All Episodes
Previous Next
Dec. 2, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:06
December 2, 2011, Friday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
We still have 13.5 million people not working in the country.
13 and a half million.
Again, folks, the unemployment number, 8.6% is bogus.
315,000 people left the job market.
They're now called unemployed.
They've given up looking.
120,000 jobs create.
You add 315, no longer looking, 120 new jobs, 435,000 unemployed.
It's just like baseline budgeting.
And that's how you get an unemployment drop from 9 to 8.6.
It's corrupt and totally bogus.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's Open Line Friday.
Yip, yip, yip, yip, yahoo.
Here we are at the end of the week, the busy broadcast week, Open Line Friday, where when we go to the phones, you have total leeway in what we talk about.
The program content is up to you.
We selfishly police it and guard it Monday through Thursday.
On Friday, that's the risk.
I mean, who knowingly, willingly, purposefully would allow boring stuff on the radio?
Well, nobody, but I take the risk because I can turn anything around.
I can save any disaster.
And it's fun.
Well, yeah, we did have a bomb.
But that's one bomb in 23 years.
I mean, we've had individual calls that were bombs, but the show you're talking about, the whole show was a bomb.
I mean, it was brutal.
It was really brutal out there.
Yeah, it's the risk you run.
That's all points to the risk.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882.
Email address, LRushbo, EIBnet.com.
So what was it, about three weeks ago or a month ago, Coca-Cola decided that, yeah, this is, this is, it always amazes me.
These, the supposedly, you know, Coca-Cola, considered to be one of the smartest marketing companies out there, they've really only made one mistake.
And that was 1985, and he came out with New Coke, and it didn't work.
And in fact, I remember, I remember it was such a disaster.
There was a, Larry King had his show.
No, no, no, no, it was before Larry King had his show on CNN.
The gal that hosted that hour on CNN was a blonde named Sandy Freeman.
And her husband was a big-time agent or lawyer or something.
That doesn't matter to anything.
I'm just remembering this.
And she had on at the time the current CEO of Coca-Cola, a guy named Roberto Goisueta.
And it was Roberto Goisueta and his administration and Coke that had gone to New Coke.
And he brought it on that show and everybody's tasting it, rendering their opinions on it.
And I remember this Goisetta guy, he was very, very suave and deboner.
Debonair for those of you in real deboner.
Sandy, you know, we at Coca-Cola, extensive research.
You know, Sandy's.
Anyway, it didn't work.
And they had to come out within a, I mean, a micro flash.
And that's how Coke Classic came to be.
We had to go back to the original because the new Coke didn't work.
Well, they've done it again.
They did it again.
They came out.
They decided, just like these people at GE, Go Green.
See, what happens here?
People in corporate America, a lot of times, are followers.
And they think a large enough segment of the population believes this global warming green energy crap.
Well, then they'll come out with products with green packaging or some green aspect to it in their marketing or advertising.
Product isn't any different.
They're just packaging it or marketing it differently because they think that they can convince consumers that they're saving the planet by buying this predictive product.
It's their business to sell things.
So Coca-Cola decides, like years late to this, that they're going to get in on the polar bears are dying craze.
The problem is the polar bears aren't dying, and this has been established and affirmed over the recent number of months, maybe years.
But they decided to come out with a white can for Christmas with a mom and a couple of baby polar bears on it with the notion that some of the proceeds are going to go to the Save the Polar Bear Fund.
And when I announced this, when I heard about it, talked about it, and try to make money off the lie that polar bears are being killed here.
And if you buy Coca-Cola somehow, the polar bear population is going to be saved.
And I ripped it.
And I pointed out, you know, we at 2FBIT, we don't do any of that.
We don't insult the intelligence of our kind.
We're not hipsters and we're not trendy in the sense that we try to tie into fads.
We create the fads.
If there's any fad going on, we're just straightforward nuts.
We fill our stuff up to the top of the neck of the bottle.
There's no gunk in it.
It's the best-tasting ice.
Oh, Catherine's going to probably shoot me, but we start bottling the two new flavors soon, folks.
I cannot wait.
We finished three months of exhaustive taste testing, coming up with just the right flavors.
And we start the bottling process soon, these two new flavors.
And we're excited as we can be about it.
And we're never going to do anything for the polar bears.
What we do is for the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation.
That's our sponsor.
Because the polar bears are fine.
Don't misunderstand.
Anyway, Diane Sawyer at ABC had the details on this.
This is a world news tonight.
And it was actually a Jim Avila report out there about Coca-Cola canceling the special white can for the polar bear.
We all remember the outcry back in 1985 when New Coke tried to replace our old friend, the classic.
Well, the Coca-Cola company is scrambling again tonight.
Here's ABC's Jamavila.
A holiday promotion designed to raise money for polar bears now cut short because of consumer backlash.
For some Coke drinkers, the white can is anything but the real thing.
Some Coke drinkers complain the soda in the white can tastes different.
Coca-Cola says this was part of the plan all along, but distributors were informed only this morning to expect a return to the iconic red by next week.
That was part of the plan to have the white can out there for a couple of weeks.
Now, see, this is a danger you run.
I'm sure that there's no difference in what they're putting in the cans.
People think it tastes different.
The original Coke error back in 1985 was not an advertising mistake.
They actually changed the formula.
And Coke, you know, the modern era of Santa Claus, Coca-Cola, this is how slick they are, how good they are.
Our modern media version of Santa Claus owes to Coca-Cola a lot.
In their old advertising, they're that good.
They have been that good.
And they said this white can was going to run through February when it originally came out.
So they don't make very many mistakes, but this is one.
Now we move on.
Ladies and gentlemen, I mentioned earlier that Newt Gingrich in trouble because of his comments on poor kids.
This was in Des Moines yesterday at a campaign event.
Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works.
So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday.
They have no habit of staying all day.
They have no habit of I do this and you give me cash unless it's illegal.
You have kids who are required under law to go to school.
They have no money.
What if you paid them part-time in the afternoon to sit at the clerical office and greet people when they came in?
What if you pay them to work as the assistant librarian?
And I pay them as early as is reasonable and practical.
What if they became assistant janitors and their job was to mop the floor and clean the bathroom?
And you paid them.
Oh, folks, do you know the firestorm that's erupted here?
Not the janitor thing.
It wasn't any one thing.
It was the notion that they should work.
That because it's none of Newt's business and he's making discriminatory statements about circumstances he doesn't understand.
He's putting down a whole group of people as basically worthless idiots that don't work and he's calling attention to it and who is he?
It's similar reaction I've always gotten talking about the homeless.
Well, why is he got a job?
And people say, well, easy for you to say.
This is where you think he's not catching up.
What do you think Occupy Wall Street told him?
Occupy Wall Street is made up of the kind of people that Newt's talking about here.
Let me review for you very briefly here some points made over the years by me on this program.
I remember every talking about kids.
I remember, for example, when I first heard, and I think it was in Florida, that they weren't going to keep score anymore in Pop Warner football because there was a team so much better than all the others that it was embarrassing the other teams.
They were winning 72 to nothing.
And so the first thing they did was penalize the better team like minus 36 before they started.
They were 36 points in the hole.
And then after that didn't work, then they figured, you know what?
We're just not going to have any winners.
And then that picked up to all kinds of kid sports.
No winner in softball, no winner in football, no winner here.
Then everybody made the team.
Everybody had to get an at-bat.
Then we went to T-ball because it was too dangerous if some kid got hit by a pitch ball.
So we continued to Sissify, Wussify, and Chickify.
We refused to let any kid lose at anything because it was too humiliating and the parents didn't want to deal with the tears and disappointment.
Nobody was allowed to be the most valuable player because that meant none of the others were valuable if somebody was the most valuable.
So if somebody got an award, everybody got an award.
And I remember pointing out on this program, this is not good because that's not life.
They're not going to encounter this kind of baby-fied culture when they grow up.
When they leave home and they go to school, when they get out of school and go to work, they're not going to have any preparation for it.
They're not going to have the slightest idea.
And we've had we've had uh remember you we couldn't even grade papers in red for a time because red was an intimidating color and then we didn't grade papers and then little Johnny outcome-based education.
Do you remember outcome-based education?
If little kid thought two plus two is five, it was five until he figured out it was four.
They were never wrong.
They were applauded for trying.
They were applauded for effort.
There was no separation in school of the bright kids, the average kids, and the slow kids.
Everybody was put together and the fast kids were dumbed down.
Just like the left wants to do with income.
Rather than elevate those at the bottom, they want to decapitate the top of society and lower everybody to the lowest common denominator.
There were all of these, and we did parody after parody after parody of this stuff.
And then we had the whole chickification of culture anyway.
And then we had the Oprahcation of women.
You know, as a fellow broadcaster, I probably shouldn't say this, but that just means I will say it.
But I have to note and call attention to something.
Oprah, and I will leave it to others to answer this, even though I have the answer.
Oprah had, we were told, the highest rated daytime television talk show ever for a long while until it leveled off.
And then all shows eventually except this one started to bleed a little audience.
But I mean, it was not even close, right?
I mean, Oprah's ratings were just incomparable.
There wasn't a thing you could do about it.
And the TV stations that had Oprah show their 5 o'clock news led the market they were in because of Oprah's lead-in.
So Oprah, as many media people do, burned out, tired, wanted to do other things.
So she went the executive route and started the O Network and the O Magazine and the O This and the O That, and nobody cared.
The O Network and all that, and nobody cared.
It never amounted to Hillabin.
So they put Oprah back on the air at the O Network, and that didn't make any difference.
And then they put Rosie O'Donnell on the Oprah, and that didn't make it.
The point is, my question is, how do you put somebody on over-the-air syndication television?
For however many years she did it, with just over-the-top incomparable, nobody even close ratings.
And then a year after she's gone, put her back on the air and nobody watches.
How does that happen?
What does that maybe mean about the over-the-air television shows ratings?
Just asking, just asking.
But anyway, that's just a sidebar question, a think piece.
I'm not, what, the Labor Department running Oprah's rating numbers?
Well, you said it.
I'm just throwing it out there.
I just, how does this happen?
We know it does, you know, but how do you go from a standalone number one, nobody even close, to just a year later, nobody caring that you're back on the air?
Now, in my case, Well, no, I shouldn't.
I shouldn't.
I shouldn't.
I find it.
If Oprah was that popular, why didn't her audience follow her wherever she went and find her?
And it wasn't hard.
I mean, all the PR in the world telled every week we knew where Oprah was going to be.
Oh, magazine, oh, network, oh, on her own show, oh, doing executive, oh, doing a movie, oh, this.
Take her off the daytime syndication show, and the audience doesn't care anymore.
That, again, I'm way off track.
That's not my point here.
We have the ultrification of women.
Little Johnny Praise for two plus two is five.
So all of this happening.
And where we are, now what we have, those kids are now adults, and they are at Occupy Wall Street.
And they are the ones who run around and look at life's winners as criminals.
They're no longer getting awards for doing nothing.
They're no longer being picked to be on the team, i.e. get a job.
They weren't prepared for it.
Liberalism has doused the hopes of another generation, is my point.
Yeah, eight and maybe nine and in order.
And welcome back, Rush Limbaugh on Open Line Friday.
Now, those of you watching on the Ditto Kim, I want to show you something.
This is the back page of the December issue of the Limbaugh letter, which is on the way to subscribers even now.
It's a Christmas card from all of us to you, and you see that we're making fun of Coca-Cola and the white cans and the polar bears.
And of course, the larger bottle there is Two-If by Tea.
That's on the back page, a little script underneath it, as you can see, which you can't read, I'm sure, but that's it.
And it's on the way to you.
And I had a visitor come by yesterday.
We've got this issue of the newsletter laying around the office here.
And the visitor picked it up and looked at it and saw the Coca-Cola cans and knew exactly what was going on.
Can you do that?
Can you do that?
Can you put Coke in it?
Can you, yeah, we did it.
We did it.
Two if by tea is in their little six-pack and a big bottle and the polar bears dressed as Rush Revere.
I understand these people, folks, and we laugh at them.
And of course, Coke is having to turn it around.
No, I'm not trying to make an enemy out of Coca-Cola here.
When people go political, then they become fair game on this program.
Pure and simple.
Doesn't matter.
You go political and you are in the arena and then we are going to comment.
Here's Mary in Chicago as we go back to the phones.
Great to have you with us.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Thank you for taking my call.
It's an honor and a pleasure to talk to you.
Thank you.
I had a question for you regarding that 8.6% unemployment rate that was reported.
I was wondering if you know whether there are other government programs that people are taking advantage of and switching over.
There aren't too many people like your first caller who is obviously very honorable and doesn't want to accept disability payments.
There's a lot of people who want to take advantage of the system and perhaps two years of unemployment is not enough.
So they figure, hey, let me get on a better plan.
Maybe I can get on Social Security Disability in addition to some food stamps and some other programs and take advantage of the government that way.
Do you have any information on what the statistics are on those other plans?
Well, in relation to one program to the next, no.
But I can tell you that the number of people on food stamps is at an all-time high.
And we've gone just in the years that Obama's been president, we've increased it by 5%.
I think it's from 20 to 25% or 40% to 42%.
It's 44.5 million people.
And more than one program these people are availing themselves of.
And by design, it's the Democrat Party buying votes via dependency.
Okay, a couple of quick sound bites here, and then back to the phones.
I want you to hear media reaction to Newt saying that these poor kids, and I don't know why it has to be just poor kids, but get these kids a job.
Get them accustomed to getting up and going someplace, getting paid.
The whole thing.
It is something that's foreign to them.
And there are media cat calls to this.
The media is outraged over Newt suggesting that young people be taught the concepts of work and compensation.
We have a montage here of a bunch of media types, most of this MSNBC summit from Fox, up in arms over Newt's comments about the poor kids.
Newt Gingrich goes after poor people.
The Republicans' presidential frontrunner blames poor children again.
This one's a shocker, even for a heartless Republican Party.
Quintessential Newt making broad assertions.
Newt Gingrich has never looked into these single moms' eyes.
Newt Gingrich has never seen the struggles that happen every day in the Bronx, in South Central LA, where the truly disadvantaged live.
On Sunday, it'll be 17 years that he was talking about disadvantaged kids going into orphanages.
Newt has a tendency, he's a very smart guy.
He thinks out loud sometimes, and he makes statements that he doesn't realize have more impact than just the words.
Talking repeatedly about putting little kids to work.
Seem to suggest that poor kids grow up unable to make money without breaking the law.
There you have it.
So you see, now, this is where we are in the culture.
My, gosh, I hate, you know, when I was young, I said, I'm never going to grow up and be an old fogey, and I'm never going to say, when I was young, I walked to school 10 feet of snow with no shoes.
I'm not going to do that.
Like my.
But I got, I have, I'm sorry, I have to remark on it.
Newt Gingrich was not blaming teachers.
He was not blaming parents.
Or he wasn't, I mean, he was.
He's not blaming the kids.
He was not being cold-hearted toward the kids.
If anything, Newt is worried about the culture.
But, I mean, Al Sharpton going after poor people, blaming the children again?
Wasn't blaming.
He wants to help.
This is an example of compassion.
Work in the old days was something honorable.
To want to get a, I wanted to shine shoes when I was 13.
That was my first job.
I made $50 in three months shining shoes at a barbershop.
And my dad was beside himself with pride.
It was exciting.
Yeah, and even when I was growing up, people said, but the Lindbaugh kid doesn't need the job.
That was out there.
But I wasn't aware of it at the time.
I'm 13.
But it was something, it certainly wasn't a stigma.
It wasn't something I was doing wrong.
And the people who encouraged me to work were not SOBs.
Now look.
Somebody tell me what is wrong with wanting to teach somebody the concept of work and being paid for it.
What's wrong with it?
Particularly if they are poor.
What is the root out of poverty?
It ain't the Democrat Party.
The root out is not endless benefits.
That's merely a way to sustain one in poverty, but it's not a root out of it.
Well, that's it.
Newt dares to suggest that the parents have a role in raising their kids.
That's the government's job now, don't we understand?
And that's where Newt's off the deep end.
He doesn't understand anymore.
It's a government's job to pay for those kids.
A government's job to make sure those kids do whatever they do and have whatever they have.
It isn't Newts.
Who the hell does he think he is?
But this is where we are.
When you suggest something genuinely helpful and educational to people.
To poor kids, especially.
You get castigated, raked across the calls for insensitivity, cold-heartedness, extremism, heartlessness, all of those other adjectives.
So last night on ABC's World of News tonight, Jacob Tapper interviewed Newt, said, another concern is your propensity to make outrageous, interesting, whatever remarks like child labor laws being stupid and so forth.
Young children who are poor ought to learn how to go to work.
It would be great if inner-city schools and poor neighborhood schools actually hired the children to do things.
Some of the things they could do would be work in the library, work in the front office.
Some of them, frankly, could be janitorial.
But Democrats could very easily take that comment and say Newt Gingrich wants inner-city kids to become janitors at age 10.
Right, and the correct answer is that's a lie.
Right.
So, yeah, Democrats could very easily take the comment, Newt Gingrich wants inner-city kids to become janitors at 10.
Doesn't make it true.
Who cares what Democrats say?
Democrats are the problem.
Work is not the problem.
Lack of jobs is the problem brought to us by the Democrats.
Who cares what they say?
I don't, frankly.
I don't have any problem with standard, decent, good old traditional values.
None whatsoever.
Besides that, janitor's a union job, S-E-I-U.
The SEIU represents janitors.
This is, folks, I'm telling you, this is how we end up with kids in Occupy Wall Street.
Adults defending doing nothing.
Adults criticizing people who are trying to find out or come up with helpful ways to get certain people out of the doldrums that they're in.
All right, to the phones, as I promised.
Mark, Tampa, Florida.
Great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Thank you, sir.
I appreciate it.
I wish my first call into the show would be a little bit loftier of a topic, but I also want to say thank you.
Well, you're welcome, sir.
You had a great idea a couple weeks ago, I think, was the first time I heard it.
And I was racking my brain to get my father a Christmas present this year.
And when I heard the message on the radio about the mug set, the gift set, that was a perfect idea and ordered one and got it last Saturday, and it's fantastic.
Well, that's great.
See, that's another great example.
Open line Friday call.
Snirdly would not have put this on Monday through Thursday.
It's not an issue-related call, but I'm glad that you enjoy it.
I'm glad you liked it.
And that's cool.
You made my day with this here.
Because look, you know, we come up with these things and we hope people like it.
They do cost something.
We hope to make back our cost in it.
And it's just, believe me, made my day when you tell me you like it.
Well, I was also pleased to see that I also got an order of the tea because I was really curious about it.
I was extremely pleased to see that it was packaged in two, quote-unquote, six-packs.
So he was originally only going to get two of them, two single bottles, but since it came in two six-packs, he gets one, and I've been drinking the rest of it for this past week.
Well, I can't thank you enough.
That's tremendous.
It's kind of embarrassing, but I appreciate it.
I'm still learning to accept compliments myself.
It's sometimes very tough.
It embarrasses me, but I appreciate it.
I really do.
And Merry Christmas to your dad, too.
Brief timeout, folks.
We'll be back.
We will continue right after this.
Michael, New York City, thank you for waiting.
Open Line Friday, and you are next, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you, Rush, very much.
I want to thank you for taking my call and tell you how much of an honor this is to speak with you today.
Thank you, sir.
You know, I called because I was looking for motivation.
I am a Republican, conservative Republican.
With all that's been going on, candidate after candidate has just been slapping around.
Within my own community, we are having a lot of issues with trying to decide who we want to represent us on the Republican side.
None of us are really very comfortable with Mitt Romney, but we've kind of gone through the gamut.
We've gone through the Perry and the Kane and Bachman and so on and so forth.
And right now, Newt Gingrich is my candidate.
I think that as far as on the debate side, I think he would just whip the crap out of President Obama.
But my gut feeling is that many people don't feel like me.
And listening to you today, it's kind of bringing me back to this feeling of where I thought that we were just going to give him this election again.
I'm kind of getting this feeling of, you know, we got to keep fighting.
We've got to keep pushing forward.
Wait a minute.
Why do you think that?
What's happened today that makes you think?
Well, you know, this unemployment thing with the spin.
I know that's exactly what they want you.
You've got to buck up.
I spent all week talking about one of my themes at the Rush to Excellence show New York Tuesday night.
We are going to be, you think it's bad now.
Waitlita goes to 8.2.
Yeah.
Waitla gets to 7.9 next July.
Yeah, and I know the reason.
You're right.
You're right in trying to explain as to how they come up with that fictitious number.
It's just a lie.
It's not the truth.
Well, but the thing is, you're not alone.
You're not the lone wolf who thinks the country's about to head off the guardrails.
You're in the vast majority, and an unemployment number isn't going to change it, especially a fake one.
Yeah.
Until they can go out and show robust economic activity, factories open.
People happily, that is, they may be able to fake it and so forth, but you're going to be bombarded with all kinds of things.
I want to ask you something about, you mentioned all the other candidates.
You've gone through Kane, you've been through Perry, Bachman.
You've settled on Newt.
You sound like you have been part of the group that they describe as anybody but Romney.
Yeah, at first I didn't like him four years ago.
I was not on the McCain bandwagon back then either.
But I went with the party.
I mean, I fought with him.
I'm a county committee member.
I went out door-to-door.
And ironically, where I live, our community, our district actually went for McCain, which was very, very tough.
I mean, totally Democratic area.
But let me ask you about all these other candidates.
You say you're a newt guy now, but have you always been a newt guy at all?
No, I wasn't.
Okay, let me guess.
In the very beginning, before Perry got in, I was kind of on the Perry side.
I know what you're going to say.
And then I started listening a little bit more to Kane.
But I got to be honest, I got turned off not because I don't think he's competent.
I just think that, and maybe the way he handled it, maybe the way his crew let him handle it.
And were you ever big on Bachman?
Not big, not big.
So Bachman was never your favorite at one time.
At one time, Bachman was kind of a favorite.
Okay, you're kind of cementing what I think is going on here.
There is this phenomenon.
Anybody but Romney, you sound to me like whoever's up in the polls, whoever appears to be catching fire is who you latch on to.
Well, I don't know.
Not a criticism.
That's not a criticism.
No, no, no.
But in that aspect, I always like Gingrich.
But, you know, listening to guys like Bill O'Reilly saying he doesn't have a shot.
He doesn't have a shot.
I tried to give the other guys a chance.
I looked at everybody else.
I mean, even who didn't get in, one of my favorites, Chris Christie, though, I think he would have gotten hammered against Obama.
Looking at what's there, I don't feel 100% comfortable with what's out there.
I mean, like I said, at this point, I really do.
I really think I'm behind Gingrich in the sense that I hope he wins.
I hope he gets to the point where he is up against Obama.
And I truly think that if he goes up against him and people pay attention to what he has to say, he could beat him.
But unfortunately, if Mitt Romney should wind up with the nomination, I will vote for Mitt because I cannot.
I have two young children.
Here's what you're telling me.
And what you're telling me is not all bad.
You're going to vote whoever wins the nomination.
You are not going to sit out because really this is about Obama.
I wouldn't worry about your disappointment.
You're obviously unable to really get ignited about any of these people.
But that's okay because what does ignite you is Obama.
And that's what this election is going to be.
It's going to be a referendum on Obama.
And any one of these people on our side would be a 100 to 200% improvement.
And of that, you can be confident.
And they can also win.
Don't listen to these no-thothings who tell you that X doesn't have a shot.
They don't know what they're talking about.
Nobody would ever agree to it.
No, they wouldn't.
Nobody would.
No network would agree to it.
Anyway, folks, we got to go.
The fastest three hours in media are zipping by.
We've only got one biggie to go here, and we'll get to it.
▲
Export Selection