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Oct. 10, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:22
October 10, 2014, Friday, Hour #2
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The views expressed by the host on this program documented to be almost always right 99.7% of the time.
You know why?
Because the views expressed by the host of this program are the result of a daily relentless, unstoppable quest for the truth.
Live from the Southern Command in Sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Open Line Friday, one of greatest career risks taken by a major media figure in the world today.
And that's because when we go to the phones, pretty much whatever people want to talk about is fine.
Don't screen it that tightly.com.
The president of Liberia is a woman by the name of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
She became internationally known last week, discussing one of her own citizens, Thomas Duncan.
It was revealed that Thomas Duncan, who has since died, got on an airplane in Monrovia for the United States, knowing he was sick with Ebola.
And he traveled to the United States.
And he has subsequently passed away.
She said that she had immediately changed his classification from citizen to refugee and would never let him back in the country.
Because, according to what she said, she thought what he did was reprehensible.
Knowing that he carried the virus, he got on an airplane, exposing others, and took it to a country where there were no reported cases.
United States.
The world was shocked.
The president of a nation criticizing and ostracizing one of her own citizens.
Well, the reason I mention this is because she back in the news...
Liberian lawmakers debated today whether to grant the President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf more power to restrict movement and public gatherings in the fight against Ebola.
One parliamentarian warned that the country could turn into a police state.
If they weren't vigilant, state media said the House of Representatives would convene a special session today to discuss the proposed measures outlined in a letter back in October 1st.
The contentious proposals include the power to restrict public gatherings and appropriate property without payment of any kind or any further judicial process to combat Ebola.
The letter also says that Surleaf, the president, can limit the right to assemble for any reason.
And they're now arguing about this in Liberia.
And I'm just I'm just throwing it out.
This is a natural tendency for bureaucracies and governments to do in fighting the spread of something that apparently is uncontrollable.
And I just throwing it out, I'm just not I'm not saying it's gonna happen anywhere else.
I'm not leveling any warnings or allegations or accusations.
But we had a couple of phone calls yesterday from people who think this is right around the corner here, and that it's going to be seized as an opportunity, whether it's justified, warranted or not.
Well, it says it can take your property without payment of any kind or any further judicial process.
They can combat your your right to assemble, limit the right to assemble, and restrict your movement.
This is what she wants to do.
It hasn't well they're hours ahead of us.
So I don't know what action was taken, but they were debating this.
Now, back here on our own shores, we have a story from the Cybercast News Service.
Speaking in a video message to residents of West African countries currently experiencing outbreaks of Ebola, President Barack Obama dispensed advice on how residents can avoid the disease, including, quote, you cannot get it through casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus.
Do you think the residents of Sierra Leone and Liberia are excited to see a message from Barack Obama on how to deal with Ebola?
You don't?
You don't?
You don't think they're excited that the president of the United States cares enough about them to sit down and do a message?
Really?
Well, okay.
Um, so the president did that.
He recorded a video message for the for the citizens of West African countries experiencing the outbreak.
And again, in the video message, the president told the citizens, you cannot get Ebola through casual contact, like sitting next to somebody on a bus.
At the same time, this wizard that runs the CDC, Dr. Thomas Friedman, is advising Americans who travel to these Ebola stricken nations to avoid public transportation.
I'm sorry, I can't help but laugh.
I know it isn't funny.
I'm sorry.
I really am.
Folks, I'm sorry, but I can't.
I can't.
I mean, imagine here's Obama on TV in Liberia, Sierra alone.
Hey, you know what?
It's perfectly fine.
Get on bus, sit next to someone.
You cannot get the disease that way.
That's casual contact.
It will not happen.
And Americans, way the Liberians hear about this.
Americans are being advised by their own CDC guy.
If they travel, don't get on a bus with anybody.
Sorry.
This is not confidence inspiring.
This, I mean, here you have the president and his director of the CDC.
They're clearly not on the same page.
They clearly do not have the same set of guidelines or instructions or what have you.
Hey, does anybody in there have Gwyneth Paltrow's number?
I'd like to call her and ask her if the president of Liberia has enough power.
I'd like to ask Gwyneth Paltro if we should give Ellen Johnson Sir Leaf all the power she needs to pass this stuff that she wants to pass.
The powers that she would give to Obama.
I know.
never never have them you just can't forget that story can't you Snerdley keeps asking about the dwarf.
Uh it's it's it's a sad story, ladies and gentlemen, from the first hour.
But what happened was the bride-to-became pregnant after having sex with a dwarf stripper at her bachelorette party.
And uh she gave birth to a baby that her husband thought was his until he saw the baby and saw that it had dwarf characteristics that he knew something had happened that he wasn't a part of.
And so now there's trouble in paradise.
This thirdly keeps asking me.
Like he just said, well, does the Ebola virus hang around in dwarf semen 90 days?
It doesn't know the difference.
Yes, Ebola hangs around in semen for 90 days.
That's what we that's what we learned yesterday.
No, I'm not serious.
The Ebola virus remains in male semen for 90 days after a patient has recovered.
I mean, that's pretty serious stuff.
Now let's talk, ladies and gentlemen, about this woman, Alison Lundgren Grimes, Lundergan Grimes.
She appeared before the Lule Courier Journal Newspaper Editorial Board yesterday to make her pitch for their endorsement.
She's running for the Senate against Mitch McConnell.
She's a lifelong Democrat.
Her family has been in politics at various levels for quite a while.
Her father represented Kentucky, Democrat Party in the state House of Representative.
She has been on the ballot in the state on a Democrat ticket previous times.
She was asked a simple question.
Did she vote for President Obama in 2008 and 2012?
Now, I first heard about this during show prep last night's a Washington Post story written by a guy named Philip Bump.
And I'm telling you, this story, it is the most, well, I guess it's the most incredible thing.
But this writer is so in the tank for Alison Lundergan Grimes.
He desperately wants to speak to her.
He desperately wants to advise her what to do here.
The headline to his story is 40 painful seconds of Alison Lundergan Grimes refusing to say whether she voted for Obama.
And he's wringing his hands.
Why did she do this?
Why couldn't she have said yes, but she regrets it now?
And she's looking forward to Hillary.
Why could and he's it the the it's filled with advice?
And it it it is it is clear that that this guy has written this piece in pain over her performance.
He thinks, oh, he wants her to beat McConnell so bad that he really thinks that she stepped in, but it's a farthest thing from a news story that you can see that is presented as one.
Anyway, we have tape of how it sounded.
This is yesterday at the Lowell Courier Journal website, newspaper's editorial board, interviewed the Senate candidate Allison Lundergan Grimes.
And during the QA, one of the members of the editorial board said, Did you vote for Obama in 2008-2012?
You know, this election isn't about the president.
It's about making sure we put Kentuckians back to work.
And I was actually in a way to delegate for Hillary Clinton.
And I think that Kentuckians know I'm a Clinton Democrat uh through and through.
I respect the sanctity of the ballot box, and I know that the members of this editorial board do as well.
So you're not going to answer.
Again, I don't think that the president is on the ballot uh as much as Mitch McConnell might want him to be.
It's my name.
And it's going to be me who's holding him accountable for the failed decisions and votes that he has made against the people of Kentucky.
And you might be saying, why does it matter?
It matters because Obama's approval number, he's never won the state.
His approval numbers there are in the tank.
I mean, they're as low there as you'll find them anywhere.
In some cases, some Paul's high twenties in the 30s.
And so she's not going to say she voted.
She did.
She won't say so because the Senate candidates, both incumbent and challengers, are doing everything they can to distance themselves from Obama, and the message has gone out to do so.
And so she won't go anywhere near it.
And of course, this guy named Philip Bumpy wrote the Washington Post piece, and a lot of others are saying, how hard would it have been?
I mean, can this woman not think on her feet?
How hard would it have been to simply say, yeah, I did, and I'm feeling disappointed, but yeah, I did, I'm a little let down.
Yeah, I did, and I'd hope for more, and that's why I'm going to be supporting Hillary Clinton.
And that's why, and yeah, she could have said this.
She could have said, Yeah, I did, but I voted for Hillary in the primaries in 2000.
She could have said anything, but she stuck to the script.
She wouldn't veer off the script.
This is what you call consultant prep.
And she was prepped and obviously had it drilled into her head.
If they ask you if you voted for Obama, no matter what else you do, you do not say yes.
No matter what, because that is the only thing anybody's going to remember about this interview of the editorial board.
And they're going to use that to crucify your judgment and to criticize you all over the board.
Don't, and so she dutifully followed consultant instruments.
I know that's what happened.
She followed consultant's instructions.
Well, I guess it's possible she could have devised this strategy on her own, too.
It's not that hard to figure out.
Obama's not popular where she's running.
But people are looking at this saying that would have been so easy to answer that and then move it off the table.
Yeah, I voted for Obama after I voted for Hillary in the primary.
That's all she would have had to say.
But you know what she's not like here.
Remember the first congressional hearing with all those ballplayers up there about steroids?
And uh and Mark McGuire.
I'm not here to talk about the past.
I only want to talk about the future.
And all these congressmen from St. Louis and from Missouri were going bad because McGuire had been such a hero, such a role model.
Here he wouldn't answer their question.
He wouldn't talk about it.
He said, I don't want to talk about the past.
I'm not here to talk about that's exactly what she sounded like.
Well, you know, I was actually a delegate for Hillary, and I don't want to talk about the past.
I'm looking forward.
I'm looking forward.
It's my it's my opponent.
He is worried about my not at all.
And I think I think it's it's kind of fascinating.
You compare today to 2008 where everybody wanted to be around Barack Obama.
Everybody wanted to be in that light.
Everybody wanted to be in that group.
Everybody wanted to be part of that happening.
Everybody wanted to be in that story.
Everybody wanted to think they mattered in that story.
Everybody wanted to think everybody knew they knew Obama.
Everybody was hoping that they thought that they were intimately involved in the Obama campaign.
It were somehow involved in making it all happen.
But everybody in the Democrat Party was doing, except for the Hillary Cup, doing everything they could to get close.
And to have some of that positive vibe bounce off on them.
It's human nature.
Everybody gravitates to the big news story today, and Obama was a big, and now look at it six years later, and none of them want anywhere near the guy.
That's the story.
Jay Carney, CNN last night, Don Lemon says, you know, midterms are coming up.
What does it do to Democrats who are really keeping the president at arm's length last night, like this babe in Kentucky?
I think the Democratic candidates uh have to sort of thread this needle very carefully, because uh it is true that when you have an unpopular president of your party, you don't want to be associated with him.
You know, your opponents are probably running ads linking him to you, and you want to keep your distance.
But the fact is President Obama, like incoming presidents usually are, remains very popular with his base uh and with the base of the Democratic Party.
So in some states and in some places, those candidates have to be careful about going too far in distancing themselves.
Well, that's a bunch of gobbledygook, but baby basically he's he's doing what he can to stay loyal to Obama.
They say, You go, you these better be careful, they better not go too far from Obama.
It's not gonna stand them in good stuff, no, that kind of stuff.
It still doesn't change things.
Back to the phones open line Friday, Adrian in San Francisco.
Great to have you.
Hello.
Hi, Raj.
Uh, listen, I don't know how I'm gonna follow the stripper dwarf, but I'm gonna try.
The uh, you know, I I talked to your call screener.
I'm I'm calling about conservative comedy.
Um I I want to say that it's more probably comedy that uh lampoons the left.
And if anybody has called your show and it's been on old nose, you know, I just uh listened to a battery of your bits that were just outstanding, witty, well-written, funny as all get out, and I'm kind of wondering why there are no TV shows that would um let's say put the visual medium to work utilizing the kind of humor that I hear on your show,
not only from when you speak, but also from the little bits that I hear while I'm when I'm on hold.
I just kind of want to get your your I you know, your sense of why there's not anything out there like that.
Well, in the first place, Hollywood's dominated by by people who would not hire uh conservatives.
But the the there's a reason before you get there.
The way liberalism has set things up, there's nothing about it that's funny.
If you make fun, if you make jokes of liberalism, you are racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobe, you're mean, you're insensitive, you're extremist.
Uh and it the arbiters of comedy Do not permit conservative comedy be tagged or thought of as comedy.
They label it immediately as mean spirited or extremist, and therefore they stigmatize the person, such as if you wanted to go into conservative stand-up or something like that.
You would immediately be tagged as mean and bitter, and uh the reviews on you will be what's up your butt, why are you so unhappy?
What do you make because you do one thing that you do not do?
I found this over you just don't make fun of the left and you don't make jokes.
You don't make jokes about the feminazis, you don't make jokes, you just you you they will not they don't have a sense of humor.
Now hang on, because Adrian, this is actually a very good subject.
Don't go away.
And we are back with Adrian in San Francisco.
He wants to know why there is no conservative comedy.
Let me ask you, uh Adrian, are you thinking about trying to do any kind of comedy as a conservative?
Are you looking into that?
Or is are you just curious about the subject?
Well, yeah, I actually told uh your your call screener that I probably in the next couple of weeks or a month or so, I'm gonna pitch an idea to an agency in uh in LA and it's you know, I don't know if you would call it conservative.
It's certainly that's conservative.
No, whatever you do, don't.
That's the point that I was gonna make to you.
Well, I I really have no place else because this is a this is a TV show.
No, no, don't no no, don't label it.
Don't label yourself.
Oh, I see.
Don't call it conservative comedy.
The left doesn't.
The left, hey, they don't say, hey, here's the latest liberal take of here's the latest liberal funny line.
Here they're just the comedians of the day, right?
We have to assume they're liberal by virtue of their material, but they never talk about it.
They never label themselves.
And in fact, some of them, not all, by all stretch, but some of them try to uh uh avoid labels.
They pers what they try to do is portray themselves as representative of the culture at large.
They're not liberal, they're not leftists, they're just funny people.
The the problem that conservatives make, I I once tell you a little story to illustrate.
One of the first things that ever happened to me, the first meetings I ever attended in Washington shortly after this story started, um, was a convention of religious broadcasters, and they were having trouble getting their programs on standard radio stations, not Christian stations.
And they asked me what I thought, and I said, but you're you're you're eliminating 80% of the stations by calling yourself Christian radio.
Just do what you want to do, don't label it anything.
You're you're making yourself targets.
Well, it's not right.
It isn't fair.
I know it isn't fair.
I know it's not right, but you've you're you're looking at people that are afraid of religion, afraid of Christianity.
Just do what you do.
Don't label it.
And I think the same thing would is true of conservative comedy.
Don't don't position yourself as an alternative to liberal comedy.
Don't position yourself as uh something newer.
You just you're just a funny guy.
And you want to, you you've got an idea you want to pitch.
Now, if it if your idea does involve a conservative take on things, find some other word than conservative to use.
Yeah, you know, that that's true.
Uh I mean, the reason I would probably I mean, obviously they're gonna ask me basically what you know, but they'll find out anyway, but the reason I'm I'm pitching it to this particular agency is I'm trying to get to Joel Cernell, because I think he would really get this, and knowing the fact that he had tried that comedy show that uh I think it was called the the half-hour news hour.
Half hour news hour, that's right.
Yeah.
And um I I think it would it was a gallant try, although I think that um, you know, the fake news stuff um is a little it's a little bit of a tired forum, at least from my personal perspective.
And uh I I mean I've got a completely unexpected fresh take on comedy, and it's I'm putting together Republicans and rock and roll.
And I uh you know, it's a lot more than that, but um I'm trying to, I hope.
All I'm trying to tell you is that if you label it, you are by virtue of that limiting yourself, you are limiting your appeal.
You have a new revolution of comedy for the country.
You don't say of Republicans and rock and roll.
The people you're gonna be talking to think Republicans are hate filled extremist bigots who are conducting a war on women, and worse than everything, they think the Republicans hate homosexuals.
And that you're going to be dealing with a lot of gay people in the world that you're going to be working in.
You're just going to what I have found, you know, my my television show, my television show was so-called conservative comedy.
We didn't call it that.
Well, I I'm obviously conservative, but that's not the way we positioned it.
It was just our take on the news every day.
And by the way, it's what the Daily Show is today, except they're doing it with a liberal take.
And you see the difference.
It's vastly appreciated.
It is thought to be brilliant comedy, even though we didn't have any writers, they have 33.
It's a cultural thing, and you're just up against it.
You can you can lament it, you can say it's not fair, but it's what you're up against.
But I my only piece of advice to you, if it's funny, it'll work.
If it's if but keep in mind that that if you if the if the humor is at all thought of as mocking liberals, they're going to object to it because they don't think what they do is mockable.
They don't think what they believe is in any way funny.
It's deadly serious.
It's civil rights, it's human rights, it's racism, it's dignity.
It's and you start making fun of that stuff and telling them up front that's what you're gonna do, and you're not gonna get to first base.
You are gonna have to sneak it in.
And you've got it, you're gonna have to figure out what your purpose is here.
If your purpose is to have everybody know that you are a conservative doing comedy, it's gonna be that much harder on you.
If all you want to do is be a successful comedian, and you think you've got a new way to go, just do it.
Don't announce your marketing plan, just execute it.
Let your work speak for you.
But don't label it.
Now the danger there is that somebody else will.
But you're gonna run into that no matter what you do.
But you you can certainly define yourself without labeling yourself.
And I by the way, I'm not against labels.
I just know what you're gonna be up against if you do it.
That's all.
I'm not I'm not advocating cowardice.
I'm advocating stealth brilliance.
You're gonna have to find your way into this world via a back door.
You're gonna have to sneak up on these people because they're waiting for you at the front door and they don't want you coming in.
Once they find out what you're gonna do.
It's just the way it is.
I hate to use myself, but it works.
This radio show.
Never once, never once did we ever state here we are, finally, conservatism in the media.
We just did it.
And we let it find its audience.
We just did it.
And it spoke for itself.
We didn't hide it, but we didn't label it or announce it, and and we we didn't position it because, well, the rest of the media is this, so we're gonna do that.
We just did it.
When I worked for the Kansas City Royals, sales and market, we never, we had a marketing plan every year.
We it was designed to separate people and their money.
We never told them how we were gonna do it, we just did it.
And some of the plans worked and some of them didn't.
But in in this day, the liberals own the culture, and they're very proud of that ownership, and they think they own it, and they don't want any interlopers, and they're not prepared to like you, and they don't think you're funny.
If you're making fun of them.
You go, you start telling jokes about feminists.
The feminists are gonna be the first on your case.
They're not because they don't think they're funny, and they're not funny.
The way they're mockable, you can make fun of them.
We do it here every day, and they don't like it.
They cannot laugh at themselves.
They do not know the definition of self-deprecation.
They do not know it.
They actually are the most unfunny group that you'll ever run into.
They're singularly angry all the time.
I've I've imagined what it'd be like to get up every day being a liberal and knowing I'm never going to be happy because there's never going to be perfection.
There's never going to be utopia.
And no matter what I get, I'm never going to be satisfied.
I don't, I don't know how they get through the day.
They do it by continuing to be enraged all the time.
And that's what they feed off of.
And they'll chew you up and spit you out if they think you're coming at them.
I'm not telling you not to do it.
I'm just, and you, and by the way, this advice is worth what it costs you, which is a phone call, which is nothing, which is free because we paid for it.
Do what you want.
But that's those are just my thoughts.
Okay, we're back.
Great to have you, L. Rushbo and the EIB network of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
So I checked the email during the break.
And I got uh dear Rush, what books are you reading right now besides your own?
And I don't read my own books because I wrote them.
I know what's in them.
Now, I do the audio for them, and I read them in that regard.
I read them out loud.
They're really good, by the way.
This let this next one, the one we just announced the pre-orders for Rush Revere and the American Revolution.
You know, the audio of this, and Brian will tell you, he was he was dazzled by it.
We it took us four days, and he was so dazzled he couldn't leave for a half hour after we finished every night.
He couldn't believe what he just heard.
And it's just it's on CD.
Uh it's not out yet, October 28th or 29th.
But I'm re my brother's book, uh, Jesus on Trial.
My brother uh for the longest time uh has been attempting to prove to himself what there really is only faith for.
He's Christian, and he he is he has sought any number of ways to prove to himself that the resurrection took place, that the Bible is the truth, and he's written about it.
He's written about his quest.
It's a personal quest uh that that I've obviously I know my brother a long time, and it's been decades, that he has been, I don't know what, fascinated, not obsessed, but it almost is uh in terms of trying to reach for himself, an answer that will that will get him beyond his faith.
Many people in religion do this.
Uh they they want something more than just their faith.
And so he's written about it, and he has convinced, he's he's been able to convince himself that the Bible alone is all you need to prove the stories in the Bible, that the Bible itself offers its own proof.
If you're willing to accept it and if you know how, and that's what he shared with uh with readers.
And he's been out there, he's doing television and radio interviews all over the place.
He's he's just he really's a lawyer, so he applied his legal training to this.
And you've probably seen him talking about it on TV with Hannity, and he's been all over the radio, but it's a fascinating book.
And then there are two novels that I'm reading.
Doug Brunt has a book called The Means.
And it is it's it's great.
It's about it's the mixture of television news and politics.
And it's salacious, and it's, you know, Doug's Doug's wife is Megan Kelly.
It's not autobiographical, but he knows lots of these.
This is insider kind of stuff, not writing about people that you know.
He's these are fictional characters, but it is it's fascinating stuff about the the news business and politics and beautiful women and and all that.
And then there's a book called I Am Pilgrim.
And it's by a guy named Terry Hayes.
It's a real long novel, and it is about one of the world's best Forensic criminal investigators of Islamic terrorism.
And his quest, by the way, this book has some relatability to today because this book is about a militant Islamist who does not look like one.
He's an educated doctor, Saudi Arabia, who hates the Saudi regime because they beheaded his father.
He hates everybody, but he's a doctor and he's found a vaccine or he's found a way to genetically destroy the vaccine to smallpox.
He's found a way to infect the world with smallpox.
And in it, he's found a way to um uh genetically alter the vaccine so that it's useless.
And it's the job of this investigator to track this guy down after they've learned what he's done.
It's it's so those are those are the three.
My brother's book, Jesus on Trial, Douglas Brunt, B-R-U-N-T, which is the means, and I am pilgrim by Terry Hayes.
And they're, of course, obviously all different.
Yeah, I do read them all at the same time.
I read them on my iPads, or now on my iPhone 6 Plus.
And just like a Kendall, whatever you just whatever you leave off is where it automatically picks up if you want to read it on an iPad next or even on the computer.
I haven't had an actual book in my hand to read.
I mean, I get them, but I haven't read from an actual book probably in a couple years.
I read everything electronically.
So those are the things.
And then there's a couple others.
I mean, there's a there's a uh let me look at the list of it.
Oh, well, no, I won't bother you with that.
Well, yeah, James James Patterson has a has a series called Private, and it's about the super duper private investigator guy in LA who's expanding to all over the world.
London and the ratest is down under Australia or whatever.
Private down under.
But I've set that aside for now.
Um basically just didn't even really start it out in the first two pages.
But those are the those are the books.
So one more time, Jesus on Trial by My Brother, which I think that would be that would it is valuable for anybody who's fascinated by the story of Jesus Christ and Christianity.
And by the way, it's not it's not presented in legal ease.
It's it's uh it's not a court case, it's just he uses legal analytical ability.
The means by Douglas Brunt and I am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.
And here we go back to the phones with uh Kevin in Boston.
Kevin, I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the EIB network.
Hello.
Hey Russ, how are you doing, brother?
I'm great.
Thank you very much.
Uh well, it's like uh well, mine I'm working to pay my fair share of Obama's next vacation.
So uh well, I want to respond to you were talking about asking for a raise.
Right, right.
And I found two ways uh that it really were well first way it really worked well for me is that uh I go to my employer and I ask him, what do I need to do to earn a race?
So that's a positive conversation.
That's always work well for me.
And the second way is to start my own business, which I will do next year.
Well, now see that that everybody's gonna do that.
But that's not a guaranteed raise, but it is you are in charge.
You start your own business.
If you're the only employee, of course you're paying yourself.
But you have employees, you're paying them first.
They and their benefits get paid first.
Uh there is a if you've got a passion, there's nothing that can replace it, but boy, that's a big leap.
But your other method, ask the employer what you have to do to get a raise.
What he's saying is, if you get an answer, go do it.
And he's gotten the raise by doing what the boss told him.
That didn't work for me once.
I tried that.
I'll tell you what happened when we get back.
I was working for the Kansas City Royals, making $15,000 a year.
I went in and I said, What do I have to do to earn $16,000 a year?
And he said, You need to do in a thousand dollars more work.
And I said, What's that?
He said, You figure it out.
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