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Jan. 13, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:15
January 13, 2014, Monday, Hour #3
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And once again, greetings to you, music lovers, thrill seekers, conversationalists all across the fruited plane.
Rushland boy here behind the golden EIB microphone, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have because I, folks, am doing what I was born to do.
And actually, so are you.
I was born to host and you were born to listen.
Telephone number, if you want to call the program, it's 800-282-2882, the email address El Rushbo at EIBnet.com.
CNN, by the way, responsible for some of the latest brouhaha involving Governor Christie with the allegation that he used Hurricane Sandy money for tourism ads starring himself and his family.
CNN in their article says that the Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath was Christie's signature achievement, which could be part of the problem.
And in a sense, if you're going to say that, if you're going to say that Hurricane Sandy in the aftermath is Christie's signature achievement, that means that, well, I mean, circumstances set up, you're victim of a storm.
I mean, your greatest achievement is how you act after being victimized by a storm.
However, there is some bad news for the Democrats out there on the polling front.
The Pew Center for People in the Press say that the Christie story is attracting only 18% interest from the general public.
The headline is, Christie's story attracts little public interest.
18% say they paid close attention.
And that's exactly why the media is going to not let it go to get that 18% up higher.
The media is out there saying, wait a minute, this is huge because everybody can understand traffic jams.
And everybody can understand that this is not what politicians are supposed to.
I'm actually, I have read, I kid you not, I can't quote you which piece, but in getting ready for the program, I actually read some liberal columnists assert that this traffic gate thing, Bridgegate, that's easy to understand.
The IRS controversy is too complicated.
Don't kid yourself, liberal commentators.
If you think the people of this country are not interested in the IRS scandal because it's too complicated, you are lying to yourself.
That IRS scandal is easily understandable because people think it happens every day.
People in this country think the IRS is used as a political weapon and always has been.
And if anything would argue to it not being a big deal, it's that because a lot of people think it's anything unique to it.
Now, this one, this particular IRS scandal is linked directly to Obama and his aides targeting ideological opponents, i.e. in the Tea Party.
So we'll just have to see.
I really do believe, polling data notwithstanding, I really believe that people, both parties inside the Beltway, have less and less understanding what's going on in the rest of the country and what's important to the rest of the country.
I think the narcissism and the egoism Inside the Beltway is such that I think there's a real gap, distance, if you will, in understanding relatability.
People that live and work every day in Washington and what's going on outside it.
National Review online, Noah Glenn, headlines, study extending unemployment benefits increased unemployment by more than three percentage points.
By conticable quote, by continuously extending unemployment benefits, the authors of the study conclude, calculate, the federal government has increased unemployment by 3.6 percentage points.
As explained, this is because extensions of unemployment benefits discourage workers from accepting lower wage jobs and cause employers to create fewer jobs.
This makes, again, perfect common sense.
If you're going to pay people not to work, and if you're going to pay them enough not to work that they can eat and have phones and drive around and have big screens, it is going to be tough to get them to accept jobs that are not up to snuff.
Another pull quote: The study is finding most of the persistent increase in unemployment during the Great Recession, i.e., the Obama years, can be accounted for by the unprecedented extension of unemployment benefit eligibility.
Folks, this is only common sense.
Now, the left wants you to believe this is nothing more than a compassion issue.
And that's how they've been approaching this latest proposed extension of three months.
How can you not care about these people?
This is horrible.
And then they come out and lie to us, as Obama did.
Unemployment benefits create jobs.
Unemployment checks create jobs.
Unemployment checks grow the economy.
If that's the case, why not just put everybody on unemployment and get employment down to zero?
By the way, here's another thing.
If the unemployment rate's down to 6.7%, right?
And everybody now acknowledges this has been accomplished because we don't count the people who are no longer looking for work.
My idea, every one of you looking for work, stop and will get the unemployment rate down to zero.
Well, do the math.
It freaking works.
If everybody quits looking for work, by definition, they're not counted, unemployment rate, zero.
Obama can say his policies have resulted in a 0% unemployment rate.
Not to be confused with how many people are working.
Anyway, it's an extensive study, and the details are at National Review Online, a story by Noah Glenn.
But again, this is just common sense.
You pay people not to work, and you're going to create unemployment.
Pay people not to work and keep paying them and keep paying them for over 9,900 weeks, and you're going to lose jobs.
And people are going to be less inclined to go back to work.
Why should they?
In some cases, pure common sense.
Okay, Alex Rodriguez, I mentioned this at the top of the program.
It is clear that the strategy used by Rodriguez is to trash the system rather than to mount a defense.
And that would lead one to conclude he doesn't have a defense.
And He's not denied taking these performance-enhancing drugs.
He's just said that there's a witch hunt and baseball hates him.
And this man has accused a lot.
He's accused the Yankee doctors.
He's accused the Yankees.
He's accused others of malpractice, any number of things.
He's now been suspended for a full season, next season, by an unbiased, independent arbitrator.
And now he's going to file a federal case out of this.
And it's clear what the strategy has been.
And to me, I may not be able to articulate this, but I'm going to try.
It just, I guess the first thing, the whole notion of conducting the whole notion of seeking media acceptance and love and approval rather than actually doing something to earn it seems to me on the increase.
More and more public people are attempting shortcuts rather than serious, honest achievements, and then accepting whatever accolades come from that.
People are seeking PR, buzz, crisis management people to create an image of robust success, popularity, and likability where it doesn't exist.
Now, in the Rodriguez case, he's going to go to court now, and he's going to argue that being suspended for a full year from baseball is harmful to his reputation.
Now, you're saying, what do you mean, that?
What about all these years of doping?
What about which he's not denied?
What do you mean, the suspension is harmful to his reputation?
What about what he did is harmful to his reputation?
Now, in the old days, I have no idea what's going to happen given our culture, and the left owns the judiciary now.
In the old days, if this circumstance had happened and Alex Rodriguez actually has his lawyers file papers that say that this suspension is unfair and it's damaging and harming his reputation, the judge would laugh himself out of court and tell Rodriguez to stop wasting everybody's time.
Now, you may have a judge.
Remember that jury in L.A. in the Menendez trial?
The Menendez brothers killed their parents, and the jury refused to convict because they felt sorry for them.
They weren't going to have their parents anymore.
And Oprah interviewed one of the female jurors, and she was beside herself.
I think it was Oprah.
But this female juror said, but Mr. Menendez is not going to have his mother for the rest of his life.
Yeah, but he killed her.
It's a shame, I know.
And he's going to be deprived of his mother.
And we were aghast.
So it's entirely possible that some left-wing, touchy-feely judge could say, yeah, it's really bad.
This is Mr. Rodriguez's reputation is harmed by this suspension.
But he has not, he's had all these allegations.
He's not once denied any of these allegations.
All he's done is attack baseball, attack the Yankees, and trash the system.
And it's puzzled a lot of people because the strategy of Rodriguez and his legal team has been to sway public opinion when public opinion isn't a factor before the arbitrator.
The arbitrator made up his mind on the evidence, not public opinion.
The Rodriguez team didn't even get into the evidence.
Rodriguez didn't even appear at the arbitration hearing.
He walked out saying it was a sham and he wasn't going to dignify it by showing up.
And he said he went to the media and talked about how everybody's out to get him.
Here, grab Sunbike 24.
Joe Takapina is a lawyer.
He was on with Jenna Lee on Fox this afternoon.
And she said, Joe, Rodriguez didn't even testify in the hearing before the arbitrator.
Why not?
Because the proceeding was a sham.
It was a farce.
When Bud Selich wouldn't take the stand, despite our request to call him to answer the very tough questions under oath that he'd be faced with, Alex at that point said, I'm not participating in this charade anymore.
And he chose not to.
He left.
He was scheduled to testify the very next day.
It was not even contemplated that Bud Selich would be blocked from testifying by Major League Baseball or the arbitrator would allow that.
It wasn't even contemplated.
He was a vital witness.
Oh, so, well, it's a sham.
This is a farce.
I'm not participating in this.
This is illegitimate, and I'm not going to be here.
So, you know, maybe this is going to be understood by the pop culture elites of the day.
Maybe they're going to say, this is cool, man.
This guy's going after the system, and he's giving them what for, but he's still suspended for the year.
And I guess the strategy is to make the suspension look unjust and immoral the way the left looks at the founding of this country is unjust and immoral and unfair and all of that.
And Jenna Lee said, what Bosch says about your client, this is the guy that ran the biogenesis outfit that provided Rodriguez with all of the performance-enhancing drugs, the testosterone gummies.
And this guy was on 60 Minutes last night.
And he explained.
I mean, look, baseball, the arbitrator, they've got, apparently, Rodriguez is a BlackBerry, and it's tied directly to him.
And they've got all these text messages, 900-plus of them, something like.
There's no doubt that Rodriguez is getting drugs in this guy and ordering them and seeking advice on when to take them, when not to take them.
And pretty soon, you know, some Hispanic group is going to get involved here and say that this is a racist witch hunt against Hispanic players.
Anything's open here.
So after Rodriguez trashed the system, now his lawyer comes out and trashes Bosch because Jenna Lee said, well, what Bosch says about your client?
Is it fantasy?
First of all, you're talking about Bosch like he's some professional, like he's a doctor.
Here's a guy who was convicted for practicing without a license.
He's not a doctor.
He pretends to be a doctor.
He's someone who has all the motive in the world to tell a story about Alice to testify on behalf of MLB because of the deal he struck with MLB where they'd given him millions of dollars in services.
It's a big deal.
Well, it's a big deal because they took him out of a lawsuit and they've promised to go to federal prosecutors on Tony Bosch's behalf for giving drugs to children.
Now, it's true they immunized Bosch.
They immunize him and they pay these legal fees.
They wanted to find out what's going on.
This guy was servicing some 40 other players who have all accepted their suspensions.
Rodriguez is the only one fighting this.
He's not even fighting suspension.
He's trashing the system.
They've all owned up to it.
Bosch has had what he's done basically confirmed by all the other players.
Rodriguez's legal team said, Bosch never did.
They're lying about Alexander lying about my client.
Folks, it's the most curious thing to me.
It's a sign of our times, is what it is.
It really is a sign of our times, where there's a reality out there, and we're going to fog it, and we're going to cloud it up.
We're going to make sure nobody knows what it really is.
And it's a strategy.
It's one way of going about it, but it's so lame.
And it's so obviously superficial.
Anyway, I got to take a break, and your phone calls are coming up too.
So sit tight, my friends.
We got lots to do here yet.
It's like there's some athlete.
I'm not making this up.
I don't have the story right in front of me.
I read it earlier.
I didn't print it out.
Here's an athlete who inflicted great harm on somebody kicking them wearing Nike shoes.
He's suing Nike because they didn't have a warning on the shoes that they could be dangerous.
Not making it up.
So you say, well, what's A-Rod?
Exactly what A-Rod's doing.
A-Rod one sense, some people won't blame me.
trying to ensure that somebody, when this is all over, will still pay him $20 million a year.
That's my guess.
Money, money, money.
Follow the money.
And plus, in A-Rod's case, he's desperate to be loved.
He's desperate to be talked about.
He's desperate to be the focus of everybody's attention.
And he really did want to be the only guy that ever hit 800 home runs.
And that's all going to the wayside.
Here's Don and Omaha.
Don, hi.
Great to have you on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hello.
Rush.
Hi, Megan Dittos from a Marine veteran and a father of a Navy nuke.
How are you doing, sir?
Very well, sir.
Thank you very much for the call.
I appreciate it.
I tried a few months ago to call you because I was listening to an ESPN sportscaster, and he's nationally known.
And he, at the time, it was just after a big brouhaha with Obama had made a big deal on ESPN about how white 50-plus-year-old conservative Christians were ruining America.
And I thought, I got to talk to Rush.
I tried, I tried, never got through.
Now, wait, hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it just a second.
And don't worry about running out of time because we are going to run out of time.
And I'll hold you to the break.
Did Obama say on ESPN that white 50-plus-year-old conservative Christians are ruining America?
No, no, no.
The ESPN announcer did.
The sportscaster did.
It was right after a big Obama battle, and I can't remember exactly what it was all about.
So I thought, oh, I got to talk to Rush.
I got to find out how this guy can even get away with saying this on national radio, and nobody calls him on it.
He's criticizing white Christians.
I remember you got free reigns.
He's criticizing white Christians.
He's who ESPN was.
He's Disney.
And I thought, oh, well, he can say whatever he wants about conservatives because he works for Disney.
And then this morning, listening to my news about the new one Patriots about the weekend, he started into the A-Rod scam going on right now, and he turned the conversation into David Ortiz.
Okay, hold your thought there.
David Ortiz got involved in this?
Okay, folks, we are back, but I'm deaf.
A cable has come disconnected in here, so until I can get this thing plugged back in, which I can't do myself because I can't see it, plugged in the room.
Nobody can see you, but I'm turned the camera off.
Cable got stuck behind underneath the rollaway chair, and I'm totally deaf because I lost the here we go.
All right, now we're back.
Sorry about that, folks.
It would be the equivalent of you having your headphones go dead, and nothing else worked.
Now, back to Don in Omaha, Nebraska.
Don, where I'm getting.
Oh, where did he go?
Oh!
Oh, Brian's going to get back up.
I'm right here.
Don, here's why I'm confused.
You're not talking about who said what, but you're using other names.
So that's why I lost track of – that's why I thought you said Obama criticized white Christians.
So anyway, where we left off, we've gone from Obama and the NBA and Christians and all that.
We're now to the Patriots locker room.
Right?
No, we're on Red Flux.
David Ortiz.
Right.
He went and said, many people criticized me because I said Ortiz has to be on steroids because of his great hitting in the World Series.
Okay.
And go ahead.
Who.
Okay.
Okay.
See, I don't know if you're talking about yourself saying things or this sportscaster.
That's why I'm getting confused.
Are you saying that people were criticizing Ortiz or is Ortiz saying that?
No, sir.
This is the sportscaster, again, saying that Ortiz hitting so great is proof that he's on steroids.
Okay.
He said this where?
On ESPN, on national news this morning, on ESPN radio.
This morning?
This morning.
Oh, okay.
He has said this in the past, and he reiterated it to bolster his argument against A-Rod.
Okay.
And he used all the Hispanics that are coming up on the steroid list as evidence that all Hispanics didn't.
He didn't parson it out.
It was all Hispanics don't care about their image in the United States.
That's why they're all using steroids, he said.
And this same sports, is the same sportscaster who criticized white Christians over 50.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
So now you got this.
Your point is that somebody in ESPN has just accused all Latinos, all Hispanics in baseball being on steroids and not caring about their image.
Because they're going to move back to the Dominican Republic or Panama or wherever they came from, and they don't read American newspapers, so they don't care about their image.
And he did go to the Patriots locker room, and I'm not sure where he went with the Hernandez thing, but he said he doesn't care about his image.
He made no sense with that one.
But he was just tying in any Hispanic he could.
Okay, and so you're wondering how this guy can get away with this.
Oh, absolutely.
Absolutely, Rush, because if it were you that said it, or if it were Mitt Romney that said it, or if it were Chris Christie that said it, you know already exactly what would be happening in the media.
Well, who is it?
Well, if you don't mind me saying, it's Colin Collard.
And I, you know, he's got great insight on sports.
Colin Coward is saying this kind of stuff.
Yes, sir.
It blew me away.
Let me just.
Don, let me let me.
There are, well, I'm running a risk here.
I didn't hear any of this.
So I've just, I've got to take your word for it.
There are.
Let me tell you a story.
When I left Kansas City after having worked in baseball for five years, and I was going to give radio one more shot, and I had this opportunity to go to Sacramento.
They took me aside and they said, look, we don't mind controversy here.
We'll back you up as long as you don't just say things to make people mad.
If you say things that you don't believe just to be provocative, we're not going to back you up.
But if what you're talking about is something you really passionately believe and people find it controversial, that's a whole different thing.
And, of course, I never have been inclined to just say outrageous things to get noticed or to tick people off.
That may be what's going on here.
I don't know.
And maybe he really believes it.
Who knows?
That's always a possibility, too.
But as far as ESPN and how people are treated differently, that's life.
It's world.
People are allowed to say, certain people are allowed to say all kinds of things and they never have anything come back at them.
The main reason is nobody really cares when certain people say things.
When other people say things, it matters because people are effective and all that.
So I don't know.
Having not heard this myself, it's tough to actually weigh in on it.
But I think this, if I'm not mistaken, I think he said this about Ortiz or insinuated the steroid usage countless times before.
This is something not exclusive, by the way, to ESPN.
And this is, speaking of this, let me give you one little observation here.
Have you noticed, folks, that nobody, in the case of Tony Bosch, the guy who ran the biogenesis place that A-Rod got his stuff?
Have you noticed nobody is saying if Bosch is telling the truth?
All the Republicans are saying, if Christie's telling the truth, he's home free, man.
He's right in there, and we love him.
And he's gotten through the big worst part of it, if he's telling the truth.
But nobody's saying that about Bosch, the A-Rod accuser.
Nobody is saying if he's telling the truth.
Because every, I think, believes it.
What's the question?
Well, Snurdly said, why do we care if A-Rod took anything to make him better?
Why do we, interestingly, Bosch, you should have seen, did you see this last night?
60?
Scott Pelley did the interview.
And Scott Pelly is saying, but Mr. Bosch, don't you realize that what you did is an insult to the notion of fair play?
Doesn't that concern you?
Doesn't that bother you at all?
And Bosch said, what do you mean, fair play?
Let's talk about fair play.
Okay, so you got A-Rod here, and he's juicing.
And he knows the pitcher throwing him 95 miles an hour is juicing.
How's he supposed to compete?
He knows that whoever's going to feel the flyball he has a center feel is juicing.
So Bosch's point was, well, what is A-Rod supposed to do when everybody else in the game is juicing?
If that's what you have to do to stay competitive.
And then Pelley said, well, but not everybody is juicing.
And Bosch said, you'd be surprised.
He said, this has always gone on.
Players have always sought a competitive advantage, either in the workout room or with whatever they think they're drinking, nutrition drinks or whatever.
They're always trying to do this kind of stuff.
And Pelly said, but this was against the rules of baseball.
Didn't you find yourself worried that you were helping people break the rules of baseball?
Come on, everybody's breaking the rules of baseball.
This is base.
I love baseball.
This is what it is.
Now, see your question, why do people, the fans, it's interesting.
The sports media has been on this doping business for the longest time, and the attendance is going through the roof.
Well, if I don't know the fans approve so much as they don't care or whatever, some do.
But it's a touchy thing with some people because some are like you, Snerdley.
Everybody's doing it.
It doesn't matter.
They're just trying to get better.
And if it's their body, if they want to do with it, if they want to suffer consequences later, what the hell?
In the meantime, if I want to watch the incredible Hulk at the plate, I want to watch the Incredible Hulk.
I don't care.
No, women own their own bodies.
Women are the only ones that own their own bodies.
Men do not own their own bodies.
Snerdley just said, I thought we owned our own body.
No, no, no.
Only women.
Roe versus Wade is only about women.
That's the concept that women own their bodies and nobody can tell them what to do, except, well, we do when it comes to prostitution.
We do have laws against that.
So we do tell women outside of abortion, there are certain things you can't do with your body.
Elliot Spitzer didn't care, but we do tell them.
But men do not have that privacy.
You mean doctor-patient confidentiality?
Well, but Dr. Juice, I don't think, was a doctor.
He was just, he became an expert in this stuff, but he was not a licensed doctor.
But he was advising A-Rod when to take the stuff to avoid being discovered in testing and this kind of stuff.
I mean, the point, A-Rod's texting him during games and aftergames.
Well, it's rules of baseball, Snerdley, and they're trying to clean up the game because ever since the Sammy Selsa, Maguire, Barry Bonsera, all the records have been distorted and so forth.
And there's a big blip there in asterisk.
And, I mean, you have to be impressed with the fact there's some people trying to maintain some standards here.
Anyway, I just, I got to take a quick timeout, folks.
You sit tight.
We'll be right back after this.
Don't go away.
Half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair.
Here is Mark in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Great to have you on the program.
Hi.
Hi, Rush.
How are you doing?
Just fine, sir.
Thank you.
Listen, thanks for that retrospective on Clarence Thomas.
I appreciate that.
Thank you, sir.
Yeah, that was just terrific.
Listen, question.
If Christie is cleared of the bridge incident, can we expect the New York Times to endorse him as the next Republican candidate for president?
Interesting thought.
But will he ever be cleared?
Or will there always be a lingering doubt about that?
I'm talking about as far as the way the media reports this.
Yeah, the never-ending story, huh?
Yeah, I mean, how can they ever really prove that he didn't know?
They can't read it.
There's a great opportunity here.
They have a great opportunity to pair this in parallel with John McCain and what they did to essentially help selecting our candidate for president.
I don't consider myself a Republican any longer.
I consider myself a staunch conservative.
And so I really thank you for creating what I consider the greatest radio program in broadcasting history to try to basically resurrect our principles of liberty and free market capitalism.
I do so much appreciate listening to you every day and knowing what kind of an effort you must put forth in order to do this every day.
Wow.
I really appreciate that.
I can't thank you enough.
That's a great birthday present.
I really do appreciate that.
As for Christie, don't forget, they are afraid of him.
You and I may think they're crazy, but they've got two polls, and they live and die by these things.
And that show Christie, the only Republican beating Hillary.
So they are palpably frightened by the guy.
Well, if I say so myself, it's a pretty rousing start to the busy broadcast week.
You sit tight, my friends.
There's 21 hours are going to go by, and we will be right back at it again.
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