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Jan. 28, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:40
January 28, 2013, Monday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, I think we can say, ladies and gentlemen, that my New Year's resolution to keep and adopt lower profile out the window.
And a lot of people, a lot of you are writing me emails, very scared, very concerned, and I truly appreciate it.
Warning me to be careful.
The president is targeting me now.
And Fox News, the only remaining media opposition, apparently.
Folks, the president ain't probably just trying to goad me into saying something extreme like that would ever happen.
Great to have you here.
Telephone number 800-282-2882, the email address LRushbo at EIBnet.com.
I'm going to tell you, folks, I am not paid enough.
If Fox News and I are the only thing keeping the Republicans from caving to Barack Obama on every issue, I'm not paid enough.
I mean, it's just, but I really, well, here's what happened.
Obama told the New Republic, and I find it fascinating.
There's no audio of this that I've seen.
Now, there's audio of the reporter, guy named Chris Hughes, I believe, who's the new owner of the New Republic, a liberal journal of opinion.
And you get an interview with Obama.
Obama never says this stuff on tape.
It's always in print.
Now, they might have taped the interview, but they haven't released it.
But Obama told the New Republic that Republicans long for the days when they could socialize and introduce bipartisan legislation and feel productive.
Why?
Of course they do.
I have often maintained that Washington is a culture that, in addition to politics, is very social and it's run by the Democrats.
It's run by the liberals.
And when you're there, you want to fit in.
Everybody wants to be friends with every nobody wants to be an outcast.
And of course, very seductive to be in socially, to be hip, to be accepted socially.
That's a huge carrot.
That is a huge deal.
And Obama is confirming it here.
He told the New Republic that the Republicans long for the days when they could socialize meaning with Democrats and introduce bipartisan legislation with the Democrats and feel productive, which means feel like they matter, feel like their lives have meaning, feel like life is worth living, feel like they're making a difference.
Yes.
Exactly.
But they can't do that anymore.
They are not free.
The Republicans are not free to pursue common ground.
They are not free to socialize amicably and amiably with the Democrats.
They are not free to introduce bipartisan legislation to feel productive.
They are not free to feel like life has meaning.
They are not free to feel like they're making a difference.
Because if they do any of that, Obama said to the new Republic that they will be punished.
The Republicans will be punished by Fox News or by me for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interests.
And so you see, if it weren't for me and Fox News, you'd see a lot more bipartisan legislation.
And you see a lot more socially acceptable and accepted Republicans.
And you'd see a lot of happier Republicans.
And you'd see a lot of Republicans who think their life is worth living.
And you see a lot of Republicans who feel like they're making a difference.
If it weren't for Fox News and me, that's why I said, I mean, if it's if it's Fox News and me, your harmless,
lovable little fuzzball host, as the only thing is keeping the Republicans from finding meaning in life by joining the Democrats, I'm not paid enough.
If I'm it, if I'm the last line, if I'm to bulwark, and I know what's going on here, I know Obama.
He's trying to goad me into saying something extreme like that would ever happen so that he can kick off a new boycott or secondary boycott.
Now, a lot of you have written since you heard about this, and you have told me that you think that talk like this from the president has a chilling effect on free speech and the freedom of the press.
My friends, Obama would never do anything to try to limit Fox or me and my right to express myself.
He would never sick any of his minions on Fox or me.
He'd never try to gin up phony boycotts for him.
That would never happen.
Only dictators like Hugo Chavez do things like that.
The president wouldn't do that.
Not at all.
So in an interview with the New Republic, rather than being focused on the employment situation or the debt circumstance or whatever other problems, the only problem, the big problems that Obama has are Fox News and me.
But don't sweat.
We got a couple sound bites with Chris Hughes of the New Republic, who actually did the interview and he's asked about it.
I think it was on ABC with Martha Ravitz yesterday.
Now, one other thing here, because folks, I don't know if you've Obama also said, you know, I've had a couple people also email me, friends of mine, who said they thought that I really was way out on a limb.
Maybe it'd gone too far when I predicted months ago that the National Football League, as we know it, is over.
It's only a matter of time.
They say, you're talking about Russia, the most popular, the most profitable professional sport in America where television earns its lion's share of revenue and ratings.
This time, Rush, I think you've overshot the mark.
Now they're sending me notes saying, my gosh, I should never, ever doubt you.
Because the president's out there.
And in this same interview, let me read what he said to you.
I think a lot of parents feel like Barack Obama.
I'm a big football fan, but I have to tell you: if I had a son like Trayvon, I'd have to think long and hard before I let him play football.
The president of the United States weighing in on this.
The president, this is not insignificant.
The president now suggesting this game is too dangerous for America's children, certainly for his son, Trayvon, if he had one.
And he said, and I think those of us who love the sport of football are going to have to wrestle with the fact that it'll probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence.
Violence.
Not contact.
Not hard-hitting.
Violence.
Yes.
President said, I think that those of us who love the sport are going to have to wrestle with the fact that it'll probably change gradually to try to reduce some of the violence.
In some cases, said the president, that may make it a little bit less exciting, but it will be a whole lot better for the players.
And those of us who are fans maybe won't have to examine our consciences quite as much and thereby signaled the line of attack.
And it's the same line of attack that was used for global warming to guilt you.
Your guilty conscience.
You're destroying the planet.
That's why you've got to support bigger government, higher taxes, buy small little battery-powered cars, and all the rest of it.
So now, you don't know it or not, but they're going to start working on this.
You watch a football game and you're going to have a guilty conscience.
You know why?
Because you're going to be sitting there watching football and you're going to be loving it.
But what are you loving?
Maiming, injury, concussion, life-changing injuries to the point that the players you're watching today might be committing suicide in a few short years.
And it's all being done for your bloodlust.
It's all being done for your bloodthirstiness.
Well, we all know you have a guilty conscience about, so we're going to make this game the president of the United States.
If you doubt it, please don't ever doubt me.
For the president to weigh in on this exactly as I predicted the left would attack the game means that it is already a fait accompli.
It is a I don't even know if the NFL is ready.
I still don't know if they are aware of what's headed their way.
Well, I was going to say, I mean, I wonder if he would wonder how he'd feel about his son serving in Afghanistan.
Want to have his daughters?
Will he send his daughters to Afghanistan?
Would he feel comfortable with his daughters in Iraq?
He wants to send your women children off to combat.
Put this in perspective, imagine if, let's say, who the coach is, the Harbaughs.
Let's say Jim Harbaugh.
Jim Harbaugh's the brawler of these two guys.
Jim Harbaugh, one of his press conferences this week, says that what he wants in the future is women on the 53-man roster.
He wants women playing a game.
He wants a female offensive limit kicker.
What do you think the reaction would be?
People would say, well, what are you talking about?
Women that couldn't handle that?
It changed the game forever.
But women in combat, fine, perfectly understandable, reasonable, makes every bit of sense in the world.
So while Obama doesn't want his son Trayvon to play football as it's currently played, he'll be happy to send your daughters off to combat.
No, this is not saying something extreme.
People, I'm getting flash notes here.
You're goading Obama.
It's not good.
You need to dial it back, Rush.
You need to try to make yourself invisible.
I did try to make myself invisible.
It doesn't work.
Yes, yes, I know.
Immigration, fait accompli, that's all coming up on the program today.
Just sit tight because a whole lot coming up here today, folks.
Bernard Pollard, Bernard Pollard of the Baltimore Ravens, is a safety.
He won of the hardest-hitting safeties in the national football.
Bernard Pollard is who took Tom Brady out for the season with a hit to the knee and the opener two or three years ago, Gillette Stadium.
He was with the Kansas City Chiefs at that point.
He's now safety for the Ravens, playing in his first Super Bowl game this Sunday.
And according to Clark Judge, CBSSports.com, Bernard Pollard does not see a very promising picture for the long-term future of the NFL.
Pollard sees a conundrum.
For those of you in Rio Linda, a conundrum is a multifaceted dilemma.
A dilemma has two options.
A conundrum has more than two.
And Pollard sees a conundrum coming between the league losing fans by over-legislating the physicality of the sport, i.e. Obama removing the guilty conscience aspect by making the game less exciting.
It's Obama's own words.
We're going to make the game less exciting, but we're going to free your conscience.
Pollard says, well, the league is going to lose fans doing that in the name of player safety.
Players are going to keep getting bigger and faster and stronger.
And he said, 30 years from now, I don't think the NFL will be in existence.
Now you've got a player saying it, folks.
And I just want to remind you, I, your host, El Rushbo, was first.
I don't know why Pollard's so optimistic.
30 years.
It isn't going to take 30 years.
This has been fast-tracked now.
Now with Obama weighing in on this, it's been fast-tracked.
There's nearly 30 years here.
The NFL in existence as we know it, less than 30 years.
Pollard said, look, I could be wrong.
It's just my opinion.
But I think with the direction things are going, where the rules makers want to lighten up and they're throwing flags and everything else, they're going to come to a point where fans are going to get fed up with it.
They're going to find it exciting.
They're not going to watch it.
But Obama says, yeah, they will.
They'll feel less guilty watching it.
And that means they'll enjoy it more.
How many of you people feel guilty watching football now?
How many guilty consciences are there?
Any?
They're trying to drum it up.
They're trying to drum it up.
They're trying to stigmatize the game, just like they stigmatize smoking, stigmatize obesity, stigmatize any behavior they don't like.
The left, they stigmatize it.
They get you thinking it's bad, mean, horrible, exploitative, rotten, whatever.
They haven't injected race into this yet, but that's going to be the next thing to drum up this consciousness business.
Bernard Pollard says that the league is trying to move in the right direction.
At the same time, coaches want bigger, stronger, faster players year in and year out.
That means you're going to keep getting big hits and concussions and blown-out knees.
And the only thing I'm waiting for, and Lord, I hope it doesn't happen, is a guy dying on the field.
That's Bernard Pollard.
He's not the first to say it.
You're the first to say it was, at least publicly.
Carson Palmer, the coach, or the quarterback of the Raiders, once speculated about that possibility.
Guys are getting so big, it's so fast.
So, just passing it on.
I saw this stuff over the weekend, and it's just incredible.
I know these people like every square inch of my glorious and continually shrinking naked body.
Those of us who are fans maybe won't have to examine our consciences quite as much, said the president, after we make the game less exciting, but certainly safer for the players.
Hi, we're back.
It's Rush Limbaugh.
It's a brand new week of broadcast excellence coming to you from the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I don't know if you watched the Pro Bowl last night.
In Hawaii, 65 to 32, some such thing as the final score, the Pro Bowl is being held up today as an example of how the game should be played.
It was basically a live scrimmage.
It probably wasn't walkthrough, probably 80% normal game speed.
But that's what's being held up as the example.
And there was only one injury.
And everybody was trying to avoid being hurt.
Of course, that makes sense.
Pro Bowl, meaningless game.
There was an injury, however, JJ Watt of the Houston Texans ripped his fingernail off his little finger.
And a lost looked like a pint of blood out there, as bloody as it could be.
It was just a little finger.
Anyway, they're holding that game up as the example.
So, you know, in addition, folks, to me and Fox News being the only thing standing between Obama and a totally compliant media.
Stop and think of that.
In his own words, Fox News and I are the only thing standing in the way of a totally compliant media.
Well, not only am I standing in the way of that, I may be the only person keeping Obama from transforming the NFL.
Everybody's on Obama's side on that.
Everybody.
I don't think anybody is out there defending the NFL as is.
So I'm it.
I'm it.
By the way, I'm not going to have time to finish this before the break here, but I've got to address this one more time, again, because of listener feedback.
I got a serious number of emails questioning my sincerity, which wounded me to the heart, by the way, on the fact that I was shocked last week when I learned that the Northeast was not back to normal following Hurricane Sandy.
I'm telling you, I was not kidding when I said that.
I really thought the problems had been solved.
I honestly did.
And I want to expound this a little bit more, and we'll move on to all the rest of the program.
I guess I've got another obscene profit break here.
The bottom of the hour.
I'll be right back.
Loving what I do for however long I'll be permitted to do it.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Folks, I'm sorry to be repetitive, but I have to do it based on the feedback I got last week from people.
And these were not spam emails or seminar emails.
Those are people that really thought that I was just trying to be sarcastic.
I was not.
When I was watching Fox last week, I forget what day it was, and I saw the graphic go by that talked about that cold snap last week.
All the people still didn't have heat, electricity in the Northeast and other things because Hurricane Sandy.
I have to tell you, I really was surprised.
I was not kidding.
Since the election, I hadn't seen one story about the Sandy recovery.
What I did see, they had to concert to fix.
Well, they had to concert to solve the problem.
He had Bruce Springsteen in there.
Governor Cuomo, either shortly before or shortly after the election, was on television saying that never before in his life had he seen a faster, more thorough, and complete response to an emergency disaster than what he had seen from President Obama.
He had never seen a president act as fast, as thoroughly, and who cared as much, providing solutions.
And then Governor Christie, as we all know, the week before the election, he had the president on the ground in New Jersey for a couple of hours, and they walked on the beach, and they ran into some citizens.
And Obama promised everybody that he was going to eliminate the red tape for anybody that had to call any government agency to deal with assistance.
And he was going to make, he promised that every call would be answered and dealt with in 15 minutes.
And that was the last I'd heard of it.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, we saw for months afterward the ongoing misery.
The news anchors were all over the place in New Orleans.
The NBC had set up a bureau, not a New Orleans bureau, but a Katrina bureau.
And Fox was down there.
And it went on for months.
And the residents that left New Orleans that went to Houston and other places of Texas, they had reporters following them.
It was plain as day that New Orleans didn't get back to normal for months.
But there wasn't any of that in the Northeast.
There were no such stories.
The last stories I saw about it were gasoline shortage and people standing in line at gas stations with individual cans of gasoline to fire up their generators.
And that was, you know, within a day or two or a week or two, either side of the election.
And then it ceased to be a story.
And I honestly, I'm telling you, I promptly forgot it.
And I just assumed that repair efforts were underway and ongoing and taking place and happening.
And the power, long ago, I thought the power was restored.
And I saw that last week.
And I'm telling you, I was literally shocked.
That's why I made such a big deal about it.
I mean, they did the concert.
The concert alone should have turned on how many homes?
Electricity.
You do the concert equals what?
I mean, that's why they did it, right?
Concert for Sandy victims.
You do the concert to wipe out some of the victims.
They no longer have their electricity back.
And Cuomo saying that nobody's ever been better, more thorough, more caring, more compassionate than Obama.
Okay, figured it's been done.
And Chris Christie praising Obama the same way.
I figured it was done.
I'm not trying to stir anything up.
Contrary to many of the opinions offered in the feedback.
Now, there's another story today.
And it's, again, it's a local story.
I don't know what you people in the Northeast were being told in your media.
Just telling you that in the national media, there was nothing about your circumstance until last week when we all learned that many of you still don't have electricity and that you're freezing in the cold snap.
Now, your local media may be covering this every day, but outside of New York, nobody's seeing it.
And here's another one.
This is from CBS Eyeball News, New York.
Victims of Superstorm Sandy who are staying in temporary housing, aren't expecting room service, but some say they're living in shocking conditions.
A man who identified himself as Monroe told Steve Lankford at Channel 2 in New York, we're victims of Sandy, but we shouldn't have to be punished because of that.
Residents of these temporary lodgings have complained of a lack of heat, problems with infestation.
One guy said the roaches, and a lot of it has to do with the mice.
Some Sandy victims have been lucky enough to be put up in hotels like the Holiday Inn at a Double Tree.
But more than two dozen former residents of the Rockaways are living in a pair of run-down rooming houses in the Longwood section of the Bronx.
So, again, this is local media, but I continue to hear about it, and I continue to be surprised.
And I'm going to tell you people in Northeast something else.
Everybody else in the country is surprised that you are still suffering.
What is there?
No better word.
I'm telling you because people outside of your region have not been told.
Like the nation was told about the ongoing suffering in New Orleans.
And there was a little bit about Mississippi, but it was mostly New Orleans.
There hadn't been anything about you since the election.
I don't know if the president knows or not.
Does the president know that the repairs aren't getting done?
I would think he knows.
Maybe nobody's telling him.
You know, we've talked on this program before, but Tavis Smiley, PBS, and Cornell West, noted academic.
He's been at Harvard.
He's been at Princeton.
These guys, ladies and gentlemen, have, and I kind of like this.
I kind of admire these guys in the sense they've had a national poverty tour.
And they've been doing this, I don't know for how long, but they've been traveling the country trying to call attention, raise consciousness about poverty in America and about how bad it is.
And this is another thing that doesn't get a whole lot of coverage in the country.
News reports don't talk about poverty in America.
You would never know there is any, except that Cornell West and Tavis Smiley have had this traveling.
It's not a road show, but they're doing appearances and they're just stopping in various cities to try to call attention to it.
And it's another one of these things that if you don't know what these guys are doing, if you're paying attention to what's in the media, you wouldn't know.
I mean, we know there's a bad economy and we know the unemployment's up, but poverty is at an all-time high.
And I, you know, Smiley and Cornell West are out trying to call attention to you.
You got to give them credit for that.
At least they're trying to do something about it.
Well, my name came up on Tavis Smiley's show on NPR, the Smiley and West show.
It came up on yesterday's show because I referenced John Lewis and Silma in relation to gun control.
And this is what this is what they had to say.
Slavery and civil rights have been injected now in this gun control debate with our friend Rush Limbaugh suggesting the other day, and I quote, if John Lewis had had a gun, would he have been beaten upside the head on the bridge?
It's just fascinating to see all the arguments that are now being waved.
You know, my hunts is one of the reasons why California has such severe laws because my brothers and sisters in the Black Panther Party, who did follow the law and did buy guns, all of a sudden generated a deep concern about ban on assault weapons.
So I mean, Rush in his own reactionary way.
But I think there is something there, though.
Let's be honest about it.
If every black person and every brown person in America had a gun, oh, there would be a ban on guns quick.
Believe me, you.
I don't know what these guys' problem with me is.
As they, you know, they have to take their shots at me, but then they end up saying, I've got a point.
If John Lewis and others at the Selma March had been armed, they wouldn't have been fire hosed, and they wouldn't have had the dogs turned loose on them.
And this all came up last week as part of the gun control debate because I'm not the one that injected slavery into this.
I forget what the story was.
I was reacting.
There was somebody.
Somebody last week made the claim that the Second Amendment was all about slavery.
Whoever it was last week said that the founding fathers put the Second Amendment in there so that slave owners could have guns to keep slaves under control.
And I thought that was specious argument and silly.
And I pointed out, you know, the Second Amendment didn't prevent slaves from having guns.
The Second Amendment said that everybody could.
And I'm just trying to make a point.
If John Lewis had had a gun while he's marching across the bridge in Selma, he would not have been beaten upside the head.
And if he had, it wouldn't have lasted very long.
And he wouldn't have had to fire the gun.
All he would have had to do was brandish it.
So I don't know what these guys' problems, and I didn't inject slavery and civil rights in the gun debate.
Somebody else did this last week.
Okay, got to take a brief time out here, folks.
Sit tight.
As you can see, we're scratching the surface in a wide-ranging way today.
Much more straight ahead plus your phone calls don't go away.
Okay, one more comment from Obama.
I forgot to mention something else he said about football, and we're going to go to the phones.
In addition to saying that he wouldn't let his son Trayvon play football now and saying that we need to make the game safer so that the fans can have a less guilty conscience, the president also said this: quote, I tend to be more worried about college players than NFL players in the sense the NFL players have a union.
They're grown men.
They can make some of these decisions on their own, and most of them are well compensated for the violence they do to their bodies.
I mean, you read some of these stories about college players who undergo some of the same problems with concussions and so forth, and they've got nothing to fall back on.
That's something I'd like to see the NCAA think about.
Tend to be more worried about college players than NFL players.
What's the difference?
The game is the game.
Concussion is a concussion.
Whether you've got a union or not.
Now, true, the college player is not compensated, but the college player does probably have food stamps and cell phone, flat screen, some cases, scholarships.
But it's true, the college players don't have a union.
That's a big difference.
Anyway, he also threw that in.
Here is Brian in Laporte, Indiana, as we start today on the phones.
Thank you, sir, for the call.
Hello.
Thank you.
I appreciate your show.
And the thing I really enjoy about you is your sincerity and your passion about what you do.
And that's what I appreciate about what you do.
Thank you very much, sir.
I appreciate that.
My question is: the president is so worried about the safety of football players, and if Trayvon Martin was his son, he wouldn't want to have to think twice about playing football.
Well, maybe he should be worried more about if his daughters or Hillary Clinton's daughters would have been in Benghazi.
I think that maybe he should be more concerned about that than about football.
See, that is an excellent rejoinder.
What it illustrates, what your point illustrates, is that this football business is simply a liberal cause.
It is, and it has the same liberal objectives as the global warming debate has or as any other favored liberal causes.
Because you're exactly right.
Here, I wouldn't let my son play football.
But what about his son going to Benghazi?
What about his daughter?
What about his daughter going to Afghanistan?
That's exactly right.
And I think, as far as football, I think the fans have to control that.
If we feel like, as fans, that the game is too violent, we'll just quit going to the games.
But that hasn't happened.
So obviously, the majority of the people like the way it's being played.
What you are spotlighting is that the fans are the problem.
Of course, the fans are bloodthirsty.
Of course, the fans thrive on the violence.
The fans thrive on injuries and the hard hits, and they want to see all of that.
And that's why we can't leave it up to the fans.
When the left is in control, we can't leave it up to anybody but them because nobody involved knows what's best for them.
The players don't know what's best for them.
They have to be saved from themselves.
The fans don't know what's best for the game or the players or themselves.
So the game has to be legitimate.
The owners, they're just a bunch of mean, rich guys exploiting these players, and they don't care what happens to them.
And so somebody has to do something.
Somebody in the White House is the one I want making my choices for me.
I think I can make my own choice.
Well, agreed.
Agreed.
I'm just telling you that whether you want to or not, though, the current mindset is that whether it's football or driving, you don't have the ability to make these decisions for you.
That he's got to do it or his agents, the government, or whatever, some ruling elite, the smartest of the smartest, the best and the brightest.
Because if you leave it up to the owners, they're just going to exploit these poor guys.
If you leave it up to the fans, they're just going to want more blood.
Leave it up to the players, they're not smart enough to know what they're risking.
So somebody's got to step in and save everybody from themselves.
That's the mindset.
And the fact is, this, in truth, ought to be something a president of the United States doesn't have time for in the real world.
I'm glad you called, Brian.
I appreciate it.
Todd in DeVernon, Illinois.
Welcome, sir.
You're next.
Hello.
Hey, Rush, thanks for talking with me today.
You bet.
You bet.
Hey, I know lots and lots of football fans, many, many, and not a one do I know enjoys seeing anyone get hurt on the field.
In fact, the opposite.
How many times have you been to a game, home or away, when a fan, or excuse me, when a player is down for a moment, as soon as he gets up, it's a round of applause from the crowd in the audience, the live audience, to show that they're happy that he's not injured?
True.
And go to a, I mean, if they want to start somewhere, let's go to a NASCAR race and watch the fans once there's a big crash, watch them whooping it up and hooting and hollering.
You know, they act like football fans.
It's like the gladiators, where when a guy's down, we're all up with our thumbs pointing down, you know, to take their heads off.
It's the complete opposite.
But you think people like NASCAR or the ND500 because they just secretly, privately want to see those wrecks?
Well, if you've ever sat and tried to watch cars go around a track for two hours, it's about the only exciting thing that I see happens there.
A football game is exciting from beginning to end, and that's what the fans want to see.
They just want to see good football.
In fact, to see a guy go out of the game, a lot of times players on the other side don't like to see it because they want to beat their best guys.
Well, maybe, maybe.
Sometimes there's an argument on both sides of that.
Got to run, though.
Time constraints.
Back up to me.
If Obama's going to weigh in on football safety, maybe we need to ask Terrell Suggs of the Ravens about how to reduce the deficit.
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