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Aug. 30, 2013 - Rush Limbaugh Program
34:22
August 30, 2013, Friday, Hour #3
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Greetings, my friends, and welcome back.
You are tuned to the most listened to radio show in America, the EIB Network, and Rush Limbaugh on Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's Open Line Friday.
And looky here.
Looky here.
President Obama expected to speak in minutes on Syria.
Now, you know me, folks.
I don't make big deals out of things, but this is awfully...
Rachel, even you will have to...
It's awfully strange, because they sent Lurch out there, what, an hour ago.
Lurch was a half hour late, by the way, John Kerry.
And I thought it was really weird.
Here it is, Document Dup Friday on a holiday weekend.
And by the way, that reminds me, we have a best of show coming on Monday because it is, after all, Labor Day.
So I thought, very strange to outsource your sales pitch for military action in another country to the Secretary of State on a Friday afternoon.
And now, lo and behold, the White House says that Obama is expected to speak in minutes on Syria.
So what was, was Kerry just a table setter?
See, like the major domo to make sure the plates and the knives and forks in the right spot.
You know, that's it.
You know, that's what it is.
That's what it is.
Snerdley is right.
Lurch didn't sell it.
Obama has to go out and do it.
That's a great point, Snerdley.
I have to tell you, because I did, during a commercial break or two in the last hour, I clicked the audio on on Fox.
There was some leftist analysts that were saying that this didn't do it for them, that they need to hear more about why we're going to do this.
That a couple of women, leftist analysts, I don't know their names, but one of them said that this didn't do it for her.
She needed to hear more.
So maybe that's it.
Maybe Kerry didn't sell it.
I think these guys have a problem.
They've convinced everybody that America's intel sources lie.
I mean, they had everybody believing that for five years in the Bush years, Intel sources lied about Iraq.
They lied about weapons of mass destruction and a couple of other things, too.
Now they cite them.
Everything these clowns do has a consequence.
Mark Knoller, CBS News, just tweeted, Obama to offer remarks to some extent, quote unquote, to some extent on Syria at 2.30 in a photo op at his meeting with Baltic.
Oh, okay, so Obama is not making a special appearance for this.
He has an already scheduled photo op with leaders from the Baltic nations probably sitting in the oval orifice there at the fireplace.
And story is that he will have some remarks to some extent.
Now, CBS says it'll be at 2.30.
ABC says is going to speak at 215.
I think it depends on when he gets tired of playing spades.
Wasn't that what Reggie Love said?
Reggie Love said in an appearance at UCLA that Obama, on the day that they were launching the bin Laden operation, said that he couldn't spend all that time in a situation.
He had to get out of there.
And they went and played spades.
That's 15 hands of spades.
So I guess whenever Obama finishes playing spades, he'll make the announcement.
Now, we still have some NFL sound bites to go.
And I haven't yet gotten to the serious sound bites, but I'm going to get to those too.
And we got your phone calls.
How many calls have we taken a day?
Oh, my gosh.
Just one?
And it's open line Friday?
Oh, that's not good.
Well, let me do these three, and then we'll grab a phone call.
Richard Besser on Good Morning America today spoke to Stephanopoulos.
Besser is ABC's chief medical correspondent.
I thought that was Nancy Snyderman.
Where did she go?
Is she at CNN now?
That's a revolving door.
I can't keep up with them.
Anyway, this Besser, Richard Besser, the chief medical correspondent of ABC News, talking about the NFL settlement.
And Stephanopoulos says, now you say that there's $10 million for medical research in this settlement, and that that's not enough.
That's not a lot of money when it comes to research.
The medical connection between repeated blows to your head and brain damage is clear.
And if we don't want to give up on football as a sport, we have to find a way to make it safer.
Whoa, did you hear that?
If we don't want to give up on football as a sport, where have you heard that possibility discussed?
And $10 million for research, jump change.
That's not enough.
The medical connection between repeated blows to your head and brain damage is clear.
Well then, why do you need any more research if the medical connection is clear?
See, this is my point.
Folks, I'm just sitting here in my everyday bath of common sense.
And if this were clear, if there were a direct link at play in this game and these horrific brain injuries, this settlement would be a lot higher than it is.
But he says that the connection is clear.
And if we don't want to give up on football as a sport, we've got to find a way to make it safer.
And the only way we can make it safer is to spend millions and millions and millions more in research.
Now, I could be a cynic and say this is the NFL has opened its doors to the vault now.
They've agreed to write a check, well, to pay out $765 million.
And so now everybody wants to get their hand in that vault.
Oh, NFL, you're paying out money?
Well, let me tell you what you need to spend.
You need to spend it on me for my project because my project can help you keep the game alive.
The NFL yesterday said they did this to take all of this out of the national conversation.
Hardy Harhar.
So after Besser said, if we don't want to give up on football as a sport, we have to find a way to make it safer.
Stephanopoulos said.
Even more important, no changes in the game.
That really worries me.
Until football admits that there is a causal link between playing the game and these injuries, we're not going to see those changes.
Until we make those changes to make the game safer.
As a parent, I didn't let my kids play football.
And as a pediatrician, I make sure my parents understand that.
So when a parent comes into you, you say, I said, pick another sport.
So here's the chief medical correspondent for ABC News saying, don't play the game.
I tell my parents that bring their kids, don't let them play the game.
This game is too dangerous.
There's a causal link.
The NFL won't admit it.
And until the NFL admits it, we're not going to see any changes.
Exactly right.
The day the NFL admits it, game's over.
The day the NFL admits it, every dollar they have is going to be lost in a lawsuit.
If they ever admit that, that's what they're trying to end now.
Here's this chief medical correspondent.
Yeah, yeah, until they admit that their game causes all this, I'm going to tell everybody I know not to let their kids play.
Well, if the day ever comes the NFL admits that, no, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
No, no, no, no.
You're misunderstanding.
These people are not asking him.
He's telling them before they ask.
He's telling people, don't let your kids play football.
As a pediatrician, I make sure my parents understand those risks.
So when a parent comes to you and you say, I say, pick another sport.
Like soccer.
He didn't say soccer because they're more brain diss.
Clinton Portis, number 26, Washington Redskins.
Clinton Portis played for the Denver Broncos at one time.
He was in a trade.
The Redskins traded Champ Bailey, number 24, to the Broncos for Clinton Portis, number 26.
And Portis is a really outspoken, colorful guy.
And he was on CNN this morning.
And the host, Chris Cuomo, after asking Portis what he thought of Obama, he didn't, I'm just kidding.
Wanted to, I'm sure.
He talked to Portis and he said, explain to me, why do you think that, even though it was more fierce and it was in a way, safer back in the older days, before all the rules changed, Portis' point is they're making the game more dangerous now.
Used to be safer.
Here's his point.
If you knew you were going into a war zone, you kind of prepare for war.
You know you don't go on to battlefield and not have a strategy or not be prepared for battle.
And uh, now when you step on the battlefield, the preparation is totally different because you feel like there's so many things that can't be done.
I can't get hit by a safety flying in the linebacker can't smash me coming across the middle of the field, and there's so many things that can't be done that the guys who used to not make the team because they said well, this guy not tough enough to run across the middle of the field or this guy, you know, can't take a hit, now you know they're making the game easier and saying well, you can't be hit.
So I think that's making a lot of guys brave, isn't that?
That is, that's the player perspective, and I just find this fascinating.
That, to me, is literally fascinating.
So you know you can't take a hit, this guy can't take a hit.
Now you know they're making the game easier saying well, you can't be hit.
So it's making a lot of guys braver.
And there's a lot of guys that are playing football that don't have the warrior mentality now because they don't think they can get hurt, because all those hits that used to be legal aren't anymore.
And he thinks the game is less safe because there are people that are not nearly as good making teams now that wouldn't have in the older days.
Okay, timeout and then phone calls.
And gosh, I feel bad about this.
Hey, guess what now?
Guess what?
CBS Mark Knoller is saying there will be no live TV for Obama's remarks on Syria.
He's going to be in a photo op with leaders in the Baltic states, no live TV.
Why would that be?
Probably as insurance in case Obama says something dumb, because there won't be a teleprompter.
What if Obama drew that red line on Assad because he thought Assad was denying minorities mortgages or some such thing?
Maybe it had nothing to do with chemical weapons.
Maybe he got himself into a tiff here on the red line.
He heard that Assad was not granting minorities mortgages, or at least mortgage relief.
Now, on this NFL stuff, I'm sorry, I keep having things occur to me here.
What about Obamacare?
Why does the NFL have to continue to pay players long after they quit working there?
I thought Obamacare was going to provide for all of this.
And you there's Obamacare, and it's got all these elements to it.
I guess none of these players have health care coverage after retiring.
Unions generally don't like Obama.
Yeah, well, but that's new.
I'm just talking about they used to love Obamacare until they found out it was going to affect them.
I don't know.
You look at all the money fans are paying cable packages, DirecTV Sunday ticket, tickets to a game at a stadium on a Sunday.
And yet, whatever, it's never enough.
It just is never enough.
And if football causes all of these head injuries, there's a question I have.
If there is this causal link that is proof, would players be using more of their own income while playing to prepare for their medical care after their careers?
Guess not.
This doesn't work that way.
I know Obama wanted the NFL to promote Obamacare.
They wanted him, they wanted NFL.
He wanted the NFL to join him in selling it at this stage.
Here's Judy in Valencia, California.
I really, really appreciate your patience.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
Good.
Thank you.
Thank you for being our voice, first of all.
And the reason I'm calling is that I'm really, really upset and kicked off and angry, and I'm hoping you can calm me down a little bit.
But did you know that Chris Matthews is having a book signing and lecture event at the Reagan Library on a book that he's writing about President Reagan?
No, I didn't know that.
Yes.
And I'd like to give you my analogy of that, if I may.
Feel free.
Go right ahead.
To me, it's like Satan writing a book about the Pope and having a signing at the Vatican.
I just, I can't even imagine the Reagan doing this, and it's just very upsetting.
I've gone to many book signings there, and this is just outrageous.
So what do you think?
I like your analogy.
Satan, Satan writing a book about the Pope and having a signing at the Vatican.
Yes.
I did not know this.
And I imagine, you know, there's a myth out there, and that is that Reagan and Tip O'Neill were good buddies because they had their Irish heritage in common.
And they might have gone at each other all day, every day.
But then at the end of the day, they'd sit down for a beer.
And I can tell you that didn't happen.
Tip O'Neill didn't go to the residence quarters for beer, and Reagan didn't cross the street to the Old Abbott Grill and meet Tip O'Neill there for a bill or a Jameson, you know, after work.
That's liberal mythology, and it's recent.
It's a distortion.
I'll bet you Matthew builds on it or relies on it.
It's part of a distortion to show back even in those days, there was bipartisanship, and people worked together, even with Reagan and O'Neill, as a means of attacking Republicans today as being uncooperative, strictly partisan, and all that.
And I can tell you that it's a myth that Tip O'Neill and Reagan were good buddies and they put aside all their differences at the end of the day.
Tip O'Neill, at the end of the day, had just as rotten a stuff to say about Reagan as he did during the day.
Now, as to why the Reagan library is opening up, I don't know.
I hadn't heard.
So I am kind of reluctant to comment on it.
I would just assume it's got to do with that chapter that they mythalize now or mythologize.
Well, it's not the first time he's been there.
But when I heard it was a book about our dear President Reagan, that's one, I lost it.
The book, what's it called?
Tip, it's Tip and the Gipper.
Oh, I didn't even know that.
Tip and the Gipper when politics worked.
Well, that's why they're doing it.
They've created an entire myth.
This thing is a flawed premise.
And Matthews has written a book about a flawed premise.
And the purpose of this, obviously to make Matthews some money, but it's also to try to create the notion that the Republicans today, I'll bet this book, right-wingers love Reagan and they talk about Reagan, but they couldn't hold Reagan's whatever because Reagan met with the opposition.
Reagan liked the Democrats.
These guys did.
I can just see this now.
That's why, because Gipper's part of the book.
So that's why they're doing it out there.
I'm sorry.
I didn't even know the book.
Sorry, I know now.
This kind of burns me up, folks.
Ronald Reagan, as you well know, won in historic landslides, 49 state landslides.
The Democrat Party obstructed or tried to obstruct Reagan nonstop, which is their job.
Don't misunderstand.
The idea that there was some kind of cooperation comedy getting along is BS.
There wasn't.
Tip O'Neill insulted Ronald Reagan frequently in public, called him an amiable dunce.
O'Neill said of Reagan, I got some quotes here, he has no concern, no regard, no care for the little man of America.
And I understand that because of his lifestyle, he never meets those people.
Reagan, according to O'Neill, was callous, an Ebenezer Scrooge, a cheerleader for selfishness.
His administration had made a target of the politically weak, the poor, the working people.
His policies were just one big Christmas party for the rich.
That's Tip O'Neill, Tip and the Gipper.
Here's another.
1984, the evil is in the White House at the present time, and that evil is a man who has no care and no concern for the working class of America and the future generations of America, who likes to ride a horse.
He's cold.
He's mean.
He's got ice water for blood.
Yeah, Tip and the Gipper.
That's Tip O'Neill talking about Reagan, 1984.
He said of Reagan, he only works three and a half hours a day.
He doesn't do his homework.
He doesn't read his briefing papers.
It's sinful that this man's president.
He lacks the knowledge he should have on every sphere, whether it's domestic or whether it's the international sphere.
In his own memoir, O'Neill wrote, I've known every president since Harry Truman, and there's no question Reagan was the worst.
And so now Matthews is writing a book, Tipper and the Gipper, or Tip and the Gipper, about how when politics worked.
I'm telling you, folks, all this is, whether Matthews even knows it or not, is an effort to impact Republicans today.
It's an attack on Republicans.
It establishes this myth that Reagan and Tip might have disagreed on things, but they were best buds.
Drank beer all the time.
What a yucky.
As opposed to these mean-spirited Republicans today, racist bigots who won't cooperate with Democrats or Obama because he's black.
That's Matthew's message every night on his show.
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Here is Erica in Nashville, North Carolina.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
I'm very nervous, so I'm going to try to spit this out and hope it makes sense.
Longtime listener, I love your program.
I love pretty much every opinion that you have on everything.
The reason I'm calling, I was thinking about the protests in the street, I guess, across the nation about raising the minimum wage.
And some are wanting it raised to $15.
So I was thinking about it, about how many people are going to be affected by Obamacare.
You know, their full-time hours being cut to part-time.
And if minimum wage is doubled, then someone's 40 hours being cut to 20 hours doesn't matter because their paycheck will be the same.
They're about to get double their pay.
That's exactly right.
And that's why I said yes.
This is not a legitimate protest on behalf of workers at Mickey D's who feel like they're underpaid.
This is an organized rent-a-mob type of thing in order to advance the leftist agenda that it's part and parcel with Obamacare.
But the minimum wage argument and the fast food jobs are almost there.
They're in a rotation.
They're calendar and they come up every so often.
The Democrats just execute the plan regardless.
And this is, it's just part of the never-ending assault on everyday life that the left conducts in this country.
They cannot allow a day or two to go by where there isn't a crisis, where there isn't some major problem on the verge of destroying somebody's life.
And so they come up with McDonald's and talk about it's not a livable way.
It's the same old argument over and over again.
But as I pointed out yesterday, for every one of you sympathetic because you don't understand the minimum wage and you don't understand compensation in general, if they've got you sucked in, if you think that the people working the fry machine or the fry cooks or the sales clerks at McDonald's are underpaid, you just need to ask yourself one question.
When you go in to buy a Big Mac or a quarter pounder, are you willing to pay double so that the people working there can get a raise?
And if you aren't, then you need to re-examine your understanding of how all of this works.
Because the people that own Mickey D's don't just have piles of money in the back that they're hoarding and trying to keep away from their employees because they're mean and they don't like their employees and they really hope their employees have miserable lives.
They're trying to stay in business.
They've got across the streets of Burger King or something else that's trying to sell for lower prices than what they have.
It's called competition.
And if Mickey D's raises the price of a quarter pounder and you go get a whopper for a lot less, where are you going to go?
So Mickey D's is like everything else.
They're intricately involved in the market and you just can't run around and arbitrarily set the cost of anything.
And the minimum wage is an arbitrary cost in business.
Look at it in another way.
Instead of asking for the minimum wage to go up because it's compassionate or makes you feel good, why don't you go in and demand that a Big Mac only cost half what it costs now?
Because it's just too expensive.
You can't afford it.
Why don't you do that?
Or why don't you, as I say, agree to pay double what it costs?
But anytime you want to go into any business and arbitrarily set the value of something in that business, you're going to affect everything else that happens.
But everything else, price-wise, is established by the market, which includes all kinds of factors, competition, shipping costs, travel costs, refrigeration costs.
It's so it's.
It's so involved that you can't arbitrarily set the price of anything without totally throwing everything out of whack, including the price of labor.
But when you go in and think you're making a really compassionate statement and you really feel good about yourself because you think the people that work there are underpaid and you want them to get paid more.
Well, you have a role in that and your role is higher prices, and if you're unwilling to pay higher prices, then shut up.
Yes, my friends, in response to an email, you heard right.
The two if by tea Turvist Tumblers, 16 ounces, $11.99.
That's a lot less than a plain Turvist tumbler that you might get at a retail place.
And you might say, how can we do this?
Well, we don't have a lot of minimum wage McDonald's people.
I'm just kidding.
We have our ways, folks, but we're not here losing money.
A customer is number one to us, totally and always.
So, yeah, between now and 11.59 p.m. Pacific time tonight, $11.99 for the Turvist Tumblr.
They're higher priced everywhere.
What are you laughing at?
We're not.
What do you think?
We're not losing money.
We're not losing money.
But I was joking.
I don't mean to make fun of the McDonald's workers.
I'm really not.
The left organizing this stupid stuff is what I'm talking about.
We just – let me grab a call.
Leah in Fisherville, Kentucky.
Hi, welcome to the EIB Network.
Great to have you here.
Hey, Rush.
It's good to talk to you.
Thank you very much.
Hey, can I say a quick hello to my sister-in-law before I get to my question?
Sure, by all means.
Hey, Buzz.
I'll see you tonight.
Thank you so much, Rush.
I was wondering, I've been wondering this for a while, actually, given the direction of the NFL with the settlement that's surfaced and then all the rule changes that have kind of come to light.
Are you maybe seeing it as maybe a relief or maybe a blessing in disguise that you didn't become a team owner after that?
You know, I've thought about this.
I really have.
And the cash calls today would scare the heck out of me.
Like the cash call after this settlement.
And there were even some things going on with, at the time I was looking into it, there were massive changes in healthcare provisions for assistant coaches that were becoming mandatory and so forth, little things like that.
But yeah, and the assault on the game now that's taking place in terms of its safety and danger.
Yeah, I've thought about that.
I've always believed, it's a strange thing.
It's not really fate, but I've always believed that things are meant to be the way they end up.
Long term, long term, that's the way that things were meant to be.
It's meant to be, it'll be.
If it's not, it wasn't supposed to be.
And I think that's true if you have the right attitude about things.
That's a great question, Lee, and I thank you.
Okay, remember, folks, a best of program on Monday as we head into the three-day Labor Day weekend.
We will be back here on Tuesday, revved up and ready to go again.
Thanks so much for being with us today.
Have a great weekend.
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