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May 23, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:50
May 23, 2014, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Oh my God.
Get the vapors.
Get the vapors, folks.
It's Shelly.
Shelly Sterling is going to sell a clippers.
It's going to happen.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Live from the left post at our satellite studios in Los Angeles.
It's open line Friday.
Wow, wow!
Folks, I don't know if we can do the whole three hours today.
They're actually going to make it happen.
See, Sterling, he transferred a team over to her, and she said she's going to sell it.
She's talking to the commissioner now.
But she's not going to sell it unless she's in total control.
She's not going to take a bath on it or with it.
So you can expect this is going to be the big news of the day.
And how long before Magic shows up somewhere?
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
Great to have you.
Rush Limbaugh wrapping up another exciting broadcast week with Open Line Friday.
We are here in Southern California today to wrap it up.
And it's great to have you.
Open Line Friday, pretty much whatever you want to talk about is fair game.
It's a little bit different than Monday through Thursday, where we have a process to tightly screen callers based on the things that are in the news or things that I care about.
I mean, let's face it.
When's the last time you heard anybody?
I'm just going to be honest here.
A little inside baseball.
When is the last time?
And I don't want anybody to be insulted by this, but it is what it is.
When's the last time you ever heard anybody say, man, I love that show?
The callers on that show, man, are just, it never happens, right?
If the host isn't any good, you're not there.
And if the host is boring, you're not going to be excited.
And if the host is bored by callers talking about things he doesn't care about, then it's tough.
But that's the risk, see, I take on Friday.
Monday through Thursday, got to talk about things I care about, keep me interested.
Remember now, the purpose of callers is to make the host, me, look good.
But, I mean, it's not, as I used to point out many, many moons ago in the early days of the program, there really is no First Amendment here.
I am a benevolent dictator.
There is no right to speak per se on this program.
However, I do invite you.
When you get through, you're treated more politely here than you will be anywhere.
Even if you lie, you will be hung up on politely.
Nobody will ever know you've been hung up on except you.
It's a technique we've perfected over the years.
But see, on Friday, all of those safeguards are cast aside.
And I run the risk of being bored by every caller.
So what I have to do is gut it up if I happen to get a call about something I don't care about.
And since the open invitation, and it's an opportunity.
If you want to talk about something that hasn't been discussed, you think, or a point of view that hasn't been made, or if you have questions or comments, this is the day.
Telephone number again, 800-282-2882, the email address, lrushbo at eibnet.com.
Shelly Sterling.
Oh my God, I can't believe it, folks.
And you should hear Geraldo on this.
This news has made me totally change the order in which I was going to play the audio soundbites.
I guess what we ought to do now is start with Mark Cuban.
I was going to do that later on, but what I was going to, because what I really want to get to is Geraldo.
That's where this is ultimately leading.
But I also, what I was going to start with, we've got news.
The hashtag campaign apparently has failed and Charlie Rose doesn't understand it.
He can't understand why the kidnapped girls aren't back yet.
Yeah.
And Chuck Hagel says, well, what the hell are you talking about?
We can't do this without boots on the ground.
So people really thought the hashtag was going to work.
Anyway, so we'll start with Mark Cuban, outspoken owner.
A reading here from Reuters.
Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner to Dallas Mavericks, yesterday defended comments he made about race and bigotry when asked at a business conference to address the controversy over Donald Sterling.
Cuban has come under fire on social media for his statements in a pre-recorded interview shown on Wednesday at the GrowCo convention hosted by Inc magazine.
You remember how some people were mocked for predicting that other NBA owners would be under the microscope?
And now they are.
And here's what, this is not in context, but this is what Cuban said.
Well, here, grab it.
It's Audio Soundbite 9.
And this is, again, it's Wednesday.
This is from the Inc. magazine website.
They posted an interview with Cuban.
And during the interview, he talked about prejudice and racism.
Now, with everything going on, why would you even go there?
But he did, and this is what he said.
We're all prejudiced in one way or the other.
If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street.
And if on that side of the street there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face, white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere, I'm walking back to the other side of the street.
Well, I'd stay in the street if it were me, but, I mean, that's just a – I wonder if I will become the story now that I said that.
So anyway, social media went nuts.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
He's insulting blacks.
And then people say, how could you do that?
Don't you remember Trayvon Martin is wearing a hoodie?
Don't you realize you've upset Trayvon Martin's family?
And Cuban was contrite.
He totally forgot about that.
And they, there's more to this interview.
Let's listen to one more bite here before we comment on it.
I know that I live in a glass house and it's not appropriate for me to throw stones.
And so when I run into bigotry and organizations I control, I try to find solutions.
I'll work with people.
I'll send them to training.
I'll send them to sensitivity training.
I'll try to give them a chance to improve themselves.
It does my company no good.
It does my customers no good.
It does society no good if my response to somebody and their racism or bigotry is to say, it's not right for you to be here.
Go take your attitude somewhere else.
Okay, so let's go back to if I see a black kid in a hoodie late at night walking to the other side of the street.
And if on that side of the street there's a guy that's got tattoos all over his face, white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere, I'm walking back to the other side of the street.
Now, what he should do or should have done is say that he misspoke.
And what he really meant to say was this.
There's nothing more painful for me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start to think about robbery and then look around and see it's somebody white and feel relieved.
That's what he should have said.
Sounds familiar to you?
You think you've heard that before?
It is exactly right.
The Reverend Dax said that back in 1993, and nobody tried to shake down his organization because of that, nor did they after he called New York Hymy Town.
And then back to Cuban, critics said that his hoodie reference recalled the 2012 shooting of the unarmed black Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, the would-be son of President Obama, who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt when he was fatally wounded in a struggle with a man who said he feared for his life.
How can you fear for your life just because you were having your head pounded into the sidewalk?
Why would that make you fear for your life?
Anyway, Cuban then offered contrition.
Those of you in Riolina means he said he was sorry for the comment, but he stood by his words and the substance of the interview.
He said, in hindsight, I should have used different examples.
I didn't consider the Trayvon Martin family, and I apologize to them for that.
He put that on Twitter.
You got me, why?
But it's hoodie.
I'm telling you, we can't say hoodie now.
We got to say the H-word.
From now on, hoodie is the H-word.
You can't say it.
He apologized for using the word hoodie.
So a guy walking on one side of the street, black with a hoodie.
Uh-oh, I'm going to the other side of the street.
Then he encounters, you know, the guy he's describing as a neo-Nazi white skinhead, the bald head tattoos here.
He said, uh-oh, gotta say, I'm gonna head back to the other side of the street.
I would stay in the street if it were me, but he went back to the other side of the street.
And the hoodie thing is what ticked everybody off here because it was insensitive to the family of Trayvon Martin.
So it looks like we have to strike hoodie from the English language or at least shorten it and call it, refer to it now as the H word.
Now, let's see.
We're up to soundbite 11.
Yes, we have a montage here, ladies and gentlemen, of noted media figures immediately coming to Mark Cuban's defense, admit, hey, he's a good liberal.
He's down for the struggle.
We know he's not a racist, but he is now officially under suspicion.
We know Cuban and we like Cuban.
I don't see the offense here.
Mark Cuban, who is known not to be a racist.
The Mark Cuban that I know has never, ever come across to me as a racist.
He is not a committed racist.
When you meet a real racist, you know it.
You're not a racist for bringing up the topic.
He was engaging what the kids call real talk.
I think it was politically incorrect.
I don't think that it could be interpreted as racist.
No one I've talked to is putting Mark Cuban in the Donald Sterling category.
I'm not sure about this.
I should look this up before.
I'm going to go ahead and take the flyer.
I'll take the flyer.
You look up the word racist.
I don't think it includes words.
I think it requires action.
But that could, my memory could be faulty on that.
I'll double check.
But in the meantime, so the media clearly knows a good liberal.
He's down for the struggle.
He's not a racist.
But now they're going to be on guard.
They're going to be officially on guard to protect us and the rest of society from what could be a potential trip down the wrong road.
So this led Fox to call on Geraldo Rivera on Fox and Friends Today.
Even though there's not a dead body in this story yet, Fox went to Geraldo.
They pulled him out of there.
And he was on with Clayton Morris, who said, look, a lot of the media jumped on Cuban.
They called him a racist, said he should apologize.
What do you make of it all, Geraldo?
Mark Cuban stole his line from me during the Trayvon Martin murder case.
If you'll recall, I got in a lot of hot water when I suggested that the hoodie that the youngster was wearing that night killed him as much as George Zimmerman because it fit the stereotype.
We definitely have a race reaction.
It doesn't make us racist.
There is a racial reality when it comes to law and order, crime and punishment that is undeniable.
It's not that Mark Cuban invented it.
It's not that George Zimmerman or Geraldo Rivera invented it.
It is the reality.
But still, Cuban stole the line from Geraldo.
First thing out of Geraldo, he stole that line from me, the hoodie line.
And then you go on, it's not racist.
Mark Cuban didn't invent it.
George Zimmerman, Geraldo didn't invent it.
It's a racial reality when it comes to reality and so forth.
And Geraldo then wanted to continue on this line of discussion.
If I'm not mistaken, every owner in the NBA is Jewish.
I mean, I may be wrong about that, but I think that that is real.
And you have 80% of the players are African American.
I think that this controversy is going to impact in a negative way the historic comedy, the historic coalition of Jew and black.
It is a far-reaching, very deeply upsetting phenomenon that we will be witnessing, not only in professional sports, but I think in society.
Cubans should be applauded for being frank and being honest about it.
Race is still the most bitter domestic issue in the United States.
It is as real today as it was 20 or 40 years ago.
Now, why is that?
Why is it as real today as it was 20 or 40 years?
Well, you got to ask who benefits.
Who benefits from it being real?
As real today as it was 20 or 40 years ago.
I don't every owner in the NBA.
Who thinks this way?
Every owner in the NBA is Jewish.
Yeah, I know Farrakhan thinks that way, but who thinks this way?
Jesse Jackson, Jaime Town, Jaime League?
I don't know, but who thinks this way?
But we're still not through with this because there is yet another contributor to this overall topic from whom we must hear.
But first, our first obscene profit timeout of the day back after this.
All right, we dug deep here during the obscene profit timeout.
Our corporate partners benefit tremendously from associating with the program.
And we went to the Jewish Daily Forward, which is a newspaper.
And according to them, about half the owners in the NBA are Jewish.
Geraldo said he thought all of them were, but in truth, about half of them are.
Why it matters, don't know, but we're just correcting the record because Geraldo, he was worried about the traditional wonderful relationship between, as he said, black and Jew.
And he thinks that this Cuban business with the hoodie and all that and the Sterling business could upset that tradition.
Jewish Daily Forward asks us, why are so many pro-basketball owners Jewish?
Like Donald Sterling.
Sterling is Jewish.
Changed his name from something to Sterling.
I forget what it was.
There are only three Jewish players in the NBA.
There are no Jewish head coaches.
Nearly half the owners are Jewish, as are the league's current commissioner and its immediate past commissioners.
This is all from the Jewish Daily Forward.
No other major pro league in the U.S. has such a high proportion of Jewish owners.
NFL comes closest, roughly a third of that league's owners are Jewish.
Just a handful of pro-baseball and hockey owners are Jewish.
It's not a negative article.
It's about why the article about why Jewish people are attracted to sports because they love the game and they love the economics of the game and they want to be part of it.
So that's cool.
But herald, he's always looking for some social political connection to everything here that might be upset.
But ladies and gentlemen, all of this has a precursor.
You might remember Grand Audio Soundbite number 14.
This is March 20, 2008, presidential campaign.
This is Barack Obama on the radio in Philadelphia.
And Obama was asked about his big speech on race that week in which he referred to his own white grandmother and her prejudice.
The point I was making was not that my grandmother harpers any racial animosity.
She doesn't.
But she is a typical white person who, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, you know, there's a reaction that's been bred into our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way.
So you see, Mark Cuban is not the trailblazer here.
Barack Obama's white grandmother is a trailblazer, followed by the Reverend Jackson and then Barack Obama.
And he was also, was it with Larry King?
Is it you called your grandmother today a typical white person?
What does that mean?
What does it mean?
Tell me what it means.
What I meant really was that some of the fears of street crime and some of the stereotypes that go along with that were responses that I think many people feel.
She's not extraordinary in that regard.
She is somebody who I love as much as anybody.
I mean, she's literally helped to raise me.
But those are fears that are embedded in our culture and embedded in our society.
And so the point I made is that good people, people who are not in any way racist, are still subject to some of these images.
Who is it that thinks this way?
Who is it that continues to see the world and the country this way and talk about it?
It's those people.
Yes, I confirm that I am right.
I generally don't have to confirm that, but in this case, I did.
Racism is essentially a belief.
It's words.
It's thoughts.
Racism is not.
Now, it can be action that results from beliefs or thoughts, but you simply can't chart somebody being a racist because what they do.
For example, Cuban seeing somebody on the side of the street that threatens him, who happens to be wearing a hoodie and may be black, and so he leaves, that does not make him a racist because he took that action.
You'd have to find out what he believes.
You'd have to find out what he thinks, what his belief system is.
But you can't simply say because he had a fear and did on the same side of the street with the skinhead tattooed Nazi-like figure.
He had a fear.
And you're never going to be able to prove what he believes unless he admits it to you.
But see, the whole point of all of this, the reason why the Democrats, led by Obama, see the world through race-colored glasses is the election coming up.
It's their primary tool to turn out their base and their voters because they don't have anything policy-wise that's going to do it.
So they're going to resort to what they always resort to, their fear and all of these injustices and the inequalities and the unfairness and the lack of justice and all of those things that they use to convince all of their voters that life is hell and it's just miserable.
And the only way that you're going to stand a chance of being less miserable than you are is if you let the Democrats fight these battles for you by punishing the people, making you miserable.
And that's essentially what they're advocating.
Now, during this, you know, when Obama made his race speech back in 2008, you remember why he had to do that?
As a preacher by the name of Jeremiah Wright.
And Obama had refused and refused and refused.
Finally, the pressure became immense.
The drive-by media, believing that he was the Messiah, wanted him to make a statement on race and forever define the way it was going to be judged, seen, treated, dealt with by our country and the world.
And so he did.
And it was in that speech that he referred to his white grandmother as a typical white woman.
Now, since we're talking about the definition of racism, if you say in a speech about race that your white grandmother is a typical white woman, is there a belief system undergirding that statement?
Well, it's an important question because that's where you get to the real heart of racism, is it is a belief, a belief in superiority and inferiority and all the things that are attached to it.
And he kind of stepped in it, so he had to explain what he was talking about.
He loved his white grandmother.
She's a typical white woman.
It gives away a lot.
He also said in that speech, historic race speech, where we lectured to on race, he said, I can no more disown Reverend Wright than I can disown the black community.
I can no more disown him than I can disown my white grandmother.
A woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in the world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes and made me cringe.
So he could not disown Reverend Wright, but he threw his grandmother under the bus.
So, but if Senator Obama had no problem with it, why should we?
Anyway, get used to more of this.
I mean, and that's probably not any kind of a brilliant prediction because it's one of the two or three primary things that the Democrats have left.
Okay, let's get to what I was going to start the program with, the hashtag, bring back our girls.
As you know, Michelle Obama went back to the hashtag earlier this week.
She went back on Wednesday and she did the hashtag again.
I don't know if she made a personal appearance somewhere.
I just, I don't remember.
I read the story enough.
She held in the hashtag sign up.
It had a picture taken or whatever.
Re-emphasized the hashtag.
We had a story yesterday.
80 troops have been sent into Chad.
40 of the troops are providing protection for the other 40.
And the 40 who are being protected are running the drone program.
They're flying the drone and doing whatever intelligence gathering trying to find the 300 kidnapped girls taken by Boko Harrim.
So we've got 80 troops.
And honestly, there were a lot of leftists who were stunned by that.
What do you mean, sending people?
Whoa, whoa, we can't do it.
Why are we doing this?
It's not that they thought the hashtag, maybe it is that they thought the hashtag would work, but they just think they couldn't believe it.
They send the military to do this.
So last night on Charlie Rose on PBS, he interviewed Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who, by the way, also said that we are in the middle here of creating a new world order.
I think these people use that phrase just to send the wackos into fruit loops.
But he said it.
And in addition to that, Charlie Rose said, look, the world's attention is focused on 200 children abducted by Boko Haram in Nigeria.
We don't even know where they are, although you may know where they are.
What is the United States doing?
And what are we going to be able to do to bring those children back?
All those nations are sovereign nations.
We can't just parachute in.
Oh, I suppose we could.
We have the ability, but not necessarily.
You have to be invited in to help them.
We are working closely with the Nigerians.
We just recently, a day or two ago, announced that we're putting 80 people in Chad.
These are not boots on the ground people, but these are support people for drones, aircraft to assist the Nigerians in finding those girls.
Now, our 80 troops are armed because of their own self-defense and defending our assets there.
But President Obama has made it very clear we're not going to send boots on the ground.
Right.
We're sending 80 troops to Chad, and they are on the ground.
They're walking on dirt, soil, earth, whatever.
But we're not going to do that.
So when Obama finds out that we did this, you know how mad he's going to be?
I hope he wasn't watching Charlie Rose last night because he said we're not going to send troops there.
We're going to put boots on the ground, but 80 of them are there, and they're not suspended in midair, and they're not hanging there in parachutes.
They're on the ground, and they're armed, but they're not boots on the ground, even though they are.
So what do you think?
Obama's going to find out about this.
There'll be another press conference next week, another investigation.
Charlie Rose, however, didn't understand last night.
He doesn't understand why we haven't found these girls already.
I guess.
Listen.
With all that, why can't we find them?
I don't know how many times you've been to Nigeria or that part of the world, but it is an immense part of the world.
The canopy in those jungles are as thick as anywhere in the world.
These are almost boundless areas, almost borderless, although there are borders.
But there are about five countries.
What is that?
In that area.
Now, northern Nigeria is where those girls were abducted from and where they initially were.
They may be some of those girls in other countries.
We don't know.
What is this?
They're almost boundless areas, almost borderless, although there are borders.
I don't know.
These people amuse me because they're supposedly the smartest people in the world.
Charlie, you see, stunned.
Hashtag.
A hashtag.
Why hasn't Boko Haram given the girls back?
That's what those who believe in hashtag foreign policy are wondering about.
My question is, do you hear him say here, Charlie, I don't know how many times you've been to Nigeria, but I mean, it's immense.
Nigeria is an immense part of the world.
It really isn't.
But the canopy in those jungles are as thick as anywhere in the world.
Almost bound.
What he's talking about is the rainforest, otherwise known as the jungle.
The rainforest, the canopy, the jungle, as thick as anywhere in the world.
How can that be?
I thought we had destroyed them all.
Open Line Friday, where I take the greatest career risk since Yoko Ono gave up painting for singing or whatever she was doing.
Dave in Gurney, Illinois.
We always try to get calls in the first hour here on Open Line Friday, and we're doing it today.
Dave, thank you for calling.
It's great to have you here.
Hey, Rush.
On this whole idea of racism, let's cut to the chase.
The reason it's only being brought up is because there is an election to win, and liberals want to win that election.
And all these individual cases or accusations of racism to individuals, those are to reinforce the fact that they can use racism as an intimidation to cower over and to judge people that would even say anything back to them about it.
And then also the idea of white privilege, you know, that white privilege seminar up in Wisconsin, the whole idea of that is to rewrite and to change the sorrow history of the Democrat Party, which is steeped in racism and segregation.
No question about that.
No, I think you're right on both counts.
The racism, there are many facets to their using of this technique.
A, it gins up their base.
But B, it also is very effective in doing something else.
Silence.
Very effective.
Well, it's very effective in getting Republicans to shut up and not be critical of anybody on the Democrat side because it's all chalked up to racism.
So the Republicans have been reduced here in many ways to using Democrat language when they talk about things.
They sit on their hands and do nothing.
I wish that was the case, but they're actually moving forward with Democrat issues like amnesty and so forth.
And I mean, they're really cowed by all of this.
So it's effective in a number of different ways.
These accusations come up.
It's because of the fact that we're meant to be meant to be silenced and they have an election to win.
Yeah, I think that's true.
Exactly right.
Plus, let's not forget they do see the world this way.
For all this talk about colorblind society, I think I am one of the few who actually live that.
I mean, Geraldo Rivera, who, all the owners in the NBA are Jewish, who thinks like this?
I don't.
But one thing I've noted to liberals, you are what you look like.
And part and parcel, I mean, the first thing they see about somebody is their skin color.
And then they want to know the sexual orientation.
They want to know the gender.
And once they have the answers to all of those curiosities, then they group those people into whatever victim group here or victim group there.
And then they begin showering them with two things, sympathy and low expectations.
And it's, you've heard of the phrase, the soft bigotry of low expectations.
That's exactly what liberalism owns.
They look at people based on their skin color, their gender, their sexual orientation.
They see people who are incompetent, incapable of overcoming the odds because they're such victims.
The rest of the country is so mean and so prejudiced and so racist and so bigoted.
All they do is feel sorry for or think these people are incompetent and capable.
Therefore, liberals are needed to guide them through the rough patches and so forth.
It really is a demeaning worldview.
It's a demeaning way to look at people.
And yet they at the same time are out demanding that we have a colorblind society.
The last thing in the world they'll ever permit is a colorblind society.
If you remove from their arsenal the charge that their opponents are racist, you take away over half of their power.
So they don't ever want it to actually be something that's solved.
And they don't think it ever can be.
They think it's institutional and part of the founding of the country.
Dave, I appreciate the call.
This is Mark, a trucker in Ogden, Utah.
Great to have you on Open Line Friday.
Hello, sir.
Hello.
Thank you for taking my call.
My question is, when you have both cochlear implants turned on, have you regained any 3D special awareness?
Well, I'm still experiencing that and still testing that.
Last night, I did go to dinner in a very loud restaurant.
And I was part of a group of five.
There were two couples and me.
And it was a place, the kind of place, it was the kind of place that conversation would have been impossible, literally impossible, except for the person sitting on my immediate left.
I would have been able to talk to her, or I would have had to turn my head, and if I wanted to hear the person on my right, last night I didn't have to do it.
I was able to hear the person and the people on my right and the people on my left.
And I was able to arrange some settings that focused what I heard from the front of me, which canceled out half the noise of the restaurant behind me.
It's a setting that they can do with this digital program they couldn't do with the old one.
Not well, they could, but it wasn't as effective.
But because I've got this thing on my right ear, I do know when people are talking to me from the right side.
I still don't think I know if I don't see where a noise is made, I don't think I know where it's coming from.
Well, I know I don't.
Sitting out on the patio of my spacious and fashionable hotel suite yesterday, and some noise started.
It sounded like a jackhammer to me.
I couldn't tell you where it was because I couldn't see it.
And it sounded like it was everywhere.
So I don't think yet that I've got pinpoint spatial perception yet, but who knows?
It's getting better.
Every week I'm noticing improvement.
That's a great question.
I appreciate that, too.
Thank you.
So with training, I think you'll probably get that spatial awareness back.
Well, it's something that's going to require paying special attention to it.
If I'm not aware that a sound is coming or going to be made, I don't think I'll ever be able to figure out where it's going.
But if I know, not see it, but if I know where a sound is going to be made, I might be able to pinpoint where it's coming from, which is the reason why that matters, it's a safety thing more than anything else.
If an intruder happens to get into the room where you are, you'd like to know where they are.
And that's why something like this is important.
And there are other reasons, too.
But look, Mark, I appreciate the call.
I really do.
A quick break back with more after this.
White House thinks they're off the hook, folks.
They have not released it, but they've got emails that they say prove that they thought Benghazi was due to an internet video.
But it doesn't quite work that way when you dig into it, which we will when we get back.
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