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March 16, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
31:55
March 16, 2015, Monday, Hour #3
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I'll tell you there's another crop in California that's big.
It's really, really water intensive.
Rice.
Rice.
California grows more rice than any state except one.
And you will never guess the number one rice producing state in the United States.
You will never guess it.
It would take you It would take you all 57 states to guess the number one rice producing state in the United States.
California was the first U.S. state to grow rice, and it started during the gold rush.
You know why?
Well, that's right.
They had to feed all the Chinese immigrants.
And rice is a staple.
It's Arkansas is the number one rice producing state.
You would not believe that, would you?
I'm told that it is.
By the way, Ed Henry, sorry, James Rosen and Fox, the White House press briefing today, asked Josh Ernest about the Ed Klein story in the New York Post.
Here's how it went.
A published report over the weekend in a leading New York newspaper asserted that White House Counselor Valerie Jarrett played some role in the disclosures about Secretary Clinton's emails.
Can you confirm that?
It's utter baloney.
I'll leave it there.
It's utter baloney.
I'll leave it there.
It's utter baloney.
I'll tell you, if you read Ed Klein, if you read his stuff, he makes no bones about it that the Clintons and the Obamas hate each other, like the Hatfields and the McCoy's.
He makes no bones about it, that it's visceral and that there's no solution to it, which makes people say, okay, well, why did Obama name her Secretary of State?
And isn't that somewhat obvious?
Well, let me take a stab at why he would name her Secretary.
Look, politics is a strange thing.
Politics, people that hate each other work together all the time.
Politics is one of these places where the old adage, keep your friends close and your enemies closer, is actually true.
Where did he put her?
He put her someplace.
She's got zero qualifications.
She had to take it to stay in good with everybody in the Democratic Party.
Here you've got the new present, first African-American press.
She turns it down.
What does she look like?
Doesn't look like a team player.
Doesn't look like she's doing, she looks like sour grapes, everything else.
So she has to take it.
She was also massively in debt, and Obama had promised to help her retire some of her campaign debt.
And the price was she had to take Secretary of State.
The place that she is the absolute least qualified of all the things Hillary can't do, running the State Department's at the top of the list.
Obama knew that he was going to shake things up in foreign policy.
He knew that he was going to do things that were going to irritate and anger people.
He knew this country was going to have its role in the world reduced.
He knew that he was going to totally obliterate the notion that the United States is the solution to the world's problems.
So if he's got grand designs on reducing the U.S. role in the world, who better and to put as the face of that your enemy and make her take the blame for it.
I mean, to this, I can see sense to this.
She kind of had to take the offer.
Well, she didn't have to, but, you know, you know, Bill was right in there urging her to, because the way the Clintons think, it was probably from their standpoint a way to sabotage Obama.
And it was also a way to stay viable and in the regime and keep her future 20,000 six star 2016 hopes front and center, her desires front and center.
And I can see all kinds of reasons why it could be true that the Obamas and the Clintons despise each other and that he would put her at state and that she would accept it.
And also, according to Ed Klein, Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett are right in there.
I mean, they lead the hate list.
Now, that's if you believe Klein.
And as I say, a lot of people think he's way out in the left field.
But seldom is he ever thoroughly, fully refuted.
Klein has basically dealt with the way the Democrats go after everybody.
That's attacked their credibility and their character and their honor.
And he's an extremist, he's a radical, he's a liar.
He makes it up.
But they very seldom actually refute.
This is one of the few times, and this was not even, the specific charges were not really laid out here.
And Josh Ernest, it's utter baloney.
I'll leave it there.
And everybody laughed about it.
Former NBC News reporter Lisa Myers has done a Cheryl Atkisson of sorts.
In an interview published last week, Lisa Myers, formerly of NBC News, took some shots at the mainstream media contending that they do not hold the White House or any other part of government accountable anymore.
Now, she's a former investigative reporter, NBC News.
She left the network last year to work on her golf game.
I played golf with Lisa Myers.
She's good.
She did a profile of me for one of the shows that was on NB7, Dateline, whatever.
And part of the shoot was we played four or five holes.
And she's good.
She's a great golfer, but that's the joke.
She took time off to work on her golf game.
She gave an interview to the Des Moines Register to promote a speech that she was giving in Iowa last week.
She said, I think the primary mission of journalism is to hold the powerful accountable, be they in government or corporate America.
There is less and less interest in network television today holding the White House or any other part of government accountable.
Now, she didn't say it, but what she means is when the Democrats run the show, because they clearly move into gear when Bush or another Republican is in the White House, they will hold them accountable and then some.
And then she said, I fear there's a calculation that the audiences they are trying to reach don't care that much about the serious news.
I think most of the political coverage these days has all the depth of Twitter.
And I think she's got a point.
Have you noticed, folks, say if you read the drive-by media, say on websites or if you happen to still read the newspaper, even if you're watching, you know how often Twitter is cited as a source for something somebody said?
It's happening more and more.
Now, it's always been said that journalists are lazy, that they don't actually do any reporting.
They wait for somebody to send them a fact, Telling them what the news is or what the story is or what have you?
And this, this phenomenon of trolling Twitter, because a lot of newsmakers post little thoughts on Twitter and they make the news.
They actually have become Twitter has become a source, If not a source authority, for many drive-by media and, of course, Twitter has become a cesspool.
Twitter is a literal cesspool.
Twitter is the place there's, there's been, you know the the, the argument, The question is raised about our culture frequently, is it really rotting?
Is it really deteriorating this fast, or has it always been the way it is?
There just was never an internet where these people could display themselves?
In other words, have we always had a certain percentage of the population that are reprobates and absolute losers, mean spirited trolling, foul-mouthed jerks, or has twitter created them?
Has the internet and the anonymity that accompanied, has it created this kind of behavior?
And it's a?
It's a question that nobody really knows the answer to.
Has it always been there?
Have people who think this way and act this way?
Have they always been there?
There's, nobody knew because it was never reported and because there was no outlet for them.
But now, with Twitter and, to a lesser extent Facebook, but any other number of places you go on social media it anybody can go on and say and do and they do.
It has become a cesspool.
Twitter is, is a is a repository for some of the, some of the well, it's, it's an endless parade of human debris.
In many cases, there's some good things too, don't misunderstand, but I mean it's.
It's also the home of the absolute worst examples of our culture and despite that, it has become Lisa Myers is right a source for much news coverage and as a result of that, the coverage has gotten uh simpler, in a simpleton kind of way,
not a clarifying way but it's become less insightful, less incisive, less thought-provoking.
Dumbing everybody down is essentially what she's saying.
Even the news media is dumbing itself down by relying on twitter.
Uh, so much.
I think most of the political coverage these days has the depth of twitter, because twitter is the source for much of it.
She said I also worry that journalists today appear to have chosen sides when it comes to political coverage.
Well, there's no question about that.
That's been the case for years.
We have seen trust in the media hit its lowest level ever in 2013 and 2014 surveys.
And she says, I think the lack of depth and the feeling that too many journalists have chosen sides has caused viewers to question whether we are giving it to them straight, whether we're making a politically balanced presentation.
She lamented the deterioration of in-depth, substantive policy pieces in favor of smaller, more pithy articles.
And she said, look, there's a place for celebrity news, for feel-good stories.
All those things have a legitimate place, various newscasts, but it should not always be at the expense of the more in-depth stories or investigations that networks used to.
And I'm speaking industry-wide here, not just about any specific network.
She's right.
There's no question there's been a deterioration.
I actually think that it's an aspect of self-consciousness, too.
I think the media has less respect for itself.
Maybe none realized.
But there's no question she's right.
It's biased.
It's chosen sides.
I mean, that's been the case, I think, since, oh, about 1988.
1988.
Wouldn't you agree, Brian?
1988 seems to be the year when all of this expressed and no longer hidden partisanship began to surface.
1988, 89, 90 is when the media began competing as players in the advancement of an agenda rather than just reporting on those advancing the agenda.
They became part of agenda advancement.
A preacher, the founder and leader of a controversial Atlanta-based mega church, has appealed online for 200,000 people to each donate $300 or more so that he can buy a $65 million private jet to spread the gospel.
Reverend Creeflo Dollar, C-R-E-F-L-O, Creflo Creeflow.
Reverend Creeflo Dollar, 53, is the head of the World Changers Church International, supposedly a Christian ministry centered around the prosperity gospel, which preaches that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches.
He's a televangelist, one of the most prominent African-American preachers in America.
He put a five-minute video up on his website asking for donations so that he could buy a G650.
That's the latest Gulfstream.
Claims to be the fastest plane ever built in civilian aviation.
He wants it so that World Changers Church International can continue to blanket the globe with the gospel of grace.
Among the billionaires who own a G650, Steve Jobs' wife, Steve Wynn, Phil Knight of Nike, well, there's a bunch of them out there.
They were, I think the first one came off, they said, what, 2014 or 15?
And the next batch due to come off the line in 2017.
But they are $65 million.
And they're cool airplanes.
There's no.
Anyway, the Reverend has asked, he's got 200,000 followers, and he just needs 300 bucks each.
And he can go buy the G650.
Now, what he'll find out is that after that, he's going to need these people to keep giving him 300 bucks so that he can fly it.
But I'm sure he'll get to that in due course.
Yeah, I'm thinking about it.
Snerdley is urging me to do the TMZ.
Speaking of Twitter and pop culture, your host invaded pop culture and came out smelling pretty well in the process.
I'll tell you, let's give you a little tease because they got seven or eight soundbites on this, I think.
Let's start with this.
This was last Thursday, actually.
And I need to actually have to take a break, but let me set this up.
I made this statement.
It just kind of threw away, a throwaway statement, in talking about the frat boys at OU, Oklahoma U.
I said, if Kanye West made a song out of the lyrics those guys were chanting and sang it at the Grammys, he'd get a standing O. He'd probably win a Grammy and everybody'd be celebrating it.
And I expected, as has become par for the course, that the drive-bys that night and the next day would report on what I said with the usual allegations of racism and snark.
And instead, the exact opposite happened.
They all reported on it with great reverence and respect and said that I had a point.
And this is what gave rise to TMZ to do their own quote-unquote investigation.
Back in just a second.
Okay, here you go.
Last Thursday on the syndicated TV Entertainment Magazine TMZ Live during a segment about me and my remarks comparing the Oklahoma University chapter Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity shut down because of their racist chant.
And I said that if Kanye West had sung those lyrics, the Grammys would be given awards and applause and all that.
Here's how they began their segment on this.
I am fascinated by this.
People are dismissing what Russia Limbaugh said.
A lot of people are.
That's a really polarizing statement.
It's a polarizing statement.
By the way, do you love his little dig to Kanye Kim Carpenter?
Knocked Ashi's husband.
I'm not necessarily subscribing to it.
I just think it's more interesting than just dismissing it.
But there is a whole thing that we got into in the newsroom just yesterday about that white people cannot use the N-word because it is a cultural word.
African Americans can.
But then the issue is, can somebody like Kanye sing a song like that where it's about, hey.
One of the producers then joined the conversation, thinks that Kanye's song with the same lyrics would be a hit because if Kanye did it, it would be social commentary.
Here's how that sounded.
The answer is, if he were to take the exact lyrics of that song and put it in a song, would it be a hit?
The answer is yes, because it would be social commentary, right?
He'd be doing it as almost like a battle cry against it.
I don't know what Russia's ultimate point is, whether he's saying that the song isn't as bad as it's made out to be.
I'm not sure what Russia's.
No, I know what Russia's doing.
Rush is trolling, which he makes his living being a professional troll, and that's fine.
All right, now, see, here the producer, this is what fascinates me.
The producer makes my point.
And notice how he does.
If Kanye did those exact lyrics, he would get an award because if Kanye did it, he would be criticizing it.
Kanye would be engaging in proper social commentary.
When the frat boys do it, it's racism.
But Kanye automatically has a motive of goodness attached to making my point.
And yet these clowns still proceed to call me a troll.
Do we have time?
No, we don't.
There's more here.
The next bite was 29 seconds, and I only had 25 before we get to the break.
Because it does become favorable to me.
You may say, well, Rush, I thought you said that.
I did, and it does.
There's like seven bites here, folks, as they continue to discuss this among themselves on TMZ Live or whatever it is.
So you just hang on here through the break, and you'll see what I mean.
And you'll end up being proud that your host infiltrated this way in a positive way.
Don't go away.
Somebody just told me that Twitter is like graffiti.
And graffiti has always been around.
And if you don't clean off the graffiti the moment it pollutes your park, then it's just going to overrun your park.
I understand that.
But some of the stuff on graffiti has never seen the content of some of the absolute sewage that is on Twitter.
I mean, some graffiti, you could even say, is artistic.
There's nothing artistic about the human debris content of much of Twitter.
Not all of it.
I'm not indicting all the Twitter suggesting anything be done about it.
I'm just, that's not me.
You know, big First Amendment free speech guy, whatever.
I'm just telling you, it's a cesspool.
And a lot of the people who are genuine human debris have credibility.
They're able to do great damage to people and businesses and enterprises.
And they're nothing but sickos.
And it's graffiti is not any, it doesn't even approach it.
All right, here we continue now with the TMZ.
We're up to now.
Let's see.
This is cut five.
They took a phone call.
In fact, let's maintain the contest, go back and play soundbite number four again.
This is where one of the producers chimes in and says, without saying I'm right, he says, well, Kanye, if Kanye said the same things that the frant boys said, it would be a hit.
Because it'd be social commentary.
Who knows?
Kanye might even be criticizing it.
They're just imagining all of this.
But the guy is making my point with this comment.
The answer is, if he were to take the exact lyrics of that song and put it in a song, would it be a hit?
The answer is yes, because it would be social commentary, right?
He'd be doing it as almost like a battle cry against it.
I don't know what Russia's ultimate point is, whether he's saying that the song isn't as bad as it's made out to be.
I'm not sure what Russia's.
I know what Russia's doing.
Russia's trolling, which he makes his living being a professional troll, and that's fine.
Okay, neither of these two guys know what I'm doing.
And this is their problem.
It isn't mine.
I'm not trolling.
I'm just making my own social commentary that racist words in somebody's mouth will be praised.
Racist words in somebody's mouths will be praised.
If they're sung by a certain guy, they'll be praised and awarded.
And some guy will come along and even make an excuse for it and call it social commentary.
Whereas somebody else comes along, identical same words, and they'll be thrown out of school.
I'm not trolling.
I'm merely pointing out rampant hypocrisy.
And by the way, the frant boys are not the source of this stuff.
The frat boys are simply repeating what they've grown up listening to.
The frant boys are products of their environment.
The frat boys were just sitting out there drinking beer, probably trying to impress girls.
Who knows what?
They get thrown out of college.
Fine, college can do it.
Don't misunderstand.
I'm not defending the frant boys.
And I'm not trolling.
I'm simply pointing out.
And look at this.
This engineer comes along and is willing.
I mean, this producer comes along at TMZ and is willing to give Kanye the benefit of the doubt.
Oh, if he did it, why?
It would be social commentary and he would be opposing it.
He'd have no idea if that's what it would be.
But he's making my point.
This is exactly what would be perceived as good, as quality.
It would win an award.
I'm telling you, this kind of dichotomy where people get thrown into jail or thrown out of school or what have you for using the same words that others win awards for.
That doesn't fly.
Double standard, triple standard, what have you.
Well, next up, they took a call.
They took a Skype call from a viewer named Nikki in Denver.
My name is Nikki and I'm from Denver.
I want to just say for the record that I'm not a Rush Limbaugh fan at all, but I feel like he had a point because I noticed that there are a lot of rap songs that say a lot of hateful stuff and kids would sing along to it, knowing they're hateful, but they would sing it because it's popular.
I feel like that if Kanye made a song from this, it would be a hit because a lot of kids nowadays are just, they don't care.
They just think, oh, Kanye's singing it, so it must be cool.
So I think it's going to be a big hit, even though it's sad to say.
I feel like Rush Limbaugh had a point.
So Nikki in Denver got my end game.
One of the viewers at TMZ got my endgame.
What?
What's scary?
That a TMZ viewer got my endgame?
Now, let me tell you something.
Nikki even, look, I'm not a Rush Limbaugh fan.
She probably is.
I'm not a Rush Limbaugh fan.
I felt, but he has a point.
They always have to qualify it.
I'm not a Rush Limbaugh fan.
But, but, but I don't know what Rush's endgame was.
I don't have any endgame.
It certainly wasn't to get on TMZ.
Just I draw inescapable conclusions to the obvious.
I guess what I do is say things others are afraid to.
Anyway, this kept going.
So they got their call from Nikki.
And then after taking the pulse of the people in their audience, Nikki from Denver, Harvey Levin, who, by the way, I have jokingly said is the modern-day Walter Kronikite.
Well, to some TMZ is what CBS News was to some of us growing up in the 60s and 70s.
TMZ is, whether you like it or not, TMZ source authority.
TMZ is unassailable.
And Harvey Levin runs the place.
He has unparalleled respect to people that watch TMZ.
They think he doesn't lie to them.
They think he doesn't make it up.
They don't think he's got an agenda.
He's just telling them what is in that realm.
And so here's the next bite.
After taking the pulse of the people, they're caller Nikki from Denver, Harvey, gets into an argument with somebody over my worth to society.
You know, what's interesting about Rush Limbaugh is that he comes up with things that are really polarizing.
It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with him.
He makes people think and he frames arguments.
It's preposterous.
What Russell Limbaugh did was he took the vile thing that those guys did and he said, okay, you know what?
You guys are only mad because they're white.
You're missing my point.
I'm not saying you have to agree with him.
What I'm saying is there's a legitimate debate that people are having.
You can't say that everybody who's talked against you in this is insane.
And I did not take the vile thing these guys said and say that people are only mad because they're white.
That's not what I said at all.
I didn't even talk about the race of the frat boys.
I just said that if a rapper sang these lyrics, which rappers do every day, and they win awards with it every day, oh, I will speak the obvious.
Look at the problem so many people have with the obvious.
But this wasn't over.
We put a poll up on the site asking whether we put a poll up on the side.
I don't even know what the results are.
90% Rush is right.
No, that poll is, is Rush wrong?
And 46% say yes, and 54% say no.
I honestly didn't know what the results are.
That's pretty good.
So they is notice they didn't say is Rush right.
Their poll was, is Rush wrong?
54% say no.
Now, one of their producers, I know what it's going to be.
90% Russia's right, right?
So there's a little.
But 54% of the TMZ audience did not think that I was wrong.
Then TMZ decided to ask Kanye about it at LAX on Saturday.
I've been out of town, man.
I know everything's happening.
I'm going to check in.
I'll let you know next time I see you.
He didn't know what they were talking about.
He hadn't heard about it.
So he says, then that's it.
That's what happened on TMZ.
So it ended up.
No, I'm not joking about Harvey Levin being Walter Cronkin.
Well, I mean, it's a funny comment, but I'm telling you to a TMZ audience, Harvey Levin is gospel.
What TMZ says, they don't question it.
Same thing with the e-entertainment audience.
Pop culture news sources these days have profound respect for their audiences.
I mean, it's every here's it.
Everybody watching TMZ wants to be on it.
Everybody watching TMZ wants to be on the red carpet where TMZ is covering it.
Now, you probably do not want to be in the NBC Nightly News.
That's the difference.
NBC Nightly News, this problem that you don't want to be there.
Everybody watching TMZ hopes to someday be on it.
That means they've got a lot of respect for you.
I don't have to troll.
These clowns, you ought to take just one day and listen to this program and honestly try to figure out what happens here.
And they might learn something about a lot of things.
Anyway, Mark and Houston, you're next.
It's great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Thank you.
And Lonstar Ditto's from the Great States.
I would like to offer to you a new perspective on why Obama does not want Hillary Clinton as the next president.
And it has to do with who he is at his core, and that is a narcissist.
Okay.
All right.
A huge part of his identity and, quite honestly, his political power comes to him as being the first African-American president.
And he does not want the next president to be historic in any fashion.
He has to maintain the cachet of being the first.
He doesn't want the next president to be a female.
He doesn't want the next president to be Hispanic.
He has to maintain his cachet and his exclusivity as part of his identity as being.
Well, if that's true, then he might, if you're right about that, then it would follow he wouldn't even want a Democrat to win next time.
That would make him look even more special.
And after he had set him up to be in power for decades with amnesty and everything else, and the Democrats couldn't even win, how much more special would that make him look?
Absolutely.
I really think he would be more upset with a Ted Cruz presidency because Cruz would be the first Hispanic rather than Cruz as a conservative.
Yeah, but Obama would be running around telling everybody Cruz was born in Canada.
True enough.
Anyway, I understand your thinking on that.
I hadn't thought of that.
I mean, I know he's a narcissist, but I hadn't thought of that.
Clearly, the Democrats want that.
I mean, look what they've been able to pull off.
First African-American president, no criticism allowed.
Or you're racist.
So if you get the first female president, no criticism allowed, sexism.
And you get the first Hispanic elected, no criticism allowed.
Anti-Hispanic, racist all over again.
Democrats certainly would like that.
So I'll think about that.
Mark, I appreciate you taking the time to call.
Really do.
Well, there we are off to a rousing start.
There's a couple of health care stories, not good, that I meant to get through today.
Didn't able to get them in.
Colorado, 200,000.
Colorado health plans are going to be canceled despite getting an Obamacare extension.
The news continues to be disastrous about Obamacare.
We'll have the details and expert analysis and commentary tomorrow.
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