All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 30, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:16
August 30, 2013, Friday, Hour #2
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Okay.
Well, I'm sorry.
I'm going to apologize to you here in advance.
I'm doing my best to separate my obvious bias against this administration.
I just watched, and he's still going.
I just watched John Kerry from a State Department set that I have never.
It looks like the dining room in his Beacon Hill home.
Crystal chandelier and everything.
It's just amazing.
And he's giving us the evidence of Basher Assad using chemical weapons on his own people.
I'm sorry.
I just I don't he may be saying the truth.
But this guy, he's more convincing when he talks about the undeniable proof of man-made global warming.
It's just pathetic.
It's just this munch is just embarrassing.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's a same people in Friday.
Who didn't give a rat's rear in when Saddam Hussein was doing this.
The same people who can't be moved to do anything when four Americans are dead in Benghazi.
But these are the people led by John Kerry, who called our military members terrorists and rapists.
John Kerry accused Marines of bursting down the doors of Iraqis in their homes, terrorizing the children, raping the women, accepting as true any allegation made against the military in Iraq simply out of partisanship and opposition to George W. Bush,
could not be made, could not be moved to do anything about Saddam Hussein gassing his own people the Kurds or slaughtering his own people, murdering them in any number of different ways.
Calling Bush a liar, and joining with every one of his fellow Democrats and calling David Petraeus a liar.
Anybody else that had anything to do with the United States effort in Iraq as the audacity to show up on a set at the State Department made to look like an elitist Park Avenue dining room to tell us what we know about the horrors and atrocities committed by Basher Assad.
And it's so bad.
It's so horrible.
We can't get one nation to join us to do something about it.
We didn't go to the UN.
We can't.
Nobody cares.
The Brits have told us to take a hike.
The Germans have told us to take a hike.
Even the Caribbean superpower, Belize, has told us they're not interested.
They joined us in Iraq.
The French say they might be with us in spirit.
These were the people that knew it all.
These were the people that were going to be the answer.
These were the people that were going to renew American respect around the world.
These were the people we're going to renew the love and adoration for this country around the world.
These were the people who were the smartest people in the world.
These were the people who could speak French and therefore had the ability to relate to Europeans.
These were the people who in fact were Europeans in their roots.
These were the people, the chosen ones.
These were the best and the brightest.
These are the people that said George W. Bush better get a coalition.
He better go to the UN and he better go to Congress.
These are the people that are not going to the U.N., they can't put together a coalition and are purposely ignoring Congress.
These people are an embarrassment.
I'm telling you, they really are to me.
I know this is not the way to persuade the low information crowd.
And I'm sorry, that's not what I'm doing.
I am not engaging in the art of persuasion here.
I'm just venting.
This guy's an absolute.
I just haughty, thinks he's the smartest guy.
This guy threw his fake medals over the fence at the White House, told lies about what our troops did in Vietnam, accepted lies and prom and spread lies about our military in Iraq.
I don't forget this stuff.
All to advance a political agenda, all to oppose the political agenda of a Republican president.
These people were trying to secure defeat in Iraq and hang that around the neck of George W. Bush.
I remember telling people back on this program, 2007-2008.
I said, if the Democrats win in 2008, they're not pulling out of Iraq.
We're not going to lose wars while they're in the White House.
It ain't gonna happen.
They're gonna become the biggest hawks on earth, and that's what's happened.
But when they're out of power, they're perfectly fine with this nation being humiliated.
They're perfectly fine with the American military losing.
Perfectly fine with it.
As long as they can get away with blaming the Republicans for it.
Now, this guy who has, in my book, zero credibility, is still mouthing off about all these atrocities.
The only good thing that I can say about this is at least he's not criticizing this country, which is a new step for him.
Hi, folks.
How are you?
Greetings and welcome back.
Greg great to have you here on the uh EIB network.
It's open line Friday.
We are gonna get to your calls, but I want to go back to the NFL.
Oh, another thing.
Just got this story off the uh the Time magazine website.
Headline, labor leader admits Obamacare woes.
Oh, let's let's all grab the violins.
The head of the nation's largest federation of unions admitted, quote, we made some mistakes in writing Obamacare.
That was Richard Trump, the head of the AFL CIO.
Yesterday, Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Downtown Washington.
We made some mistakes writing Obamacare.
Yep.
Said he was surprised that employers have reduced workers' hours below 30 hours a week to avoid an employer penalty scheduled to go into effect in 2015.
Is this obviously something that no one intended?
You know, you what are you people gonna realize there are unintended disastrous consequences to everything practically that you do?
Oh, we had no idea.
Yeah, you had no idea either that when you uh raise taxes on yachts, you had no idea that the people to build them would get fired, did you?
Because people would stop buying them.
You just had no idea.
You had no idea when you raise taxes that you get bigger deficits, did you?
Because you kill jobs.
He's had no idea of any of this, do you?
We had no idea that employers would try to get below 30-hour work weeks to avoid the pen.
What do you think they're just gonna sit there and bend over, grab the ankles and take the hit?
You think you people just diagnose and proscribe liberalism on everybody, and we're just gonna sit here and take it?
Many of us, Sir Richard, devote our entire lives to avoiding what you people do.
Many Americans spend their entire waking day trying to figure out how to not be negatively impacted by the things that you people do.
Be it your regulations, your taxes, your silly social changes that you make that cost everybody an arm and a leg.
That's why there's no productivity in this country anymore, because everybody's just trying to figure out how to not be damaged by you people.
There's an entire industry of people in this country who are getting along by finding ways to not be damaged by Barack Obama and the Democrat Party and their policies.
What did you think people were going to do, Richard?
Just sit there and pay these onerous penalties and fines and go out of business.
You're not foolish enough to really believe that every business has a pile of trillions of dollars that they're just hoarding rather than giving you that if you come up with the right law, you can separate them from that money.
You don't really believe that, do you?
Don't you understand how most businesses are themselves one version of paycheck to paycheck?
They're just one Democrat regulation from going bankrupt.
They're just one Democrat tax increase from going out of business.
Who do you think they are?
Oh, we haven't.
Sorry, that we didn't intend this, we didn't anticipate this consequence.
Let me tell you something, Richard.
You bought it, you broke it, you own it.
I don't have any sympathy here.
Labor leader admits Obamacare woes.
You're not going to get sympathy here, Mr. Trump.
You fought for it.
You helped write it.
You had your thugs help beat up people at town hall meetings who were opposed to it.
You were perfectly fine using force on Tea Party people, one black guy in a wheelchair in order to make sure this thing signed into law.
And now all of a sudden, when your workers are losing their jobs, oh gosh, we didn't intend this.
This is what's wrong with you, people.
You really didn't know, and I don't believe this.
You really don't understand the consequences of what you do.
There's just an endless pile of money out there somewhere, and no matter how many times you dig into it, it's always going to be there.
Richard, we haven't had any money in this country 20 years.
National debt, 17 trillion dollars, this guy's running around now.
Labor leader admits Obamacare woes.
That is obviously something that no one intended, no one intended the Healthcare Act to result in people working fewer hours just so they, the employers don't have to pay for health care.
That's something that needs to be addressed.
Not by you people.
You have already messed this up.
You have already taken the greatest healthcare system in this country and practically destroyed it.
The only hope now is to defund this thing and repeal it.
If you really want to do something, Richard, you'll join that effort.
If you really care about your rank and file, Mr. Trumpka, you'll join everybody in trying to stop this before it is unalterably in it implemented in this country.
Didn't know this was gonna happen.
Do you not remember when you guys sat there and just celebrated massive tax increases on the sale of luxury goods, including yacht and high-priced cars and so forth?
And do you not remember what happened?
The union members who make the yachts got laid off because people stopped buying the yachts in this country.
They went elsewhere where they were cheaper.
If I can remember that, surely you can.
What do you mean you don't know?
What's gonna happen when you impose massive penalties?
Massive financial penalties on businesses for doing nothing.
This is exactly what happens, Mr. Trumpka, when you treat American businesses as criminals, when you look at them as suspects, when you treat them as criminals and come up with legislation that gets even with them, what do you think they're gonna do?
They're gonna do whatever they have to to stay in business.
And that's what this country has become.
The United States versus the policies of Barack Obama and the Democrat Party.
We are in the Midst of an effort oriented toward the greatest survival since the Donner Party tried to get over the Sierra Nevada mountain rage.
Every day, rather than being productive, people in this country are simply trying to find out ways to avoid the damage that you have inculcated everywhere in this country.
People get up and productivity is figured out and based on what we can avoid, not what we can do.
And then you come along and say, oops, you know, we didn't expect this to happen.
Well, well, you maybe made a mistake there.
Well, you can fix it, Mr. Trump.
You can join the effort to repeal it.
I mean it's that bad.
It can't be fixed.
When when asked if he would accept a change in Obamacare's definition of full-time work, as some legislators have suggested, Trump has said, well, of course we would, but he didn't elaborate on what the change would be.
You really think changing the definition.
This is this is the way they work.
Okay, so let's take what's happened.
Obamacare says that you do not have to provide insurance or provide a pay a penalty for anybody working fewer than 30 hours a week.
So businesses have converted full timers to part-timers less than 30 hours.
So what Trump is saying here, well, let's now just say 25 hours is full time.
And that's just let's fix it that way.
Hitnett's not specifically what he's saying, but when he says, well, when he is when he's asked if he would accept a change in Obamacare's definition of full time, all that means is let's change definition of full time so that under 30 hours means you have to pay the penalty or cover them.
Well, we could you're you fought for this, Mr. Trumpke.
You literally fought for this.
You had people beat up for this.
Town hall meetings in St. Louis.
Maybe not you specifically, but that uh the widow Carnahan's kid, one of his town meetings, it was union thugs, and maybe SEIU came in there and beat up some people.
Well, you fought for this.
You wrote it.
You helped write it.
You did everything you could to help this law become the law of the land because you thought it was great socialism.
Amazing how it never works, isn't it?
I'm gonna tell you what Trumpka is really after.
Trumpka wants the same thing Congress got.
Trumpka wants a waiver.
That's exactly what Trump is trying to get is a waiver for his union buddies, and he wants the penalties to be delayed till he can get those waivers.
Just like members of Congress say, we can't afford this, we can't afford this.
Obama came along and is going to give him subsidies from the Office of Personnel Management.
So that's what that's what Trump is angling for.
He's whining and moaning, we can't afford it.
Oh my God, we didn't know.
We need a waiver, we need a waiver.
And once he gets his waiver, then everything will be fine, and you will be stuck with this.
And that's what these leftists are all gonna do.
They're gonna be trying to find ways to exempt themselves from this, as they always do.
They write laws for all of us, and then they exempt themselves from it.
And that's why Trump is whining and moaning.
He doesn't want the thing repealed.
He just doesn't want to have to abide by it.
And what he's really saying is to Obama, look, man, we're responsible for you being elected.
You give us a break.
If you're gonna give these members of Congress and their stabs a break, think about us.
That's what he's doing.
Okay, open line Friday to the phones.
We go to Greg in uh Clinton Township, Michigan.
Hi, Greg, great to have you here.
Hi, Rush.
Uh, thanks for taking my call.
Love your show, love your tea.
Um I'm calling to the rush regarding uh the NFL situation.
I did not play in the NFL, I played in the CFL, so uh I'm not party to the suit, and even if uh I was an NFL, I don't think I would be.
Um we all knew back when we were getting into football, I'm 61 years old, uh, the dangers.
I've got uh the two replacement attest to that.
Um, but when all this started to happen, and if you look at the guys that are uh are having the problems now, they're in their 50s and 60s, John Mackey, Wally Higgins Hildenburg, uh Cookie Gilchrist, these guys who have passed away.
Well, look at Jim Otto.
I mean, the center for the Raiders, he could barely get out of bed.
I know.
I've taken but the point is about the first of all, why did all this happen?
Why didn't you see this stuff earlier on?
Well, when the plastic helmet became in vogue in the 60s with the addition of the face mask, the head was coached as a weapon in blocking and tackling.
Okay.
Now, we didn't know, nobody knew back then what was going to happen.
I take medication every day to keep my uh keep my headaches stiff on.
And as you rightly said, there's no way to diagnose chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which is what this is, until after you're deceased.
So all that can be done is to be treated symptomatically.
And that's fine.
And if I was 18 again tomorrow, knowing what I know today, I'd do it all over again.
You would.
That's how much that's how much I love the game.
And it's of all the things that God gave me in the way of abilities, he gave me the ability to play football best than anything else I can do.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm a professional and I enjoy my work.
Let me let me ask you, you you've been holding on hold here for a long time, and I've got a short little break here.
Can you stay on hold?
Good, because I uh Greg here played in the CFL, Canadian football.
And let me tell you there was a a time where the CFL was considered to be a much more brutal game than the NFL was.
Back in a second.
Hi, how are you?
And welcome back.
It's open line Friday, and Greg in Clinton Township, Michigan, former player of the Canadian Football League.
I'm gonna get right back to him.
There are just two things I've got to do here about John Kerry, some observations before I lose the context here.
I still can't believe what I saw, the setting.
But here's something else.
John Kerry essentially went out there and made the case for U.S. military action.
Secretary of State.
Obama outsources.
Is it beneath the president of the United States to go on television to the American people and justify military action?
I guess so because remember, Obama cannot appear to be governing.
This cannot appear to be Obama's mission.
It's beneath Obama to justify the attack.
Beneath Obama to persuade the American public?
And the world?
You know, a real leader wouldn't send some long-faced Secretary of State out there.
See, send John Kerry out the Secretary of State to pitch, to pitch a possible attack in the Middle East on a Friday afternoon on a holiday weekend.
This is document dump Friday.
And you pitch military action in Syria on document dump Friday in the middle of this show when nobody's gonna hear you.
Because they're all listening to this show.
And you have your Secretary of State do it.
And here's something I did not know this because I didn't get to hear all of this.
John Kerry cited all of the evidence of all of the atrocities, all of the usage of chemical weapons.
I didn't hear who he cited and relied on for the evidence.
He relied on the Arab League.
Did you hear who he is relying on?
The Arab League, the organization of Islamic cooperation, the OIC and Turkey.
Those three elements are responsible for the evidence that We are relying on that Assad used chemical weapons.
Well, that basically, the Arab League, the organization of Islamic cooperation in Turkey is basically the Muslim Brotherhood triumvirate.
And of course they want to attack Syria because their guys are the opposition.
So Kerry cites evidence from Assad's opposition, the essentially the Muslim Brotherhood.
And I guess you could look at it this way.
Who needs who needs authorization from Congress when you have the Arab League and Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood telling you it's okay.
Makes sense to me.
If you're Obama, who needs Congress?
He's got the Brotherhood.
He's got recep tie up, take them to prisoner Erdogan from Turkey.
Back now to uh Greg, I really appreciate your patience.
You said something really interesting that you glossed over because you thought you had very little time.
You said that there was a time in the history of this game, even the professional level, where these kinds of um effects on the players long after they quit playing didn't happen.
And you know, you you you made a point.
If you go back and uh professional football and the well, even college football, 40s and 50s, and obviously prior to that.
You can look, Greg, at film of professional football before the 60s, and college football.
Tackling was entirely different.
It was an art.
Uh the head was not used, and all of these long-term effects were not really reported.
So that's it it's an interesting point you're raising, that something changed about the way the game was played.
You say coached and taught that has led to some of these long-term effects, right?
Is that your point, basically?
Yeah, yeah, that's my point.
Uh, you know, the plastic prior to the plastic helmet, the leather helmet was just a hopeful safeguard against uh banging uh the player's head off the turf.
Uh and the turf is much much softer than you know another player's helmet or head.
The plastic helmet gave the ability to hit forcefully with the crown of your head right above the forehead, and uh for the most part, uh come away unscathed.
Um obviously, as it continued more and more, we got more and more concussions.
Um I've had six recorded concussions.
I spent some time with Boston University and the Sports Legacy Institute really studying this thing because I want to know what you know what uh what I'm up against.
And uh they've they've helped me an awful lot in understanding, you know, how how to how to deal with this.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fine.
I I'm I'm gamefully employed and you I understand, and you said you'd play it again.
If it re if you had it, if you know everything you know now, and you had it to do over again, you'd play it again.
Yep.
That's that's how much I love the game.
So what do you think of the settlement?
It's uh it's it's it's it's not the settlement.
It's the settlement isn't about what causes uh dementia or CTE or whatever.
It's about when did the NFL start looking at all these injuries and going on their own and finding out, wow, we've got a trend here, and how long did they hold that trend away from their players?
If you look at the pre-1994 players prior to the uh collective bargaining agreement there, um they've got limited limited benefits from for this kind of kind of injuries.
The suit is it was never really about what causes it.
I mean, yes, you can't prove it while you're alive, but everybody knows what causes it.
Um the suit is about what did the NFL know and when did they know it?
Just like uh just like uh uh our our attorney general and and and other folks, okay?
Well, it's uh water gate.
What did the president know and when did he know it?
Yeah.
But see that so you you you believe then that the NFL has known that the game is damaging and riskier than they've ever been willing to tell the people that play it.
To the brain, not to the rest, okay?
Everybody knows that you know the uh the broken uh legs and arms and the torn ligaments and things of that nature.
That's part of it.
Everybody knows that, okay?
But a concussion, something that's a closed head injury, uh, even in everyday life is not something that's that's uh uh easily identified unless there's a trend in concussions like this.
I know guys that are that are a party to this suit that are in the hall now that uh you know have a tough time from day to day.
But all the NFL PA wants is the NFL to say we knew about this and we withheld the information from you.
Now, are they gonna do that?
No.
They they made that's why they made the settlement, okay.
But proof of the fact that they know that is if you just look at their the rule changes in the NFL and what is new this year with the NFL, I think it called last year for youth football.
NFL plays safe.
What is that?
That's getting certified as a youth coach uh in the proper blocking and tackling and techniques so that you don't lead with your head.
Well, uh I don't know how long I look at I'm the wrong guy to have any any authority on this.
I I played uh two years high school football.
And I I don't I remember um being told, do not lower your head.
Whatever you do, keep your head up in in contact.
Don't lower it.
I was a tackle, I was an offensive lineman.
Don't lower your head.
And it's a natural, it's it's a it's the natural thing to do when you're encountering somebody.
You're running the ball, you lower your head.
I I remember back in the 60s being coached, don't lower the head.
Uh and that was that was at high school, and that was just at one place.
I have no idea uh about anything beyond that.
But but Greg, look, I appreciate the call.
Very uh intelligent way to to look at this.
I we come back from the break.
I want to stick with the sound bites that we have on this and stick with the uh one of the original premises, and that is the media, sports media thinking the league got away with financial murder here.
Because they're so rich, and they're not paying very much at all.
And it just isn't fair.
It just isn't right.
1,429 people killed in chemical weapons attack in Syria, and it's uh 426 children.
I'm now told that the Muslim Brotherhood is not the source for that data, that it's U.S. Intel sources.
But you can't believe them.
They lie.
They lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
What's Kerry doing believing them?
For crying out, wow, John Kerry and Obama and everybody told us that you can't trust that in fact the intel was doctored so that Bush and Cheney could get what they wanted, a reason to go into Iraq.
Well, that means we can't trust U.S. Intel because John Kerry and the Democrats did their damnedest.
They did their damn best to destroy the credibility of U.S. Intel.
All during the 2003 to 2007 period.
And not just U.S. Intel.
They did their damnedest to destroy the credibility of British Intel.
In fact, intelligence services the worldwide.
They lied for Bush and Cheney.
Shaney.
Shaney went in there.
He made them lie.
So what's Kerry doing citing U.S. intelligence services?
They can't be trusted.
They just tell the administration what they want to hear.
And then you're not going to go to Congress.
Why should you go to Congress?
You got the approval of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Where's General Powell?
Where is a titular head of the Republican Party here?
Where is where is where's Colin Colonel Powell?
Uh Colonel Colin Powell.
Why can't he show us the slideshow of all this?
That our Intel services have told Kerry.
I still find it very strange, and all candor here.
Document dump Friday.
Holiday weekend document dump Friday.
An Obama sends lurch out to pitch the case for U.S. military action.
And now, and now all over CNN, they got Time Magazine people.
This is nothing like Iraq in 2003.
No way.
This is not like.
You know why?
Because there really are weapons of mass destruction here.
They weren't any internet.
This is not like Bush lied.
Bush lied, and that's not changed.
So that's going to get to these NFL sound bites.
If it's the last thing I do on this program, they keep trying to distract me from this.
I'm going to make a prediction.
I'm going to make a little bit of prediction.
I'm going to some of the uh pajama clad leftists.
If Obama actually does launch, and if he does do this, by the way, it'll be like a what, a two-hour attack, just say faces to I told him they cross our red line.
They're going to pay for it.
So there'll be something to deal with.
They're going to push him back across the red line.
Oh, yeah, Bashir Assad.
Basher.
Basher.
Basher Assad, far worse than uh Hussein.
Oh, yes.
No, there's no comparison between this and Iraq.
Oh no.
Of course, really the final authority on all this would be Susan Rice.
We haven't heard from her.
And uh Samantha Power, if she's I don't know, she might be back at the museum.
She missed a briefing at the UN on this.
It went to the museum.
Cocktail party.
Cass Sunstein doing a presentation on the Constitution sucks.
Okay.
Um we have a montage.
I think it's a montage.
This is a montage of yes.
Sports media people.
Ripping the NFL settlement.
The premise here is that the rich owners cheated the players.
And here are the numbers again.
You have 4,500 players in a class action suit.
The NFL has agreed to pay $765 million if it's divvied up equally per person.
Each player, former player in the suit, gets $173,000.
Sports media thinks that's horribly unfair.
The media think that the players or the owners have far, far, far more much more money than that.
Isn't it right?
You should also know the lawyers are getting $200 million on top of the $765 million.
Lawyers are getting $200 million to do this deal.
The league, and each team, by the way, is paying an equal.
This is going to cost each team $23 million, basically.
And by hooker by crook, they've got 17 years to pay it out.
I think the first half gets paid in the next three years or two years, and then the other half over the next 17 years.
And that's another thing it has the sports media upset.
Because a 17-year payout for some of these guys are going to be dead before they get it all.
And it's going to be worth so much less because of inflation 17 years from now, 15 years from now.
So the unfairness is ripping people apart.
But it's uh 23 million dollars a team.
And then there's the argument, as I said, the Houston Texans, they've been in the league 10 years.
They haven't contributed anything to these injuries.
They haven't been around as a team long enough.
They got no players in the 4500 in the lawsuit.
But they're still going to get saddled with a 23 million dollar payment.
Here is the media montage.
765 million dollars sounds like a lot of money.
And tell you look at 9.5 billion dollars.
That's how much the NFL brought in just in 2012.
The NFL, which makes $9 billion a year, paying out less than $1 billion.
You're a $9 billion a year industry.
You made out a lot better than the plaintiffs did.
It will not have a huge financial impact on the league.
Great victory for Roger Goodell.
He got the best Of the NFL players.
It's a very big win for the NFL.
This is such a big win.
Without question, this is a win for the 32 owners.
The NFL got off cheap here.
It's chump change when you look at what the NFL brings in.
This is a complete drop in the bucket to the NFL revenue.
When we look back five years from now, ten years from now, did anything change for the game today?
What did you people want?
Did you want the NFL to go out of business paying off here?
Isn't it amazing how from one media person to the next, it's identical.
Well, they bring in $9 billion.
They're only paying out $700.
That's just totally unfair.
What?
It's what both sides agreed to.
Nobody held a gun to anybody here.
By the way, $9 billion may be revenue.
It's not profit.
I don't know.
It's hopeless.
It is literally hopeless.
Having people learn things and become educated and informed of things, it's hopeless.
I'm convinced.
It's hopeless.
Anyway, folks, this is just going to be the first bite of the apple.
The lawyers are going to find another way to get into the NFL's pocket since the NFL has admitted culpability with the settlement.
Maybe they haven't.
▲
Export Selection