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April 9, 2015 - Rush Limbaugh Program
30:22
April 9, 2015, Thursday, Hour #3
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Since we're on this subject, here's the New Republic headline.
Now, the New Republic isn't what it used to be.
The New Republic, what?
The New Republic used to be a veneered, revered, revered journal of opinion for the left.
And it never was really radical like today's Democrat Party is, but now it's been taken over by one of the Facebook founders and is basically a home for millennial rich kids that think they're journalists or writers.
Anyway, even they're getting in on the act.
There's a story at the New Republic on the headline, Rand Paul's petulance with reporters will ruin him.
So you see, ladies and gentlemen, you see how this works?
You're applauding Rand Paul yesterday because he just went out.
He really took it to Savannah Guthrie and Debbie Blabbermouth Schultz and all that.
And I can give you, I can keep doing it because the examples are going to keep happening.
And Drive-By Media is going to continue to portray Rand Paul as killing himself politically yesterday, ruining himself, showing him petulant, anti-female, interruptive, unfair, aggressive, all of these things so they can push the new gender war, which will replace, to facilitate Mrs. Clinton, the race war.
It's great to have you with us, Rush Lindbaugh, the fastest three hours in media, 800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program.
The email address, lrushball at EIBNet.com.
Back to Iran here in just a second.
I want to share with you a column today, Victor Davis Hansen at townhall.com.
VDH, as he's popularly known, has written many places.
He's actually a Greek historian, expert Greek historian.
And he's a farmer in California.
And he's just writes brilliantly.
And this essay he has written today is on education and particularly the academy, academe, higher education.
I have come to believe, and we all know that the left has taken over and corrupted the education establishment.
That's not an argument.
What I am new in believing is I think the corruption of education, the takeover of education and the things happening there have actually had a much more damaging effect on the country than even the pop culture coming out of Hollywood.
Music books, TVs, entertainment media, because education, obviously, by definition, deals with the educated class.
And they've ruined them.
It's an absolute disaster.
I shared with you yesterday this tirade from a female professor at Rutgers who just let loose with all the hatred and bile that she feels for the country at large.
And she's teaching it.
It's okay, you know, people understand they're going to have their opinions, but she teaches it with the force of authority behind her.
And she wouldn't even be able to get a job at a university 50 years ago.
They wouldn't have even entertained the thought.
But now with affirmative action and quotas and diversity and the multicultural curricula and that whole takeover, it's a different world.
And I think this piece by Victor Davis Hansen perfectly outlines the complete collapse and failure of the university system after 50 years of unchecked liberal experimentation.
A couple of pull quotes to start.
A bachelor's degree is no longer proof that any graduate can read critically or write effectively.
National college interest test scores have generally declined the last few years and grading standards have as well.
Too often, universities emulate greenhouses where fragile adults are coddled as if they were hothouse orchids.
Hypersensitive students are warned about microaggressions that in the real world would be imperceptible.
Here's the beginning.
Modern American universities used to assume four goals.
See if you recognize these four, by the way.
First, their general education core taught students how to reason inductively and imparted an aesthetic sense through acquiring knowledge of Michelangelo, the Battle of Gettysburg, Medea, King Lear, Beethoven's Ode to Joy and Astronomy, and Euclidean geometry.
That used to be the general education core, how to reason inductively, impart an aesthetic sense that acquiring knowledge, through acquiring knowledge, of a diversity of things like Michelangelo Battle of Gettysburg, on and on.
Second, campuses encouraged edgy speech and raucous expression and exposure to all sorts of weird ideas and mostly unpopular thoughts.
College talk was never envisioned as boring, politically correct megaphones echoing orthodox pieties.
Third, four years of college trained students for productive careers.
That's why you went.
After four years, you were assumed to be qualified to embark on a career.
Implicit was the university's assurance that its degree was a wise career investment.
It's why it mattered.
Why having that degree, that sheepskin mattered, is what it said about you.
And finally, universities were not monopolistic price gougers.
They sought affordability to allow access to a broad middle class that had neither federal subsidies nor lots of money.
The American undergraduate university is now failing on all four counts.
And here's the pull quote again.
The bachelor's degree is no longer proof that any graduate can read critically or write effectively.
Too often, universities emulate greenhouses where fragile adults are coddled as if they were hothouse orchids.
Hypersensitive students are warned about microaggressions that in the real world would be imperceptible.
Apprehensive professors are sometimes supposed to offer trigger warnings that assume students are delicate Victorians who cannot handle landmark authors such as Joseph Conrad or Mark Twain.
For example, can't read Hug Finn anymore.
That's racist, don't you know?
The language, the terms, it's too upsetting.
It's too offensive.
It causes too many students to be upset, like Savannah Guthrie was with Rand Paul.
You can't have that.
Safe spaces are designed on campus now where traumatized students can be shielded from supposedly hurtful or unwelcome language that should not exist in a just and fair world, like one in which Rand Paul lives.
One might have concluded from all this doting that 21st century American youths, their culture, rap lyrics, rough language, spring break indulgences, sexual promiscuity, epidemic drug usage, is not savage.
HIP culture seems to assume that its 18-year-old participants are jaded, sophisticated adults, yet the university treats them as if they are preteens in need of vicarious chaperones.
Universities entice potential students with all sorts of easy loan packages, hip orientations, and perks like high-tech recreation centers, upscale dorms.
On the backside of graduation, such bait and switch attention vanishes when it's time to help departing students find jobs.
College often turns into a six-year experience.
The unemployment rate of college graduates is at near record levels.
Universities have either failed to convince employers that English or history majors make ideal job candidates, or they have failed to ensure that such bedrock majors can, in fact, speak, write, and reason.
The collective debt of college students and graduates is more than $1 trillion.
Such loans result from astronomical tuition costs that for decades have risen more rapidly than the rate of inflation.
I've always pointed this out.
You know, the left has their enemies list.
It's big oil, it's big retail, it's big pharmaceutical, big tobacco, big auto, you name it.
And they're always wailing and moaning about how expensive things are and how the average little guy can't afford it anymore.
But you never hear them utter such complaints about academe.
I love that word academe.
It's such a pretentious word.
You never hear them concerned about the rising costs of attending the academy.
You never hear them complain about gouging via tuition.
And there's a reason why.
The people that work at the academy are the actual flakers and formers of skulls full of mush that arrive there eager to learn and they are converted via propaganda and indoctrination into robotic mind-numbed liberals.
And they're worth whatever we pay them.
They couldn't make any money outside the academy.
They're too wacko-oddball extreme.
But put them in a classroom and it's made to order.
That's why there is never, I mean, the university, the American education system is it, folks.
That's where young, impressionable skulls full of mush are turned into lifelong liberals.
Like Marie Harf.
She's one of millions serving as a great example.
Today's Campi have a higher administrator to student ratio than ever before.
We never, though, hear about, it's how unfair how much money the CEO, the college president, makes versus the students who actually make up the university, like you hear about at any other private sector business.
Is it too late for solutions?
For many youths, vocational screw is preferable to college.
Americans need to appreciate that training to become a master auto mechanic, a paramedic, or skilled electrician is as valuable to society as a cultural anthropology or feminist studies curriculum.
Administrators should decide whether they see students as mature, independent adults who handle life's vicissitudes with courage and without need for restrictions on free expression.
Or should students remain perennial, weepy adolescents, requiring constant sheltering, solicitousness, and self-esteem building.
Diversity might be better redefined in its most ancient and idealistic sense as differences in opinion and thought rather than just variety in appearance, race, gender, or religion.
The now predictable ideology of college graduation speakers should instead be a mystery.
Students should not be able to guess the politics of their college president.
Ideally, they might encounter as many Christians as atheists, as many reactionaries as socialists, or as many tea partiers as Occupy Wall Street protesters, reflecting the normal divisions of society.
See, that's the key.
There is no diversity on campus.
There is no openness.
There is no multiple points of view.
There is no exposure to all of these great different ways of thinking and looking at things in America.
Nope, there's only one way now.
And you must conform to it.
You must conform to the liberal heterodoxy, or you are forever going to be ostracized on your very own campus.
Finally, federal government should hold universities fiscally accountable.
The availability of federal grants ought to be pegged to a college's ability to hold annual tuition increases to the rate of inflation.
Anyway, it's a good piece, especially the beginning where he reminds everybody what the four core elements of a university education used to be.
Got to take a quick break.
Still to come on the program today, Marie Hart and her reaction to Henry Kissinger and George Schultz and Heileman and Mark Halperin, just unbelieving, shocked and dismayed that Ted Cruz could generate $31 million in campaign donations in a week.
They can't believe it.
Okay, have to hustle here.
Have to hustle.
The Ayatollah hominy.
The supreme leader of Iran has just announced that the United States is lying about the deal, and there might not even be a deal.
This comes on the heel of the president Hassan Rouani essentially saying the same thing.
But now the Ayatollah hominy is in there.
There is no deal.
Obama's lying about the deal.
Now you might say, they're of course going to say that.
Obama's backing off too.
Obama talking with the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Portia Simpson Miller.
Here, grab sound by 26.
I know I told you sound by one, but grab 26.
This is Obama this afternoon in Kingston, Jamaica.
They got some great golf courses there.
I'm sure that's why he's there.
Well, it says he's in Kingston.
Is he in Kingston?
It's a Caribbean.
It's a golf course.
I'm sure it's a golf outing.
Anyway, here's what he said.
Listen fast.
As I've said from the start, this is not done until it's done.
Really?
And the next two to three months of negotiations are going to be absolutely critical for making sure that we are memorializing an agreement that gives us confidence and gives the world confidence that Iran, in fact, is not pursuing.
No, no, no.
Last week you told us you already accomplished that.
Am I wrong about that?
He told us last week you already accomplished that.
Or we just had to do technical things.
Yeah, dot the I's and cross the T's and do that next three months.
He already told us.
We got a framework for that.
Now, even he's backing off.
The Ayatollah Hominy says there is no deal.
U.S. is lying about the deal.
Might not even be a deal.
Obama said, as I've said from the start, no, he hasn't said from the start, he says, not done until it's done.
Next two to three months are going to be absolutely critical.
Well, let's see if we can get some of this straightened out with John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, last night on a news hour on PBS with Judy Woodruff.
She said, is it correct to say that this is really not about denying Iran a nuclear weapon, but about delaying the day they get one?
Absolutely not.
Not in the least.
No, it is not just about that.
It is about denying them a nuclear weapon.
This is a guarantee that for the next 15 to 20 years, they won't possibly be able to advance that program to become a more legitimate member of the nonproliferation community.
I don't have enough time to stop this.
No, no, no, it's not about that.
It's about denying them a nuclear weapon.
This is a guarantee, this is a guarantee that for the next 15 to 20 years they won't possibly be able to, this is a guarantee that they won't possibly be able to advance the program.
This is embarrassing stuff.
No wonder Henry Kissinger is worried.
It was 13 years, now it's 15 to 20.
By the way, you know, when you get down to the Ayatollah Hominy and these guys, they don't care.
They play the long game, just like the Soviets used to play the long game.
We do things in four-year cycles here, but they play the long game.
They've already got that.
Here's the next, Kerry.
What's the next question?
You know, this is CBS this morning.
You know the concerns that by lifting sanctions, it means a stronger, more capable Iran, and that in turn, that means a stronger, more capable Hezbollah, Assad, and Houthi rebels in Yemen.
So what about all that?
The sanctions were put in place to bring them to negotiations.
That was the entire purpose.
So now that they've negotiated and they have an agreement, people can't complain and say, oh, my gosh, if they comply with all the things they said they're going to do that we wanted them to do, we're going to now not lift them.
It doesn't work.
There's no equation there.
It just simply doesn't work.
I have no idea.
We've got to get Marie Harf to straighten this out, which she did yesterday afternoon at the State Department.
Yep, but he was referring to a scenario in which there was no deal.
I've talked to my colleagues at the White House.
They have made very clear on the record, as have I, that he was referring to a scenario in which there is no deal.
That is what the truth is here.
If he could have said it more clearly, that's a different issue.
So he was talking about a scenario in which there is no deal.
I know you all wish he had been clearer when he said that, and I'm sorry if it's not clear from the transcript.
That is what he was talking about.
She has doubled down telling everybody that Obama was mixed up and did not say what he meant.
So she's making it worse.
She's out there apologizing for Obama, who is not being clear about what he means, but she knows, so we are to trust her.
Marie Harf, one more soundbite yesterday afternoon at the State Department.
She's the acting spokesperson now because her boss, Jen Pasaki, went over to the White House.
And it's her daily press briefing.
And Matt Lee of the AP says, look, could you explain something to us?
Why would Obama even mention 13 or 14 or 15 years or Kerry?
Why would they do this if they're talking about a scenario where there is no agreement now?
I'm not going to ask the White House, Matt.
I can't parse this much further for you.
Well, I'm not the only one who's confused about that.
I've done all I can on this, Matt.
I cannot be more clear about this.
He was referring to a scenario in which there is no deal.
It may not be clear in the transcript.
I'm telling you what my colleagues at the White House have told me he was referring to.
I admit that it hasn't been clear in the transcript, but I am conveying to you what he was attempting to convey.
There is total confusion, even in the drive-by media that so desperately wants Obama to look good on this.
They don't understand what's going on.
Obama is out there saying, announcing the conditions of the deal, and Marie Harf of the State Department goes, no, he was speaking as if there is no deal.
What you heard him say, he was speaking hypothetically if there is no deal.
Well, the reporters didn't hear him say that.
He didn't say that, and in case there's no deal, this is what's going to happen.
She's just saying that's what he meant.
And she's really getting frustrated with the question, so now she's dumping it on the White House.
Hey, look, I went to the White House.
I needed clarification on this myself.
I went to the White House, and they told me what all this Obama went off the rails.
Obama went off prompter.
That's what happened here.
He went off prompter in discussing this.
And that's why there's, you talk to Kerry, there's one interpretation of what's happened.
You talk to Obama, there's another.
And Marie Harf, who thinks she's smarter than both of them, has now got to try to put it all back together.
Well, this has caused much concern with Dr. Henry Kissinger and George P. Schultz, two former secretaries of state.
They had a joint op-ed that was published in which they expressed alarm and dismay over all of this.
They just simply can't, they can't conceive of what's happening here.
And Dr. Kissinger appeared last night on the record with Greta Van Susteren, who said, are you optimistic about this, Dr. Kissinger?
Do you think that this is a good start?
Are we going in the right direction or are you pessimistic about it?
The negotiations started 12 years ago to deprive Iran of enrichment capability.
That was given up quite a while ago.
And once Iran was granted enrichment capability, then it became a very nearly impossible task to keep them from having nuclear weapons.
So you see, the negotiations started 12 years ago to deprive Iran of enrichment capability.
And they did it anyway.
We gave up on this a while ago.
And once Iran was granted enrichment capability, then, well, it became impossible.
And once again, a mockery of main affording what it's so she asked him again, well, are you upset about this?
Are you pessimistic?
What's the deal?
How do you feel about it?
I'm very uneasy.
There are issues of verification and there are issues of strategic relationships in the region and that it will be very difficult.
We must prevent the nuclear weapons spread all over the Middle East and have all the conflicts that we now see in the Middle East include the danger of having nuclear weapons used in those conflicts and then seep out into the rest of the world and become weaponized even against us.
Yeah, exactly.
I'd be uneasy, too.
Issues of verification, issues of strategic relationships in the region would be very difficult.
But this is it in a nutshell.
We have to prevent the nuclear weapons spread all over the Middle East, have all the conflicts that we now see in the Middle East include the danger of a nuclear weapon being used in them.
And that's exactly right.
And this is what this administration doesn't seem to have any concern about.
And, you know, I talked to some leftists out there, and they say, so what, Rush?
You know, it's about time we backed out of this.
You've heard this, Drill.
It's about time we backed out of this anyway.
Who are we?
You know, get out of there and let these people wipe each other out.
Let them do it.
Let them have it.
Yeah, but what?
You give any of these players over there a nuclear weapon.
And then, of course, the world becomes weaponized against us.
That's not acceptable.
That doesn't matter to Obama.
So back to the State Department here, folks.
As Marie Harf was still conducting her daily press briefing, an unidentified reporter raised his hand and was called on.
His question.
Dr. Kissinger and George Schultz published a piece in the Wall Street Journal today that raised a lot of questions about the Iran nuclear deal.
These are huge diplomatic statesman types.
These are great men as compared to you, who are virtual nobody.
Do you have any reaction to what these two great men, foreign policy specialists, giants in the world of foreign policy, do you have any reaction to what they said?
Do you think that Dr. Kissinger was fair?
I didn't hear a lot of alternatives.
I heard a lot of sort of big words and big thoughts in that piece, and those are certainly, there's a place for that, but I didn't hear a lot of alternatives about what they would do differently.
Yes, you did.
They said, don't let them have a nuclear weapon.
Sorry to yell here, folks, but Kissinger was very clear.
They shouldn't have a nuclear weapon in that region.
Nobody over there should have a nuclear weapon besides our friends in Israel.
No one.
If you give them a nuclear weapon, the region could blow up and include us.
It's very simple, what he said.
Well, I heard with a bunch of big words and big if she thinks, these are usually big words.
People are big words if she wants big words, but that wasn't big words.
Okay, last night, Bloomberg's with all due respect, co-host John Hylam and Mark Halperin talking about the 2016 presidential race and they can't believe Ted Cruz.
A handful of pro-Cruz super PACs that were formed just this week are expected to have $31 million in the bank by Friday.
This sounds like a bit of a game changer to me.
Do you think it is?
And if so, just how big a game changer is it?
It's a huge game changer that gets people who weren't taking Ted Cruz's candidacy seriously to focus on him.
It's not that long ago that $31 million would have been a budget for an entire presidential campaign.
It shows that he can play the super PAC game and he might end up being, after Jeb Bush, the best-funded Republican before New Year's Eve, and that's a big deal.
John Hartwood, Wall Street Journal, is next.
Is he Wall Street?
No.
CNBC.
He's been at the journal.
Hell, these guys rotate the revolving.
I don't know where he is now, but they're talking about this.
Harwood cannot believe this.
With the $31 million in super PAC commitments that Ted Cruz has amassed in recent days, he is going to be heard in this race, and we're going to have to see how much of a factor he is.
I think Jeb Bush is the favorite to win the nomination.
Scott Walker is probably his chief competitor, but somebody else is going to emerge as a third wheel in the race.
From the Cruz and Paul, Ben Carson wing, I would expect one of those to be a serious player.
And I would think that Cruz may have the best chance of that group to be the player, the one who is the rival to Jeb Bush and Scott Walker.
Joe Kernan, CNBC, said, you spent some time asking Harwood.
You spent some time with Ted Cruz.
This wasn't your first time.
What are your impressions of the guy?
I found Ted Cruz to be more charming in person than I'm talking about.
This is where I think he has an advantage over Paul.
He is more fluid, better at connecting one-on-one.
That's going to be a challenge for Paul as he's on the trail is establishing a personal connection.
Ted Cruz is a little better at it.
Yeah, besides, you know, Rand Paul, he beats up women now.
See, he beats up female journalists.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gender wars have begun.
That's not me saying it.
If you're just tuning in, you missed the whole theme of the program.
I'm not saying that about Rand Paul.
The media set that meme up.
But what gets me about this is Ted Cruz, I've met Ted Cruz a number of times, but I don't need to have met him to know that he's a guy.
He's a good guy.
He's a decent guy.
He's an honest, decent man filled with integrity.
I can tell this.
These guys are shocked when they meet him how charming he is in person.
What do you think he is?
You think he kills babies?
What do you think of these people?
You know, that's pretty close.
I mean, they really, when these guys who live in their liberal cocoons start thinking of conservatives, they buy their own stupid PR.
Racist, mean-spirited, extremist, whatever.
And then they meet these guys, and they're floored.
They can't believe he was nice to me.
He was charming.
You know what?
He can actually communicate.
He's really good one-on-one.
I just, I'm constantly amazed that this happens.
These are thought to be, we're told these are the smart guys.
They understand all these.
They're continually shocked.
Imagine what they must think going in.
That's a problem.
Back after this.
There we go.
Another three-hour busy broadcast over in a flash, it seems like.
But we will be back tomorrow, my friends.
Open line Friday.
Wrap up another.
Oh, 25th anniversary of the leukemia radiothon tomorrow, folks.
Be ready for that.
25th anniversary.
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