It's the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
I am your host.
Rush Limbaugh, the most listened to radio talk show in America, and the most talked about radio talk show in America.
And the most talked about host of the most talked-about radio talk show in America on Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Fastest three hours in media.
It is great to have you here, folks.
Telephone numbers 800-282-2882.
And the email address L Rushbow at EIBNet.com.
The Green Bay Packers have announced a sellout.
A couple of TV stations in Milwaukee and Green Bay, Fox affiliates.
They have the game, picked up the remaining ducats along with some fans.
And so the game will be televised in the Green Bay and the outer market area instead of being blacked out.
The forecast for this game, the weather forecast, is all over the board.
Dr. Roy Spencer, our official climatologist here, University of Alabama at Huntsville, is looking at various weather models.
They do have weather models for things other than hurricanes, by the way.
And he is saying it could be minus eight at game time.
Game time is 340 local time, central time on Sunday afternoon, minus eight.
The forecast high for Green Bay on Sunday is in the minus zero ranges.
It's not even going to be above zero.
Now the ice bowl.
New Year's Day, or New Year's Eve, 1967, minus 14.
You want the second coldest NFL game?
19 I forget '82, I think.
Might be 1980.
It was the San Diego Chargers at Cincinnati, Riverfront Stadium, minus 13 degrees.
Plus the wind chill.
And Dr. Spencer says this, depending on there's a gigantic Arctic air mass of cold air.
And on Monday in Green Bay, going to be even colder than it is on Sunday.
And Dr. Spencer says if that air mass moves down even faster than its forecast, then you could be in the minus 10 to 14 range game time Sunday afternoon.
You know, this is Snertley says, how these players brace themselves.
Well, for one thing, they're all professionals.
They're paid.
That's that's number one.
They're paid to be out there.
But if you've noticed, uh, I'm sure you, even if you're a casual fan, you'll you'll notice that there is a macho aspect that a lot of these guys go out there sleeveless.
And so people have asked me, look, Rush, you know, are they wearing uh thermal underwear at least cut off at the sleeves of the shoulder under the jersey?
Some cases it's just a t-shirt, folks.
Now the quarterbacks, Arm SA quarterbacks are decked out, and uh some of the receivers wear sleeves, but there's a macho tendency here to go out there sleeveless, and you will see that on Sunday.
Now for the guys playing the game, the actual 22 on the field, it isn't cold.
The adrenaline and all that, they're running around.
It isn't as cold to them as it is when they get to the bench.
You'll see the steam come off their heads sweating.
They sweat.
They there will be sweat.
Players will sweat during that during that uh during that weather.
But the the remember the Giants played a playoff game in Green Bay.
The windshield was minus 20.
I don't know what the actual temperature was.
It wasn't anywhere near record, but it was around zero.
And the Giants just pummeled farving game went into overtime.
And Eli Manning said it was favorite game of all time.
Favorite game, loved it.
Night game.
There was chicken soup on the sideline that they had to keep heated so it wouldn't freeze.
And this is uh this is what they used to, it was broth to uh help keep the players uh warm.
But it's brutal.
There's there's no question the hits hurt more.
The ground is in the Green Bay the ball, yeah, the ball feels like a rock.
There's not much they can do to keep the ball warm.
The field in Green Bay is heated.
Uh and it could slightly turn mushy if it if it melts too much.
Yeah, true.
Yeah.
But I th now I know the heat under the field was installed by Lombardi.
I don't know if they still use it, actually, but I know it was at one time there, and they may still use it.
But it's three of the outdoor games are going to be very cold, but none as cold as what's going to happen in Green Bay, and that's the last game on uh on Sunday.
We have uh Yeah, let grab this go to Sunbite 8.
There's some some uh uh soundbite about this.
Um this is this CNN this morning on their newsroom show, the anchorette Fred Ricca Whitfield spoke with the Packers Radio Network anchor Jay Sorge about the possibility of the game being blacked out.
Now it hasn't been blacked out.
They have sold it out ahead of the deadline.
So this interview took place before it was sold out, uh while the blackout was still possible.
And Fred Rick and Whitfield said, Look, Sunday's game could be the coldest ever for an NFL game, probably in a large part why people are not buying those tickets.
Quite the quandary now.
What are fans to do, Jay?
They're now down to less than a thousand tickets that are still unsold for this game, so they still have six hours to sell that fewer than a thousand tickets.
I believe they'll probably get it done without much of an issue.
But there are many people who normally would be willing to go to a football game, but when you tell them that the windshields may be 20, 30 below, the temperature should reside around zero, potentially lower.
They're not as willing to sit for four hours outside and in many cases drive two to three hours from the Milwaukee area to attend a game.
Come on, this is Green Bay.
People do this all the time in Green Bay.
That's what has been remarkable here about having so much time go by to sell this game out.
Packer fans live for this.
This is Packer weather.
This is this is the kind of weather that they think gives them an advantage.
People are prepared for this, and they live in this in Green Bay.
It's not a big deal to go to the go to Lambeau Field in uh in this kind of weather.
Now, there's something else going on here, folks.
There's something else going on.
Three of these four playoff games not sold out.
Well, the Colts have sold out and the Packers have not, but it took a long time, and I think I think Cincinnati is still the lone holding.
I don't know if they're gonna sell out or not.
They probably will.
I can't imagine a league actually permitting a playoff game to be blacked out to do something.
But look at how long it's taken.
This is new territory for the NFL.
This is this is not something that they are uh accustomed to.
But I mean, here's his guy, Jay Sorge.
I don't believe Packer fans are getting soft.
I don't think that's why the weather is not why it took so long to sell this game out.
Well, they're not soft.
There's no backs on the seats.
Those th this is is there's uh for most of them.
They sit at a bench.
They said there's something else going.
Look at we just had Christmas, credit cards are maxed out.
The Packers were not expected to make the playoffs.
Uh people in the Packers market area figured they were out of it, spent money elsewhere.
And so it's uh it was it was a challenge to to sell the game out.
Now we move on.
Last night, CNN, Situation Room, fill in host Jim Acosta speaking with the author Steve Feinru, Feynaroo, who has a book called League of Denial.
This is about concussions.
And uh in the NFL.
And the host of the show, Jim Acosta said, with all these ball games that are on TV right now, and the playoffs that are coming up this weekend, and they're gonna be going for several weeks.
The question I have do fans care about this anymore?
Because won't the business side of this sort of drive the NFL to make these changes?
And if fans get upset about this, I just wonder if if that might be a way to get the NFL to really solve this problem and for these players.
And this is a basic question about concussions and the violence in the game.
Here's the answer.
I do feel like there's a sort of a disconnect in which, you know, the playoffs are upon us now.
I myself am watching many hours of football.
Everyone's cheer on those big hits.
People are cheering on the big heads, and violence is a big part of the game.
And so I think the NFL is kind of walking a sort of a tightrope right now, where they know that violence and brutality is part of the appeal of football, certainly, and yet they're trying to tell people that the game is safer, and how do you balance that?
Right.
So how can we cheer playoff violence?
This is the dilemma the NFL has.
How can you promote cheering and supporting the violence and the brutality that is the NFL?
Mark my word.
This is only the beginning.
I want to remind you, Bob Ryan, who is one of the most renowned and decorated sports writers in the country, the Boston Globe, wrote a piece toward the end of last year apologizing for his role in making the NFL popular.
apologizing for his role in making popular a guy A game that maims people for life.
This was not some young journalist out in the hinterlands trying to get noticed.
This is one of the deans, one of the one of the guys been around a long time that a lot of people respect and look up to, apologizing for his role in popularizing a game of such brutality that maims people.
And so now, how can the NFL actually on the one hand claim a safer game and then want to encourage people to cheer for the violence taking place in the game?
Fascinating case study, because the media, which needs this game, the media, which feeds off this game, is leading the charge in what could be fundamental changes in this game to make it something it's never been before.
Be right back after this.
You know, folks, just speaking for myself, I don't know how the NFL can allow these players to play in these conditions.
I mean...
I mean, they delayed games because of rain earlier in the year.
They delayed games because of lightning.
I want to know.
Does the NFL think so little of a player subject them to these conditions?
And what about the players' union?
Just a dime a dozen.
They're just meet.
You know, they're just they're just to be used.
Chewed up, spit out, next guy in.
How can they permit it?
Inhumane treatment.
Nobody should be subjected to this.
It's too cold.
Here's Cameron in Ledgyard, Connecticut.
Great to have you.
Open line Friday.
Hello.
Hello.
Oh.
It's a 10-year-old.
I just saw that.
Hi hi Cameron.
How are you?
Good.
Well, I'm glad that you called.
It's great to have you on the program.
Great to be talking to you.
Well, thank you very much.
what's on your mind?
What did you want to talk about?
I wanted to talk about the Rush Revere in the Brave Pilgrim.
Uh you've read that.
Yep.
Did you like it?
Like it?
I loved it.
Oh, Cameron, I love you.
What a great answer.
Like it, I loved it.
That's great, Cameron.
Thank you very much.
I I I appreciate that.
Is your favorite who's your favorite character, or what was your favorite part?
Well, she was my favorite character.
And my favorite part.
Really?
The boat.
And they were on the boat with like all.
All of them now are on.
Yeah, the Mayflower.
So you like Rush Revere.
He'll be happy to hear that because he's getting a little jealous of all the fan mail at Liberty is getting well.
I also think you should like make one about the revolutionary war.
Well, you want me to write another book about the revolutionary war.
Well, okay, that's not a bad idea.
I'll I'll uh I'll take your suggestion and I'll think very hard about it.
Because if you'd like to read about it, I think it'd be well worth your while.
What it what what what interests you about the American Revolutionary War that you want to know more about.
Well mainly the true like main stories about all the backgrounds on everyone in it.
So you want to know about the people that made it happen.
Okay.
Well, we can probably do that at some point.
Have you heard by any chance, Cameron, have you heard the audio version of the book?
Or have you just read it?
Just the reading.
Okay.
Well, just the book.
Okay, well, tell you what I'm gonna do.
Um when we're through here, don't hang up the phone.
Mr. Snerdley will pick the phone back up and he'll get your address, and we will send you an audio version of the book so that you can listen to it.
And it's read by me, so you will really like it.
And and that way you can you can it's an entirely different experience from reading it's the same words, it's the same book, but rather than you read it, I read it out loud and you can hear it, and uh it takes about four and a half hours to listen to it at one time, so you may not be able to spend all that one time doing it.
But whatever you want to listen to a little of it, you can.
You can have your mom put it on in a car, uh or however you listen to music, you could listen to it that way.
So, Cameron, hang on, and Mr. Snerdley, the nice man who answered the phone when you called.
He was nice, wasn't he?
Yes.
Yeah, good.
Well, he'll be right back with you.
Get your address so he can send you the audio version.
Folks, I uh I have to tell you something here.
I if you would have told me five years ago that ten-year-olds would have been calling here and asking me to write, I I would have I would have asked you, what do you know that I don't?
But this is the most amazing thing.
To have this is the target group, age 10 to 13.
Actually, the book is written for everybody, for parents and grandparents to uh read to the kids or to read with them.
But it's written for the 10 to 13 H group.
And it is designed to counter what's being taught throughout the public school system about the the history of the founding of this country.
It's it's an effort to get the truth to people who are maybe not being taught it.
Not the way you and I were taught it.
And get calls from people like Cameron, ten-year-old Kids like Cameron who are enjoying it.
It's a big that's that's a big deal.
I can't tell you how much uh it makes me happy.
What what a just a thrill it is.
So, Cameron, I really thank you for your call.
I appreciate it.
And we'll get the audio version out to you soon.
You know, these people call you, will you write another book?
I'm kind of hamstrung here, folks.
Uh the the things I can't say at the moment, but we'll be able to say somewhere down the line.
You write another book, Mr. Limbaugh, when you write it.
And I hate to send them away not knowing whether there's going to be another book.
But at some point their question will be answered, and all will be well.
And they'll all be happy, and they'll all be thrilled, as will you be as well.
Brief timeout now.
We'll continue with open line Friday, right after this when we get back.
Welcome back, folks.
Rush Limbaugh having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Eleven Republican attorneys general.
And by the way, that is the correct way to say it.
It's like corpsmen in the uh in the Marines and 57 states and other things.
Regardless, 11 Republican attorneys general say that the Obama regime is breaking the law by repeatedly making changes to Obamacare without going through Congress.
And they're right.
The attorneys general specifically criticized Obama's executive action that allowed insurance companies to keep offering health plans that had been canceled.
For not meeting Obamacare's more rigorous standards.
This is the old, if you like your doctor, you can keep it.
Well, that was a lie.
You were never going to be able to keep your doctor.
You were never going to be able to keep your plan.
Never.
It was a three-year lie.
So when the lie was exposed and the public opinion on Obama and Obamacare began to plummet, the president went out there and said, you know what?
Okay, I'm gonna do a deal for you.
If you want your old plan, I'm going to allow the insurance companies to offer it to you for another year.
And the insurance company said, we can't.
We'll be in violation of the law.
The plans that we were offering aren't legal anymore.
And one of the reasons, and there were many, one of the reasons is that practically every Obamacare policy must include contraceptions.
Or contraceptives, birth control pills and a board of fascists and whatever else.
Whether you want them or not, whether you need them or not.
You've got to pay for other people.
Well, your previous plan didn't have that.
The regime requires that practically every new plan contain that ingredient.
And therefore, you couldn't keep your old plan.
So then Obama just with a snap of the fingers, I'm going to allow the insurance companies to continue to orphan for one more year, which conveniently would take you past the November midterm elections.
The insurance company said, wait a minute, we're we those are long gone.
We just can't we can't go back.
It's gotten to the point now where the insurance companies, and this is also by design.
The insurance companies just can't keep up.
There is no way that they can even operate anywhere close to profitability, which means they're soon to go out of business, uh, which is also by design.
But now the regime, and I mean you may have heard the whispers.
The regime is floating the possibility of maybe bailing out the insurance companies just for a while.
Now, the regime and everybody, the Democrat Party, their dream is socialized nationalized medicine.
That's called Single payer.
The term single payer sounds great, and it is a uh it's a disguise term.
Single payer, well, yeah, I'm all for that, Mabel, single payer.
But what it really means is bye-bye, private sector, health care and insurance, it means the government is in charge of all of it.
And most people don't want that.
Single payer doesn't really convey that to the low information voter.
That's what the Democrats want, but they're not ready for it, as we see.
They can't even run what they've done now.
They can't even it it's an it's just an absolute disaster.
So they need a little more time to get ready for single payer, which means they need the insurance companies in the private sector to stay in business a little longer than they intended.
Which means they may have to bail them out.
Like they bailed out GM.
And like they bailed out a bunch of green sector energy companies and so forth.
And like they bailed out anybody else they wanted to bail out, bankers and Wall Street.
They may have to bail out the insurance companies.
And that would be an absolute disaster as well.
We don't have the money for this kind of thing.
This is just it's it's just an it's a total disaster.
So what these attorneys general are doing finally, I mean, if you have a president who's going to ignore the Constitution, he's gonna get away with it if there's no pushback.
He's gonna get away with it.
Nobody says, no, stop, you can't.
He's gonna get away with it if there's no challenge.
So it's at least a start.
But that means that there are 38 or so other state attorneys general who are not joining the lawsuit.
Many of them are Democrats.
Of course, they're not going to join Republicans in this.
But in so doing, they are endorsing impeachable acts by the president.
They're indoor he's he's behaving in ways that are illegal.
He does not have the constitutional authority to do what he's doing.
He just can't snap his fingers and change any law, whether it's got his name on it or not.
But he's doing it.
And this is an attempt to stop it.
And there are a lot of people helping this effort, and we'll see where it goes.
But it's about time that we had some pushback on this.
Now the Republican Party hasn't pushed back because the Republican Party believes the American people don't have a problem with this.
And they're just scared to death of what the public might think of them for stopping Obama from doing something.
So they're just totally acquiescent in uh in whatever Obama wants to do.
But these eleven attorneys general have finally had their fill.
They've had enough.
And they say that that everything that Obama's doing here, this latest health care fix, flatly illegal under federal constitutional and statutory law.
Did you did you hear?
I don't have it in front of me.
So I may not have this debt of rights.
Didn't the regime send out some email to people warning supporters about how to deal with a potential impeachment of Obama or some such thing?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
That's right.
It's a fundraising warning.
And Democrats are doing their fundraising off of a phantom potential impeachment of Obama.
There isn't going to be any impeachment of Obama.
The Republican Party would have to do that.
And do not doubt me.
They're not going to go anywhere near that.
That isn't going to so the Democrats is phony scare tactics fundraising off of that.
Here's Mark in Bethesda, Maryland.
Welcome, sir, to open line Friday.
Great to have you with us.
Hello.
Hey, good afternoon.
So anyway, on Super Bowl Sunday in 2010, we really did have a blizzard.
About 30 inches in my neighborhood.
I live on a ha on a court with nine houses.
Where in Maryland?
In Maryland, yes, on Super Bowl Sunday in 2010.
Yep, four years ago almost.
And I was a community organizer that day.
I uh we have nine houses and all nine neighbors chipped in, and we hired a guy to plow the street that day.
Because we wanted to get out because our court's often forgotten by the county and we live off of a main street.
On Wednesday, there was a uh blizzard again predicted, this time only twenty inches.
The guys got together and said, We don't need no stinking government, we'll do it ourselves.
So as the as the snow fell, we kept plowing, we kept we had our snowblowers out all day, and we kept plowing the street, couldn't go to work, so we didn't need any government.
I you know de Blasio talks about you know the government's gonna do everything.
We took it in our own hands.
We didn't need them.
Well now de Blasio, sorry, de Blasio told people in New York to stay inside.
Don't go outside, don't get in the way of the sanitation union.
It's too cold.
Um you might slip because it's slick out there.
Don't drive.
You can go into a spin, and if you do drive and go into a spin, make sure you turn into the spin, not out of the spin.
He didn't want people outside at all.
They couldn't handle it.
People can't handle this kind of weather, don't you know?
They can't handle this kind of cold weather, they can't handle the snow, they can't handle blizzards.
People in New York were told to stay inside and let the government do it, and there was a promise that there would be equal snow redistribution.
Well, we didn't we didn't care.
We we went outside.
No the the only hurt I got is I got some blisters on my thumbs.
We took it in literally, literally took it into our own hands, and we still talk about it to today.
Good camaraderie in the neighborhood, and we were able to get out on Thursday morning and go to work and do other stuff.
Other people in our neighborhood and around were still blocked in.
We didn't care.
Okay, let me ask you about that.
What about those other people in your neighborhood?
What about it?
Were you blowing snow on their driveways and sidewalks so that you could get out of your own?
We were blowing it on our street onto our own yards.
We have a court with nine houses.
Other streets in our in our uh in our neighborhood were not plowed.
The main street at the at the end of our court was plowed.
And Rush, I hate to say it quite frankly, we organized, we took care of it ourselves, and we profited from what we did ourselves without any help from anybody else.
What do you mean you profited?
We profited because we had freedom.
Freedom is good.
Oh, you mean I thought you might have meant you charged people.
No, we did it.
We have nine houses, and there were five snowblowers on our on our court.
So we plowed it for the four that didn't have it, just because it was.
Oh, you did?
Okay, so you plowed for everybody.
You plowed for all nine.
On our street on our court, which doesn't have sidewalks.
That's correct.
We did.
Wow, so you didn't just take care of yourself, you took care of your neighbors too.
Well, we had to.
I mean, you couldn't on and again without looking at it, seeing the geography of our street, there was there wasn't any, I'm saying other streets than our neighborhood.
Okay, so you really didn't want to.
You had to.
Well, uh, I didn't I wouldn't say that.
We just did it.
It was there wasn't any other way.
If we would have just done the five houses, then the street would have still been impassable.
The court would have started.
Okay, so you were just looking out for yourselves in the hell with everybody else.
The other streets we were the the four families that didn't have snowblowers, yeah, we did take care of them.
So in that sense, I I maybe were we socialists, I don't know.
And you did this because you couldn't count on your government showing up because they usually didn't.
That's right.
We knew it from the past.
We didn't uh we did we took care of it ourselves.
Who needs the government?
Especially the liberal government to have around here.
Right, yeah.
You won't on our court three out of the nine.
These snowblowers, these were the the the kind that are motorized of engines.
Yes.
So emitting uh we were emitting all sorts of carbon dioxide, who cares?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
We were polluting the air that day.
Oh well, that's the way it goes.
Did any women in the neighborhood object to the noise?
No.
The women brought it where the women uh where we're bringing us uh hot chocolate and uh and uh tea or coffee, whatever.
You know, people were people were happy we were doing it.
Really?
The women served you.
Some women, yeah.
That's right.
The guy it was a guy thing.
Could a woman have done it?
Sure.
But the guys took the guys were the organizers.
I like it.
I think it's it's a it's a great story of rugged individualism, self-reliance, taking matters into your own hands, And understanding the consequences of your actions all in one bundle.
That's right.
Well, congratulations.
A great story.
And you're able to get in and out as you needed, and you were able to make sure that you had what you needed as a result of that, and you took care of it yourself.
You didn't wait depending on people you already knew by history you couldn't count on anyway.
Absolutely.
And uh got hot chocolate and stuff in the process.
That is a cool deal.
You know, Mr. Snerdley asked me a question, and I didn't give it the um the just due that it deserved.
A question about the Packers and Fortner game on Sunday in Green Bay.
And ask me how the players deal with this.
And there's an answer to this.
My my brief answer to him was they're professionals, and they're paid.
And all of that's true.
But I I th I think this is not foreign to people that play football.
They are prepared for this.
They train for this.
Now, uh there have been arguments back and forth.
Some coaches say I'm gonna practice every day outside, get my team used to it.
Other people say there's no getting used to it.
Practice inside, learn the plays, practice execution, get your game planned down, and don't worry about distractions of the weather when the game comes, go out and do it.
Other coaches, I'm gonna train in this stuff, get my players ready for it.
Bottom line is that people that haven't played the game, or and this is true of any business, if you haven't done it, and we're talking about at the pinnacle now.
These are the best in the business.
These are the highest paid, these are the best at what they do.
This is something that they are mentally prepared for.
There is an ability to ignore the cold, just like there's an ability to ignore the heat when these guys are going through two-a-days in August, when it's a hundred degrees and the humidity is high.
They play in the extremes, the ones that uh don't play in domes.
But it's about it's all about the mind.
It's all about mental preparation.
Uh I've heard Bart Starr asked about that game.
Barthes, well, uh, how did you hold on to the ball?
And you can I see his facial expression.
What do you mean, how do I hold on to the ball?
I'm the quarterback.
It's my job to hold on to the ball.
Yeah, but wasn't it hard as a rock?
Well, he he didn't understand the question.
It's just the ball.
Yeah, hold on to the ball.
I'm the quarterback.
You deal with the conditions as they are.
He said it you just have to, it's a mental thing.
You just tune out the distractions, you tune out the discomfort.
And when the game is underway, believe me, the adrenaline is flowing and the focus on winning, there's a championship at stake here.
Football's always been a game played outside, in the elements, on grass.
That was always the history and tradition of this game until the domes came along, and those are those are they say fan comfort as as much as uh as anything else.
But this is all part of being a professional.
This is what they do.
They're trained for it.
Now, every game and every day is a different day, and whichever team is better able to handle this, whichever team is better equipped to deal with it, better prepared, better focused, you never know until the game is played and it unfolds.
The conventional wisdom is the 49ers are coming from the West Coast.
They don't ever have weather like this, they don't have a prayer.
And nothing could be further from the truth.
Warm weather teams have gone into cold weather sites and won often in the NFL.
It happens.
This is a it it's a it's a game of mental toughness as well as physical, physical toughness.
And I just repeat the story Lee Steinberg told me once when I was with him in Houston at a game in the old Astrodome.
It was, in fact, the 49ers and Houston Oilers, and he just said to me casually, after watching a particular place, you know, these guys are so tough.
You and I wouldn't last one play out there.
And I had never thought about it that way.
I just thought I'm not good enough to play.
But he's right.
Average person wouldn't last one play in the NFL.
Regard in 70 degree weather, we wouldn't last in one play.
Simply because of how tough and how hard the game is.
And that's why all this talk about legislating the toughness out of it, the uh uh hard hit, you can't do it and still have football.
And I gotta take a break.
Wish I didn't, because I'm on a roll here, you have to admit.
Okay, folks, so you have to take our our usual obscene profit break here at the top of the hour, but we'll be back.
We've got another exciting hour of open line Friday straight ahead here on the EIB network.