It's a delight to have you here, Rush Limbaugh and the EIB network.
A telephone number, if you want to be on the program, is 800-282-2882.
And the email address, lrushbaugh at EIBnet.com.
We've been doing a little investigating.
He had a caller from Queens earlier by the name of Marie upset that George W. Bush's name not mentioned at the dedication today of the 9-11 Museum.
She was also upset that he wasn't there, thought that he should be mentioned, thought that he should be there.
The president's office issued a statement saying that they were invited, scheduling conflict.
And one of the former president's spokesmen, a guy by the name of Scherzer, said that the president has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight.
That's David Scherzer.
He added that Bush continues to celebrate with all Americans this important victory in the war on terror.
Here's an excerpt from the statement that the office released.
It will honor the sacrifice of those who lost their lives, the bravery of those who saved others, and it'll help the museum.
It will help ensure that our nation remembers the lessons of September 11th.
That what happens abroad can affect us here at home, that evil is real, and that courage and love triumph over terror and hate.
Hmm.
That's a good lesson.
It doesn't surprise me that President Bush would not show up, given the statement of David Scherzer.
He's chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight.
I can't tell you the number of times, and I was fortunate to be invited to the White House a few times.
I spent a lot of time with President Bush for just an average citizen.
And I asked him a lot, you know, why don't you respond to some of this?
Some of this criticism is not just affecting you.
It's affecting all the people that voted for you and supported you.
And every time I asked him, he said, variation on the theme, that he had such reverence for the office that he was not going to diminish it by taking it political.
He wasn't going to go where his critics were, be it the gutter or wherever.
But he viewed it to be beneath the office.
All of his critics were beneath the office.
He wasn't going to go there.
And the one thing that you can say about George W. Bush is that he's well-mannered.
He was well-raised.
And there are some traditions and protocols that he's just not going to violate.
And one of them is when you leave office, you're gone.
You don't stay public.
You don't continue to try to influence things.
This is what he believes.
He believes that's the right thing to do.
And I firmly believe that's why, besides the scheduling conflict, that he thought it best not to go.
His time has come and passed in terms of being president.
Now, contrast that with Bill Clinton, who still can't get over the fact that he's not there, meaning in the White House, and desperately wants to get back.
And I believe when I heard that Barack Obama plans to live in Washington after his term of office expires, if it does, that told me a lot.
No president stays in town.
All decamp.
They all leave.
They go back somewhere.
But Obama is going to stay there.
And there's one reason why.
He's not going to sit quietly by.
Let's say there's a Republican elected president.
He's not going to sit quietly by and let whatever he thinks he's accomplished be unraveled.
He's going to be speaking up often about what he disagrees with.
And he knows he's going to have the media in his back pocket.
And that is what Bush refuses to do.
Will not do it.
It's kind of frustrating in a way.
He will not do it.
He will not offer one word of criticism for any previous president.
Not Clinton, not Obama.
He simply will not insert himself into these affairs.
Even if achievements he thinks that he was responsible for are attacked and unread.
He won't do it because of his view of the office and the protocols and the traditions and being well-mannered.
That's all part of it.
So that statement doesn't really surprise me.
Frustrates a lot of people, as it did our first caller, Marie, from Queens.
All right, I got a note during the break.
Dear Rush, so the Dolphins have fined and suspended a player for tweeting a negative comment about a staged event in a reality show.
Is that what happened here, Rush?
The guy sent me the note and said, wait a minute, Oprah's cameras were in there when the kiss happened?
Oprah's, there's a reality show being filmed or taped at that supposed spontaneous moment.
So this Dolphins player who tweeted whatever he tweeted, oh my God, and horrible, has been sent away to re-education training, sensitivity training, re-education camp, because he reacted to a staged event.
That's what I mean by when you find out cameras are someplace that the reality show is being taped.
But it's odd.
The NFL is not going to tolerate any negativity, disagreement, anything contrary from within its own ranks about the Michael Sam story.
They're just not.
And it's, I tell you, sending people away to sensitivity training and re-education camp, that just creeps me out.
Well, I don't know what goes on at re-training camp, sensitivity training, re-education camp.
I don't know if you have to watch videos of what you find horrible.
I don't know if you have.
I have no clue.
I haven't been sent yet.
Yet.
But this.
Well, I'm sure you do.
I'm sure you have to take tests.
You've got to prove to them that you've got your mind right.
How do you, I mean, you've got to get out of there somehow.
They don't just put you in there.
I don't even know how long it is.
Is it a week?
Is it six weeks?
Is it the rest of your life?
Well, how long is the retraining, re-education, sensitivity training go on?
Now, TMZ says that Michael Sam had already been taping the Oprah show for weeks before he was even drafted.
Now, this was not announced until yesterday.
Nobody knew about this outside the people involved until yesterday.
So, folks, there's some deceit here.
I don't know if it matters to you or not, but there's some deceit.
People wanted you to believe that all this is instantaneous, spontaneous.
We now find out that it's all part of a reality show.
An Oprah reality show, which might make it okay.
Explains the crying.
That's the one thing it does.
Oprah's cameras there explains the crying.
I mean, that's practically automatic.
So, I don't know.
And there's this whole story here: Michael Sam's reality show deal with Oprah.
This is TMZ, Michael Sam getting a Lindsey Lohan treatment, as in the openly gay football player getting his own reality show on Oprah's network.
The show produced by the same people at the Lindsey Lohan show will chronicle Sam's journey into the NFL.
And we're told right here, Sam has already been taping the show for weeks.
Now, we're told that Oprah's crew was in the room when Sam learned he'd been drafted by the Rams and clearly knew that all that was happening in there would be on reality TV.
All fine and dandy.
All fine.
And I'm not, folks, I've just more the better of this.
But I just, I'm.
I remember everybody involved here saying, hey, this is not about anything but Michael Sam the football player.
That's all that we're focused on here.
And it's not all that Oprah is focused on.
It's far more than just Sam the football player.
Anyway, in addition, flying up to New York yesterday, and the TV had ESPN on it.
One of the TVs had ESP in it.
I haven't watched ESPN since the football season ended.
So I didn't recognize anybody.
Any of the new anchors and anchorettes.
But I saw a story NFL set to loosen marijuana policy.
Well, I did a double take, and I vowed to look that story up.
I mean, these guys, there have been players suspended substance abuse provisions in the NFL, suspended for using pot.
Now, players, for the longest time, have been asking for these relaxation, the relaxation of these strident restrictions, because they say smoking pot is much more effective in dealing with pain than some of the other things that they're given and use.
And it's just, it's one of the best ways to get the body ready to go for next Sunday.
So the new NFL substance abuse policy will reduce the penalty for positive marijuana tests and it'll make it easier for players to pass uranalysis screenings by increasing the amount of chemicals in the system that would trigger a positive result, according to ESPN.
The report comes on the heels of word that Josh Gordon, the league's leading receiver, popped positive again for marijuana.
A repeat offender, Gordon, faces a year's suspension.
The new policy would not cover old infractions, such as this guy.
This guy plays for the Browns, so he's not going to get out of it.
Well, everybody's asking, what if you play for Denver or Seattle?
Because state of Washington and Colorado, pot's legal.
Well, I think if you say you're a visiting team, let's say that you're the St. Louis Rams go into Denver.
I don't think that you can just hop over to the marijuana store and buy some.
You have to be a resident.
You've got to show an ID card.
You have to show a driver's license or some sort of ID proving you live in Colorado before they can sell it to you.
Is that not right?
Is that right?
They got who coming in to do it?
Well, then I am misinformed because I thought last year, during the football season last year, you know, this happened during the playoffs.
And I forget it was the Patriots.
There was a playoff game between the Patriots, and there was a lot of speculation in the media, some of the Patriots players are going to hop over to the dope store.
And the story said they can't because you have to prove you're a Colorado resident before they can sell it to you.
Buy it.
And you're telling me anybody can go in there now?
Well, I'm going to have to dig deep on this because that is at strict variance with what I remember hearing and reading back last January during the playoff.
But wait a minute.
Forget all that.
Forget all that.
Just NFL set to loosen pot policy.
What does that just by itself say?
Well, Snerdley says they don't care much about it now.
I don't, but it's more than that.
It's an admission that they can't police it.
Or it's an admission they don't find anything wrong with it or find less wrong with it.
I don't know.
The whole thing is, it's like it says the policy signals a shift in NFL philosophy on the drug issue, articulated by the Commissioner Roger Goodell as recently as last January.
In response to a question at his pre-Super Bowl address in Manhattan about the NFL possibly catching up to state law where the Seahawks and the Broncos play, Goodell said that pot was an illegal substance on a national basis with questionable benefits and certainly some very strong evidence of the negative effects.
He also revealed that like the league's players, the league's commissioner faces your analysis tests.
He says, I'm randomly tested.
I have to say that I'm clean.
Well, now all that's gone.
They're relaxing.
So that means you can do some, but you can do more than you used to be able.
You can test for higher amounts than you used to be able to, but there's still a limit beyond which you can't go.
Does anybody?
I mean, I don't have any experience in marijuana.
Way back, I mean, once when I was, I remember, it had to be in the 70s, Kansas City, so I guess got nauseous.
That's all I remember about it.
But does anybody, I mean, does cultural disintegration cross anybody's mind when we hear this?
Or am I just an old fuddy duddy on that?
I guess I'm a little fuddy-duddy.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't have any experience with this to know at all.
All right, here it is.
Who can buy pot?
Colorado.
Colorado residents 21 and older can buy one ounce of weed at a time.
Out-of-state residents can purchase only a quarter of an ounce.
Just means you have to go back four times as often as a resident.
But you can still get what you want.
You remember last week or the week before, when you talk about the cultural disintegration here, I told you there's a name you would all know.
I'm not going to mention it because it was a private conversation.
You'd all know this name.
Very, very powerful, powerful name in American media.
He said to me, I have never seen democracy fall so fast as what's happening in America.
And what he meant by democracy was just the culture and capitalism in the American way.
He's never seen it crumble as fast.
Something everybody alive worries about because everybody thinks we're in the last days.
Well, not everybody, but every generation has people in it.
It's never been worse.
This is it.
It's the end times or what have you.
This guy's not one of those people.
He says, I have never seen democracy fall so fast.
And he didn't mean voting and representation.
Democracy is his catch-all word for culture, America, morality, and all of that.
And I also remember, you remember Eric Holder, the Attorney General, sued the state of Arizona when they came up with their own immigration law because the feds were not enforcing immigration at all.
What did Eric Holder say?
We can't have a patchwork quilt of immigration laws.
We can't permit that.
But I guess we can have a patchwork quilt of marijuana law.
I guess that is perfectly fine.
Okay, Mesa, Arizona.
Speaking of which, here's John, you're next on the EIB network.
John, thank you for waiting.
Great to have you on the program.
Hey, Rush, how are you doing?
Fine, sir.
Thank you.
Hey, I was listening a long time ago to your show where I found out that you've been doing a lot of fundraising for blood cancer research.
And ever since then, I've been trying to call in and actually thank you because I have multiple myeloma.
And I was diagnosed two and a half years ago and treatment is going fantastic.
I was, at the time I was diagnosed, my myeloma cells were 70% in my marrow, and now it's down to 1%.
Holy, that is excellent.
Yeah, yeah.
Next month, I'm going to be doing the stem cell transplant, which my oncologist and the transplant specialist is saying that they're very confident that's going to put me in remission.
So that would not have been possible all that long ago.
There's been a tremendous amount of progress, research and all that made.
No, it's not.
And exactly that.
That's what I was going to say.
That's what I was going to say, too, is that the drug I'm on was FDA approved in 2003, and it has since become the primary treatment for multiple myeloma.
And it's just doing fantastic work, not only for me, but for other people as well.
It's just doing fantastic, you know.
So I just wanted to call you and thank you for your part in that.
Don't thank me.
I mean, thank the audience.
This audience has come through with almost $35 or $40 million over the years.
It's incredible.
And it started somewhat small.
Keeps building and building every year.
But that's great.
I'm sure everybody appreciates that.
But more than that, we're happy that this is all working for you.
That's just tremendous.
I'm glad that you called, John.
Thank you much.
Half of my brain tied behind my back in order to do battle fairly, equally, and equitably with my inferiors.
El Rushbo, behind a golden EIB microphone, 800-282-2882.
So I was reading a blog last night, Hot Air.
There was a post by A la Pundit.
And it is about a video that is at PJ TV, PJ Media, PJ TV.
And it's a video that it's posted by someone named Michelle Fields.
And she went on, she asked a bunch of people, young people and otherwise, about Mrs. Clinton, about how enthusiastic they were about her.
And it's scary.
It's kind of funny, but it's scary because these people readily acknowledge they don't know anything about, they can't name one achievement.
They can't, when asked to name anything she did, Secretary of State, they draw a blank.
And yet they are enthusiastic about her becoming president.
And you know why?
Because she would be the first woman.
And I saw this and I remembered all the times I have cautioned you to be on the lookout.
And one of the reasons why Mrs. Clinton is back in the mix is because of gender.
And if it isn't Mrs. Clinton, the Democrats are going to go for an Hispanic because they see what they have pulled off here with Obama.
The first African-American president beyond criticism.
You can't criticize anything.
You can't chronicle his failures.
You can't do anything because you're being racist.
And the Democrats have learned this, probably knew it, didn't have to learn it.
So if you get Hillary in there, first female president, any criticism of her will be sexist.
And if it's an Hispanic, the first Hispanic president, any criticism will be racist again and whatever else.
And then if they elect the first gay president, and any criticism will be homophobic.
And this video, these are, let's see, it is.
Well, there's a kid that's writing his thesis about Hillary in this video.
And Benghazi, this guy thinks Benghazi is one of her big achievements.
He's the one guy that was able to answer the question about her achievements.
The point is, the point is, these are young people, and the fact that she would be the first female president is all that matters.
The fact that she's not qualified, the fact that they can't name a single achievement doesn't matter to them.
And again, where are they getting this?
This has to be part of what they are learning in formal education.
Identity politics is such a major aspect of the liberal leftist Democrat agenda.
It is the most important thing.
These are the people that claim to be colorblind.
They claimed, and they are the most racist.
They're the most sexist.
These are the people that only see the surface of people.
And then they claim to know everything about somebody just from the color of their skin or from their sexual orientation or from their national origin or what have you.
It's just stunning.
And of course, this kind of thing is being, maybe not even subtly, just maybe even right between the eyes, taught that this country needs to elect a female president because we're illegitimate and immoral.
And we've been sexist and we have been racist and we discriminate against minorities.
And so electing the first African Americans.
Great things about it.
Oh, we're such good people.
And electing the first female.
Oh, we're even better.
Look at our achievements.
Look at how we're advancing as a culture.
And this is the kind of stuff that's being taught.
And so you boil it down here and that the only and greatest achievement Hillary Clinton has is her gender, being female.
Now, this is not everybody, obviously.
It's just primarily young people.
But it dovetails with it's predictable.
Everything about what these people are going to do is predictable.
If you look at someone and you only see their race, that's what makes you racist.
If you look at somebody and only see their gender, that makes you sexist.
And that's who these people are.
They are the prime perps.
In my humble opinion.
Tom in Andover, Ohio.
Thank you for calling.
It's nice to have you with us.
Hello.
Good afternoon, Rush.
Pleasure speaking with you.
It's an honor, actually.
Thank you.
I am a first-time caller, but I am a long-time listener, and forgive me for being very nervous.
Well, you don't sound it, so just don't even think about it.
Well, actually, this call is more of an impulse call.
I heard you talking about Harry Reid in the Alzheimer's defense or the...
However, regardless of what you term, however you term it, I think it's a classic Democratic defense, which is to deflect, and in this case, to deflect from the IRS Benghazi.
And Harry Reid, I believe he's reaching the end of his term.
Well, you know, you know, you have a good point, Cigar.
You got a good point because you're saying, don't let this guy off the hook.
He's a reprobate.
He's complicit in all this stuff.
Don't let him chalk it up until he doesn't know what he's doing because you believe he does.
It's calculated, it's purposeful, and he is intending to hurt people.
And I believe he's prepared to fall his sword for the progressive cause.
And when the results of the two 2014 elections happen, and he's on the losing end of that, then he's going to come, or his defenders are going to come along and say he's a sick man.
You can't punish him.
Be nice to him because you're going to offend all the people who truly do have mental problems or mental disorders.
Yeah.
You may have a point.
You may have a point.
I'll tell you, I will, let me ask you a question.
And there's no wrong answer here.
It's not a trick.
Because I'm asking it of myself, too.
You look at these old Democrats like Harry Reid.
To me, I never really, until he became majority leader, he replaced Tom Daschell.
And I thought the reason they put him in there was because he's soft-spoken like Daschell was.
I mean, Tom Daschell, all he ever said was, we're really concerned, Tim.
We're terribly concerned over whatever the Republicans were doing.
We're just terribly concerned.
Dingy Harry soft smoke.
And therefore, he does not convey the genuine viciousness and mean-spiritedness of these people.
He hides behind his barely audible voice.
But that's not the question.
The question is, are you like me?
I have been surprised at the number of what I just thought were standard, ordinary, run-of-the-mill Democrats, how in truth, They're not standard ordinary run-of-the-mill.
These are far-left, extremist, full-fledged statists and fascists.
I've been admittedly surprised that how all it took was Obama being elected, and these people were unleashed.
It's like they've been holding back all these years.
I've known who they are.
I've known what a liberal is.
Don't misunderstand.
But these people, they're not hiding anymore.
They're not hiding behind camouflage other than at election time now and then.
They are just full-throated.
They don't like much about this country, and they're out to totally redo it, remake it, refashion it, get rid of the Constitution.
And I'm just stunned.
I thought these old guys were just Robert Strauss kind of Democrats.
I believe these people, Harry Reid included, were, if you want to relate it to like individual selves throughout the country.
Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Eric Halder, they're all just sitting back waiting their time.
And then when Obama gets elected, they've all mobilized like they've had this going on all along.
Yeah, that's the thing.
They have always been radicals, genuine radicals, and it was Obama's election that caused them to surface and put it on open display.
And you've got a good point about not letting Dingy off the hook.
And I was only joking anyway.
The reason I was joking is because he is over the edge in this Koch brothers stuff.
I mean, even when you go look at a list of donors, the Koch brothers are 59 behind unions, and there are all kinds of people who give far more money than the Koch brothers do.
And yet they are responsible for global warming.
They single-handedly are doing whatever Dingy Harry thinks is wrong.
So they clearly stand for something.
He's trying to create them as the icons for a whole lot of people, but he's just gone so overboard with it.
Maybe not.
Maybe the left, you have to allow for this.
Maybe they are so far gone that all it takes is some loony bin like Harry Reid blaming them for global warming, and half the Twitter verse believes it.
It's a scary thing to admit that about so many people in the country being so dumb.
You really don't want to think of it that way.
But then you saw the poll yesterday, 4%, only 4% think they're below average.
What did that tell us?
I mean, that was a lot.
Here you go from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Heavy hitters, top all-time donors, 1989 to 2014.
The top 10.
The top 10 political donors, 1989 to 2014, are unions.
I don't know about the first one.
It might not be a union.
It's ACT Blue Democrat Pact, $97 million.
American Federation, state, county, municipal employees, $60 million.
NEA, $53 million.
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, $44 million.
United Auto Workers, $41 million.
Carpenters and Joiners Union, $39 million.
Service Employees International, $38 million.
Look at that.
There's a lot of union dues in there that make up.
That's an incalculable amount of money.
So the top 10, number 10, is the SEIU.
The Koch brothers are at number 59 with $18 million.
And the number 10 donor is at 38 million.
Number one is at 97 million from 1989 to the present.
And just about every one of the 58 donors above the Kokes gave to the Democrats.
And the Kokes used to give to Democrats, by the way, at some point in this reporting period.
Let's see what it's going to do.
Oh, grab this.
Somebody number three.
I want to thank the Fox and Friends people today.
They acknowledged the Author of the Year award that I received last night at the Children's Book Council.
Rush Limbaugh named children's book Author of the Year.
He was awarded the honor by the Children's Book Council, despite liberals being outraged.
He was even nominated.
Take that.
Good job, Rush.
And his book, Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims, is the reason why he got that award.
Good job.
Way to go, El Rushbo.
That was Brian Kilmead and Steve Doocy.
Where's the award?
The award's out in my car.
I forget.
It's on the front.
It's in the passenger side backseat of the car.
I'll go get it.
I just got asked if I'm going to be taxed.
Well, I mean, there's going to be a record of me being in New York.
Let's see, 6 o'clock.
I'll be in New York for about 6 hours.
But it is not work.
Is this work?
Going up and getting an award?
You wait.
They'll say it was.
There was no cash award.
No, there's no cash award.
It's just an award.
It's a plaque.
It's a really nice glass plaque.
I'll go get it at the top of the hour.
And people have, I've been resisting this, but I'm being inundated with requests to replay my acceptance speech.
So I guess I'll do that now following this.
It's just two minutes, 10 seconds.
They gave us two-minute limit, and I came in at 2.10.
This is unexpected, but it's a thrill.
On behalf of Rush Revere and his talking horse liberty time traveling, I want to thank all the children who voted and who've read the books.
And I have to tell you how they came about.
The late Vince Flynn, noted thriller author, had been after me to write another book I'd written to previously way back in the early 90s.
And it was one of those things.
I said, ah, Vince, I've done that.
Not really excited about doing it.
He kept pushing me, and he kept pushing me to do it.
Finally, my wife, Catherine, said, you know, you really care about history.
You care about people learning American history and about kids learning American history.
Why don't you write some kids' books?
Why don't you try that?
And that lit my fire because I've never done that before.
That was a new challenge.
That was something to try.
And it was invigorating.
And it was something about which I'm very, very passionate.
I love America.
I wish everybody did.
I hope everybody will.
It's one of the most fascinating stories of human history.
This country and what it has meant to the world and what it means to citizens who live here.
And it's a delight and it's an opportunity to try to share that story with young people so that they can grow and learn to love and appreciate the country in which they're growing up and will someday run and lead and inherit.
So I want to thank everybody that's made this possible.
That genuinely is a thrill.
This is a tremendous event.
I'm so honored by this.
I'm honored to be here among all of you and all of the other nominees for this and the other categories.
It's just a wonderful evening, and I thank everybody who had anything to do, particularly the kids who voted in every category.
It is a great project that you have going here: children's literacy, and to expand it.
And the organization and the work that you're doing is just profound, and I'm honored and humbled to be a small little part of it.
Thank you all very much.
This is tremendous.
So that you'll note that Cookie didn't edit the applause.
Well, she edited a little bit there, but that was last night in New York City at the Children's Choice Book Awards put on by the Children's Book Council.
And I must take a brief time out.
By the way, I've got some soundbites coming.
I know we haven't talked about Boko Haram today, but we will.
I mean, it's one of those things, there's nothing left to be said, at least by me.
I've covered it.
You know everything there is to know, but there's some interesting soundbites on that.
And some of the media chat about Jill Abramson getting the axe at the New York Times is entertaining too.
Whoa, hey, hey, hey, hell.
Interesting story here.
Joe Concha writing it mediaite headline: Michael Sam's reality show could help end his NFL career before it starts.
Here's the pull quote: So now Sam has a big decision to make.
Cut ties with Oprah or risk making the team.
It's not like the Rams have a pressing need at defensive end, and they don't.
They're well stocked at the positions that Sam plays, the position he plays.
His point here is that a reality show, the NFL team don't want that.
So it might be a convenient reason for the Rams to cut him in mediaite.