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Dec. 2, 2014 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:37
December 2, 2014, Tuesday, Hour #2
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Greetings, my friends.
You're tuned to the most listened to radio talk show in America.
I am Rush Limbaugh, and I've been doing this a long time.
That means I have lots of experience.
That means I know what I'm doing.
A highly trained broadcast specialist and a professional, as opposed to rank amateurs.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program, 800-282-2882, the email address LRushbo at eibnet.com.
The official opinion on Fox News is the Republicans should avoid a government shutdown at all costs.
Whatever you do, do not shut down the government.
If that means the losers in the last election get pretty much everything they want, then so be it, because the absolute worst thing you could do, according to Fox News, is shut down the government.
The worst thing that could happen to the Republicans who just won in a landslide election would be to shut down the government.
Even if it means that the people who lost the landslide election get everything they want, that's fine.
That's preferable to the damage that would incur to the Republicans if they shut down the government again, like they did last year.
Do you remember when the Republicans, so-called, it's not even really a government shutdown, that's another, it's a misnomer, but do you remember that last year?
Almost at this time.
It was in December during a lame duck session last year, and that evil meanie, that really mean, you know, incentive guy had Ted Cruz came along and single-handedly shut down the government, damn it, and just totally bollocksed everything up.
It was so bad that the Republicans, in less than a year, won a landslide midterm election.
Now, now the thinking at Fox News of not shutting down the government, is that, oh my God, oh, if we shut down the government, oh, the media is going to kill us, and oh, the people are going to hate us.
And even more than they hate us now, and they'll never recover from, don't shut down the government.
And we really even aren't even talking about shutting down the government.
But it's even worse than that, folks.
And we have mentioned this, actually mentioned this before the election and afterwards.
As you know, the Republicans won the Senate.
That means the Republicans in January will control the House and the Senate.
Now set that aside for just a second, because it's going to happen.
It's there.
Even if the Republicans shut down the government, they're still going to be running it come January.
Now let's rewind and let us return to the period of time.
Let's say just the last three years.
Do you know how this country has been budgeted?
Oh, by the way, speaking of which, we have finally hit $18 trillion in the total national debt now.
And do you realize this?
70% of that has occurred in the last six years.
The national debt, $18 trillion and 70% of it, happened during the Obama administration.
And how has it happened?
Well, one of the ways it's happened is we haven't had budgets because the Democrats ran the Senate.
And the Democrats did not want to submit a budget every year, which would lay out their agenda because they would not win elections if people knew what they were doing.
And the budget is a pretty good indication of your agenda.
So instead, we funded our budget in our country with something called continuing resolutions.
And every period of time, say 45 days or 90 days, we would have to have a meeting between the House and Senate Republicans, Democrats, and come up with a stop gap spending bill for yet another 90 days.
And every 90 days, there was a threat of a government shutdown.
The Democrats would concoct something the Republicans couldn't support.
And they would run around and say the Republicans are going to shut down the government.
This would cause the Republicans to agree with everything the Democrats wanted because the Republicans never shut.
We had to shut down in 1995.
And oh my God, it was a disaster.
Oh my God.
Do you remember?
Oh, gee, the government shut down in 1995.
Oh, it was worse than Goldwater losing in 64.
Oh, it was so bad.
We shut down it.
Oh, my God.
We've never recovered from it.
So they think.
So the alternative is to shutting down the government.
Is the Democrats get everything they want?
And the Democrats have gotten everything they want.
They've gotten Obamacare.
They've got gay marriage.
They've got amnesty.
They get everything they want.
Continuing resolutions, right?
So we've got to stop this.
Do we not?
And the American people don't want any more of it.
The American people so much don't want any more of it that they select the Democrats with a landslide defeat three weeks ago.
Huh, is it four weeks ago?
Whatever, November, whatever, the election day, not long ago, the Democrats got shellak.
The American people clearly do not want this budget, this country, run by the Democrats anymore.
They're fed up with it.
They're tired of it.
They want this stuff stopped.
So what the Republicans are going to do is keep doing it.
Let's go back to my undeniable fact that the Republicans are going to run the government in January.
They're going to run the Senate.
They're going to run the House.
The Democrats, they're not going to have 60 votes in the Senate, but they're going to run the place.
You know what the Republicans are doing right now?
Fox News is telling them not to shut down the government.
It'd be the absolute worst.
Oh, my God, it would be disastrous.
Shut down the government.
Oh, you realize what the media will say about it?
Oh, my God.
The people of this country want the government so bad.
The people of this country love the government.
You can't shut down the government.
Oh, my God, the people.
Oh, it'd be hard.
Don't.
Never mind the fact the Republicans won a landslide election not 10 months after they shut down the government the last time.
But we're not supposed to remember that.
Now, you would think after the people have spoken, landslide defeat Democrats, $18 trillion national debt, everything Obama and the Democrats have wanted.
The American people have said, stop it.
You would think that the Republicans would just do a short order budget bill to get us through, say, January or February.
Just another short little continuing resolution.
And then in January, February, when they run the House and the Senate, then they do a budget that is responsible.
Doesn't that make imminent sense, ladies and gentlemen?
That's not what they're going to do.
The Republicans are going to agree with the Democrats.
If this holds, and we've been talking about it since before the election, it's still out there as a viable possibility.
The Republicans have decided to sit down with Harry Reid and whoever else and do the entire budget for the remaining fiscal year, which would be through next September 30th, this month.
Thereby, the Republicans are guaranteed to run the House and Senate for at least the next two years.
And if they do this, if they agree to a full omnibus budget on the Democrats' terms, obviously, the Democrats still run the Senate right now.
So if they do a budget deal right now with the Democrats still running the show, it's going to be a Democrat budget all the way through next September.
Republicans have just thrown away one of the two years they're guaranteed to have power.
Does any of that make any sense to you?
You've just won the Senate to go with the House.
You're coming up on two years of control over the House and Senate, two years where you control the budget, two years where you have the veto power over nomination, all kinds of stuff.
The American people elected you to stop what's going on.
And so what you're going to do is let the Democrats write the budget for the next year.
Well, I mean, you're going to participate in it.
You're going to say you're wrote, but the losers, I guess this is what it means to cross the aisle and work together and compromise.
Is that what this means?
The Democrats are going to let the losers essentially write the budget for all of the remaining fiscal year, which is through next September 30th?
Yep, apparently so.
And the reason why they say that they're going to do it is just to get it out of the way.
So they can move on to other things once they're sworn in.
Get the budget.
Just get it out of the pain in the asses and get it out of the way.
Kicking the can.
It's mystifying to me.
There's another reason, too, by the way.
Another reason why they want to do this, and that is to limit, block, stop whatever power newly elected conservatives in the House and Senate might do in writing and formulating a new budget.
So if you do a budget all the way through September 30th, 2015, then you have rendered the newly elected conservative members of the Senate, whoever they are, and in the House, powerless over budget matters.
And then over here, Fox News, don't shut down the government.
Oh, don't you dare the media.
You know what?
Worst thing the Republicans could do is shut down the government.
Oh, my God.
Oh, it's horrible.
I don't even want to think about it.
Oh, my God.
They're saying they're in abject panic up there.
Fox News inside the beltway.
Oh, my God.
The Republicans might shut down.
Oh, my God.
Do you realize what Chuck Todd's going to say?
Oh, do you realize what the New York Times had to turn up?
Oh, my God.
Do you realize what the Washington Post is going to say about it?
Oh, geez, it's going to be worse than school lunch lives.
Oh, geez.
Don't shut down the government.
Oh, my God.
It's better if the Democrats get everything they want.
That's much better than us getting blame for shutting down the government.
But remember that meany, selfish, power man, egomaniac Ted Cruz, probably working with Sarah Palin behind the scenes, shut down the government last December.
Yeah.
And the Republicans won in a landslide like 10 months later.
Go figure.
By the way, there's another advantage to doing budgets by continuing resolution.
And a lot of people don't know this.
I'm sure many of you in this audience do.
But continuing resolutions prevent spending cuts.
There are no cuts.
A continuing resolution is all about resolving to continue the spending to keep the government operating.
Continuing resolutions Mean that every department is automatically given the same amount of money as the year before, plus inflation, and along with the baseline increases that are built in.
A continuing resolution does not permit any cuts in spending.
And hell, there never even are, really.
They're just reductions in the rate of growth.
And the government shut down last December that that meanie Ted Cruz did.
Remember him?
Yeah, bully.
Well, only 17% of the government was shut down last year.
83% of the government did not shut down.
Every welfare check to every dependent Democrat went out on schedule.
It did not shut down.
What's being contemplated now is not even a government shutdown.
But Dingy Harry is out there threatening to not shut down the government next week.
He's threatening not allowing the Senate to even recess until he gets everything he wants.
They're not going to end this lame duck until he gets everything he wants.
And of course, the Republicans, see, we're not going to impeach.
We're not going to do that.
We're not going to do that.
We're not going to do a government shutdown.
Why should they act like they lost?
Why should the Democrats act like they lost the election?
Jeb Bush, who, you know, Mitt Romney, they agree on this immigration business.
Jeb Bush, he's waiting to decide whether he wants to run, but he thinks that the Republicans need to be less contentious.
What else did he say?
Less contentious?
Right, right.
Republicans need to be more practical and less contentious.
And Fox News agrees.
Fox News, we don't see government shutdown, even talking about it.
That's not necessarily provocative.
It's unproductive.
And it's not pragmatic.
And it's very contentious.
So we need to just end all of that.
To the phones, we haven't.
No, I'll get to the Rams business.
I've still got an hour and a half here.
Just chill.
Here's George in Atlanta.
George, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hello.
Hey, hello, Rush.
Thank you, longtime listener, first-time caller.
Great to have you here, George.
Welcome.
Thank you.
Hey, I just wanted to know why our baller-in-chief isn't touting the success of the midnight basketball programs that were put in place after the first time we had a bunch of riots over the years.
Yeah, but you know why?
Because the midnight basketball program doesn't exist anymore.
Just like the 100,000 cops doesn't exist anymore.
I was not aware of that.
Yeah, midnight.
I don't think midnight basketball.
Midnight basketball is long gone.
And what was the purpose of midnight basketball?
It was to stop riots.
But wait a minute.
It wasn't for the cops to play basketball.
It was for residents of the neighborhood to play basketball at midnight instead of going against cigarillos at a convenience store and play basketball.
So it was a tantamount admission that if we give, say, athletic activity sponsorship, say at midnight, bamo.
But it wasn't, it wasn't the cops to play midnight basketball week.
Now, there was also a companion program that followed shortly after.
It was also a Clinton idea.
And that was, remember his, I forget that, I think it was 100,000 cops.
Clinton had this big initiative.
Really?
Look at what's happening now.
The Obama administration, the enemy, public enemy number one is cops.
The cops, Eric Holder is the occupying force in way too many of our communities.
Oh, yes.
The cops are intimidating their occupiers.
I mean, this is like a state-run media, state-run police force, and we've got to stop it.
But back in the 90s, Bill Clinton thought we needed more cops.
Yeah.
We needed all kinds of news.
We needed midnight basketball and we needed more cops.
So he had this plan, and I think it was 100,000 cops.
But it sunsetted in five years because of the way it was written.
The first year, a local police force could ask for new cops.
They had to submit a request based on the need that they were to submit.
And the federal government judged the applications.
And if a community was judged to need a cop or three or whatever, the federal government paid for it first year.
Second year, local community had to pay 20%.
And by the fifth year, the local community had to pay all of it, which meant Clinton's 100,000 cops got fired after five years.
Once the feds stopped paying the salaries and benefits, then the cops.
So Clinton's program to add on it was nothing but symbolism over substance.
But the real point of it is, those two, this guy, I'm glad old George here called.
Midnight basketball is an absolutely great reminder when we had problems with crime in neighborhoods.
A Democrat came up with the idea: well, we need to give these young people something to do at midnight rather than engage in crime.
So midnight basketball.
I remember making fun of it.
All kinds of people had a lot of laughs with it.
And I just want to stress: it wasn't the cops that needed to play midnight basketball to straighten up.
It wasn't the cops that needed to burn off some energy here so that they were tired afterwards and went to bed.
It was for the neighborhood, for the community.
And the same thing with 100,000 cops.
Look how far we've come here from Bill Clinton, midnight basketball, and adding 100,000 cops to the current regime where the cops are an occupying force and are the enemy.
The cops have almost become what the left thinks of when they think of the U.S. military, the focus of evil.
I know we did have grooming money.
Children in the neighborhood could groom themselves before going on job interviews after playing midnight basketball.
Wait a minute, the store wasn't robbed at midnight.
It wouldn't have mattered anyway.
We have a Jeb Bush audio soundbite.
Let's see.
It's last night, Washington at the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council, invitation-only event featuring some of the nation's most powerful CEOs.
And Florida Governor, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, spoke.
And this is what he said about running for president.
I don't know if I'd be a good candidate or a bad one.
I kind of know how a Republican can win, whether it's me or somebody else.
And it has to be much more uplifting, much more positive, much more willing to, you know, to be practical now in the Washington world, lose the primary to win the general without violating your principles.
Okay, now, how do you do that, though?
I mean, it's impossible to lose the primary and win the general.
Am I missing something here?
In other words, you've got to be practical in Washington world.
You've got to lose the primary to win the general without violating your principles.
But yeah, but how do you get the nomination if you lose it?
You'll lose the primary to win the general.
No, he doesn't say, oh, oh, oh, you have to be willing to lose the primary.
But if you lose, it doesn't matter.
If you're willing to lose it or if you do lose it, you've still lost it.
I don't know anybody.
Oh, that's it.
See, this is my problem.
Mayor of Realville, politics is not what it is.
It's what it seems.
So you tell people you're willing to lose the primary, but you don't.
You tell people you're willing to lose the primary, which means you are willing to not become a conservative.
You can't be ideological.
The problem with the primaries is that that's where the Republican base votes, and they're a bunch of ideologues, a bunch of conservatives.
Well, the pragmatists aren't going to win them.
So you've got to be willing to run against the base.
That's right.
Yeah, I guess, well, yeah, they do believe if you're going to be president, you've got to win in the Northeast.
We're proving that the last two elections, right?
Yeah, to win the presidency, you've got to win the Northeast.
Yeah, we got that locked down.
We certainly are doing that, aren't we?
Anyway, this completely ignores what's happened in the last two presidential elections.
You have to have your base first and then bring other people in, but this sounds like you throw the base away.
Now, you're willing to.
No, no, it is very practical.
That's what he's meant.
It's practical to admit that you don't want the base.
You'll have to do what it takes to win them, but you really don't want them, and that's all you have to say.
You know, I'll take the base voting.
You're talking to Chuck Todd.
Chuck, look, look, you know what?
These people, I've got to get them to vote for me.
I'm really not crazy about it.
But that's what I have to do.
Just relax, Chuck, until we get to the general, and then you'll be happy.
Is that what it is?
Chuck Todd being a metaphor for everybody in the media.
Well, now, by the way, speaking of which, the story is that the New York Post got that wrong, that Obama did not say Chuck Todd said.
And I didn't read it.
I just saw the headline.
It's not a big enough deal to bring up here again.
Anyway, let's get back to St. Louis and Ferguson and the Rams.
Now, let's see, let me find the appropriate.
Yeah, there's two stories, and we've got a couple of sound bites on this, maybe three.
The first story is from last night, late last night, USA Today.
This ran about 11:30.
A Rams executive apologized to St. Louis County Law Enforcement Monday for the hands-up, don't shoot gesture performed by five of the team's players before Sunday's game at the Edward Jones Dome against the hapless Oakland Raiders.
St. Louis County Police Sergeant Sean McGuire confirmed to USA Today Sports on Monday night that Kevin Demoff, the Rams Executive Vice President of Football Operations and the CEO, I'm sorry, the COO, the chief operating officer, apologized for the players' actions.
This is according to the St. Louis County Police Sergeant Sean McGuire.
The apology was first reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
And according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, County Police Chief John Belmar sent his staff a memo in which he detailed a call from Kevin Demoff, who, by the way, is the son of the great agent Marvin Demoff.
Not that that matters.
I just want you to know.
Kevin Demoff is the son of Marvin Demoff, the CEO of the Rams.
Anyway, the police chief, County Police Chief, John Belmar sent staff a memo in which he detailed a call from Kevin Demoff in which Belmar said that Demoff, quote, regretted that any members of the Rams organization would act in a way that minimized the outstanding work the police officers and departments carry out each and every day, close quote.
Earlier Monday, the head coach of the Rams, Jeff Fisher, told reporters that Kevin Demoff had met with St. Louis law enforcement but directed any questions about the Rams' response to the player's gesture to Demoff, who at that time had not been made available for interviews.
Okay, so that's USA Today last night.
Now, the AP at about, well, later, same timeframe, a little later, Rams police differ on Ferguson protest apology.
Uh-oh, it looks like USA Today jumped a gun.
Looks like USA may have gotten it wrong.
A St. Louis Rams official and a county police chief differed late Monday about whether the team had apologized for the actions of five players who raised their hands during pregame introductions to show solidarity with Ferguson protesters.
Kevin Demoff, the executive vice president of football operations for the Rams, denied in an email to the AP that he had apologized.
He said, I expressed regret for any perceived disrespect of law enforcement, Demoff said.
Our players' goal was to show support for positive change in the community.
And I do believe that supporting our players' First Amendment rights and supporting local law enforcement are not mutually exclusive.
Now, Mr. Demoff has been trained well, folks, because he's got the Democrat-style apology down pat.
If anyone was offended, I'm sorry.
It's your fault for being too dumb to understand the nuance.
It's your fault for not understanding the nuance.
Do Rams players have the First Amendment right to pray on the field?
Do Rams players have the right to do the slit-the-throat gesture after a sack or tackle?
No.
Do Rams players have the right to celebrate two players at the same time in the end zone after a touchdown?
It is verboten.
One guy can celebrate, but if another player or series of players joins the other player celebrating, it's a flag.
St. Louis Post Dispatch said that County Chief John Belmar told his staff by email Monday that Demoff had apologized.
So we have a conflict here.
The cops wanted an apology.
They thought they got one.
When they announced they got one, the Rams said, oh, no, no, no.
We did not apologize for our players.
Our players have First Amendment rights.
Our players wanted to show support for positive change in the community.
They came out and raised their hands in the hands up, don't shoot, except that that didn't happen.
Do the players even know that?
Do the players know that that didn't happen?
And if they don't know that it happened, or if they don't know it didn't happen, then well, that may not be the most effective way of looking at it.
Do the players not know that the gentle giant did not raise his hands and did not surrender.
The players know that.
If they do know that and came out and did it anyway, that's not something that would support the community.
It'd rip it apart.
If the players do not know that that didn't happen, well, then where are they getting their information?
The bottom line is they came out and the Rams examiners, well, they just want to show their support for positive change in the community.
What didn't happen, though?
The gentle giant did not surrender, did not raise his hands.
He was not shot while trying to surrender.
None of that happened.
And yet supporting that version of events doesn't seem that it would equal positive support for the community.
Maybe part of the community.
Maybe that's what is going on.
Anyway, the NFL said there will be no discipline for the players whatsoever on this.
And that's where I think.
And I don't want to be, I don't want to say too much because I don't want a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I just, there's certain things that happen, I get a gut feel.
And we know that beneath the surface, there is a lot of tension in this country about a lot of things.
And we know that it's effervescing.
And we know that sometimes it boils over.
We know there's a lot of pent-up rage and anger that does get tamped down.
But it doesn't take much to release it.
And we just keep a sharp eye on this weekend's games and others to see if this act inspires similar behavior.
Because after all, these guys got on the news, and that's half the objective of young people today, is to get on TV.
They got on the news, and they're being talked about.
And by the way, this is a hell of a lot easier than being involved in a rock'em-sock'em tackle where you might get hurt in order to get on a highlight reel on ESPN.
If all you have to do to get on TV and then on Facebook and then on Twitter is to come out in uniform with your number plainly visible, even though you're wearing a helmet, nobody can see your face.
They know who you are, because your number, you come out, raise your hands, don't shoot, and you make the news.
And you get on TV, you're 24, 25.
You get on TV, get on the news, get on Twitter, get on Facebook.
Hey, pretty cool.
And then the league says, hey, fine with us.
Well, they don't say fine with us, but they say there will be no discipline.
Well, I think this is not going to sit well with some ticket holders in St. Louis.
It's not going to sit well with some corporate sponsors.
I'm just guessing.
I don't know anything.
I just have a feel.
But I maybe should.
That's enough.
I shouldn't go any further on that because I really don't know.
I just think there's this is not isolated.
One soundbite, and then we'll come back and complete.
But here's the coach, Jeff Fisher.
Last night in St. Louis, Rams press conference, and the coach Jeff Fisher spoke about the hands-up, don't shoot gesture made by five players.
It's my personal opinion, and I firmly believe that it's important that I keep sports and politics separate.
Right.
I'm a head coach.
I'm not a politician, an activist.
I have not talked to the five players that made the choice to exercise their free speech yesterday.
I've not talked to them as of yet.
I will.
Politics.
As far as the choice that the players made, no, they're exercising their right to free speech.
Politics.
They will not be disciplined by the club, nor will they be disciplined by the National Football League as it was released today.
So that's all I'm going to say.
And we'll be back.
Don't go away, folks.
By the way, if you think I'm off the mark on this Rams business with these five guys coming out, hands up, don't shoot, you just need to know CNN is showing that practically on a never-ending loop, and they're calling it one of the most courageous things since Rosa Parks.
Somebody on CNN referred to it that way.
Not everybody is, but it's being touted.
That intro, those five players for the Rams, they're being heralded.
I mean, it is what a lot of young people aspire to to end up on TV and be talked about.
Here is, speaking of CNN, Rachel Nichols used to be at ESPN.
She's now over at CNN.
Host Don Lemon spoke with her last night, and she's a sports babe expert.
She said that Lemon said, Do you think this is a rift between the players and the team?
Are we likely to hear more about it?
Or do you think this is in the end that they're not going to talk about it anymore, Rachel?
I wouldn't think that it is a huge rift.
I think that all of us having conversations about Ferguson are finding some differences of opinion with the people that we talk to.
Some of the people who run the team might have a difference of opinion of some of the people who play on the team.
So, you know, the line moves a little bit in the fact that the organization as a whole has apologized.
But again, I personally would be surprised to see any players apologize.
We'll have to see what happens over the next couple of days.
And, you know, we all think a lot of great different things about this.
It's a nuanced and complex issue.
Right, it is.
And if people who run the Rams have a difference of opinion with the people who play on the Rams, so what?
As the coach Jeff Fisher said, hey, you know, keep sports and politics separate.
I'm head coach.
I'm not a politician.
I'm not an activist.
I've not talked to them.
They were exercising their free speech rights.
Well, they NFL restricts a lot of so-called free speech.
But here's the commissioner, Roger Goodell.
This is October 13, 2009, in Boston at an NFL owners meeting.
And see if you remember what this, this is only 12 seconds.
It's going to go by fast.
Let's see if you remember what this was about.
Divisive comments are not what the NFL is all about.
And so, you know, I would not want to see those kind of comments from people who are in a responsible position within the NFL.
No, absolutely not.
Okay, so that was what, five years ago.
That was about, yeah, it was about the Rams.
It wasn't.
Interestingly enough, Snurler, you're right.
It was about the Rams.
It was an ownership controversy.
Exactly right.
But five years ago, the commissioner of the NFL said that we don't divisive comments is that that's not what we do here.
And we want to see those kind of comments from people who are in a responsible position with the NFL.
So is hands up, don't shoot, is that divisive or not?
I don't know.
Depends on your perspective.
But I have further questions on this.
It seems to me, I've been observing games for a long time.
You know what I've observed?
73% of the league, 75% is African American.
Most of the officials or the cops are white.
And I wonder white NFL referees seem to throw more flags against black players than they do against white players in the NFL.
I wonder, am I making too much of that?
The other more black players, so what?
Prima facetia racism here.
The white refs are throwing more flags on black players than white players.
And eventually that's going to rear its head, too, just like it has in Ferguson.
No, I'm just waiting.
Shouldn't the NFL have to have black officials proportionate to black players to ensure the integrity of the game and penalties being passed?
I mean, really.
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