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March 16, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
31:55
March 16, 2015, Monday, Hour #3
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I 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 uh is uh is uh 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.
Uh by the way, Ed Henry, sorry, James Rosen at 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 uh 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.
If 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 McCoys.
He makes no bones about it, that it's visceral, and that there's no solution to it, which 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.
Uh politics is one of these places where the old adage, keep your friends close and your enemies closer is actually true.
What did Obama where'd 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 Democrat Party.
Here's 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 look 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 Departments 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 what his he knew this country was going to have its role in the world reduced.
He knew that he was going to uh 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 in the 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.
I and I she she kind of had to take the offer.
Well, she didn't have to, but uh, you know, and 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.
Then I can see all kinds of reasons why it could be true that the Obamas and the Clintons despise each other and that 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.
And but seldom is he ever thoroughly fully refuted.
Klein is 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, uh, and this was not even the specific charges were not really laid out here, and Josh Ernest, that's it's it's it's uh utter baloney.
I'll leave it there.
And everybody laughed about it.
Former NBC News reporter Lisa Myers has done a Cheryl Atkison uh 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 Meyer, she's good.
She did a profile of me for one of the shows that was on NB7 Dateline, whatever was, and and part of the uh 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 Republicans 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, uh say if you if you uh read the drive-by media, say on websites or if you happen to still read the newspaper, even if you're watching, do 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 send them a fax uh telling them what the news is or what the story is or what have you.
Uh and this this phenomenon of trolling Twitter, 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 uh the argument uh 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?
They're just where's 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 accompanies, 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 any, and they do, it has become a cesspool.
Twitter is a is a repository for some of the some of the 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 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 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 cover.
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 I think the media has less respect for itself.
Maybe none realized.
But there's no question she's right.
It's bias, it's chosen sides.
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 megachurch, 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 uh Reverend Creflo Dollar, C-R-E-F-L-O, Creflow Kreeflo.
Reverend Creeflow 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.
It'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 G-650.
That's the latest Gulf Stream.
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 G-650, Steve Jobs' wife, Steve Wynne, Phil Knight of Nike.
Well, there's a bunch of them out there.
They were uh I think the first one came off the slim, what, 2004 or 15.
And the the next batch due to come off the line in 2017.
But they are 65 million dollars.
And they're cool airplanes.
There's there's no the Reverend is asked, he's got 200,000 followers, and he just needs 300 bucks each.
And he can go buy the G 650.
Now what he'll find out is that after that he's gonna need these people to keep giving him 300 bucks so that he can fly it.
But I'm sure he'll get to that uh in uh in due course.
Yeah, I'm thinking about it.
I this uh 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 uh in the process.
Let's give you a little tease.
Well, because they got seven or eight sound bites 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 let me set this up.
Remember I made the 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 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-by's 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 uh TV entertainment magazine TMZ Live during a segment about me and my remarks comparing the uh Oklahoma University chapter Sag Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity shut down because their racist chant.
And I said that if Kanye West had sung those lyrics, the Grammys, it'd 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 Rush Limbaugh said.
A lot of people are that's a really polarizing statement.
It's a polishing statement.
By the way, do you love his little leg dig to Kanye Kim Kardashian?
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 hate.
One of the producers then joined the conversation.
Uh 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 uh 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.
Russia's trolling, which he makes his living being a professional troll, and that's fine.
All right, now see you here.
The producer, this is 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, it does become uh favorable to me.
You may well, Russia, 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 uh 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 gonna overrun your park.
I understand that, but some of the stuff on Tw 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 I'm not indict all of Twitter suggesting anything to 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 are 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 uh TMZ.
We're up to now, let's see.
This is uh Cut Five.
They took a phone call.
In fact, let's to maintain the contest, go back and play Soundbite number four again.
This is this is where one of the producers chimes in and says, without saying I'm right, he says, Well, yeah, Kanye, if Kanye said the same things that the Frank 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 uh 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 as 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 to 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 front boys are not the source of this stuff.
The fret boys are simply repeating what they have been grown uh what they've grown up listening to.
The Franc boys are products of their environment.
The Franc 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 Franc 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 the 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.
So 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 now, 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 raps on to 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 gonna 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 end game.
What it's what's scary?
That a TMZ viewer got my end game.
Let me 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 I he has a point.
They always have to qualify it.
I'm not a Rush Limbaugh fan.
But what but he has I don't know what Rush's end game is.
It certainly wasn't to get on TMZ.
I 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 the Hats that they got their call from Nikki.
And then uh 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 Chronicite.
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's source authority.
TMZ is unassailable.
And Harvey Levin runs the place.
He has he is 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 just telling them what is in that realm.
And so here's uh here's the next bite.
They after taking the pulse of the people or 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.
This is 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 on 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.
All I was 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 side asking whether.
We put a poll up on the side.
I don't even know what the results are.
90% Rush is right.
No, the poll 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 his rush right.
Their poll was is Rush wrong.
Fifty-four percent said no.
Now, one of their producers.
I know what it's gonna be.
90% Russia's right, right?
So there's a little.
Um, but 54% of the TMZ audience did not think that I was wrong.
Then TMZ decided to ask Kanye about it uh at LAX on Saturday.
I haven't heard I've I've been out of town, man.
I don't know everything in town.
I'm gonna check in.
I'll let you know next time I'll see.
He didn't know what they were talking about.
He hadn't heard about it.
So he says, then uh uh that's it.
That that's that's that's what happened on TMZ.
So uh it it ended up.
No, I'm not joking about Harvey Levin being Walter Cronka.
Well, I mean it's it's a it's a funny comment, but I'm telling you to the TMZ audience, Harvey Levin is gospel.
What TMZ says is they don't 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 a day.
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.
I these 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 in Houston, you're next.
It's great to have you on the EIB network, sir.
Hello.
Hello, Rush.
Thank you.
And Longstar Ditto's from the great state.
I would like to uh to offer to you a new perspective on why Obama does not want Hillary Clinton as the next president.
And it has to do, 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, with 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.
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 if 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 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 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 you know, Obama'd be running around telling everybody Cruz was born in Canada.
So true enough.
Anyway, I I understand your thinking on that.
I uh I hadn't I hadn't thought of that.
I mean, I know he's a narcissist, but I hadn't uh thought of that.
Clearly the Democrats want that.
I mean, it 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.
Uh Democrats certainly would like that.
Uh 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, and I meant to get to today, didn't I be able to get them in.
Colorado, 200,000.
Colorado health plans are gonna 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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