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Feb. 11, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:35
February 11, 2015, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Okay, so let me see if I get this straight.
The same journalists and the same pundits who are happy to see Brian Williams suspended six months without pay for making up the news, for making up stories, are now shedding tears about Jon Stewart who made up news and did fake news leaving Comedy Central.
These people have got to be twisted and flaked and formed into such pretzel positions as to not know which day it is or which directions up or down.
What kind of confusion must these people, man, they're wringing their hands?
Oh my God, it's media implosion, liberal media implosion out there.
And I could make the case that that is exactly what's happening, and maybe I'll give it a shot.
Anyway, greetings and great to have you, Rush Limbaugh back at it, off and running.
Another exciting excursion into broadcast excellence, 800-282-2882, the email address lrushbo at EIBnet.com.
I remember when this program first started.
And for the first, well, first two years intensely, but even the first four or five drive-by journalists would want to interview me.
They said, we've never heard a program like this.
David Brinkley interviewed me for this week.
He said, there's nobody like you.
What is it you're doing?
And all that was happening on this program was something that was not present.
And I told everybody, I mean, the drive-bys that were trying to figure it out and everybody, what this program was and is, I mean, this is how it started, combined two elements that were not combined anywhere else in the media.
Satire and parodic humor, along with a serious discussion of issues.
With the host being me, maintaining credibility no matter what.
Credibility telling jokes, doing satire, doing humor, credibility during serious discussion.
And I said, you never know when it's going to happen because both those elements are mixed.
And I said, I've never been combined in major media before.
And they said, what do you mean?
I said, well, I'll give you an example.
If you turn on the tonight show tonight, Johnny Carson was still on, you turn on tonight show, and Johnny Carson comes out and he, instead of a monologue, gives you a serious commentary, you're going to get a little uncomfortable and think, I'm not watching this for that.
I don't want to, I'm here to be entertained.
I want to hear jokes and so on.
By the same token, if Ted Koppel, who was hosting Nightline, then if Ted Koppel opened Nightline with a 10-minute joke routine, you'd say, well, that's not what I'm here for, Ted Coppel.
I'm here for serious interviews and so forth.
But this program combined both.
And this is what led to so much confusion and head scratching on the part of the left and the media trying to pigeonhole it and figure it out.
Plus the fact there weren't any guests.
That just, I mean, that didn't compute.
They couldn't figure that out.
And as I listen to all of these pundits and all of these drive-bys wring their hands over what's going on in their precious media.
You know, I read my little tech blogs is my hobby, keeping up with the latest and gadgets and gizmos.
And there are a couple of these tech blogs that actually delve deep with blog posts here and there into our culture.
And I find it fascinating as a study because they're millennials for the most point, most part.
And one line that I saw last night, it just almost made me want to just, well, not cry, but it was, I guess it was a little bit frustrating because these are otherwise smart people.
And this guy said, I don't know who it was.
Doesn't matter.
I don't even remember the blog.
I think it was Ars Technic, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, the last line of this guy's little tear-filled post was, I don't know, but the powers that be had better figure out real fast that the fake news and the satire news was often more real to us than the real news.
And I said, that's it.
The satire news and the fake news was often more real and more accurate.
The satire news was more accurate than the real news.
And of course, all of this fascinates me because media is how people end up being informed in this country.
And this program's purpose is to create as large a block of informed, participating people who also like to be entertained at the same time.
That's the objective.
So I study how it is people consume media and how it is they see it.
And I'm always fascinated by it.
I think one of the reasons you people have spoiled me, and I'm going to be very upfront and honest, I think, and this is not pandering, and this is not sucking up because I don't have to.
But I've always, from day one of this program, I have always treated the audience, you.
Yes, you're a group, but to me, I'm talking to you as one individual to another.
And I've always, always assumed you are all really smart.
I have never felt the need to go first grade on you and explain the most basic concepts before I delve deeper into a subject.
I have always assumed the intelligence of people in this audience because it's valid.
I have never pandered to it and I have always respected it.
And this is another thing that I think distances this program and others like it from others in the drive-by media.
The drive-by media does not look at their audience that way.
The drive-by media, no matter whether they're telling jokes or whether they're doing serious commentary, the drive-by media, the entertainment media, looks down on their audience.
They don't think their audience is all that bright.
Think they can use them, manipulate them, and in some cases, have outright contempt for them.
You ever called a television station or a newspaper to complain about something in the news?
And they'll tell you basically, well, you know, you don't understand what we do here.
That's not biased.
We're not liberally biased.
You just don't understand what we do.
The news business is the only business I know of where the customer is always wrong, by definition, but not here.
And I say, you all have spoiled me because I treat this audience as just as smart as any group of people in this country that I could encounter.
And in many cases, smarter.
And I deal with you and I treat you that way.
And believe me, folks, it's a blessing to have what I consider to be an intelligent audience and not have to sit here and pretend, not pretend, and not just sit here and talk to people at a kindergarten or grade school level.
You do not know what a blessing that is for me.
Now, more on this as the program unfolds.
But yesterday, I spent a considerable amount of time explaining and trying to explain to you why I don't get This thinking that Hillary Clinton's invincible.
I really don't understand why everybody's afraid of her on the Republican side.
And I have regaled you with those stories countless times.
The people I know who literally are scared to do it, that there's nothing that can stop her.
If she runs, despite the fact that a no-name African-American came out of nowhere in 2008 and beat her, our side still believes that she's invincible.
And I don't understand it.
Lo and behold, we have a new poll just out today, YouGov poll of likely Democrat voters.
It was done for moveon.org and Democracy for America.
And it contains shocking results.
Elizabeth Warren leads Hillary Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The YouGov poll, likely Democrat voters for moveon.org and Democracy for America, found that 79% want Elizabeth Warren, and majorities on the Democrat side support her anti-Wall Street positions.
Now, for the record, Elizabeth Warren said that she doesn't plan to challenge Hillary, though several others have indicated that they are looking at doing so, including Vice President Bite Me.
The poll was of 400 people conducted January 30th to February 5th.
It put Warren ahead of Clinton in Iowa 31 to 24.
In New Hampshire, Elizabeth Warren leads Hillary 30 to 27.
Now, the groups cautioned that the poll mostly shows that voters are extremely open to Warren's candidacy rather than her being a Clinton killer.
So they're so worried about their own poll and how bad it looks for Hillary that they have to analyze it for their own readers, saying it doesn't mean what it means.
And this is classic left-wing media.
Okay, here's some facts: Elizabeth Warren, who has said she's not running, outpolls Hillary in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The people that did the poll don't particularly like the results, so they say, hey, this doesn't mean that she's a Hillary killer.
It doesn't mean that at all.
This is just an indication that these people want Elizabeth Warren to get into the race.
Now, they didn't ask that question in the poll.
There's no question: do you regret that Elizabeth Warren's not in the race, and do you wish she would?
That question's not there.
These are just the pollsters analyzing their own results.
My point here is that the invincible Hillary is already losing in a YouGov poll and moveon.org.
They're not inconsequential groups.
And you know how, I mean, the polls are Bible, the Bible to practically everybody in politics, it seems.
This is not supposed to be Hillary's supposed to be invincible.
Hillary's supposed to be unbeatable.
Iowa and New Hampshire.
Look at this headline.
By the way, wait, this is from the CBS News Los Angeles.
Los Angeles health officials take action after local supermarkets sells raccoons as food.
By the way, I had it in the stack yesterday.
I didn't get to it.
The government is on the verge of telling us, hey, you know what?
All that stuff about cholesterol.
Never mind.
Forget it.
Remember all that stuff we told you about not eating butter and fat and all that?
Never mind.
Go ahead, eat as much of it as you want.
Yet another example of a giant bureaucracy, the FDA, admitting after all of these years of conditioning people to avoid this or that because they think it's going to kill them, now admitting they were wrong.
When I saw this headline, LA Health Officials Take Action After Local Supermarket Sells Raccoons as Food.
Some of you lifers will remember this story, but for those of you who have not been here from the outset, I have to tell you this.
When I was working in Pittsburgh at a suburban station outside Pittsburgh in McKeesport, W, what was it?
I don't even.
Oh, no, this is embarrassing.
It was played oldies, 50s and 60s oldies.
W W W X Y Z Salted Rotten Mold.
That's what we call it.
And I was doing the morning show.
And of course, morning shows back then were they were not nearly as restricted in terms of how much the host could talk, the DJ could talk.
And Lily Tomlin was in town appearing somewhere doing something.
And her agent was calling all the radio stations and trying to get her interviews on various stations in town to promote whatever she was doing.
And they called, and I said, sure.
I mean, I'd be cool.
I'm just starting out my first job away from home, chance to talk to Lily Tomlin.
So we agreed the day before she was calling in to set up a bit.
And it was my idea.
And I said, I got an idea.
Why don't I on the radio call a local grocery store and ask if they have any frozen raccoon TV dinners?
And you, as Ernestine, the operator, are monitoring phone calls and you randomly overhear mine and you are outraged that there is frozen raccoon TV dinners on sale at a local grocery store and you want the details and you're going to report me to the ASPC.
And that's what we did.
And we totally improvised it.
Frozen raccoon TV dinners.
I called this grocery store, a fake grocery store, of course, and there was no such thing as a frozen raccoon TV dinner.
It was the whole point.
And on cue, here comes Lily.
She did both voices.
She did the woman answering the phone supermarket and she did Ernestine, the operator, was her character from Laugh In.
And it was just hilarious.
And my mother, my mother heard the tape of that bit.
And that's when my mother told me that she was convinced that after failure after failure after failure and maybe many more, that I was going to succeed.
That bit, my mother said, I didn't know you were that funny.
I didn't know you had that kind of improvisational ability.
It was fun.
So I see this headline: LA Health Officials Take Action After Local Supermarket Sells Raccoons as Food.
And this happened, this is 1972 when this happened.
This is eons ago.
You talk about being on the cutting edge.
Here I am in a bit with Lily Tomlin about frozen raccoon TV dinners 1972, and now it actually has come true in LA.
And no, I don't think there's a tape of the bit.
And it would be tape if there was any in existence.
But anyways, let me take a brief time out.
We'll come back and get into all of the stuff going on.
The Republicans in the House and Senate.
The Republicans in the Senate are leaving the Republicans in the House just dangling out there just to dry out over Obama and Amnesty for Illegals and the funding or lack of the Department of Homeland Security.
What a cluster this is turning out to be.
The party runs the show in the House and the Senate, and they can't even get aligned on how to come up with a strategy to pull the rug out from under Obama when it comes to funding the illegal amnesty or the amnesty for illegal immigrants.
It's just it's sadly, it's predictable, but it's frustrating to actually see it play out.
So, sit tight, my friends, much more straight ahead today in the EIB network, and they'll rush ball back after this.
Your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, and the total lack of understanding about anything, and even the good times.
Rush Limbaugh behind the Golden EIB network.
All right, a few observations here about all this Brian Williams and Jon Stewart stuff.
Because what we have going on here is in one Z. That's I don't even.
It was Wixie, it's W I X Y. That's the station in McKeesport, outside Pittsburgh that I worked at.
That's the station that fired me for playing under my thumb too many times by the Rolling Stones.
Yeah, I got the call letters confused.
So, yeah, I played under my thumb too many times.
And I get followed for not following the music playlist programming format, what have you.
Anyway, you could, in one hand, literally make the point that the liberal media is imploding.
And some of the best evidence of this is NBC News.
And when you get right down to it, NBC, I don't think is a news organization anymore.
And I wonder if it ever will be again.
It hasn't been a news organization for a long time, and it's not going to be one in the foreseeable future.
Brian Williams is not the problem.
And you're going to read and hear all kinds of things about Brian Williams and people who knew him who didn't know him, from serious hand-wringing pundits and analysts to people that thought he was the greatest guy in the world and just had one too many whoppers.
But by golly, by gosh, we hope he comes back from it.
But I'll tell you, he isn't the problem.
Brian Williams is a symptom.
Brian Williams may have some, I don't know, complex problems about being insufficient as a human being and needs to constantly exaggerate.
But the fact that he felt well, he could get away with this on the NBC nightly news, he felt he could get away with it.
And for years, people continue to do it says something about NBC.
Hang on a sec.
And we're back, Rush Limbaugh, the cutting edge of societal evolution.
Any supposed so-called news organization that seriously considered hiring an admitted satirist who made his bones with fake news, Jon Stewart, any network seriously considering hiring him to moderate meet the press isn't what it claims to be.
NBC is not a news organization anymore.
And I don't know if they're going to be in the foreseeable future.
Not only was there a serious effort made to hire a comedian, satirist, whatever, to moderate the venerable Meet the Press, there is also, even as we speak,
serious discussion in the news business, serious discussion among journalist professionals, serious discussion among pundits that the satirist and the comedian would be ideal to replace Brian Williams on the NBC Nightly News.
Now, fine, whatever floats your boat, but don't call it news if you're going to put a comedian in.
It isn't news.
And it certainly isn't journalism.
And NBC is free to do what they want, and they can try to convince people that what they're doing is news.
They're free to use any marketing PR jazz they want.
They're free to try to fool as many people as they want, but people need to be aware that when they tune in NBC, it isn't about journalism and it isn't about the news.
Brian Williams isn't the problem.
The fact that Brian Williams was allowed to stay in that anchor chair while executives at NBC were fully aware of his embellishments and lies and made-up events tells you all you need to know.
Brian Williams knew that they knew.
Now, we're told that people quote, took him aside.
I said, Brian, you need to dial this back a little bit, buddy.
Nothing happened to him as he didn't dial it back.
And had it not been for some military personnel who finally had heard one too many versions of something blowing the whistle on it, he'd still be there with the full knowledge of the news professionals and the news executives at NBC News.
So it's fine for them to act all outraged now, these executives.
And it's fine for them to act as though they are desperately concerned about the damage done to their credible news organization.
But they sat there for years and put the guy on the air every night knowing full well not only what he had done and kept doing, but was capable of continuing to do.
So you can't blame him per se.
The signal was sent that he was okay.
He should have been suspended or fired the moment they first heard about this.
That didn't happen.
In a way, it's somewhat analogous to the Republicans telling Obama that they're not going to impeach him and they're not going to do anything to stop him.
They've pretty much signaled it, as far as Obama's concerned, he doesn't have to obey the Constitution because the Republicans are not going to enforce it.
Republicans have said over and over again that they're not going to even consider articles of impeachment.
Well, that's the only way you can stop an out-of-control president.
Built right into the Constitution.
The only means, well, there may be a couple others, but it's the big one.
And if the opposition party tells the man who is ignoring the Constitution every day that they're going to do nothing to stop him, why should he stop?
With the same token, there might have been some elbows in the room saying, Brian, you got to dial that back, man.
I can't keep doing.
But he was not punished for it until the suits became embarrassed.
And that only happened when the military people finally piped up, say, hey, you know what?
This didn't happen.
And the hotel manager in New Orleans piped, you know what?
He misremembered his dead body floating down the street.
That didn't happen.
So now everybody's wringing their hands all righteously offended and worried and concerned when all of this was going on with their full knowledge every night.
They had a ticking time bomb on the air for a half hour every night, not sure where he was going to go or what he was going to make up or what he was going to lie about.
And as long as the numbers stayed at the top, they rolled the dice.
NBC also has bought totally into crony socialism, crony capitalism, almost a varying degree of fascism, if you will.
But they clearly are not news.
When you go out and hire Chelsea Clinton, who has never been in the news business, Chelsea Clinton, whose only experience with a news camera was being hidden away from them.
Chelsea Clinton, the closest she ever got to a journalist was if she snuck out of the White House and happened to walk past one trying to get away from the Secret Service because her mom and dad shielded her and protected her and told the news people to leave her alone, and they dutifully obeyed.
And then out of the blue one day, we're told that NBC hires Chelsea Clinton.
She's never had a second's worth of experience.
There are people in the news business and in journalism slaving away in small towns and medium-sized towns all over the country.
And they're sweating and they're working hard and they're doing everything they can to climb the ladder of broadcast journalism.
And out of the blue, here comes a former president and potentially future president's daughter being hired to do some interviews of people on magazine-type shows at NBC News.
When that happened, and plus this woman, Chelsea Clinton, who had not a second's worth of experience in the business, was paid $600,000.
The mistake everybody made in analyzing that was Chelsea Clinton was not hired.
NBC News was buying access.
NBC News was buying an insurance policy.
If Mrs. Clinton became president, fine.
NBC's hired their daughter.
So they're going to get preferential treatment, maybe, maybe access.
And if we have a very powerful government that wants to come down on the news media someday, maybe they'll leave NBC alone because NBC gave their daughter a chance.
Same thing with Al Sharpton.
There's no reason Al Sharpton has a television show, except for the fact that NBC bought access.
And in this case, they were actually paying protection money.
Al Sharpton owes the IRS $4.5 million.
IRS has got a trail of bad debt all over this country.
Al Sharpton is Al Sharpton.
Al Sharpton perpetrates frauds.
Al Sharpton perpetrates hoaxes.
There he is every night on MSNBC, part of the NBC umbrella, and he's got his own show.
And he's able to take that show to every hotspot in the country, be it Ferguson, Missouri, or to New York City, wherever there is any racial strife that needs to be profited from, Al Sharpton takes his NBC show right to it.
Well, I don't know what it is, but it isn't news.
It isn't journalism.
NBC was paying Al Sharpton protection money.
The way he and his justice brother, the Reverend Jackson, have secured protection money for decades.
You don't want us to organize protests against your business?
Fine, pay up.
You don't want us to organize boycotts of your business?
Fine, pay up.
Paying up in this case was giving the Reverend Sharpton a show.
And then letting him take that show wherever he wanted and letting Al Sharpton conduct business under the rubric of NBC News.
Well, I don't know what it is, but it isn't journalism and it isn't news.
Let me ask you: what's worse?
You plug Brian Williams into all this and ask him what's worse here?
Embellishing an anchor's experience, tolerating an anchor making things up, tolerating an anchor lying, placing himself in events he wasn't.
What's worse?
Letting an anchor insert himself into news story after news story and let him get away with it, or virtually ignoring every Obama scandal since day one.
What's worse?
Sit idly by and let your anchor make it up?
Let your anchor insert himself into whatever story he wants to insert himself?
Or is it worse to totally ignore, say, what happened in Benghazi?
To totally ignore the details and facts of Fast and Furious.
To totally ignore the Obama administration using the IRS to harass and intimidate and scare, dare I say, abuse American citizens.
NBC ignored that story.
They still don't get excited about it.
You may not, if you watch NBC News, you may not even have heard the name Lois Lerner.
If you watch NBC News, you may not know what has gone on in Benghazi.
You watch NBC News, you may not know about Fast and Furious, except that maybe a bunch of conservative wackos think it's a big deal, but you laugh about it.
What's worse?
Letting an anchor go on the air every night and make it up, invent things, place himself in stories that he wasn't a part of, or sitting there and cheerleading this fraudulent government program called Obamacare and all of the ongoing corruption involved in that.
Not reporting all of the times the president of the United States has violated the Constitution and has utilized authority that he does not have.
You ignore all that.
What's worse?
What's NBC so profoundly embarrassed about today?
What are they quaking in fear over of their credibility?
They've got an anchor out of control.
That's what bothers them more than totally ignoring all the real news and all the real scandals that have paid or played a serious role in the destruction and damage done to the culture and the society of our country.
The problem with NBC News is the problem with journalism.
Whatever they are, a news organization, they are not having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have and carrying the burden of being documented to be almost always right 99.7% of the time.
Rushland Boy, the EIB network, The standard for integrity when anchoring the NBC nightly news.
You can lie all you want, and you can lie about lying all you want.
The NBC will reserve the right to suspend you without pay.
I mean, you get away with it for a while, but then if something happens that causes the suits or other people to get embarrassed, then you might be suspended without pay.
The same token, the Republicans announced that Barack Obama can lie all he wants without penalty.
The Republicans publicly stated, Mr. President, you want to go ahead and violate the Constitution.
Have at it because we aren't going to stop you.
So in a way, can you blame Obama?
I mean, he's just been told by the only people that can stop him that they're not going to, so why should he?
Don't give me the honor system.
He's got an agenda.
He wants to transform America.
Presumably, the opposition party doesn't agree with the transformation, but they've told him they're not going to stop him, so why should he?
Same token, Brian Williams for years was allowed to embellish, make it up, lie about it.
All the while, NBC reserved the right to suspend him without pay, and they finally did when the heat actually found them.
This is what passes for integrity today in our politicians and in our media.
Let me ask you a question.
How many of you think that donors, major big donors, bundlers, I'm talking to big donors.
How many of you think that those people are funding ideas?
How many of you think that the majority of the big money donated to politicians is because the donor agrees with the ideas of the candidate and wants the candidate to advance those ideas?
If you think the answer to the question is most of them, you are wrong.
Most big money in politics is to purchase access.
I mean, there might be some similarity when it comes to ideology and ideas.
There clearly is similarity in ideology.
But what you're really doing is buying access.
Or in even worse cases, you're buying some money come back to you.
You send enough money to Obama, and he might see to it the Treasury Bank rolls your fraudulent wind farm, such as Solyndra and Solar.
Donate enough money to Obama, and some of it might come right back to you that you're allowed to keep and run a company into bankruptcy, and then you are out of town before anybody finds out.
It's not about ideas.
It's about getting rich without doing much work.
It's about buying access.
Conservatism wins landslide elections in 2010 and 2014.
And what was it that drove those elections?
Ideas.
The people who turned out in mass numbers in 2010 and the midterm and 2014 and the midterm wanted this current administration stopped.
The people that showed up in droves and gave the Republicans two massive landslide victories.
One didn't want any access.
They weren't trying to sidle up and get close.
They wanted nothing back.
They wanted their ideas advanced.
What'd they get?
Crumbs and sneers from many of the people they voted for.
If only all of those people had had a lot of money, then who knows what might be different?
Indoctrination passes for education.
Political correctness trumps critical thinking.
Government agencies lie about data from global warming to unemployment.
The IRS has been turned against taxpayers.
The President of the United States has accused white policemen all across the country of racism.
Meanwhile, genuine Islamic terrorists are called random folks.
But white police officers are all racists.
Men are all abusers and predators.
Hands up, don't shoot, was a despicable lie.
The Affordable Care Act is causing real bankruptcy.
It is not affordable.
So why are we demanding that some little news anchor be filled with integrity when none of the people he reports on or talks about have any at all?
The United States accepted, permitted, allowed to enter two immigrants for every new job created in America since the year 2000.
You understand the ramifications of that?
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