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Aug. 25, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:24
August 25, 2014, Monday, Hour #2
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Time Text
Yeah, I was waiting for the lightning fast printer to spit something on.
They just did.
And here we are back at it, kicking off a brand new week of broadcast excellence.
Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
There was one story in the NFL over the weekend.
There were a lot of games.
It was week three of the NFL preseason, but there was only one story in the NFL.
The whole, and I'm not talking about the Rams quarterback Sam Bradford blowing out the same ACL and the same knee as last October.
There was one story in the NFL over the weekend.
Did you watch any of the game?
You know, I have, you know, I haven't either.
I haven't watched, I think I've watched five minutes of preseason football.
I don't know, folks.
I don't know.
Normally, you know, you've got nostalgia and so forth.
Normally, you couldn't keep me away from, I mean, week three is the dress rehearsal.
That's when the starters play the longest they're going to play.
That's when the coaches actually try to find out what they've got.
Next week, well, this week, week four is where you don't want to get anybody hurt, so you just play the scrubs.
I mean, you literally play the scrubs to help you make your final roster cuts, but basically it's to not get anybody hurt for the regular season.
Except for the Fortiners.
Jim Harbaugh, the coach of the Fortiners, and Colin Kaepernick will play because he's not been, he's not had a good preseason.
Got to get him some more tune-up.
So he is going to play in week four, which is unusual and very unusual.
But I just, I don't know.
I have not yet gotten into it.
And I'm trusting that I will once the real season starts, but I haven't yet.
I don't know rosters, any of that.
I have not.
Now, granted, there's a lot of work stuff going on right now that you'll learn of soon, but that's even so.
I've had some spare time, and I have not spent much time at all on the NFL.
It's just really strange.
I mean, that used to be, you know, the stick to the issues crowd.
I mean, they used to hate it when I brought it up.
Cornell West is fit.
Well, if you don't know what the one story is, I'm probably wrong.
If you don't, there was one.
No, it's not that one.
See, it's the point.
I may be wrong.
My interpretation is there's only one story, only one thing of note happened this weekend in the NFL.
And if you don't know what it is, I'm probably wrong because you have been following it.
And if you don't know what it is, then I'm probably wrong in suggesting it was the only story.
Well, why even mention it?
If I'm wrong about it, why mention it?
If you don't know what it is, no, it's not, no, no, it has nothing to do with the Redskins to do the name of a team.
No.
Look, I'm wrong.
Obviously, it's not the biggest story if you don't know what it is.
So it's no big deal.
Cornell West.
Cornell West has had some harsh words for President Barack Hussein-O.
In a recent interview with Salon.com.
The first question West answers, how do you feel things have worked out since then, both with the economy and with this president?
Cornell West launched, he calls Obama a counterfeit.
The thing is, he posed as a progressive, and he turned out to be counterfeit, Cornell West says.
We ended up with a Wall Street presidency, a drone presidency, national security presidency.
The torturers go free.
Wall Street executives go free.
The war crimes in the Middle East, especially now in Gaza.
The war criminals go free.
And yet, you know, he acted as if he was both a progressive and as if he was concerned about the issues of serious injustice and inequality.
And it turned out that he's just another neoliberal centrist with a smile and a nice rhetorical flare.
And that's a very sad moment in the history of the nation because we're an empire in decline.
Our culture is in increasing decay.
School systems in deep trouble.
Political system dysfunctional.
Leaders are more and more bought off with legalized bribery and normalized corruption in Congress and too much of our civil life.
You'd think that we need somebody Lincoln-like figure who could revive some Democratic spirit, Democratic possibility.
It's true.
It's like we finally got somebody who can help us turn the corner and he posed as if he was a kind of Lincoln.
And then he said he's just nothing more than a brown-faced Clinton, another opportunist.
Cornel West totally blindsided and let down.
Snurdly is still asking me, but what the...
This Cornel West stuff doesn't interest you at all?
This, this is huge.
Well, I do too.
I've always had a soft spot for Cornell.
He is what he is.
But you know, he's doing something.
He's got this anti-poverty thing he's doing with Tavis Smiley.
You know, at least some of these things these guys are trying to do is good.
I mean, you've got to give them credit for these things.
That's a worthwhile thing that he and I don't know how effective they're being at it, but anyway, he's fit to be tied.
I mean, see, while Obama is taking this country further left than it's ever been, Cornell thinks we're not going that way at all.
And not only is Obama not a Lincoln, he's not even a Ford, barely a Chrysler.
Anyway, there's a telltale line here.
There's a politico story.
And it's again, it's about Obama going to play golf so soon after delivering the fake speech on Jim Foley.
And here's the telltale line.
Again, from the perspective that Obama hasn't checked out, that this is a ruse, that this is a camouflage.
Obama is simply appearing detached and checked out to lull everybody to sleep so that they're not awake enough to see just how much he is doing.
And I think, folks, you had better pay attention.
I think you'd better be very suspicious of this premise that Obama's checked out and has gotten tired and is dejected and has given up and just is not interested anymore.
When is the last?
Honestly, now, when is the last?
Who is the last committed liberal to give up?
They never give up, right?
They never stop and they're never happy, no matter what they get.
But anyway, the telltale line, this political story, Barack Obama's long walks spoiled.
And they're just so sad that Obama's not able to be who he really could be and maybe doesn't want to be who he really could be.
But there is a line here in this story that to me supports the theory that Obama is using this checked out to play golf thing as a purposeful strategy.
And it is this.
The White House is not apologetic.
The White House is not trying to make any excuses.
And here's the line.
The White House has been unapologetic about Obama's Foley to golf pivot.
If this really were Obama checking out, if the people around Obama in the White House, the chief of staff, the press secretary, the Valerie Jarretts of the world, who's really, I think, the mover and shaker while Obama appears checked out.
I mean, while Obama's on the golf course, somebody's moving this agenda leftward, and it's Valerie Jarrett, I think.
But anyway, if this, if the people closest to Obama in the White House were really worried that he had checked out.
Now, stop and think of this for a second, folks.
When is the last president you can remember reading or hearing about who just gave up?
Who just lost interest?
Who just checked out?
Now, Eisenhower is a different case.
Eisenhower, he became president after winning World War II.
When Eisenhower discovered he couldn't shoot Congress, he said, well, this is tougher than I thought it was going to be.
And he went and played golf.
But aside from that, can you think Jimmy Carter didn't check out and give up?
Bill Clinton never checked out and gave up.
George Bush never checked out and gave up.
Reagan didn't.
Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, take your pick.
Pick a Truman.
Can you think of any president who just lost interest about whom it was said?
And the White House didn't push back?
See, the White House is not pushing back on that.
And I'm telling you, if they really thought the people closest to Obama, if they really thought he checked out, they'd be worried, folks, because that would be representative of something out of whack psychologically.
There would be profound concern over that.
Presidents are not allowed to get depressed.
Presidents are not allowed to have down days.
You don't ever hear about that.
They don't give up.
You can't think of one who has.
And yet, every day, we get to see where Obama's lost interest.
The job's not challenging or however else they say it.
And the White House is not trying to change anybody's mind about it.
Oh, it's perfectly fine, perfectly fine.
He spoke to the family, and he went out and played golf, and they give you excuses.
Everybody, every president needs a vacation.
Pressures are the job.
Now, come on.
And they're saying, hey, the president, the job is always over office is wherever the president happens.
They're not making excuses.
I'm telling you, if they really thought he had checked out, there'd be a whole different reaction from within the inner circle.
All I'm saying is just don't automatically accept this idea that the first president in your life or our lives of the modern era has just given up and checked out and lost interest.
Because I'm telling you, there is a political advantage.
You could construct a brilliant and successful strategy by appearing to be checked out while all the stuff you believe in continues to happen.
Except you aren't attached to it.
You're not held accountable for it because none of what's happening is supported by a majority of the American people.
Okay, to the phones we go.
Time to start with Justin St. Augustine, Florida.
Thank you, sir, for calling.
It's great to have you with us.
Hi.
Yes, Rush.
Glad to be on.
Thank you, sir.
Commenting about your side talk there about the number one story in the NFL.
It was actually a non-event for me, considering I'm an NFL fan for the game, and I try to keep the politics out of it, as hard as it may be.
But as soon as I got on social media this morning, the Michael Sam sack, I believe it was Johnny Menzel, was all over the place.
Yep.
And I'm pretty sure that was what you were saying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're right.
Absolutely right.
Snerdley had to put you up first because Snerdley had to find out if you were right because he's wanted to know too.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
There was so much.
There was so much in that one play.
The drive-bys have the sports drive-bys have just been praying, hoping, come, they want this guy to make the team, and not out of gratitude or grab.
They want him to make the team.
And sacking Manzel.
Oh, that's even better.
And, you know, I'll tell you something.
It was, it was, you're looking at it on social media and in sports media on Saturday.
It was, it was, they were just so excited by it.
So thrilled that it had happened.
And now there are stories.
I don't know if you've seen them, but now there are stories.
It's going to be really hard for the Rams to park Sam on the practice squad because when you put a player from your roster onto the practice, each team gets 10 guys on the practice squad.
But when you put one on the practice squad, he's eligible to be picked up by any other team in the league.
And so the sports drive-bys today, Justin, are writing that because of Sam's wonderful sack on Saturday night.
He could be snapped up by anybody if the Rams try to put him on the practice squad, which means the Rams can't put him on the practice squad.
They're going to have to keep him.
And that's why it's the.
Well, that was the plan the whole time.
Yeah, I don't think.
They couldn't have gotten rid of him no matter how he played.
So I agree with that.
I don't think once he's picked a kid.
He's got another sack in a multitude of sacks that happen all the way around the NFL.
But this one seems to matter more, unfortunately, because, like I said before, you can't keep the politics out of the play.
Exactly right.
That's exactly right.
Did you see the sack?
Did you see the plot?
No, I was too busy watching my beloved Buffalo Bills lose miserably, unfortunately.
Oh, man, my condolences.
The Buffalo Bills, you've got a You have, it looks like what may be a long season.
I think we have, we've been having long seasons since 99.
I know.
That's what I mean.
It does look like another long one, unfortunately.
But keep hope alive.
I'll never abandon them.
Aren't the Bills fan, always a Bills fan?
You just have to hope the preseason.
And by the way, one thing about the preseason, wins and losses really don't matter.
Wins and losses do not tell you a thing in the preseason.
Now, how individual guys play, yeah, and who they're playing against, yeah.
But wins and losses don't matter.
So if you're absolutely don't, because you don't, it's, it's not, I mean, it's, it's such a non-factor, it's hard to convince people.
Anyway, Justin, I appreciate the call.
Very perceptive.
I have even more thoughts on that.
But I don't.
Let me take the safe road and take the next call.
And this is Jim in Rancho, Cucamonga, California.
Great to have you, sir, on the program.
Hello.
Thank you, Rush.
God bless you.
Stay healthy and stay on the front lines.
Thank you, sir, very much.
Rush, I love America.
I really believe we have the greatest system of government in the history of the world.
But this issue about the media, I truly believe the media now is no longer just a curiosity or an irritation to us.
They're really posing a threat to our system of government.
And I say that because information, accurate information, is one of the most important ingredients for self-rule.
That's how people make decisions and choose leaders.
That's how we vote.
And voting is very powerful.
And I believe that the lines that existed at one time between the media and Democrats or liberals, they're not blurred anymore.
They're fused together.
Rush, I don't even say media and Democrat anymore.
I say medocrats.
They're all the same.
You would never say the mouth of the dog bit me.
They're organs of the same beast.
You just say the dog bit me and get right down to it.
And Rush, the tragedy of it all is truth is self-evident.
It truly is.
That's an American principle.
And it's proven.
But it's not even in the mix.
People are not even given truth.
You know, I don't want to control the media.
I truly don't.
They can say whatever they want, but I wish it was balanced.
And if it were balanced, I believe we would be a healthier country.
Look at how few rush yourself and others, how outnumbered we are, our view with the media.
And it's still almost a tie.
And we still win sometimes.
I think if we just had 10% of the truth being put out there, people could make decisions.
That's true, but there's a couple of things in this.
You're absolutely right that the media has crossed over now.
But I don't think it's anything different.
I think they're just being honest about it.
I think the media has always been Democrats.
And they've always been part of and advancing a Democrat agenda.
There just was a period where they got away with appearing otherwise.
But what's they are, you know, I've often said words mean things, and our language is being taken over by the left as well.
Ladies and gentlemen, I, El Rushbo, your guiding light host, your highly trained broadcast specialist and real anchor man, I've been watching the gentle giant funeral.
Excerpts of it.
It's not wall-to-wall coverage, but if you look at CNN and Fox, I've seen enough of it to know that the funeral crashers haven't shown up.
The Clintons are nowhere near.
I haven't seen them.
Now, normally, something like this.
They go in there and they maneuver themselves into the front row and into the eulogy slot, well, the speaker slot, but they're not here.
I mean, they were at Maya Angela everywhere, but not at this one.
Why do you think that is, ladies and gentlemen?
If we acknowledge that Mrs. Clinton is running for the Democrat nomination in 2016, why is she not there?
Furthermore, outside of Missouri politicians, I haven't seen any others.
Not just the Clintons, but I haven't seen Dingy Harry, for example, or Pelosi, or Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz.
Now, they may be there, but they're not prominent if they are.
And you know, if the Clintons were there, they'd have been all over the place by now.
So why not?
Why are the Clintons not there?
Oh, there's an answer.
It's a simple answer.
But since I'm kind of in a teasing mode today, I'll leave that hanging while you ponder it.
And I want to build on the comments made by our last caller, who was another one, another person who realizes the degree to which the media has contributed to the lack of balance.
And he's right about something.
Truth is self-evident, but that's been blurred and obscured because they've done great damage to the language.
The left has, the media's chosen sides now, and so there's not an opportunity for the public, the body politic, to honestly be informed of things.
Nothing new, actually, but still it's a fact.
But there's more to it.
I ran across over the weekend a pretty interesting piece.
You know, I popularized way back in the early 90s a tiny little phrase, words mean things.
The left has succeeded in really bastardizing common, ordinary, everyday English words to now where now they have entirely different meanings.
And I ran across an interesting piece at townhall.com by a guy named Steve Deese.
The American Exceptionalism Dictionary.
We are now reaping a bitter generational harvest in America, sown into the ground because we have permitted Marxists almost unchecked dominance of the influential platforms of pop culture in the classroom.
This we all know, so stick with me here.
We have permitted too many of our churches to retreat into some comfortable, numb, seeker-friendly xanadu where they build suburban palaces instead of culture.
And we have permitted the Republican Party to be taken over by a feckless political class, either unwilling or incapable of defending and advancing our principles, conservative principles.
But one of the most rotten fruits of this bitter harvest, a generational harvest, is the loss of the language itself.
Entire words that meant one thing for generations now have completely different meanings, and nothing unhinges a culture faster than the loss of shared language and terminology.
So this guy, Steve Deese, says, to recover the language and thus our lost legacy, I went back to the master linguist himself, Noah Webster of Webster's dictionary, for those of you in Riolinda.
Oh, wait, dictionary.
Who am I kidding?
I don't know what that is.
Noah Webster was fluent in 27 languages.
Did you know that?
He was.
He was one of the most influential thinkers among the firstborn generation of newly minted Americans.
He is best known today as the father of American education and for the dictionary which bears his name.
Webster is as responsible as any single person in our history for preserving the American view of law and government passed down to us from the founding fathers.
And yet, as we have collectively drifted from our most cherished traditions, because they've been under assault, traditions and institutions which defined the greatness of this country have been under assault for decades.
As a result of that, Noah Webster's influence has waned as well.
And as a result of that, even though our letters and spelling are the same as they were in Webster's day, the definitions are decidedly different.
And he goes back to the original Webster's dictionary to make his point.
Let's consult Webster's legendary 1828 edition of American Dictionary of the English Language.
Take a look at terms vital to the preservation of American exceptionalism and see how Webster himself defined them compared to how they are defined today.
The word rights.
How would you define the word rights?
What is a right?
And just think about it here for a second.
Because this is an example of how this one word has been totally taken over by the left to mean something it has, it comes nowhere close to actually meaning.
Here's Webster's 1828 definition of rights.
That which justly belongs to me.
Just claim by sovereignty.
Prerogative.
God, as the author of all things, has a right to govern and dispose of them at his pleasure.
Rights.
Rights come from God.
This was fundamental in our founding.
It's all over the Declaration of Independence.
As you know, a right is a just claim, legal title, ownership, the legal power of exclusive possession and enjoyment, conformity to the will of God or to his law, conformity to human laws or to other human standard of truth, propriety, or justice.
When laws are definite, right and wrong are easily ascertained and understood.
That's from the original definition of the word rights, the original Webster's dictionary.
When laws are definite, right and wrong are easily ascertained and understood.
And that's precisely why they had to get rid of it, because in liberalism, you don't have the right to judge.
Liberalism, right and wrong are determined by individual choice.
Whatever you think is right is right.
What you think is wrong is wrong.
Whatever you think a right is, is right.
You don't have to know the real meaning.
But more than anything, God's got nothing to do with anything today.
And there can't be a universal right and wrong because nobody's got the right to determine what's right and wrong for everybody else.
But it used to be that all that was universal.
Here's today's definition of rights.
And see if this doesn't comport with what you think most people, and particularly young people, think rights are.
Access to what I want when I want it, especially if I can rally a particular group and the media to bully other people into agreeing with me.
Rights are the full realization of my desires and preferences, which you must then pay for.
That's what rights has come to mean.
Whatever somebody wants and when they want it, and if they have to get a mob to get it, that's perfectly fine.
And is that not the case?
When you listen to people throw around, I have my rights, I have a right, they think it's entitlement.
A right is an entitlement today.
But of course, it wasn't.
Here is Noah Webster's 1828 definition of morality.
This one, slam dunk.
Morality.
The quality of an action which renders it good.
The conformity of an act to the divine law or to the principles of rectitude.
This conformity implies that the act must be performed by a free agent and from a motive of obedience to the divine will.
This is the strict theological and scriptural sense of morality, but we often apply the word to actions which accord with justice and human laws without reference to the motives from which they proceed.
Today's definition of morality, it's an ancient word used only by those on the wrong side of history.
That's today's morality.
Nobody's got the right to define morality today.
Who are you to tell me what's moral and what's you can't judge me?
Now, the point is, two more words are given as examples, law and tolerance.
But the point is that in addition to what the media has openly now decided to choose upsides, there are also a lot of other things at work which are debasing culture and changing relationships and actually obliterating the entire concept of American exceptionalism, what makes us different from everybody.
And it's profound.
It really, this guy is on to something here.
I got to take a quick timeout, folks, but hang in.
We'll be back.
We'll continue more phone calls and lots of other things too as well.
So do not go away.
You know what the urban dictionary definition of morality is?
Are you ready for this?
The urban dictionary definition of morality, the logic used to justify character assassination.
Now, the urban dictionary is a youthful dictionary, street dictionary, very informal, supposed to be relevant with the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times.
And so you see in these people's view, no, you don't have the right to tell anybody they're behaving immoral in an immoral way.
You have no right to say, who are you?
You can't judge.
You don't know what's right and wrong.
And it's even now gotten to the point where if you have committed any kind of a wrong at all, you are not permitted to comment on the whole subject.
I can't tell you the number of leftists who've told me that because I didn't go to Vietnam, I have no right to talk about the defense budget.
What do you mean?
Well, you had a chance to go kill copies and you didn't do it.
We don't have any right.
You have no credibility in the defense budget.
You didn't go.
And this is the way the left attempts to eliminate and discredit.
You don't have to have done something to know whether it's right or wrong.
That's the whole point in a self-evident, a truth is self-evident world.
But this definition of morality, the logic used to justify character assassination.
Let me ask you this, folks.
How many of you, if put on the spot, could explain the difference between ethics and morality?
Think about that for a second.
Let me grab a quick call.
John in Indianapolis, welcome, sir, to the EIB network.
Great to have you here.
Hello.
Rush right off the bat.
I'm just telling you, once you cut off my mic or my phone, I'm getting on your website and ordering the blueberry tea.
And I suggest that every other of my fellow Americans do the same, but do it just a little bit differently than I do.
Add some vodka.
It's awesome.
Add some vodka.
Have you ever tried orange vodka in the blueberry tea?
No, that's a bit out of my price range in this economy that we're in.
But the reason I'm calling is I think that St. Louis, Missouri is going to be on the radar for just a tad bit longer than we even realize.
I think the next media whirlwind storm is coming when Michael Sam doesn't make the St. Louis Rams.
And you predicted it.
You said there's a good chance that he will not make the team.
And I just hope that.
No.
I don't remember that because I don't, I frankly said about any team that drafts him, they can't cut him.
And here's, no, here's what I said.
I remember specifically.
I said, if, and this is about the Rams, if they're going to cut him, they better play him in every preseason game, and they better have reams and reams of video showing that they don't think he can play because there's going to be hell to pay if they cut him.
Now, they don't have to cut him.
They can put him on the practice squad.
See, the media is agitating for that today.
You may not know this.
The media is agitating for him to be put on the practice squad if he doesn't make the team.
But they say the Rams can't do that because they would lose him because some other team would snap him right up if they do that.
So the pressure, the pressure is already on the Rams not to cut Michael Sam.
If they do cut, if you're right, if they do cut him, there will be some anger in the media out there.
It won't be everywhere.
It won't be universal.
I mean, some sports people will say, it was understandable.
He's not that good.
There's a lot of people at his position on that team that are better.
But there will be some who will use it as a launching point.
Why don't you think he's going to make the team?
I don't think the NFL can, you know, take it.
You know, me personally, as a consumer buying that product, I don't want to see that.
I'm not going to the game to see that.
Well, you won't see it.
What do you think?
I do not want the media.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
You don't want to have, oh, ISO camera on Sam every time and the media, the commentators doing nothing but reporting on Sam during the game.
That's what you mean.
Correct.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I still stand by my original point, and that is if you're going to draft him, you can't cut him.
Don't care what.
And there's got to have been.
See, this is what I have to stop, folks.
Because even though I'm right about what I'm going to say next, there's no proof for it.
So no point.
And I'm out of time anyway, thankfully.
So we'll.
Okay, the difference between ethics and morality.
Very simply explained.
The ethical man knows he should not cheat on his wife.
The moral man actually would not.
That is the dependence.
You can be ethical and immoral depending on your choices.
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