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July 5, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:58
July 5, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
As usual, a technical glitch five minutes before the program starts.
Well, it's not a technical glitch that involves the radio program.
So it's not that big a deal.
No, I got one of these magic trackpads for my tower here.
I'm trying to duplicate what happens on a laptop.
It isn't working.
It's connected.
It's Bluetooth connected, but it isn't working.
It does one thing.
It doesn't.
So now I'm sitting here wishing the show didn't start for 15 more minutes so that I could sit there and get the damn thing fixed.
Now I'm sitting here distracted by it, and I'm also ticked off.
Nothing ever works the first time you plug it in.
Well, seldom.
But anyway, my folks, I will use all of my powers and put all of that out of my mind.
I can't forget it.
I put all of that out of my mind, and we will start today's busy broadcast.
Great to have you here.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882 and the email address, lrushball at EIBnet.com.
So let me tell you about Joplin yesterday.
And we have four sound bites.
I just told the guys up there, give me the whole thing.
I spoke for about 10 minutes.
And we've got, let's see, four bites is one and two, three.
We basically have four minutes left here is what they've given me.
But the whole thing, I think I might use that 10 minutes to fix my trackpad while you're listening.
Just kidding.
So anyway, here's what, as you know, we sent a truckload was about 3,000 cases of 2F by T to the Joplin 4th of July celebration.
This was as a result of reader suggestions, our website, 2ifbytea.com.
And we decided that we would do this as our way to celebrate the 4th of July with people.
And we allowed, we have over 3,000 entries.
And even people from outside Joplin said, you know, if you're going to do this, why don't you send the truckload of tea to Joplin?
So we did.
And the truckload of tea, and we had the giant Rush Revere logo, the 2FIT logo on both sides of a giant semi-trailer.
And I'm going to have to send the pictures of that up to the website, people.
I haven't even done that yet.
But I've got all that.
That truck rolled into town.
I guess it got there.
I started getting pictures just before noon yesterday.
Catherine, who is a CEO of 2F by T, she flew into Joplin and we had a bunch of volunteers and we started a process of killing it and getting it ready for the onslaught of people.
Now, I'll tell you something else that we did.
And I tell you this only because we mentioned last week that I had a bunch of free tea and you're going to harm the vendors.
We went around to every vendor, Catherine did, yesterday, and we compensated every vendor.
We gave every vendor at the Joplin 4th of July celebration some money to compensate for the fact that we were there giving something away.
And it's only the right thing to do.
It was a fair, the right thing to do.
It was the right thing to do.
Catherine was telling me that they were suspicious.
Here comes this beautiful woman offering them money.
Single, whoa, what's this?
Is this a dream?
What's this picture here?
So she finally had to persuade them and it took the money.
Then everybody started sending me pictures of how it was all shaping up.
The crowd started arriving at 3 o'clock at Landruth Park in Joplin.
And I had decided only Friday, I had decided to go in and be with people there.
And I asked if I could speak for a short period of time.
I was not on the original agenda there, and they were very gracious.
The Joplin mayor, the Parks Department were very gracious.
And our affiliate, our great affiliate radio station people there, found 10 minutes for me to appear between two bands, two country bands.
And I asked, what's the time limit here?
And whatever you want to do.
I mean, you're Russian, but 10 minutes would be great.
And I said, okay, I can do 10 minutes.
So I left here at 5 p.m. to fly to Joplin.
That's 4 o'clock in Joplin.
I ended up arriving at Landruth Park about 7.15 or 7.20.
I met the mayor and I met the former parks department.
I met some of the officials, met the security people and a lot of the police.
And I met the guys in the country bands from Nashville, and they were just a hoot.
These guys were just great.
Why?
They let us spend some time in their air-conditioned motorhome that they had driven to the event in.
We sat in there and one of them had watched the Haney show, the Haney project, and wanted to know all about it.
So I'm talking about a Haney project with him.
Joe, the leader of the country band.
And I could tell, folks, now I could just tell the mayor, the Parks Department people, they were nice as they could be, but I have to tell you something.
They were scared to death, what I was going to say.
They were, no, well, here's what they're trying to do in Joplin now.
They're trying to take a day off from their misery.
Their 4th of July celebration, you know, they got wrecked by that E-5 tornado.
And by the way, television does not do that justice.
We flew in there and landed, and I asked if we could get permission from air traffic control people to kind of take a tour at about 1,000 feet, 15,000 feet over Joplin before we landed.
And I mean to tell you, I have not seen, I've been to a war zone in Afghanistan.
I've not seen devastation like this.
It's incomprehensible.
But they wanted a night off.
There were no Red Cross booths.
There were no fundraising booths for the rebuilding.
None of that was a pure party, just a pure 4th of July celebration with a bunch of food and music, dancing, chatting, fireworks, all of that, and our truckload of tea, as it turned out.
But they were just talking to them.
They were, you can understand.
I mean, they, oh, gosh, what's this guy going to say here?
What's he going to really come in here and start bashing for you?
But they didn't say anything to me.
They could just tell what they were.
So, I mean, Catherine, Craig Kitchen from our staff, we had about 20 volunteers.
We're there all day passing out the tea.
And Catherine was sending me pictures back.
So is Craig about people, the signs that were held up for us and that people had made.
And so, okay, it was a miniature dance bank.
So I guess by the time I got there and went up, there were maybe 50,000 people who had shown up.
So finally, it's my turn to speak, and the local affiliate morning show introduced me.
It has a huge stage to handle all the equipment for the country bands.
And I went out and I did 10 minutes of pure 4th of July American independence revolution, what it all means.
I'll play you portions of it here.
The point is, there was not one political word in it.
I did not utter the word liberal once.
I didn't utter the word conservative once.
I didn't say Republican once.
I didn't say Democrat once.
I simply talked about America, what it means to be an American, why we're great, what it is about, you've heard me delve into this on the program before.
Talk to the people of Joplin about who they are and how they define the greatness of this country.
They are the kind of people who make this country work, that they are, when this is all over, they are going to show how you build a community.
In their case, they are going to show how you rebuild.
It was 100% uplift.
There was no separating people out.
There was no identifying people group-wise or any of that.
It was just, folks, I got to tell you, when I finished, I had people telling me how wonderful it was.
And I was doubtful because I only went 10 minutes.
I used to go, I'm used to going two hours with ease.
And there are people had driven in there from way out of state.
And by the time I finished and was on the way to the airport to come back home to get some sleep to be able to do the program, there were still lines of people in cars getting into the place.
Geez, how many of these people are going to get in there expecting to see me?
And I'm already gone.
But I had to get out of there in 10 minutes because they had that second band to go on and they had to get the fireworks.
When the fireworks were scheduled, you know, when it got dark, so there was a schedule here that had to be adhered to.
And I was a late ad and I sort of added myself when we decided to send the truckload in.
So I only did 10 minutes.
And I always felt like I shortchanged people when I only did 10 minutes.
But this was a great crowd.
And it was a fabulous time.
And it was a wonderful celebration.
And it was pure 100% Americana.
And the people were in a festive, good mood.
They were everybody that I ran into, and I had a chance to run into a lot of people, nice as they could be.
They were in fine, fine form.
They were proud to be there yesterday, proud to be Americans, proud to be from Joplin, Missouri.
They were happy that Spotlight was on Joplin for a day because it's been forgotten since the tornado came and went.
But they're still devastated there.
It's going to be a huge process.
There were even a couple.
I want to tell you this.
During the course of the day, yes, I'm not going to mention any names.
There were at least two political people who started vying for the chance to introduce me.
And I said, nope, this is not political.
I'm not going to have anybody up there from a political party.
I don't care what party it is, identifying me with it or using me being there to introduce me.
Just keep it pure, 100% about Joplin, which is what it ended up being.
And I did, I was flying home, and I'm telling Kathy, I hope everybody doesn't feel short shrifted here just because It was only 10 minutes, which to me went by.
I barely get warmed up in 10 minutes.
So there's two YouTube versions.
And by the way, folks, you know something?
This is something in 22 years.
There are still things I don't think about.
And one of the things I never think about is video.
We did not take a camera.
It never crosses my mind.
And for some reason, it never crosses the mind of anybody on our staff.
I never think about it.
That's how far removed video.
I'm such a radio guy that we did not have any official videographer there.
Everything that's up is from somebody's cell phone.
And there are two YouTube versions of the speech.
We've posted both of them at rushlimbaugh.com.
This is what I'm going to, I'm going to have to actually write a checklist for this kind of stuff.
It's amazing.
Nobody ever thinks of, we didn't have a snow photographer there.
Nobody ever thinks pictures.
We are such radio people that nobody thinks pictures.
So there was, I mean, I was posing for pictures of people taking with their iPhones, but the point is that we didn't have any official professional video equipment there doing any of this.
What are you shaking your head at?
It is unbelievable.
I mean, it's, I know, I'm Mr. Tech and I'm Mr. Mr. Broadcast Excellence.
I just, I never think video.
And I think, I think there's a, maybe I just don't like it.
I just, I can't tell you number TV things I turned down simply because I don't want to do the makeup.
I just hate it.
Don't get me started.
I could really, I could go down a list of what it is I hate about TV.
First and foremost, none of it's real.
And I live in Realville.
So anyway, there is video.
And the second version is pretty good.
Somebody, first couple, three rows using some sort of device got video.
There's two versions.
One at six minutes.
And that's the first one we saw.
Then the second one saw this morning.
It's about 10 minutes.
And it's both of them.
Well, I asked for both.
I haven't had a chance to see if you're both up there.
I've been working on the trackpad problem.
So anyway, we'll take a brief break.
We'll come back.
I just, cookies on vacation.
So we got Coco III doing the audio sound bites.
And I told Coco III, put all 10 minutes together as one solid bite, if you can, while I work on this trackpad and let you hear the whole thing.
But it's nothing that you haven't heard before, folks, in bits and pieces here on the radio program.
But it was energetic.
It was full of, I mean, I went out there and bam, started.
And the energy level was consistent, increased until I just sensed it was time to go after 10 minutes.
And I could tell when it was over that the city fathers of Joplin were going like they dodged a bullet.
But it was, folks, it was just pure celebration of marriage.
I said, you know what?
You know what we're celebrating here?
We're celebrating.
This is the one, and this is such a tiny, this is such a tiny attempt to cross the line.
But I said, we are celebrating a revolution today.
Bam, huge cheer.
The 4th of July, Independence Day was not often referred to here as a revolution, but it was.
And I pointed out what was different about the American Revolution from all others.
And by the way, there's a piece of Victor Davis Hansen of, he writes at National Review Online, occasionally the New York Post.
He had a great column on similar things over the weekend that I saw too.
So it was just get in, get it, and get out the way I did this.
But I thought when I said this revolution, I knew what people were going to be thinking, that the next word out of my mouth is going to be Obama.
And it wasn't.
It wasn't.
You'll hear it.
We just uplifted.
It was this attempt to be inspiring and positive.
You know, I just, it was like I went out there and I tried to pretend I owned a bra company.
That's what I wanted to end up uplift people.
Okay, I've got the whole 10 minutes of it here.
So we'll start that in the segment here after we conclude the break here coming up at the bottom of the hour.
So, ladies and gentlemen, the regime on Friday, a document dump, the regime admitted, Obama regime admitted that the stimulus didn't accomplish anything.
They admitted that every job created by the stimulus cost about $238,000.
And let's remember that every job created by the stimulus was a government job.
It was a state teacher, state job of some kind.
It was not a private sector job.
And even at that, $238,000 per job.
So they admit upfront that this, and they have to do this.
You wonder, well, why would they admit?
They do it on a Friday, 4th of July weekend when nobody's paying any attention.
What are the odds?
Have you seen this reported anywhere?
Other than alternative media, other than the drive-bys of the state-controlled media?
Of course you haven't.
And you probably didn't hear much about it over the weekend period because it just surfaced really within the last couple of days.
But they admit it.
And there's also, there's no recession inside the Obama White House.
There are 454 White House employees.
Now, Dawn, look at me.
Listen to this.
454 employees at the White House earn a total of $37,121,000 this year.
And that's much more.
That's many more people, and that's much more money than even in the final year of the George W. Bush, Bush 43 administration.
So there's no recession for Obama's White House.
There's no pain.
There's no empathy whatsoever inside the White House for what's happening throughout America.
We'll be right back.
$238,000 to create a single job.
And of course, there weren't any meaningful jobs created, stimulus money.
They were state government jobs in most cases just to keep state workers employed so that their union dues would be deducted because the union dues end up back at the Democrat Party.
It's a classic money laundering operation.
But the stimulus was almost a trillion dollars.
So they are still claiming they created a lot of government jobs at $238,000 a piece.
Some of the stimulus money went to corporations with close ties to the Democrat Party and Obama, like General Electric.
Now, that White House report was from some of the same Obama economists who helped plan the stimulus in the first place.
The same economists who assured us that the stimulus would keep unemployment at 8%.
Same economists who are now pushing for another round of stimulus spending.
There is a great story coming up today that I have in the Wall Street Journal today about how.
And it's about DSK, Dominique Strauss, whatever his name is.
And the question being asked is, why and how did everybody in the media automatically believe the made?
And it's the same question you could ask, how and why did everybody in the media automatically believe the dancer at the Duke La Crosse players party?
It's a serious question, and it calls into question the, well, what we've been calling it a question for 23 years here, and that is the business practices of the drive-by media.
What is it that captures their attention about a story?
And what are the narratives and the templates that are automatically filled in without any curiosity and without any real facts?
And then they just run with it.
And then when you start imagining other issues such as man-made global warming, you can easily, this is a great story, you can easily see how most of what's in the media is a bunch of lies.
None of it is real and none of it is true.
And it's all based on the biases and a couple of other more complicated things, which of course I will get into as the program unfolds.
But here, in its entirety, it's about nine and a half minutes.
This was last night about, what time did I go on?
About 8.10 Central Time in Joplin.
This is at Landreth Park at their 4th of July celebration, where we had sent in about 3,000 cases of two if by tea.
And by the way, I got a note from Catherine.
She said, hey, look, don't include me in you being a boob about pictures.
We thought about it.
Don't include me.
She said, we thought about having a photographer at the truck, but we didn't want to big time it.
We just weren't trying to big time anything.
So we didn't go with a professional photographer at the truck.
And people were taking pictures with their own cameras, and that was fine.
And I've got a bunch of pictures here I have to upload after I fixed the trackpad to rushlimbaugh.com.
Even some pictures that Catherine took out of the airplane window of Joplin as she was flying in yesterday that show the destruction.
I'm running out of time.
Oh yeah, better get started with it.
Welcome to the stage, Rush.
Thank you so much.
And I can't hear you.
I've got to tell you, folks, thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this tonight.
It is a thrill.
It's an honor for me to be here among all of you.
It's the 4th of July, and do you know what we're celebrating today?
No, we are celebrating a revolution.
We are celebrating the most unique revolution in the history of humanity.
Most revolutions install dictatorships.
No, I'm not going there tonight, folks.
Our revolution.
Have you ever thought?
I ask myself this frequently as I've gotten older.
The country I've become more and more in awe of, and I've asked myself, we're 235 years old today.
There are countries, civilizations, thousands of years older than we are.
In 235 years, we have become the most powerful, the most benevolent, the most productive, the richest society in the history of the world.
How did this happen?
Do you realize even to this day, the United States produces 25% of all of the world's economic output?
25%!
How did it happen?
My friends, seriously, we are no different DNA-wise than any other human being anywhere on the planet.
There's nothing special about us genetically.
So, what is it about us as Americans that's special?
The word is freedom, but before it's...
But I want you to stop and think about something very seriously.
This country has produced opportunity and prosperity unlike the world has ever seen before.
The first reason is that our founders, this country is a miracle.
Our founders believed in the power of the freedom of the individual, not the power of elite government to dictate for people.
The individual.
They knew that people, using their God-given gifts, their own ambition and desires, could exceed their own expectations, could realize their dreams, and in so doing, create the best and most prosperous country in the history of civilization.
But there's one other element to American exceptionalism.
This is a term when people bandy it about and think, well, we're better than everybody else, and we're exceptional.
That's not what it means.
The history of the world is oppression, tyranny, dungeons.
Not here.
We are an exception to the way human beings have always lived on this planet.
This is a nation blessed by God.
Is our exceptionalism?
This is not a country chosen by God.
We are blessed by God because our founders, it's all in our declaration, folks.
We are all endowed by our Creator.
There it is with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.
That's all up to us.
This country turns America loose.
It turns individuals loose.
And look what has happened in 235 years.
We, even to this day, we run the world, but we do it benevolently.
We liberate people from tyranny.
When there is a disaster anywhere in the world, we are the first to arrive.
You, those of you tonight here from Joplin, Missouri, you may not know it yet, but you are the essence of what the founding fathers had in mind.
You are the epitome.
You are the people who make this country work.
What happened here is something that you are going to erase.
You'll never forget it from your memories, but you're going to build back that is going to get fixed.
It is going to be rebuilt.
It's going to be better than it ever was.
You are going to show the rest of the country how it's done because you represent the best of what this country has to offer.
You understand the principle of hard work and self-reliance.
You understand the difference between self-interest and selfishness.
And you are not selfish.
You are all going to be working your own self-interest to rebuild your lives.
And in the process, everybody else's lives will be rebuilt right along with yours.
American exceptionalism is simply the result of our founding fathers understanding that our government is not to determine the equality of outcomes in life because we're not all the same.
to permit equality of opportunity and what you do with it is your business five years old We are here on Independence Day.
We are celebrating the greatest miracle in the history of human civilization.
And as I grow older, I just turn 60.
I know I don't look it.
I just turned 60.
I become more in awe, more appreciation for this country each and every day.
Now, I'm from Missouri.
I'm in the southeast Missouri under part of the state.
I know, you know, people have asked me: do you think you would have succeeded as you have?
And who can deny my success?
Do you think you would have succeeded if you were born in the Northeast?
Yeah, but not the way I have.
I don't think that there is any doubt the fact that I am from the heartland of this country.
It allows me to be able to understand and relate to and be one of you.
I have never changed.
We are all part, we are all part of a great part of this country that understands the concepts of hard work and self-reliance, respect for our neighbors, love, doing the best we can, playing by the rules, understanding none of us are perfect, but we're there for each other when times require it.
Joplin, Missouri, you are defining that in the last moment.
You are showing the world how it's done.
I am honored.
I'm really honored to be here.
We have this new little company that we've started.
We wanted to bring a truckload in, but we made sure we didn't want to intrude.
We wanted to add to and be part of your event tonight.
Show a little gratitude and come keep the spotlight on your city, the one thing that needs to happen.
We must not forget what happened here.
I know you're trying to tonight, and I understand that.
People say, well, what are you going to do?
What I'm going to do is keep the spotlight on Joplin, Missouri.
And that's what I'll do.
And how you are overcoming something that was just thrown your way.
So thank you all very much.
I know you've got a lot to do.
You've got a great band coming up.
You've got fireworks coming up tonight.
You have a great future.
You are Americans.
We are all Americans.
We're celebrating our 235th birthday.
And remember, there's no stopping you.
Whatever you want to be, you define it.
You can be the best you can.
Vote for it.
And I'll see you there.
Thank you all very much for having great tops.
And that was last night in Joplin at their 4th of July celebration.
We got to take a break here because a little long here.
That was 10 minutes.
We'll be back and continue right after this.
Starting a million conversations.
It's Rush Limbaugh and the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
To the phones, we've got Gretchen from Joplin on the phone.
Sturdley found somebody from Joplin.
Great to have you, Gretchen.
Welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush, Mega Dittos.
Thank you.
Well, I just wanted to call today and tell you how much we appreciated having you up here.
I hadn't had the chance to try your tea yet, and that was wonderful.
And it just was really inspiring to see you and Catherine.
And it just meant so much to the community.
And I really appreciate the way you did keep it all about America and how great our founding fathers planned this country and how we need to keep that going.
Thank you very much.
I really appreciate that.
I'm glad you noticed the subtleties.
It was wonderful.
And I loved you bowing off of stage.
That was classy.
I liked it.
Well, it was a fun night.
It really was.
And that crowd, you heard the crowd was jazzed.
The crowd was revved up.
And I love being part of things like this.
As I told them, it was a genuine honor and opportunity for me and for Catherine to be there.
Chloe, we have 13 years old from Joplin, Missouri.
Hi, Chloe.
You're next on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
I'm 13 years old.
I'm Chloe.
And I just wanted to call in because I'm a huge fan.
And I met your wife.
And I just really appreciate that you came down to Joplin because you didn't have to do that.
No, I didn't have to, but it was something that we really wanted to do.
And you got to go too, right?
Your parents took you?
Yeah, and we helped distribute the tea.
We brought our golf cart, and we brought a trailer, and we helped distribute your tea all around Landriff Park.
Oh, that's so wonderful.
We had, I forget how many hundreds of volunteers from you're from a young conservative group then.
Yeah, I'm just a huge fan.
I go to College Heights, which is a private school.
Yeah.
And we always talk about you, Rush.
And we're 13, so we say we listen to 1310K ZRG because they're 13.
Yeah.
And I just hope maybe one day that I could meet you in person.
And Craig Kitchen was very nice because he gave us a white sheet of paper and he said that you would send us something.
Well, there's no question we will.
If Craig said that we're going to send you, Craig gave you a white piece of paper.
White piece of paper.
What was on the white piece of paper?
There were t-shirts.
My dad, which is Ron Brewer, my mom, Teresa Brewer, and me, Chloe Brewer.
And we want you to sign t-shirts for us if that's okay.
Are you the one that gets a there's a stack about two feet high of t-shirts that I ended up with?
I don't know.
I don't know.
But I would just like to meet you one day.
Well, that'll happen.
Okay.
Chloe, that'll happen.
And thank you so much for being there.
Thank you for helping distribute the tea.
You're welcome.
Thank you so much for coming because you didn't have to do that.
No, no, no, no.
I appreciate that very much.
Thanks.
So it was the honor is all ours, opportunity to be there.
We're the ones that horned in.
And you all let us come in, accepted us.
Open arms.
We loved it.
Thanks very much.
Back after this, folks.
As you can imagine, on some of the cable networks, broadcast networks, Sunday and Monday, there were experts who have a view of America and its founding that's not quite the same as that which I expressed in Joplin and that which you and I share.
And we have some audio soundbites of some of these people, the way they view America.
And we'll share that with you and lots of other stuff still ahead, so don't go anywhere.
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