 million to convicted mobster Michael Jaws Jurango, a crime boss that ran prostitution rings and engaged in illegal gambling.
Janulius said, I don't know what the charges are that makes him this huge crime figure.
But Janulius discussed Durango's criminal past with him.
What a wise guy.
And no surprise, Janulius is tied to corrupt ex-governor Rod Blagoevich.
Alexei's brother Dmitry was twice appointed by Blagojevich, and Blagoevich took 10 grand from Janulius' father.
What's worse, Dimitri was listed on Blagojevich's clout list, and his appointment was pushed by Tony Rezco, convicted of fraud and bribery.
Blagojevich, Rezco, and the mob.
Alexei Janulius.
He'd make Tony Soprano proud.
They even went out and got a guy who sounds like he's mobbed up to do the commercial.
And this is the best the Democrats can come up with.
This guy?
That's the best they can come up with to take Obama's Senate seat?
Because that's what this is.
Isn't it great, folks?
I mean, of all bureaus, CBS probably had to close down their closest and most dearest.
They had to close the Moscow Bureau.
That had to hurt them.
That had to just be, in addition to all the people getting fired, you have to close the Moscow Bureau if you're CBS.
Oh, not a good week.
Of course, we here at the EIB network, by the third week in January, this special note to CBS, we had 70% of our entire 2009 already on the books for 2010.
Advertisers still get results here.
Recession or not, that's just a little inside baseball.
And of course, I would only take a pay cut if I ran for office.
There'll be no such thing otherwise.
All right, let's go to the bomb that I dropped on Fox and Friends today.
Interview Friday afternoon with Gretchen Carlson out in Las Vegas.
First question.
So for those who are critics of you in judging the Miss America pageant, saying that you haven't been a supporter of women in the past, what do you say?
I'm a huge supporter of women.
What I'm not is a supporter of liberalism.
Now, feminism is what I oppose, and feminism has led women astray.
I love women.
I don't know where this whole gets started.
I love the women's movement, especially when walking behind it.
This idea that I don't like women is absurd.
And Christ, this is Miss America.
And if there's a Mr. America out there, it's me.
So this is a perfect fit.
Now, this next is the bomb.
This is the one that the state-run media is headlining all over the place.
Limbaugh thanks God Obama is failing.
Her question, while you were here in Vegas, big State of the Union speech by President Obama.
President Obama.
Is that what you're calling it?
State of Obama.
So I assume you had a chance to see it, even though you've been working non-stop.
Well, yep, I gave up after 50 minutes.
I'd heard it all before.
There was nothing new in it.
The only difference was the tone.
I went back and listened to some of his soaring rhetorical speeches during the campaign.
This was defensive, petulant, immature, childish, sarcastic.
He's clearly angry that he's been rejected.
His wonderfully brilliant ideas, healthcare and captivity, have been rejected.
And I saw a guy, a young, inexperienced guy, that's just mad.
I think Gretchen, I really do.
I think this is the first time in his life that there's not a professor around to turn his C into an A or to write the law review article for him that he can't write.
He's totally exposed.
There's nobody to make it better.
I think he's been covered for all his life.
The fact that his agenda has totally failed this year is the best thing that could have happened to this country.
I thank God every day that this is going down the tubes, that that Massachusetts election happened.
Not that God had anything to do with it.
I decided that's the person I thank.
And those last four lines, but all of that, that whole bite, you know, they're acting like volcanoes today.
The Hill.com.
A started running stories about it last night.
But the fact his agenda has totally failed this year is the best thing could have happened to the country.
Hey, I'm just being consistent.
I said a year ago I wanted him to fail for this exact reason.
He's not failing at everything.
He's succeeding very much, destroying the private sector and enlarging government, but not for long.
We'll be back.
Yeah, I guess so, Snerdley.
I think you have a point.
I think CBS closing the Moscow Bureau, it was probably redundant.
Why do you need a Bureau in Moscow when you can do the same thing from your New York Bureau?
Anyway, 800-282-2882 and email address, LRushboy at EIBNet.com.
Here's the third little short bite from the interview with Gretchen Carlson, Fox, and Friends today.
Part two, by the way, is tomorrow, unless they edited into one.
When she told me that they were going to do two, two parts, it was, I think, 15 or 20 minutes.
How long was today's segment, Snerdley?
10 minutes?
Seemed like 10 minutes.
Well, that couldn't have been all of us.
I don't know.
All right, we'll find out.
As a powerful, influential member of the media, I know people over there, and I can find out what they plan on doing tomorrow.
Here's the final third little bite.
That's just tip the iceberg.
That's just an indication of what's coming in November.
I mean, I don't think, I think the Democrats are rock back on their heels more than they're letting on and went, and they're shocked.
This is the Kennedy seat.
If there is ever an entitlement in politics, it's the Kennedy seat, and it's gone, and it wasn't even close.
Yeah, and there are more losses coming.
A bunch of people looking if the election were held today.
Some supposedly nonpartisan political consultants are saying that the Democrats would lose 10, would lose 10 Senate seats if the election were held today.
Golf legend Tom Watson is over in Dubai, or the annual golf tournament over there.
Tom Watson, who I know is a good guy, played golf with him.
He's joined the clamor for Tiger Woods to fully answer for his marital infidelities and called on him to clean up his act.
By the way, a rumor out there that Tiger is going to show up and play golf in two weeks at the Accenture match play open somewhere out in the great southwest.
Accenture is one of the sponsors that's dropped him.
I don't know if the rumor is true, obviously, but that's out there.
Watson was speaking today ahead of the Dubai Desert Classic tournament.
He said that Woods needed to face up to the public.
It's going to be interesting to see how he handles his return to public life.
He messed up.
He knows he messed up.
The world knows he messed up.
He has to take ownership of that.
He's got to get his personal life in order.
I think that's what he's trying to do.
And when he comes back, he has to show some humility to the public in the sense that if I were him, I wouldn't be at a golf tournament where I came out in public first.
I'd come out, I'd do an interview with somebody and say, you know what, I screwed up, and I admit it, and I'm going to change, and I'm trying to change.
I want my wife and family back.
I have to earn her trust back.
That's Tom Watson.
Jack Nicholas agreed with all that and said even more.
Nicholas said that when Woods does come back, he needs to work at being a better ambassador for the game.
I feel he has not carried the same stature as the other great players that have come along, like Nicholas and Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, in the sense that there's been bad language and club throwing on the golf course.
You can grant that to somebody, young person that's not been out there for a while, but I think he needs to clean up his act there and show the respect for the game that the people before him have shown.
That's Jack Nicholas.
One of the things that's always irritated, and it's been kind of contradictory because the PGA Tour players love Tiger being out there.
He's raised visibility, purses, winnings.
But at the same time, he shows up at very few tour tournaments, plays the majors and a few others.
And Nicholas, I think here, is saying, you know, you've got to be a better ambassador of the game.
You've got to have to play in some of these tournaments, not just the majors.
And I think this occasion is going to cause a lot of people in golf who have been suppressing what they really think to open up and unload even more.
Unemployment rises in most metro areas.
Who lives in metro areas?
Obama voters live in metro areas.
These are the areas that show up deep dark blue on the maps.
So you metro people, how's that hope and change working for you?
You feel like you were lied to?
You feel like you were taken?
You were hoodwinked.
Victor Davis Hansen, great column today, says, you know, Obama's big problem is that words mean things and people believed him.
People listened to him say all these things and they believed what he said.
Europeans believed him.
Americans believed him.
And they see that he's not doing anything he said he was going to do.
Unemployment rose in most cities and counties in December, signaling that companies remain reluctant to hire even as the economy recovers, even as the economy recovers.
What am I missing out there?
Somebody tell me what I'm missing.
Where is it recovering?
The unemployment rate rose in 306 out of 372 metro areas.
The Labor Department said yesterday the rate fell in 41 metro areas, was unchanged in 25.
That's worse than November when the rate fell in 170 areas, rose in only 154, unchanged in 48.
The Detroit area saw unemployment fall of 15.7% from 16.4, while the Warren area reported a drop of 14.3 from 14.8.
Still high, but the rates are down about two points from last fall.
And there's no guarantee.
Steve Cochran at Moody's, there's no guarantee that the unemployment rate will not go back up again.
The lowest unemployment rates are in the Upper Plains State, Fargo, North Dakota, reporting a nation's lowest rate at 4%, Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Lincoln, Nebraska at 4.1 cents percent each.
The highest rate, El Centro, California, 27.7% unemployment, followed by Merced at 19.8.
Now, El Centro, heavily agricultural and has many seasonable farm workers there.
Its jobless rate's down from 33.1%.
I don't care how you slice it.
It's not good.
But you know what?
We've all talked about how the vast majority of the stimulus money slush fund was being withheld for spending this year, 2010, for the reelection of Democrats.
We've been talking about that since middle of last year.
Actually, sooner than that, when we figured out that the spending on this thing, hardly any, and I think they spent 20% of it in 2009, and by the end of 2010, I'm reading that 70% of the stimulus will be spent.
So I think what's going on here is that Obama is banking on unemployment falling in 2010, hoping that his stimulus money somehow will make that happen.
And he can take credit for it, and the Democrats can take credit for it and sort of reverse his poll fortunes on the economy and unemployment.
Keep a sharp eye.
Don't be surprised if that is the intent.
Obama has, in the last two to three weeks, especially, but actually longer than that, but intensely the last two or three weeks, he has been bragging about the TARP bailout and how successful it's been and how it staved off a worldwide financial collapse and how it staved off a domestic financial collapse.
And even last year, he was running around saying that, you know, McCain didn't do anything here.
I was the one to talk to Paulson.
I encouraged Paulson to do this.
McCain, he didn't do anything.
He wants ownership of TARP.
And he's been running around saying that it saved everything.
CNNMoney.com.
The watchdog charged with, this is the bailout, this is a policeman, the bailout cop.
The watchdog charged with monitoring the government's $700 billion bailout unleashed one of his harshest criticisms of the program to date, questioning its overall effectiveness.
In his latest quarterly report to Congress, the Special Inspector General Neil Borofsky said that the troubled asset relief program, TARP, has failed to boost bank lending as well as halt the spread of foreclosures, two key aims of the sprawling program.
Whether these goals can effectively be met through existing TARP programs, very much an open question at this time.
The banks are not lending, and everybody's jumping down the banks' throats for not lending, but they're not lending because small businesses don't want to borrow.
They haven't wanted borrowed.
In fact, unemployment really kicked into gear after the November elections.
People know in these businesses what Obama means.
He means higher taxes all across the board on consumers and businesses.
Health care was still in the mixed end, cap and trade.
They didn't know what they're going to be facing in terms of business expenses and sense of taxes.
So they're not hiring.
They're not expanding.
And they're still holding off because now Obama's announced his budget.
And these people are tightening down.
They're just trying to stay in business.
That's why they're not borrowing.
And now Obama's out there offering this $5,000 tax credit for every new job hired.
People don't hire because you give them a $5,000 tax credit.
They hired because they need work done.
And they don't see any expanded work coming down the pike.
In fact, they see a more expensive business to run.
What with Obama's increased taxes and his punitive taxes on business?
Plus, it's a bad deal.
If it takes $60,000 to $75,000, benefits and all that, to hire somebody, you think giving them a $5,000 tax credit is going to make a big difference?
It won't.
But what Obama's going to be able to say is if they don't take advantage of the big deal, he can then dump on small business, which he can't wait to do, by the way.
Dump on small business for not wanting to hire people back.
Yeah, he'll say they're greedy and they want to hold on to their profits.
In fact, he's already said that about a number of businesses.
Yeah, small businesses too.
Yeah, they're greedy.
And that's what he's going to say again if they don't take the deal.
He knows they're not going to take the deal.
Guess what's next in line for a bailout?
Now, remember, his own budget, a $1.4 trillion deficit fiscal 2011, or is it 1.6?
Whatever it is.
We are going to borrow 42 of every 42% of every dollar that we spend.
We don't have any money.
We're broke.
Folks, we do not have any money.
And if this budget is enacted, we aren't going to have any money for the rest of my lifetime and many of your lifetimes.
We're not going to have any.
It's all going to be debt, deficit.
And get this from Fortune magazine.
Don't look now, but even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for Social Security.
A report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that for the first time in 25 years, Social Security is taking in less in taxes than it is spending on benefits.
Instead of helping to finance the rest of the government, as it's done for decades, Social Security needs help from the Treasury to keep benefit checks from bouncing.
In other words, a taxpayer bailout of Social Security despite the extraordinarily high payroll taxes everybody pays.
Now, no one's officially announced that Social Security will be cash negative this year, but you can figure it out for yourself, as the reporter Alan Sloan did by comparing two numbers in the recent federal budget update that the nonpartisan CBO issued last week.
So anyway, he ran the numbers and he found out that Social Security, first time 25 years, taking in less in taxes than it's where, how in the world are we going to bail out Social Security?
Why don't you kick the camera?
But no, we don't have the money.
We do not have the money.
Folks, this is insane.
Okay, let's grab a couple phone calls here as we speedily wrap up the first hour.
Where are we starting?
Oh, Amy in Camel, Indiana.
Great to have you on the program.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
I'm fine.
Thank you.
Good.
Hey, I'm calling to see if your chin hits the floor as mine did yesterday when I read from our website of our Channel 6, which is ABC News here, reporting that Indiana's largest school district, our public school system, Indianapolis Public Schools, had announced the decision to close school.
Well, actually, delay school two hours on Monday following the Super Bowl.
Yeah, I saw that.
Yeah, because they felt like, you know, it's just a little too much to ask the teachers and bus drivers to get up so early the next morning when they've been watching the football game.
Right.
When the game ends at 9.30.
Well, I didn't realize this, but I guess back in 2007 when we were in the Super Bowl, there were so many bus drivers that didn't pick up the children and left the children out in the cold.
They wanted to avoid that happening again this year, so they just decided to delay by two hours.
Yeah, I saw that the bus drivers just didn't show up.
They must have stayed up late watching all the ESPN reruns and highlights of the game.
Well, I mean, here's the thing.
The expert commentary on ESPN after the game.
Right.
Wouldn't you, as, you know, whoever the school bus drivers and teachers' boss is, wouldn't you say, you know, jobs aren't so easy to find, and we just thought we'd let you know if you don't pick up your kids tomorrow, you won't have a job.
Why?
I cannot believe that.
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no, no.
You're so old-fashioned.
That's the way America used to work.
You just, you know, well, and then it came out today that the Department of Education has told them, sure, that's fine, but you're going to make up the two hours.
And they're just floored.
Can't believe they have to make up that two hours.
Actually.
Because they're going to miss.
You know, in truth, the fewer hours kids spend in a public school, the better off they are they are.
You have to do like me.
You have to look at the positive.
No, I get this.
And frankly, it's not the two hours of education they're missing that bothers me in the least.
It's the message that it's sending to these kids that, you know, God forbid they ever get a job where they have to, you know, go to a meeting and they're at a board meeting until 10 at night and then have to show up for another meeting at 7 the next morning.
You know, I mean, that's inconceivable for them to ever fathom.
They're going to have to work a little more than...
Amy.
Yeah.
Um...
You know, the modern certain modern Americans will say, well, you're so harsh.
You're just so mean.
I mean, is everything so black and white?
Do you?
Don't you see the nuance and the gray here?
And aren't you aware, aren't you aware that for the last 10 years, there have been educators slowly putting stories in the public domain that school starts too early for the kids.
Oh, no, I know.
Oh, yeah.
I know.
That's too early for the kids.
They need to sleep later.
It's just, we're really pushing our kids too hard.
We're pushing our bus drivers too hard.
You know, I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on this and waste your time.
It just blew my mind and I couldn't believe what I was reading.
So anyway, it was great talking to you.
Thank you, Amy.
Thank you.
Have a great day.
Same to you.
Nice talking to you, too.
I saw that.
I didn't bother printing it out and putting it in the show prep stack.
Maybe I should have.
It didn't surprise me.
It just didn't surprise me.
No, it didn't.
No, this is the direction the public schools are going.
What did surprise me was that 2007, the last time the Colts were in there, that the drivers didn't even show up and the poor little kiddies are standing on the corner freezing the little tushes off.
That's what I couldn't believe.
See?
See, exactly what I'm talking about here.
Check the email.
Come on, Rush.
It's a Super Bowl.
Having your team in a Super Bowl is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
There's your QB's Peyton Manning.
Even still, give the people a little break.
Give them a break.
You know, it's funny how school bus Nagan in New Orleans did not suggest this for the New Orleans bus drivers.
I mean, he learned a big lesson there back in Katrina.