Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations every day.
And that is no mean feat.
I am Rush Limbaugh, America's real anchorman and America's truth detector here on the EIB Network on Friday.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida, it's open line Friday.
Fastest week in media.
Already here we are at Friday and another week of NFL playoffs.
The Peyton Mannings do play this week.
They play the San Diego Chargers.
And you want to hear an interesting stat.
This is one of those just off-the-wall statistics that you would never bet on it, but it is kind of interesting.
The last four.
Now listen to me very carefully.
The last four Super Bowl winners were the opposing team for the Philadelphia Eagles home opener that year.
That means if that holds, the San Diego Chargers are going to win the Super Bowl this year because the San Diego Chargers were the visiting team for the Philadelphia Eagles home opener this year.
Is that some stat or is that some stat?
The last four Super Bowl winners were the opposing team for the Philadelphia Eagles home opener.
Not the first week game, the first game the Eagles had at home in that season.
And the Chargers are playing the Peyton Mannings.
I think that's Sunday.
Tomorrow's games, you got the New Orleans Saints.
Shows you how far back I go.
The Saints are at the Seahawks.
100% chance of rain.
Flash flood watch, winter storm watch, 100% chance of 45 degrees in Seattle.
I don't know.
The Seahawks manhandle the Saints in week 13, like 37 to 13 or 34 to 13.
So it's not going to be like that again.
The invincibility of the Seahawks at home is gone because the Cardinals beat them in the last week of the season.
And it was the first time the Seahawks had lost at home in two years.
Yeah.
And then Saturday night, you have the Andrew Lucks versus at Tom Brady's.
You got the Colts at the New England Patriots.
And that'll be the 8 o'clock.
I haven't looked at the weather on that.
I've got to look at the weather on that game.
I haven't looked at the weather on that game.
Not that it'll matter, but it's just, that's just such a tough.
You know, you've got Bill Belichick who could come up with a defensive scheme that Andrew Luck hasn't seen, but does he have the players to pull off the scheme?
That's the thing.
I mean, if it's, it gets, what is it, rain and winds?
Well, yeah, but you got to look at Foxborough, not Boston.
Foxborough's closer to Providence.
Visiting teams fly in and stay in Providence, Rhode Island, when they play the Patriots.
Just a little trivia.
The Patriots have not been invincible at home in the playoffs.
Brady's not had his best year, but they're the Patriots.
So tough call.
I'm going to reserve my pick, and I might have to go environmentalist wacko in that pick.
And then the other Sunday game is the Fortiners at the Carolina Panthers.
Yeah, you think the 49ers, but the Panthers have been, they've been sneaking up.
They won their last 10.
They have perhaps the best linebacker core in the NFL the second half of this season.
For those of you who watch, get the linebacker core now for the hipsters that call games on television, the second level.
If you're watching some of these announcers on TV and they, well, that running back got to the second level, it's what the hell is the second level?
It means a linebacker made the tackle.
If you hear that a team is going vertical, it means they're running straight down the field or throwing straight down the field.
If you hear that a wide receiver got great elevation on that pass, it means he jumped.
Some of the stuff that's happening to the language with it's not so much the game announcers, it is the color commentators.
Anyway, folks, great to have you open line Friday.
El Rushbo here, and we've got a burgeoning audio soundbite stack on the Chris Christie press conference and the reaction.
And let me just repeat what I said to open the program.
It has been fascinating to watch.
And by the way, I've got a couple other things I'm going to get to before this is just the tease.
Speaking of T's, given these unemployment numbers, you know, Obama's going to need more than five.
What are they called?
Not poverty.
Five promise zones.
Promise zones.
With these numbers, he's going to need a lot more than five.
He's going to need one at least every state.
So he's going to need 57 promise zones.
He's going to need one in Puerto Rico.
Five promise zones is not going to handle this.
Anyway, folks, this has been fascinating.
After the Christie press conference, it was just, it's becoming predictable, and that's not a good thing.
You can turn on, well, Fox has always been unpredictable, but now they're starting to become, and that's MSNBC, CNN, CBSA, they've always been, you knew what they were going to do with Christie.
And now you know what's going to happen on the Republican side.
And the Republican side take on the Christie press conference was that it was a slam dunk home run.
Man, oh man, this guy, greatest leader, greatest potential leader of the Republican Party is fielded in who knows how many years.
Do you see what this guy did?
He made mincemeat in the media.
He told the truth.
He fired a couple of people.
He went out there and he basically buried this thing.
And they really thought that was going to be the end of it.
You can tell by looking at some of the post-press conference comments.
I'm not kidding you.
And I was looking at those comments, and I'm, I don't know, folks.
So much of this, how in the world, these learned, inside-the-beltway Republican slash conservative media people still and the Republican Party still don't get.
They thought because of how well they both wanted and thought Christie did yesterday, that that was going to end it.
And I'm reading these comments some of them are making, and I'm hearing them, and I'm in disbelief.
Because all afternoon, all you had to do was turn on CNN and find out that yesterday was just the beginning.
And they're not going to stop until they fix it.
They're not going to stop until they have either gotten rid of or discredited Christie to their satisfaction.
They've got federal action investigations going on.
They've got this friend of his at the Port Authority took the Fifth Amendment.
That's got them all excited during a hearing in Trenton.
There's no way they're going to let this go.
And there's no way.
Letterman last night had Anderson Cooper on, and they told it was the whole Letterman show last night was, well, not the whole show, but I mean, almost the whole, it's just made mincemeat of Christie.
Just sliced and diced and threw him to the whales.
It was, I accidentally saw it a channel surfing around.
I got, I finished watching what I was watching.
I was on Apple TV and I switched back to DirecTV and for some reason it was on the CBS affiliate, maybe from the football game over the weekend.
It was Letterman.
I don't watch Letterman, but there's Anderson Cooper and Letterman and they're talking about Christie and I'm remembering what I heard all these learned Republicans say about how Christie had slammed dunk yesterday and ended it and buried it.
And they are just ripping Christie apart and everywhere else in the drive-by media.
The same thing.
If you go to anything published, if you go to anything on the air, TV, or radio, the left is just salivating now.
And in fact, Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner and the Media Research Center did some studies.
And they found out that the big three networks spent 17 times as much or covered Christie's story at a rate of 17 times more coverage in one day than they covered Obama's.
IRS scandal in six months.
Just the three broadcast networks, their nightly newscasts and everything, and their cable affiliates, 17 times in one day, more coverage of Christie and none of it favorable.
17 times more coverage than they gave the IRS scandal in six months.
And all of these learned inside the Beltway Republican types who said that Christie hit a slam dunk and a grand slam and buried this and gave him what for, and this is the model for how you do it and all that.
Even they had a caveat, which is he better be telling the truth when he said he didn't know.
He better be telling the truth when he said that he asked his staff for a report and they lied to him.
He better be telling the truth that he had absolutely no knowledge of this in any way, shape, he better be, they've attached a caveat to it, which, I mean, what does that mean?
No, seriously, what does that mean?
Take your pick.
It doesn't matter the names.
I mean, you want a name.
I don't know that this guy said it, but let's just make my point, Britt Hume.
Let's say that Britt Hume was on Fox and praising Christie, Grand Slam.
I don't know that it was Hume, but let's just throw a name.
Okay, you don't like, let's say, Dr. Krauthammer, pick a name, doesn't matter.
Dr. Krauthammer, let's just assume, I don't know if he did or not.
Well, actually, I do.
Praised Christie's performance of the hilt.
Slam dunk model.
This is how you do it.
Spend as much time in the media as it takes.
Tell them what for, get rid of it, sweep it, put it behind you, and move on.
Great leadership, classic illustration of how you do it.
And then you say, but it could all fall apart if he's not telling the truth.
Now, what is when whoever adds that caveat, what does that tell you, the viewer?
Yeah, exactly.
It tells me if they've got to throw in the caveat, if he's not lying, it means they don't know either if he's lying or not.
Now, I don't want to get too fine with this, but if they are not sure after the two-hour presser that Christie was being honest, then why praise it to the hilt?
No, I'm not trying to stir anything up.
I'm just doing what I always, folks.
I observe and I come here.
I'm a journalist.
In a sense, I observe and I come here and I tell you what I saw.
And I have unending curiosity.
I ask questions about practically everything.
That's how I learn.
So that's all I'm doing.
I'm going to stir the thing up.
Now, the Republican leadership, the establishment, they're all upset because I compared them, the rhinos, to wildebeests.
And we've got, of all the things I said, yes, that's the takeaway.
We got the soundbites on that comes.
So we'll get to that and other details.
But that is a startling stat.
17 times in one day, 17 times the coverage the media spent on Obama and the IRS scandal in six months.
And the second part of the observation on the Inside the Beltway Republican establishment types, after they said and thought that Christie had hit a home run in the press conference, they were then shocked.
They were surprised.
The coverage kept going their way.
That's what gets me.
You know, maybe I'm going to have to give average ordinary voters a pass for not figuring out the left.
Because if our political people inside the Beltway still to this day cannot predict what the left is going to do with a scandal like this, if they do not understand, if they really think that a Republican could go out and end a scandal with a press conference, It means, it tells me, that they still don't know the nature of the enemy and what we're really up against.
And that's a shocking but true, sad reality.
All right, a brief timeout.
A couple more things on the economy, and then your calls mixed in with the audio soundbite roster on, what are they calling it?
Lane Gate?
Christie Gate?
What's the name of this scandal?
You haven't heard.
Bridgegate, that's what it is.
Bridgegate.
Okay.
All that coming up.
I know you can't wait.
I can't wait to get started with this.
I sit-type.
Back to the phones we go.
And Rapid City, South Dakota.
This is Jim.
Thank you for calling, sir.
Great to have you here.
Hey, thanks, Rush.
Rush, you know, I think my take on the unemployment problem in this country is, I think, due to the fact that the typical man in this country is just worn out from a war on real men.
And I guess I cite Camille Pagalia's article.
The state of the health in this nation is definitely directly related to the health of guys.
And I'm unabashedly a guy.
I have no problem saying I'm attracted to women.
I like to work.
I'm a manly guy.
And everything that seems to be something I like, I'm being told, isn't good.
All our manufacturing is being shipped overseas.
Mining for coal, drilling for oil is bad.
Yet undocumented citizens from other countries can come here under the table and take those jobs from me.
You know, I don't wear pajamas.
I never have since I wasn't four years old.
So I guess a lot of guys just feel it's like an attrition.
Heck, we like to kill our enemy and blow up things.
And yet we're told that women can do that just as well.
Everything that makes a guy a guy is being told you can't do that.
Well, you know, sorry, but that's the problem.
I think a lot of guys are dejected, and they're kind of going a little bit gauled.
And so I think you're seeing that to some extent in the unemployment system.
Well, look, I understand some of it.
I don't think there's any doubt.
And that piece that you cite, Camille Paga, I agree with it 100%.
There is, and there has been, and it's part and parcel of the modern era feminism, an attack on masculinity.
Masculinity has been portrayed as the problem in America.
Masculinity, male power is the reason there are so many wars.
Male power is the reason so many people get hurt.
Male power is why women and children are not safe in marriage.
Male power equals predatory behavior.
All of this was either stated directly or an undercurrent of modern feminism.
And there has been and there continues to be an attack on masculinity.
And I jokingly, humorously refer to it as the chickification of our society.
But tell me again, how do you think this is affecting you finding a job?
Well, it's not affecting me directly, but I just speak for, I guess, men in general.
I just think that guys are worn out because we're told that, you know, all the things that we like to do, men like to build, men like to work outdoors, all the things, there's no keystone pipeline being built.
And the things that we could be doing in this country to make us strong and independent, like drilling and mining, we're being told, we have been told for the last 20 years, is wrong.
It'll hurt mother Gaia.
It's everything.
Not just that, you're destroying the country.
You're destroying the planet when you do what you really want to do as a man.
Exactly.
Hey, I mean, I unabashedly call myself a lesbian in a man's body.
And if that's the way I have to talk PC, fine.
Well, you know, don't laugh.
This was the first program to actually discover in 1990 male lesbians.
And it's a direct offshoot of the feminist movement.
No, I'm going to, I had it, and I filed it, and I got to go find.
This would be an ideal time.
There was a story earlier in the week that I vowed to get to, and it's in the New York Times, and it's about how seeking success is unhealthy.
And it will dovetail nicely with this guy's call.
But I had it in the stack here.
I kept growing the stack of stuff I didn't get to.
And it got so big yesterday in a fit.
I just trashed it all.
So I've got it as part of a massive file that I'm going to have to spotlight searches.
But I'll get it in due course.
But it will dovetail nicely.
New York Times story on how seeking success, working hard can make you sick.
Make you, it can be unhealthy.
It's just, you know, it's absurd.
Now, we had earlier on the program some discussion about unemployment and things that people can do, people turning out of the workforce.
And there were some solutions given by well-known leftists as to what you can do.
And I'd rather focus Bernie Marcus.
He's the Home Depot co-founder.
And he says, rather than listen to Chuck Schumer, Chuck Schumer's out there suggesting that, well, this unemployment news today, this is so bad.
We've got to really, really start working now on extending unemployment benefits.
And that's what Obama's doing.
So here we are in the midst of an absolute human tragedy, the U.S. economy.
And I don't think there's any other way to look at it.
There's no other way to describe it.
It is a human tragedy what's happening in the United States of America, five years, six years in now.
And by design, it's getting worse.
And by design, is on purpose because exactly what Obama and the Democrats want to happen is happening.
People are, it's gone beyond depending on government.
People are now being supported by the government.
And they're okay with it.
92 million Americans not working.
And for this to be the design of the Democrat Party, it's not hard to understand.
Growing governments, supporting more and more people is never-ending power.
You create all these people dependent on you.
They're going to keep voting for you.
So the human tragedy here that is taking place, that's occurring, is something the Democrats want to occur so they can profit from it in their own way.
They can benefit from it.
But listening to Chuck Schumer and Obama and their solution to this is more unemployment benefits.
The solution to the crumbling jog market is more welfare.
That's sick.
The Home Depot co-founder is Bernie Marcus.
And he says that America hasn't seen anything yet when it comes to the problems and additional costs that Obamacare is going to deliver to the middle class.
I've got another thing coming for some of you.
For those of you who are still working and who file quarterly estimated tax payments, if you are an independent contractor, say, or a doctor, or if you're not an employee, and if your taxes are not withheld and you pay them quarterly, well, it's a new year.
And wait till you find out what's in store for you.
And it's not just you, but it's going to hit you in its own way.
But everybody is about to be sucked and shocked and soaked with brand new Obamacare taxes.
And Bernie Marcus here is saying that most people, as bad as it has been with the website signing up, but the insurance company having no record of you, signing up, finding out you can't keep your doctor, signing up, finding out you can't keep your insurance plan, signing up, finding out that your deductible triples, signing up and finding out your premium might double.
With all of that, Bernie Marcus says you don't even know the half of what's coming your way.
You haven't seen anything yet, he says.
When it comes to the problems and additional costs that Obamacare is going to deliver to the middle class, he was with Neil Cavuto Wednesday on Fox News.
He said, Neil, it's just the beginning.
Now you have to remember that the mandate they put off the big companies till 2015, they're supposed to come in in 2014 with everybody else.
So you haven't really seen that hit yet.
That's yet to come.
And I talked to a lot of business owners and small business, especially, people who have 100, 200, 300, 400 people working for them.
And he said that business people tell him they are studying Obamacare and they can't say if they're going to stop carrying insurance on their employees or if they're going to put more people into part-time jobs.
They don't yet fully know.
Neil, you haven't seen anything yet.
And what you are going to see one year from now, January 2015, right after the elections, this coming November, oh, the Democrats look beautiful on this one.
It is politics as usual.
They've put off this thing because America is going to be hit.
So his point is that this was to be the year that everybody got rocked and sucked.
This was to be the year of full implementation.
And they've delayed many of the mandates and other things that would equal full implementation until after the November election so that the Democrats are not harmed by what is coming down the pike.
And Bernie Marcus said all of middle-class America is going to get very, very hurt, very, very hurt by this because that is where it's going to come out.
So if you're somebody working for a living, if you have been doing this for a number of years and your employer has been covering you and paying the premium for you, you're going to end up in two ways.
Number one, you are going to end up with very little insurance and you're going to end up with very, very high co-pays and you are going to end up with just a mess on your hands.
And he said that he doesn't buy that as more people enroll, the costs are going to go down and that more people will have good coverage at a good cost.
He said, that's not the real world.
Not when the government's involved.
Costs never go down.
Coverage never goes down.
Efficiency never increases when the government is involved.
Nobody has ever said to me, he said, nobody's ever said to me, and I'm talking about this year, nobody has said to me that their costs have gone down on insurance.
Nobody.
Everybody's costs are going up, and yet the regime is out, how many years have it been promising everybody, from premiums to copays to out-of-pocket to deductible.
All of that was going to go down.
It was going to be more affordable.
We're going to reduce the debt.
All of this magic, nothing but lies.
Now let's draw on top of this this dismal employment news that we got today for the month of December and then put in perspective that all the media can't wait to do today's go destroy Chris Christie.
What the people in the media don't understand, well, maybe they do and they're just not taking the chance.
What they don't understand is that Chris Christie probably dealt himself the fatal blow by walking the boardwalk with Obama.
My guess is that people inside the Beltway have long forgotten that and think that, oh, that's going to be such a distant memory.
That's not going to hurt Christie by the time the 2016 primaries come around.
And this is another example of how genuinely out of touch people inside the Beltway are.
Because I'm telling you, for I don't, I don't know how many, but it's a sizable number of Republican general election and primary voters.
Christie ended his chances one week before the 2012 elections by embracing Barack Obama.
And that's not something people are going to forget.
This Bridgegate thing, I have no idea what's going to happen, I know what's going on.
The Democrats are not taking any chances.
You know what's driving Bridgegate?
There are two polls that show that only Christie defeats Hillary 2016.
And that's it.
There are two polls, and I can't even name the polls for you.
I think one of them might be Gallup.
But remember, these people live and die because the polls are them.
They do the polls.
And to them, the poll equals news.
The poll is not public opinion and a reflection of it.
Poll is news to them.
They go out and do a poll.
They look at the results, and that happens to be reality in their world.
And so they have two polls, the media does, that say, now there are other polls that don't say this, but those are thrown out and not considered.
There are two polls that suggest the only person that can beat Hillary on the Republican side, if the election were today, is Christie.
And that's why they're going to try to take him out now on Bridgegate.
That's it.
That's the only reason.
Well, it's not the only reason, but it's the 99% reason.
I mean, the other 1 or 2% is just what they do.
Republican scandal, great.
Let's take them out.
Let's destroy them.
It's just what they do.
Like lions kill wildebeests.
The media sees a Republican in a scandal, either unreal, fake, or genuine.
And it's, okay, let's stay on this until the guy's finished.
So there's that element, plus the fact that they are in fear because they have two polls that show Christie is, those polls are worthless and meaningless, but that's all they've got, and they're not taking any chances.
As far as Bridgegate's concerned, I have no clue.
Is Bridgegate going to be something that impacts Christie's presidential fortunes in 2016?
Far, far, far less than walking arm in arm with Barack Obama one week before the 2012 election when you did the keynote for Obama for Romney at the convention and you didn't really do that well.
This is what they don't see.
I guarantee you, the people inside the Beltway, they think that's nothing.
I mean, people forget about that.
They're worried that Bridgegate simply because it's the latest is going to be the determining thing.
And I have no idea how Bridgegate's going to come out.
So I'm like everybody else.
If he told the truth and he didn't know about any of this, the only thing you can say is, well, why not?
I mean, why didn't you know?
I mean, really, there's another question besides that.
This aide at his and he fired the woman who sent the email.
Okay, time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.
The fact that that meant what it meant means that there is a culture there.
Look at it.
If I, in my normal day, let's say I got an email.
Okay, time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.
I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do with that.
But somebody did.
They knew exactly what that meant.
That to me is quite telling.
On both ends, the aide sends the email, and the recipient of the email knew what to do with it.
Okay, time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.
Okay, well, what kind of stuff like that went on before that?
That was essentially the education.
Because I doubt there was ever a meeting.
Look, there may be a day when we'll send you an email and it'll say time for traffic problems in Fort Lee.
What that means is you close down three lanes or two lanes for a month and you cause all kinds of traffic so that we can end up blaming it on the mayor there.
I doubt that meeting was ever held.
So what the email means is that whoever sent it, well, the woman that sent it and the recipient knew that that means the mayor of Fort Lee is a scumbag and it's time to get even with this scumbag and we're going to pay this scumbag back by ruining traffic in his town.
So there's a culture there.
That is something.
Eventually somebody will get onto that.
Right now they're just focused on whether or not he lied.
I got to take a timeout.
Sit tight, my friends.
We'll be back.
Don't go away.
John in Philadelphia.
We head back to the phones of EIB Network here with Rush Limbaugh.
Great to have you, John.
Hi.
Mega Dittos, Rush.
I pray that you stay healthy forever.
I wanted to talk about how my dad, he taught me how to think when I was in college.
And I think you've actually given me a master's degree in thinking.
He was a professor in Philadelphia.
And when I was in college, what he did was I came in, you know, being a college punk that I was, spouting off what my professors were telling me and basically, you know, telling my dad, it was during the Reagan years, you know, oh, look at how terrible Reagan is, this, that.
My dad was like, look, he was one of only three conservatives on the campus.
The guy used to eat alone because none of the teachers, you know, they pegged him as the conservative.
None of them wanted to eat with him or be any part of him.
So as his teaching to me, what he did was I had three roommates.
We had a quad, and he got me a subscription to the Washington Times, you know, because I was saying, oh, I read the Philadelphia Inquirer.
I watch the local news, and I get my information.
I know what I'm talking about.
And as we started to look at articles that were written the same way, we started to realize, hey, this is completely different.
This is a different slant.
This is, you know, look what we're reading here.
And we would debate every night, my roommates, and we learned how to think.
All four of us now are conservatives.
And I want to thank you, obviously, for producing a great book.
I've actually read it myself.
I'm into the Constitution.
I'm into the founding.
I'm into, you know, a lot of the things that you read the Rush Revere book.
I did.
You know what?
I'm going to have my, I'm going to read it to my seven-year-old at some point when she's either eight or nine.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Let me send you an audio version.
You don't have to wait for her to be able to read it.
I'll send the audio version and you can let her hear it.
And then she'll be able to read it later on.
I appreciate it.
I'll send her a Ted T. Bear, too.
Oh, that would be awesome.
Yeah, so don't hang up when we finish here so Snerdley can get your address.
You know, I appreciate that.
One of the things I find as I get older, I take critical thinking for granted because it was the way I was raised too.
I was exposed to it, first became aware of thinking, having opinions at nine or ten years old.
And I am, I guess I shouldn't be, I am dumbstruck when I find out the robotic thinking that's exactly that's out there.
It's not even really thinking.
There's just blind acceptance of conventional wisdom in every demographic.
And it, as I say, it shouldn't surprise me because I understand it, but it does because thinking isn't that hard.
Anyway, be back after the.
I still have a lot that I want to get to in the next hour, and it's a lot.