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Dec. 2, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:57
December 2, 2011, Friday, Hour #2
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We still have 13 and a half 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 created.
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.
Yep, yep, yep, yep, 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.
And 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 I take the risk because I can turn anything around.
I can save any disaster.
And it's fun.
Well, yeah, we did we we did have we did have a bomb.
We have it, but that's you know, one bomb in 23 years.
I mean, we've had individual calls that were bombs, but the show you're talking about a 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 L Rushbow, EIB net.com.
So what was it about three weeks ago or a month ago, Coca-Cola decided that uh, yeah, this is this is that always amazes me.
These 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 it came out with new Coke.
And it didn't work.
And I, in fact, I remember, I remember it was such a disaster.
There was a Larry King had his show.
No, no, no, no.
Before Larry King had his show on CNN, the 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 at the time, the uh current CEO of Coca-Cola, a guy named Roberto Goisweta.
And it was Roberto Goizueta 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 uh this Goyzetta guy, he was very, very suave and deboner.
Debonair, for those of you in uh real lending deboner here is uh Sandy, uh, you know.
We at Coca-Cola, extensive research, you know, Sandy's.
Uh anyway, it didn't work, and they had to come out within a I mean a microflash, 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.
Uh 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 a notion that some of the proceeds are going to go to the Save the Polar Bear Fund.
And I rem I when I announced this, when I heard about it, talked about it, uh, and uh you know, try to make money off the lie that polar bears are being killed here, and that if you buy Coca-Cola somehow, the polar bear population is gonna be saved.
And I ripped it.
And I pointed out, you know, we at Tuf by T, we don't do any of that.
We don't insult the intelligence of our kind.
We're not hipsters, and we're not 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.
Here 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 gonna probably shoot me, but we start, we 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, at least two new flavors, and we're excited as we can be about it.
Um we're never gonna 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 uh 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 a part of the plan to have the white can out there for a couple of weeks.
Now, see, this is a danger you're run.
I'm sure that there's no difference in what they're putting in the cans, but 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 the the uh the the modern era of of Santa Claus Coca-Cola, this is how uh uh slick they are, how good they are.
Our modern media version of Santa Claus owes to Coca-Cola a lot.
In their old advertising, that they're that good.
They have been they have been that good.
Um they said this white can was gonna run through February when it originally came out.
So they don't make very many mistakes, but this is one.
Now we move on.
Uh, 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 they 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 paid them to work as the assistant librarian?
And I'd 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 fire storm that's erupted here?
Not I no, 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 when talking about the homeless.
Well, why is it we had a job?
And people say, well, easy for you to say.
This is this is where we 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 we're 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 thought, you know what?
We're just not going to have any winners.
And then that picked up to all kinds of kids' 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 chickafy.
We refused to let any kid lose it 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 Oprahfication of women.
You know, as a as a fellow broadcaster, I probably shouldn't say this, but that just means I will say it.
But I have to, I have to, 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, you know, started to uh bleed a little audience.
But 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's show, their five o'clock news led the market they were in because of Oprah's lead-in.
So Oprah, as uh 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 Otta, and nobody cared.
The O Network and all that, and nobody cared.
It never amounted to Hill of Bean.
So they put Oprah back on the air at the O, 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 how do you 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 show's 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, I'm just throwing it out there.
I'm 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 told every week we knew where Oprah was going to be.
Oh magazine, O network, oh on her own show, oh, do an 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 had the Oprahfication of women.
Little Johnny Praise for two plus two is five.
Saw all of this happening.
And where we are, now what do 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're not, they're not for they weren't prepared for it.
Liberalism has doused the hopes of another generation, is my point.
Yeah, eight and uh maybe nine and in order.
And welcome back, Rush Limbaugh on Open Line Friday.
Now, those of you watching on the Ditto Cam, 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 uh that's that's it.
And it's it's uh it's it's on the way to you.
And I had a I had a visitor come by yesterday.
We've got this issue of the newsletter uh laying around the office here, and 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 can you put Coke in it?
Can you can you Yeah, we did it.
We did it.
Two if by T is in there, a little six-pack and a big bottle and the polar bears dressed as Rush Revere.
Uh I understand these people, folks, and we laugh at them.
And of course, Coke is having to turn it around.
I'm no, I'm not trying to make an enemy out of Coca-Cola here.
I'm just 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, Russ.
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.
Um I was wondering if you know whether there are other government programs that uh people are taking advantage of and switching over.
Um, there aren't too many people like your first caller who is obvious 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 uh get on social security disability, uh, in addition to some food stamps and some other programs and take advantage of the government that way.
Um do you have any information on on what the statistics are on those other plans?
Well, uh 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 uh years that Obama's been president.
We've increased it by five percent.
I think it's from twenty to twenty-five percent or forty to forty-two.
It's it's forty-four and a half million people.
And 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 uh we these 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 uh the whole thing.
This is it's it's it is something that's foreign to them.
And 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 uh MSNBC summit from Fox, up in arms over Newt's comments about the poor kids.
Newt Gingrich goes after poor people.
The Republicans presidential front runner blames poor children again.
This one's a sucker, even for hotless 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, and 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.
I you know, when I was young, I said I'm never gonna grow up and be an old photy fogey, and I'm never gonna say, When I was young, I walked to school ten feet of snow with no shoes.
I'm not gonna do that.
Like my I'm sorry, I have to remark on that.
Newt Gingrich was not blaming teachers.
He was not blaming parents.
Or he wasn't, I mean, 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, you've Al Sharpton going after poor people blaming The children again wouldn't blame me.
He wants to help.
This is an example of compassion.
Work in the old days was something honorable.
To want to get a my 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 excited.
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 I wasn't aware of it at the time.
I'm 13.
But it was it was uh something I 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 route out is not endless benefits.
That's merely a way to sustain one in poverty, but it's not a route 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 ball off the 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 New Gingrich wants inner city kids to become janitors at age 10.
Right.
And the correct answer is that's a lie.
Right.
So yeah, uh 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, janitors are union job.
S E I U. The S EIU represents janitors.
I think this is 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 just um 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.
Uh you had a great idea a couple of 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 I was that was a perfect um 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.
Snerdley would not have put this on Monday through Thursday.
It's not an issue related call but I'm glad that you enjoy glad you liked it and and uh uh that's cool uh you you you you made my day with this here because look you know we come up with these things and and and we uh we hope people like it they do cost something we we uh we hope to make back our cost in it and it's just uh believe me made my day when you tell me you like it.
Well I was also pleased to see that the I also got a 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 the this past week.
So 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 time out, 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.
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'm a Republican, conservative Republican.
With all that's been going on, candidate after candidate, 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, you know, right now...
Gingrich is my candidate.
I I think that as far as uh on the debate side I think he would just whip the crap out of uh excuse that word uh uh out of President Obama um but but my my gut feeling is that many people don't feel like me um and uh listening to you today it it's kind of bringing me back to this feeling of where I thought that we just had a we were just going to give them this election again.
Um I'm kind of getting this feeling of you know we sh we got to keep fighting.
We got to keep pushing forward.
Wait a minute why do you think that what's happened today that makes you think well I you know this this unemployment thing with the spinning I'm I know that's exactly what they want to you got 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 wait till it goes to eight point two.
Yeah wait till it gets the seven point nine next July Yeah and I I know the reason you're right you you're right in trying to explain it as to how they come up with that 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 they that that isn't that is uh they maybe we'll try to fake it and so forth but you're gonna be bombarded with all kinds of things.
I um I want to ask you something about you mentioned all the other candidates you you going through Cain, you can do Perry Bachman you've settled on Newt.
You you sound like you you have been part of the group that they describe as anybody but Romney.
Yeah I I've you know at first I I didn't like him four years ago uh I was not on the McCain bandwagon back then either uh But I I went with the party.
I mean I fought with him.
I'm a county committee member.
I I went out and door to door and and and ironically where I live our community, our district actually went for McCain, which was I very, very tough.
I mean totally democratic area.
But let me ask you about all these other candidates.
You're you say you're a new guy now, but have you always been a new guy?
No, no, I wasn't.
Okay, let me guess.
In the very beginning, I before Perry got in, I was kind of on the Perry side.
Right?
I know what you're going to say.
And then I I went I started listening a little bit more to Kane.
Yeah.
But I I I gotta 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.
Right.
And were you ever big on Bachman?
Not big.
Not big.
Bachman was never your favorite at one time.
At one time Bachman was kind of a favorite you're kind of uh uh cementing what I think is going on here.
There is this phenomena anybody but Romney you s you sound to me like the whoever's up in the polls whoever is appears to be catching fire is who you latch on to.
Well I I not a criticism that's not a criticism.
No but I in in that aspect I always like Gingrich but you know listening to guys like Bill O'Reilly saying he's he doesn't have a shot he doesn't have a shot I I tried to give the other guys a chance.
I looked at everybody else.
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 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.
I truly think that if he goes up against him and people pay attention to what he has to say he could beat him.
Um but unfortunately if if Mitt Romney should wind up with the the nomination I will vote for Mitt uh because I cannot I have two young children here's here's here's what you're telling me and what you're telling me is not all bad you're gonna vote whoever wins a nomination you are not going to sit out because really this is about Obama I wouldn't worry about your disappointment.
You you uh 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's going to be it's gonna 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 thoughtings 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 no nobody would no network would agree to it.
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