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Aug. 15, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:41
August 15, 2014, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the most listened to radio talk show in America, the Rush Limbaugh program.
It's a thrill and a delight to always be here and to always have you with us.
And it's Friday, so let's hit it live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Telephone number, if you want to be on the program is 800 282-2882, and the email address, Lrushbow at EIBnet.com, and the reason we call it open line Friday, for those of you who are new to the program, Monday through Thursday, callers on the program have to talk about something I care about.
Mr. Snerdley, the official screener of calls, knows what I care about and what I don't care about.
But on Friday, we throw all that out.
Whatever you want to talk about's fine.
It's uh it's a gift, it's an opportunity for you to talk about things that you might care about that you haven't heard discussed here.
Point of view, what have you.
So if you want to avail yourself the opportunity, it's 800-282-2882.
How many times?
How many times, ladies and gentlemen, have I told you that there is no news in the news?
And how many times have I told you that what you see on the TV news you should always be suspicious of.
You should always suspect that there's something else.
You should always suspect that it may be entirely wrong.
You should always suspect with major network news that there is a political agenda attached to everything they do.
I use the term here drive by media.
It's been a while since I offered the full-fledged Definition of what drive-by media is.
The true definition of the drive-by media is they fly into a situation.
They arrive on the scene of major breaking news.
They make up stuff.
They stir up emotions to a frenzied fever pitch.
They spread lies.
And then, after a few hours or a few days, when the real facts emerge, they're gone.
They're down the road doing it again on the next story.
While everybody else is left in their wake with a mess that real Americans have to clean up.
And that is exactly what has happened in Ferguson, Missouri.
And before you start shouting at me, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, Rush, the media didn't do anything wrong here because they didn't know about the video and the pictures at the convenience store with the cigar robbery.
Yes, they did.
Don Lemmon on CNN today actually admitted some of us have heard rumors of a robbery involving the gentle giant.
Why didn't you tell us of those rumors?
Rumors have never stopped you before.
They had heard everybody asking why did the cops hold this information all this time?
Why did they re why did they not release it?
I don't know.
But I'll tell you, in one sense, they really set the media up well.
I mean, they allowed the media to establish their narrative.
In the process, a lot of violence took place at the same time.
But uh regardless, if you are just tuning in, and if you haven't your station's not preempted us for the press conference that's going on now in St. Louis.
Uh and if, by the way, we're going to be repeating this, folks, when this press conference is over.
I mean, maybe not immediately, but uh, for example, our affiliate in St. Louis is covering what's happening there, and the audience there's not hearing the program.
And I don't want them to miss this.
So later on in the busy broadcast today, uh, there'll not be a formal repeat of this.
I'll just go through this all again.
Because of course, until I've said something, it hasn't really been said.
And in this case, all this time, what has been the assumption?
The assumption, and it was one eyewitness.
The assumption has been that an 18-year-old gentle giant, Michael Brown, was walking down the street minding his own business, bothering nobody, much like I do this program, bothering nobody, minding my own business.
And he was set upon by a police officer.
Oh, yes, the general giant was unarmed.
Yes, of course, of course, the gentle giant was a gentle giant's by definition are unarmed.
General Giant was unarmed, his friend was unarmed, and out of the blue, here comes a cop.
And the cop eventually shoots the gentle giant.
The town erupts, thinking this is typical.
The gentle giant hadn't done anything, the gentle giant hadn't provoked anybody, neither had his buddy.
They just walk in down the street, and as his typical white cop, black general giant, bamboo.
Shot with his hands up.
Oh, yes, he was surrendering.
He was surrendering.
And this caused night after night of tumult and chaos in Ferguson, Missouri.
And what do you know the rest of the story?
I don't need to go through the details of the timeline, but now what we have learned as announced today.
Let's listen to the police chief, Tom Jackson.
Police chief held a press conference to talk about the shooting death of Michael Brown.
The purpose was to announce the name of the cop that shot the gentle giant with his hands up, surrendering.
We have two bites.
This is the first.
I'm going to be releasing information about a robbery that occurred on August 9th, immediately preceding the altercation and shooting death of Michael Brown.
What we're making available today are the dispatch records and the video footage of a robbery A strong arm robbery with use of force that occurred at a local convenience mart.
I cannot discuss the uh investigation about the attempted apprehension of the suspect in that strong arm robbery.
Strong arm robbery?
Strong arm robbery?
What's this video footage of a robbery?
Strong arm robbery?
Use of force?
Local convenience mart?
What's this?
Nobody'd heard anything about this except the media had.
There were rumors floating around, as it turns out.
Here's more from the chief.
The officer that was involved in the shooting of Michael Brown was Darren Wilson.
He's been a police officer for six years, has had no disciplinary action taken against him.
He was treated for injuries which occurred on Saturday.
I won't be taking any questions at this time, but the packets will be handed out by my officers.
And then he promised a press conference later today, which is going on now.
Uh and it's uh speaking at the press conference now is the governor came in yesterday and took the county cops off case, which drew a lot of criticism from people.
But the governor J. Nixon uh pulled the uh the county cops off and put the state police, the highway patrol in charge.
And uh Captain Johnson is is heading up that command.
He's from Ferguson, he's African American, he joined the protest march, he brought peace and tranquility to the streets of Ferguson last night.
He is beloved there.
He is now participating in actually conducting the press conference along with the governor, and I assume the uh the police chief.
Uh but Captain Johnson did indeed bring peace and calm to the situation last night.
And uh he said things like if people get scared uh a person in uniform, that's not good, and we've got to fix that.
We cannot have just the sight of people in uniform scaring citizens.
That's not good.
There's been a lot of talk, folks, about uh demilitarizing the police.
Demilitarize the police force.
Not just in Ferguson, but all over the country.
Rand Paul has picked up on this movement to demilitarize the cops.
We learned yesterday that the Defense Department distributes leftovers and hand-me downs that they don't need anymore to local police all over the country.
Armored personnel carrier type vehicles, powerful weapons, the ammunition to go in those powerful weapons.
And I want to offer you an explanation for why this is happening, because I think maybe a lot of people have forgotten this.
In the 90s, do you recall in California?
You recall a bank robbery in which the robbers were wearing vests.
They had AK-47s, massive, they had hand grenades, they had mortars, they had all kinds of things, and the cops are firing with nine millimeter whatevers.
And everybody was wringing their hands.
My God, look at this gang of crooks.
My God, they're overpowering the cops.
Cops can't even compete.
And the cops were carrying pistols, basically, because that was all that was thought that beat cops needed, keep the peace and so forth anymore would be unnecessary show of force.
And cops were overwhelmed and overrun by this one gang.
It was a bank robber in California.
I forget specifically when and what the bank was.
But ever since then, there were calls then that the cops had to have more powerful weapons.
It was not just one incident.
There were a whole bunch of them.
Were the bad guys, and of course, the left started using these events to advance their whole gun control agenda.
My good, look at what the bad guys got out there.
Look at all the weapons of bad guys.
We gotta have gun control.
And I said, look.
Those are not the kind of weapons that you just walk in off the street and buy the.
No matter what gun control law you pass, these kind of bad guys, if they want weapons like that are going to be able to find them.
So that began the rethinking of how the cops should be armed.
It was actually real world of it.
It was not a desire to militarize police departments.
It was a reaction to the kind of weapons that bad guys were able to arm themselves with.
It was the AK-47 bandits.
It was a Hollywood uh Hollywood robbery.
Here's Don Lemon.
I want you to hear this.
He was on CNN today.
He's on the scene in Ferguson.
And he was reporting uh from the press conference after the police chief had announced, hey, we've got video inside that convenience store.
The gentle giant essentially was robbing the place of a box of cigars.
Turns out swisher sweets.
Do you know why?
Have you ever smoked the Swisher Sweets Nerdly?
Well, I have.
They're actually they're good for when you're 16, 17 and just starting to smoke.
They're sweet.
Little cigarettos and stuff.
Oh, yeah, I smoked them for real.
That's what.
No, no, no.
I didn't make blunts out of them.
I smoked them for real.
But the re the swisher sweet today is purchased by people that love marijuana.
They get the swisher sweet.
They're cheap.
They and they come in a number of different shapes, cigarello shapes and lengths, and the longer the better.
And you take a razor blade, as I understand it, I've never done this.
You take a razor blade and you cut it open lengthways.
Put all the swish or sweets tobacco out of it, and then you refill it, rewrap it with your marijuana.
If you want to, you can mix real tobacco, the swisher sweets tobacco back in with the marijuana to add a sweet taste to it.
And then it's not called a blunt, it's called a split or some such thing, uh, as I've been told.
And they roll it back up, and that's why people buy swisher sweets these days.
Why some people do.
That was the box of cigars being stolen from the convenience store by the gentle giant.
The video changes everything.
It showed it, folks, it totally changes the story.
MSNBC went to paid programming while they had new editorial conferences to figure out how to deal with this.
CNN almost decided to leave the story and go back to covering the missing airplane.
It took the wind totally out of the media's sails.
It totally, totally changed the template and the narrative.
And the template and narrative was yet again a racist white cop in a racist white America had fired a gentle giant, harmless black man with his hands up surrender for no reason whatsoever, and when are these horrible events going to stop?
And when is Obama going to do something about it?
And when is the governor going to have it?
When are we going to love each other again and all of this?
And it turns out with the release of the video and the accompanying still shots of the robbery that uh it turns out now that the police officer, whose name is Darren Wilson, was stopping the gentle giant, Michael Brown, because he was a suspect.
And the gentle giant made a move for the cop's weapon.
That's not what you do.
If you're ever arrested, if you were ever stopped for a moving violation in your car, you do nothing but what the cop tells you to do.
And you certainly don't try to grab the cop's gun.
You do not, I don't care how big you are, and I I you just there's just certain things that you just don't do.
So the entire complexion of this thing changed in a matter of minutes.
Here's Don Lemon acknowledging they had heard a rumor of this.
Some of us had heard about it earlier, the possibility of a videotape of a robbery, and it was believed to be Michael Brown.
We did not get confirmation from police on that.
So it was not reported.
That was just a rumor.
But now we're finding out from the Ferguson police chief that they do believe that they have video, and they think that in that video that it is Michael Brown stealing cigars, punching the store clerk.
Oh, no longer gentle giant, no.
This totally changes.
But they knew they had heard about it.
And they said, well, it's unconfirmed.
Police say unconfirmed rumor, we can't report.
They deal in rumors all the time.
If they like what the rumor is.
Brief time out, back with more after this.
Don't go away.
Open line Friday, Rush Limbaugh executing a scientist duties flawlessly, even though we're not even finished with the first half hour.
Still flawlessly, and there won't be any mistakes.
There never are.
800 282-2882, if you want to be on the program, the attorney for the family of the gentle giant.
Now let me read this as it's written by the Associated Press.
This just cleared the wire.
The attorney for the family of an unarmed teenager fatally shot by a police officer, Ian Ferguson, says the police are trying to assassinate the victim's character by saying he committed a robbery that day.
Ferguson police chief Thomas Jackson earlier today identified Darren Wilson as the officer who shot the 18-year-old gentle giant Michael Brown last Saturday.
Well, the media called in the gentle giant.
Why can't I?
The media did over and over again.
The attorney, Benjamin Crump, is this the same attorney that uh represented Trayvon Martin uh family?
I think it is.
The attorney Benjamin Crump says that Michael Brown's parents are incensed by what he calls the old game of smoke and mirrors.
He said the family was blindsided by Friday's announcement.
The attorney Benjamin Crump says it's bad enough they assassinated him.
Now they're trying to assassinate his character.
So now the attorney for the gentle giant's family is is, I guess, implying that the cops character assassination?
Is he denying the video tape?
Is he saying that that's not the gentle giant on the video tape?
Or is he saying that pointing it out is character assassination?
You knew this was going to happen too.
And you know why you know why you knew this was going to happen?
Because nobody can figure out why the cops waited all this time.
If they knew this four days ago, why didn't they have it?
And use it and say it.
Why did they let all this time go by before they announced this?
Did it take all this time to get the video analyzing and confirm it was a gentle giant?
Why do it only on the day they announce the name of the cop?
So kind of understand or understandable here that the attorney for the family of Michael Brown would now say that the cops are trying to assassinate his character by saying he committed a robbery that day.
Now, based on the story I have here, that the lawyer's not denying that the gentle giant participated in a robbery.
That's not what he's saying.
Hi, welcome back.
Open line Friday, Rush Limbaugh, half my brain tied behind my back, just to make it fair.
We're going to get to the phone calls immediately here.
Just one observation.
I had a chance just now during the obscene profit break to listen to a little bit of the press conference going on in St. Louis.
And at the time I was able to listen to it, the highway patrol captain Ron Johnson was answering questions.
And he was the guy's great.
He's doing a masterful job.
This guy's going to be the next governor.
It's in the cards.
Just wait till he announces that he's a fan of Jay-Z and Robin Williams and it's over.
The Republicans don't even have to nominate anybody.
It's over.
The next governor.
He's answering all these questions.
He's doing a great job.
But the people asking them are really mad.
They are really mad, folks.
He was calm and cool and collected in answering the questions.
And he wasn't saying anything more than what's already been said.
He was assuring them that calm can continue, that there's no need to protest, that he's going to be there.
As long as they stay on the sidewalks, everything's going to be fine and dandy and cool and all that.
But the people asking the questions were mad.
And I'm not going to attach a meaning to it.
I'm not going to make a prediction.
It's just an observation.
And it's understandable.
Look at what look at what's happened here.
For whatever number of days, the whole week.
The people of that town have believed the story that's been out there.
People generally believe what's in the media, sadly.
And the narrative and template of this story is the narrative and template that always accompanies an incident like this.
An entirely innocent young African American male, who in this case was just walking the street, even attempting to surrender, had his hands up, was nevertheless shot in cold blood by a white cop.
And this is because of the ancient racism and discrimination and bigotry that was inculcated into this country from its founding, and that it's never gotten any better.
And the people of Ferguson, the African American population thought they'd been jobbed again.
It's the same old thing, and this was reported for days.
And then all of a sudden the press conference this morning, and the chief says, well, there's a, you know, there was a strong-arm robbery that happened before this incident.
We've got video.
And the uh the video, it looks like the suspect, Michael Brown's in this video stealing a box of cigars.
And by the way, he's got an accomplice.
The accomplice happens to be his big buddy.
That was the sole eyewitness to what the cop did to Michael Brown.
So now the witness may be compromised terms of credibility.
And the people of Ferguson, who thought that they had justice on their side, not in what had happened, but in what was going to happen, have all of a sudden they feel like they've had a rug pulled out from.
Oh no!
What are you trying to tell us?
The gentle giant was committing a crime, and here comes the lawyer for the family.
Saying that the family says the cops are trying to assassinate the victim's character by saying he committed a robbery that day.
The attorney Benjamin Crump says Brown's parents are incensed by what he calls the old game of smoking mirrors.
Family blindsided by the Friday announced.
So was the whole community.
And so they're all now they're just I'm telling you, I heard anger in the questions being asked.
I didn't hear any satisfaction at the answers.
That's just an observation.
Pure and simple.
Here's Lieutenant Governor, Missouri Peter Kinder, who was on Fox this morning.
Bill Hemers said, When you have people in the streets of Ferguson for the past six nights, why is this information about the robbery just coming out now?
What explains that?
That's a good question to put to the uh responsible law enforcement authorities on the scene.
I assume I have not asked them that question or spoken to them about that.
But I assume they had their reasons.
Uh their reasons can be questioned.
It's a fair question to ask them, and it should be put to those folks who've been there on the line the last six days.
Nobody knows.
Lieutenant Governor doesn't know.
He thinks he should know, thinks we all should know, but he doesn't know.
Thinks he should ask him, he's gonna ask him.
Doesn't know what they're gonna say when he asks, but we gotta ask it anyway because we should ask these questions.
He's perfectly permissible to ask these questions.
We don't know the answer.
Bottom line.
So while the media is deflated, and they are the media is just I mean, you talk about the wind going out of a bunch of people's sails, and it has, and you can see it.
You watch MSNBC, watch CNN, read some of the blog posts.
I mean, they thought they had I don't know what they thought they had here.
But since everything to these people is political, they just think they've had a setback in whatever political agenda they thought was gonna be advanced here.
It's just it's clear as day.
But once they collect themselves, because they're all saying, I mean, they've got their legal analysts, oh well.
Oh man, this totally changes the complexion of this case.
Why this just I mean, it changes everything.
Everything we thought we knew is out the window.
This is on CNN.
MSNBC, like I said, practically went off the air for a while to have behind closed doors meetings.
Just figure out how to deal with this new revelation.
So I I suspect the next focal point's gonna be way the minute.
Why all this time before uh cops revealed this detail, even though Don Lemon seeing it, oh no, this has been rumored all week long.
Well, we've been report it because it was just a rumor.
And to the phones we go, Larry in uh in Hubbard, Oregon.
Welcome, sir, to the EIB network and open line Friday.
Hi.
Good morning, Rush.
Nice to talk to you.
Thank you, sir.
Uh, two points.
First, you know, I've been listening to this thing in Ferguson all week, and now you're starting to hear about the uh the state police coming in and how good everything turned, and uh, you know, seems to be a lot of nice things that are happening now overnight.
I want to suggest to you the credit should go to the local police force and the local police chief.
I think he did everything right.
He put a show of force on the streets, limited the violence, the rioting, the looting to just a couple of blocks, it seems like, kept the thing from growing out of control.
So, why aren't we giving this guy the accolades he deserves?
Because he's being blamed for causing the rooting, the looting.
He is being blamed for causing the rioting.
His show of force, his militaristic display of the show of force, the wanton arrest of an innocent gentle giant of the neighborhood is being blamed for causing all of this in the first place.
And so people are not gonna give the local chief any credit.
What's gonna happen here is the governor's gonna get credit for taking the county cops off the case and replacing them with the state patrol.
Obama is getting no way you you haven't heard Obama is getting credit for his speech yesterday because that is Well, that's my second point, Rush.
That's that's my second point.
A lot of people are coming out, or not a lot, but people are saying, why didn't the president come out directly say this looting, stop this rioting as a minority man, he should be able to have more influence with the population there.
Well, he did.
My suggestion, my suggestion to you is he didn't dare do that because they wouldn't have listened to him.
So he would have completely lost whatever shred of credibility he actually does have or believes he has.
I think he didn't dare come out and make a direct statement, stop the looting because nobody would have listened to him.
Well, there I think there's I think there's truth to that.
I think he he might not have made a direct appeal.
No, no, this is a good point.
He might not have made a direct appeal because he wouldn't want to run the risk that they don't listen to him, and that blows everything.
I mean, here's the first African American president, a Messiah, a man who was going to change everything, a man with a direct line.
And his words are magic.
And whatever he says, people listen to and react.
So if he makes a direct appeal and they don't listen to him, it doesn't look good.
There's no question.
And I don't doubt that calculations like that are made by all kinds of politicians.
Not just politicians, but public figures in general.
The news media is constantly searching for ways to prove they still have the ability to move public opinion, for example.
Um folks, I have to tell you, just to illustrate this point.
Back when I started this program in 1988, you would not believe the pressures that were on me to get involved in causes.
and the causes were always in protest of something And the purpose was to show the power of talk radio.
And so you might remember there were all these c where people were supposed to cut up their mobile gasoline credit cards or Exxon cards and send them back because they're mad at Exxon.
And local hosts were doing that kind of thing.
And if people did it and it made the news, then the local host was thought to have a lot of influence.
And no host was thought to have a lot of power.
And I resisted all of that because I have never viewed that being the purpose of talking.
I have never, at one time, have I urged people to make phone calls to Washington, and that was to show what would happen when I did.
I have never done causes, but all kinds of people do.
The media does it all the time.
I think half of what the drive-by media is doing today is to demonstrate to themselves they still have the power to move public opinion on what their polls are all about.
They're losing audience, they're losing subscribers, they're losing circulation.
They do a lot to show themselves, and maybe advertisers and others, that they still have the power.
And so you come to uh a politician.
And I guarantee you, this guy on the phone is exactly right.
Larry's exactly right.
A politician could well make that that uh calculation.
Well, I better not call for calm.
I better not make a direct call, because if they don't do it, how's that make me look?
If I don't listen to me, I can't afford that.
So come out and make a pretty tepid statement, which is what Obama made.
I think it was pretty tepid.
I think it was a statement tried to solve both the uh please both sides with uh uh while saying as little as possible, aside from platitudes and boiler plate.
I guess press conference is saying it was boilerplate.
So I think there's uh a validity of that.
And in addition, Grab Sound by four.
To add a little exclamation point to that, this was yesterday in Ferguson at the fire station.
The police chief was supposed to hold a press conference yesterday, but the new Black Panther Party took over.
They just came in there into the fire department and they just took over what was to be a press conference Of the police chief, the new Black Panther Party chairman Hashim Nazinga took the podium and started speaking.
As we speak, the president of the United States is talking to Russia.
He's talking to China.
He's talking to North Korea.
He's talking to Iraq in the Middle East about treating a people better.
Stop oppressing your people.
But as he looked out the one that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, black man the White House.
Shot down like gone.
Like it or not, he's from Kenya.
He's a Mama.
And he need to go back to his roof and stop people from killing an African in the streets.
Stop telling other nations to do what you won't do yourself, Brother.
Do you uh able to hear that?
You're able to hear what the guy said.
New Black Panther Party takes over press conference, says, stop oppressing your people.
As he look out the window at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he's watching the black man who built the White House shot down like dogs, like it or not, he's from Kenya.
He's a Mau Mau.
He needs to go back to his roots and stop people from killing Africans in the streets.
Stop telling other nations to do what you won't do yourself, President.
So I play that only because caller says Obama may not make a direct appeal, because what if they don't listen to him?
The new Black Panther Party's already ticked off from.
This is interesting.
The Highway Patrol Commander Ron Johnson, Ronald Johnson is uh.
He's saying that he wishes that the Ferguson cops would have consulted with him before releasing the name of the officer.
So more drama here.
That is that is very interesting.
The guy now in charge of peace on the streets in Ferguson, the highway patrol commander says he wishes the cops had consulted with him before the release of the officer's name.
What does that tell you?
That tells you he thinks maybe the release of the name is going to give him some problems keeping the peace.
I saw a bit of the video.
And I didn't see it all.
So I didn't hear anything accompanying the video.
But if what I saw is what I saw, it was Michael Brown looking like grabbing a box of cigars and giving it to his buddy.
With no question that it was Michael Brown.
No question it was the gentle giant.
And if I saw what I saw, uh the family lawyer can say whatever he wants to say.
And it isn't gonna matter.
Also, I got an interesting uh email.
Rush, it sounds like you're defending rioting and looting.
I said, defending rioting.
Yeah, you're saying if they had a reason to, because the cops didn't announce that they had the video of the robbery.
No, no, no, no.
That's actually a good point.
I don't, I'm not justifying.
I wasn't even trying to explain the the looting and and all of the violence that when I don't think that's ever called for.
In fact, there could be a reasonable answer to the question, why didn't they release the video?
Because there's an investigation ongoing.
They're try maybe they're gonna say, hey, this is what we do in every case like this.
We don't release evidence piecemeal.
Under no circumstance.
I don't, I think it's a slippery slope, folks.
If we start going down that street where we say rioting and looting is acceptable, because it's understandable, because we must understand the rage that's we don't want to go there.
You never want to send signal that that's okay, and I didn't mean to do that.
Now, for those of you in Rio Linda, you may be what's a Mal Mau Rush?
I heard the new Black Panther guy say that Obama was a Mau Mau.
Here was a Mau Mau.
Winston Churchill put Obama's father in jail because he was thought to be his grandfather.
Churchill put Obama's grandfather in prison because he was thought to be a Mau Mau revolutionary in uh in Kenya.
And so that's why the new Black Panther guys accusing Obama being uh a maw maw, uh, Mau Mau.
Anyway, gotta take a break.
Sit tight, don't go away.
Just enough time here to say, hang on.
Just enough time to say, we got lots more, like Al Gore suing Al Jazeera.
They're not paying up.
They bought his TV network, and they're not paying it.
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