Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And I don't recall, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday on this program when discussing the Tom Brady and deflated footballs and the Patriots scandal.
I don't recall.
Do you, Brian?
Do you remember me predicting what I think is going to happen here?
Can you recall?
Did I mention any suspension?
You wouldn't believe the number of emails I've got from people who tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.
And I'm all wrong about this.
And it's going to be proven.
And I haven't predicted anything.
Live from the Southern Command in sunny South Florida.
It's open line Friday.
Which makes me wonder what's out there.
And what is it that they claim I've said?
I haven't predicted anything.
Suspension or otherwise.
I and in fact, I was so purposeful on this yesterday.
I repeated my primary point four different times, running the risk of being charged with repetitiveness and redundancy.
You're wrong, Rush.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Nothing's gonna happen to Brady here.
He's too big.
They the general theme I got from the emails was you're wrong.
Nothing's gonna happen to Brady because the league gave themselves an out with the wording of all of this.
Well, okay, fine and dandy, but I wasn't aware that I came out with a prediction on this.
I recounted what I've read others say, Miami Dolphins Street Reporter for the uh for the Herald saying a beat reporter claim it could be up to a year.
Other people say a couple games, some say four games, some say no games and a fine.
It's all over the place out there, but nobody really knows.
However, there is more speculation today, and we have it for you on audio sound bites.
It's great to have you, folks, Rush Limbaugh on the EIB network at 800-282-2882.
It's open line Friday, which means it's your show.
When you get on the air, if you're a caller and you make it through here, you gotta pretend it's your show and talk about whatever you want.
Whether you think I care about it or not, whether, I mean, even if you think I'm gonna disagree with you, don't let that bother you.
I am the politest host in all of major media.
And you can you can count on the fact that you will not be laughed at or ridiculed or made fun of until you hang up.
Again, the telephone number is 800-282-2882.
Okay, before we get back to that, there's a couple you know, these uh these new owners of the new republic are on a tear.
And they had a story yesterday, and I didn't get to it yesterday.
Mr. Snerdley brought it in, stapled together is how long the story was, and he brought it in to me for one reason.
And it was the last page.
And I ran across it again today, so I think, you know, I may as well mention this because this long, long, long page.
In fact, let me uh uh give you the headline.
The best thing that Hillary could do for her campaign is ditch bill.
And this is a long piece by Rebecca Tracer.
Now, the the new republic is not owned and operated by the traditional establishment liberals that have always owned it.
It's owned by this co-founder of Facebook, Chris, whatever his name is, and his uh his husband, who ran for office and lost.
So they're running it, and they've got a bunch of millennial types in there that are that are have taken over and are writing the article.
Still liberal, but it's uh it's millennial liberal.
Speaking of which, you got a story on the millennials in Whole Foods.
Whole Foods has totally misjudged who the Millennials are.
In terms of marketing and pricing at the stores, the bottom line is Whole Foods is gonna have to open a new line of stores like Walmart because millennials don't have any money to go out and buy all this high-priced designer food.
It's hilarious.
I know the millennials don't have any money.
They're all obsessed with things for free.
You can't miss it.
Anyway.
This this new Republic piece from today, the last page pretty much spells out exactly what I have been saying for 26 plus years about why Hillary is even in the running for the Democrat presidential nomination.
It's because she gave up her entire future to marry Clinton and move to the sticks of Arkansas.
And this new Republic article with these young millennials makes the point as though I wrote it, as though they have been listening.
Now we know they haven't probably.
Maybe they have, who knows?
But before they even get there, it is clear that to them Bill Clinton is not a star.
Bill Clinton is not a hero, and these millennial babes have no desire to go to bed with Clinton.
And they don't want to celebrate Clinton for abortioning it.
They think he's the biggest drag that Hillary's got going, and they want him out.
They want him gone from the campaign.
Now you can't you can't adjudge them to be totally on board because they still think Hillary's hot stuff.
Which means they have judgmental flaws.
Another new Republic story, big long story, stapled again together today.
The fiscal abandonment of West Baltimore, Freddie Gray's neighborhood needs financial help, but who will pay?
This is a long story detailing what we've told you all week about the dire circumstances where Freddie Gray grew up and lived.
And it is bleak, folks.
As you you may recall, what is the number?
16% of Freddie Gay's neighborhood teenagers, 16% of Baltimore teenagers have been raised with married parents.
Meaning 84% of Baltimore teenagers have not been raised with married parents.
Now I know that some of you might be, so what, Rush?
It's a new year, and that doesn't matter anymore.
You're just dating yourself.
Okay, let me put it to you a different way.
Do you think that children notice things and form respect and disrespect for adults based on what they see?
Okay, well, let me ask you this then.
I I don't ask this with prejudice by any stretch.
I'm asking this as I ask everything else.
It's a think question.
I want you to ponder it.
What do you think the effect is on single-age young kids and teenagers who get up in the morning and never ever see a parent or either parent go off to work?
If if the idea that 16% of teenagers grow up in a two-parent household is no big deal to you, well then let me ask you this.
Does it matter that all of these young kids may get, not just in Baltimore, but everywhere, get up and never see their parents go off to work?
They're getting up and going off to school, maybe, the kids, but they never see their parents get up and go to work.
And they when they get home, their parents either there or not there, but they're not working.
What kind of influence do you think that has?
It's got to have some, right?
Now, the new republic piece, it's all about money and how we're not spending enough money and we need to spend more money.
But exactly whose money needs to be spent now.
And of course, it's going to be concluded that the federal government needs to spend more.
Never mind the fact that Baltimore got nearly two billion dollars from Obama stimulus, designed to fix things like Freddie Gray's neighborhood, but not a dime went there.
Isn't that amazing?
Two billion dollars out of the $800 billion stimulus went to the city of Baltimore.
That's not counting what else went to the state, just went to the city of Baltimore, and there's not anything to show for it.
Not in Freddie Gray's neighborhood anyway, and probably not much else, other than maybe they kept the teachers employed, because we know that the majority of the stimulus money went to union employees, teachers and others, so that they would stay employed during the recession and thus keep paying their union dues, which end up back, poor percentage in the Democrat Party campaign coffers.
And in addition to that, nearly two, it's 1.8 billion at Baltimore got in the stimulus.
Just last year they had an infusion of 130 million for some such thing.
And you might say, well, that's chunk change compared to well, it is chunk change compared to 2 billion, but 130 million.
Would you think maybe some productive things could be done with 130 million dollars?
Before you just say that's not enough.
That's a drop in the book.
Stop and think a minute.
130 million dollars.
And none of it ends up where it is targeted.
What do you mean?
How do I know?
Well, look.
Do you see any difference in the city from before and after?
Two billion dollars?
Where's the difference?
Guess what?
In a fate of conflict.
Although it's reported here as a sh is a big, big news story.
The Washington Post, the Justice Department will launch a federal investigation of the Baltimore police department, as though there was any doubt.
Of course we predicted it yesterday.
What was it's a fate of compliment?
It was always going to happen.
I know that some people were worried the regime might not agree to take over the Baltimore police department, but really, folks, when the mayor of Baltimore asks you to come in and take over their police department, and you are Loretta Lynch and Barack Obama and say no.
You're gonna be in there before the sun sets.
In fact, get this companion story political pressure builds on the GOP for police and criminal justice reforms.
Pressure is mounting on Republican congressional leaders to take up criminal justice and police reform legislation, and the calls are increasingly coming from within the GOP.
So like night follows day, the Politico is here to warn the GOP they had better get on board with Obama and the federal government taking over local police.
In fact, if they want to really do the right thing, they'll write the legislation themselves and make it look like it's their idea.
And that is supposed to show that the minorities and the African Americans at the Republicans don't hate them.
And then that's supposed to show the Republicans have compassion and concern.
And so forth.
In case you haven't noticed, over the past few decades, this is how the news media and the rest of the Democrat Party work.
Number one, they decide there's a problem, a crisis that needs to be addressed.
Number two, they manufacture an event to exemplify the crisis, i.e.
uh.
a riot or what have you.
Number three, they then claim that the public is demanding that the problem be fixed.
the Democrat Party way.
And a fourth thing that happens, they then claim the Republicans had better get on board before they are left in the dust.
The Politico says that Republican leaders haven't yet decided on how to proceed on an issue.
Conservatives typically have not treated as a priority.
See, that's how the political.
What is it that conservatives have not treated as a priority?
Criminal justice reforms?
Fairness in the inner city?
Yeah, that's what they mean.
Republican leaders haven't yet decided how to proceed on an issue.
Conservatives typically have not treated as a priority.
Ah, we conservatives don't care about people, see.
This story guaranteed multiple times a year.
The only thing it changes is the city.
And this wasn't even an issue until the Democrats, their media buddies decided they needed to turn out more black voters in the midterms.
That's where this thing gets started.
Anyway, with the outrage over police killings of African Americans dominating the news, an increasing number of rank and file GOP lawmakers say doing nothing is no longer an option.
Yes, this just keeps happening.
What the Republicans ought to do is quite obvious.
They've got how many decades of history of Democrat policy not working?
What is it stopping them from standing up and saying, we need to try something new because obviously the Obama way, the Democrat Party way isn't working.
We've thrown money, $22 trillion, since the Great Society, We've two billion from the stimulus went to Baltimore.
We've done nothing but throw money at cities and people, and there's nothing to show for it.
And the Republicans apparently think that's too risky a proposition.
Because with outrage over police killings of African Americans dominating the news, an increasing number of rank and file Republican lawmakers say doing nothing is no longer an option.
When have the Republicans done nothing?
They have proposed all kinds of things over the years.
Enterprise zones, school vouchers, any number of things to improve these circumstances.
In some places they've been implemented, and when they work, the Democrats shut them down.
Like Obama.
The minute he got elected, one of the first things he did was shut down the school choice program in D.C. Which was a benefit for African Americans.
He shut it down in loyalty to the teachers' unions and public schools, and there were some other factors in there too.
I mean, Obama's kids were going to go to one of those schools where the underclass kids were going to show up, and that wouldn't work out.
Michelle wasn't happy about that.
So just eliminate the program, right, Snerdley?
Eliminate the program.
Class consciousness and all that.
Anyway, this idea that Republicans haven't done anything, it's time to get off the dime now.
Years and years and years of doing nothing is no longer an option.
The deck is so stacked, it's just stunning.
It's just for 27 years have been seeing it this way.
Anyway, so the Justice Department's going to go in and fix Baltimore.
However, ladies and gentlemen, it's not going to be easy.
Because the politico has another story.
Policing scandals threatened overwhelm the Justice Department.
The woes of the nation's 18,000.
State and local law enforcement agencies have been placed on the shoulders of around 50 lawyers, the DOJ Civil Rights Division, the Krim to the Krim.
And it's just too much.
They can't handle it.
They need more money.
The DOJ needs more money.
They need more power to handle all these police department scandals.
It costs money to take over the nation's police departments, apparently.
So here we go.
After all the big exciting news, Loretta Lynch said, Yep, we heard the mayor in Baltimore beg us to come in.
We're going to go in there.
We're going to go in at the Republicans and say, hey, let us tag along.
We're tired of doing nothing all these years.
And then the DOJ decides to throw cold water.
You know what?
It's getting hard.
It's so hard.
These scandals are overwhelming us.
They threaten our ability to do anything anywhere.
Just take a break here, folks.
Sit tight.
Open line Friday rolling on right after this.
Get this.
If you think that this is not a big deal, this political piece about the takeover of the police departments mentions this.
Since taking office, the Obama administration has opened 21 investigations into police departments of various sizes, from Los Angeles and New Orleans to Missoula, Montana, and Beacon, New York.
Such investigations can result in legally binding agreements or lawsuits that require reforms in department policy in its first five years.
The Obama-era section secured double the number of agreements of the last five years of the Bush administration.
And they left out Miami, they left out Newark, they left out Las Vegas, Oakland, and now Ferguson, as other police departments, they have conquered.
They have taken over.
They have investigated and imposed Obama administration guidelines and behaviors and policies on these local police departments.
And he's just gotten started, folks.
He's still got 22, 21 months left.
And the premise behind all of this is that local police departments are incompetent.
And local police departments are the reason so many young African American men are in jail.
And Obama wants to restrain the police department presence.
He wants to de-emphasize it.
I mean, that's the real reason is for chaos.
The stated reason is they happen to believe that a vivid police department presence is intimidating and provocative and leads to unrest.
Because in the Obama administration, in the liberal view, just like the U.S. military is the focus of evil in our foreign policy.
The U.S. military provokes action against the U.S. Like the prison Guantanamo Bay creates terrorism rather than incarcerates terrorists.
Well, they by the same token believe that domestic police departments create crime.
They believe that domestic police departments are the primary reason or a leading factor in a high crime rate and the unfair incarceration rate of young African American men.
And when the DOJ comes calling and threatening you're a local police department, you need federal money, you bend over and grab the ankles fast.
And they get to come in and redefine your policy book and your mission statement, and it's happening now.
Twenty what twenty-five police departments all over the country, but Baltimore to be uh to be next.
Okay, folks, hang in there, be tough, much more straight ahead, millennials and whole foods back after this.
Yes, of course we're gonna get back to the Brady stuff.
It's just I led with the Brady stuff yesterday.
I'm gonna do some other stuff first today.
We'll get to the Brady.
In fact, really some fascinating sound bites here from uh the drive-by media sports people who uh uh Bob Costas thinks that they have got to go all in and just let Brady have it in order for Goodell to salvage his bad year.
Oh yeah.
You'll uh you'll hear it all coming up.
I have yet, however, for all of you writing me and telling me I don't know what I'm talking about.
I haven't made a prediction yet as to what I think is going to happen.
And I don't know that I will, because I frankly have no idea.
I can see the logic on virtually every opinion that I have heard.
No suspension but a fine, big suspension, moderate suspension, no action whatsoever.
I can see the logic on all of it.
The one thing, there's only one thing that I want to separate myself from the crowd on here with this.
And I got I've I'm gonna contradict myself from yesterday, because I got to thinking about this last night.
You know, I made a big deal yesterday of saying the Patriots opened the season as the Super Bowl champions on the Thursday night, first game of the season, televised on NBC, it's against the Steelers.
And I said, I just I can't imagine the league.
I can't imagine that game being played with the backup quarterback for the Patriots.
I said that that NBC wouldn't want that.
I mean, NBC probably on the phone to Goodell saying whatever you do, Brady's playing on the opening night.
I got to thinking about that.
I don't think it matters.
Now I expect to get a lot of feedback on this.
I don't think it matters that much if Brady plays on Thursday night in the opening game.
The ratings are still gonna be through the roof.
In fact, I would argue after having thought about this, that the ratings might even be higher if that's possible on Thursday night if Brady is suspended.
Think of the curiosity factor.
Think of the anger factor.
Think of all the additional reasons people would tune in to watch that game.
You could almost make the case that NBC might have a bigger audience if Brady is suspended.
Now, I don't know that the league would look at it that way.
This is my opinion here after having had a night to think about it.
And it does go against the conventional wisdom grain, which is another reason why to me it does make some sense.
So we'll get into all this in greater detail as Open Line Friday continues to unfold before your very eyes and ears.
The Washington Post, however, has a story with the headline, Whole Foods is learning that millennials are not who it thought they were.
I think a lot of people are starting to figure this out.
For years, Whole Foods has thrived by selling pricey food with a promise that it's better for you.
It's better for the planet, and it's better overall.
The mantra has proved so successful that it has helped the high-end supermarket chain to expand from its flagship store in Austin, Texas, to now more than 400 locations.
But lately, the model at Whole Foods has not looked quite as promising or as appetizing it as it once did.
And all you have to do is just ask Whole Foods, which is now working to adjust its strategic, by launching a new line of stores with lower prices.
In a conference call, the chief executive, John Mackey, was fairly coy about what would be in the new store, saying the company would reveal details about a 2016 concept launch this fall.
He said it'll offer a convenient, transparent and values oriented experience geared towards millennial shoppers.
You want me to translate that for you?
We're gonna open a Walmart version of our own store because our target market, the millennials, don't have any money.
Most of the corporate buzzwords can be ignored, the key phrase millennial shoppers.
It turns out that millennials who have become the largest living generation in America aren't exactly who many of us or even Whole Foods thought they were.
When you look at millennials' consumption patterns a few years ago, what you would expect is that they'd be dining out more than anybody else, and just spending more money on foods, a Darren Sefer, the food and beverage analyst at some Wall Street group, said the recession has changed all that.
What we've seen from Twenty Somethings in wake of the financial crisis is they're actually more price conscious than anyone had anticipated.
They were the generation that was hit the hardest by this recession in terms of layoffs and difficulty finding jobs, and it really shows in their food purchasing habits.
Organic food, yeah.
But the truth is they aren't as uppity about it as their parents might have been.
And part of that is here's the money, quote the whole story.
Part of that is driven by the fact that they just don't have as much money.
Why would they?
This is the I I don't understand why people are shot.
Why is it that everybody thinks millennials are rolling in dough?
Where did that supposition come from?
It's it's not possible.
Look at their student debt load.
Look at the lack of careers that are available out there.
Yeah, there's jobs, thirty-hour a week jobs, but there isn't the opportunity for career building out there.
None this economy's in the tank.
I don't care what the jobs numbers are today.
The jobs numbers today don't matter anyway.
You know why?
Because they're not true.
You know how I know?
Because they've already revised last month's number down.
The new jobs number last month was around 125,000.
Today, when they released the jobs numbers for April, they revised down the numbers for March.
It wasn't 125,000, it was 85,000.
It was chump change.
So the two hundred and twenty six thousand new jobs today or this month that they just announced, with the unemployment rate down at 5.4%.
It's not going to hold up.
Next month, when they announce the numbers for May, uh, or for June, rather, the May numbers are going to be revised down and isn't going to be anywhere 226,000.
The real number is the labor force participation rate, and by the way, Fun sound bites as people at CNN try to figure out what that is.
You people who have been listening to this program regularly know what the labor force participation rate is, definitionally, and you know what the number is.
Some economists, economics reporters, I think at CNN, have just stumbled onto it, and you ought to hear them try to figure out what it is and define it.
They know it's not good, but they're not quite sure why.
Bottom line is we're up to 93 million Americans not working.
Not in the labor force.
That 5.4% unemployment number is irrelevant.
We have more people in this country not working than since the Carter 70s.
They're all eating, however.
That's an important point to make.
Well, in the midst of all this, we find the millennials.
And the thing that I've always noticed about the millennials, the thing that's really frustrated me about millennials, there's two things that frustrate me about them.
In the midst of this obvious economic stagnation, for some reason they're not blaming current economic policies.
They blame the country.
And it's not that they blame the country, at least in the news stories I see that talk about this.
It's not they blame the country, they just think that the country's better days are behind us.
That they just happen to be born at the wrong time.
They happen to be born and are coming of age at that point in history where America is on the downswing.
So they're losing faith in the country.
They're losing faith in the nation's economic system.
They're not losing faith in Obama.
They don't even tie this dilapidated, limping along economy with the president.
It's uncanny.
You and I know throughout our lives.
Presidents have been associated with the economic performance, particularly in election years, forever.
But here comes the millennial generation.
They're living the results of Obama and Democrat Party economic policy, and they don't even know it.
They just think the country's on the downsling, downswing, and it's just unfortunate.
Now, understandably, they have not been educated properly.
Obama and the Democrat Party is never going to be held to account in a classroom.
But they do have parents.
They have had parents that should have been able to push back against some of this stuff.
But it's really, folks, it's not good.
It's not good for them to think it's the country on the downswing, the country's seen its best days, and to not tie any of this malaise, stagnation, flat lionism, whatever it is, because it is directly related to Obama economic policy.
It's directly related to the government growing and growing, taxes being increased and increased, and the economy where careers and fortunes are made is getting smaller and smaller.
Call it the private sector.
I don't like calling the private sector, it sounds exclusive, and I think it can have negative connotations, but that's what I'm talking about.
The economy is getting stronger, the government's eating more of it alive.
Just took one-sixth of it with Obamacare.
So the lack of proper education on this, uh combined with a natural inclination to think the Democrats are wonderful and the Republicans aren't, leads the millennial generation to be among the most clueless about why they are currently in this economic circumstance of any generation that I can make remember.
And I'm not insulting them.
There's a reason for their ignorant.
There's a reason they're clueless.
They haven't been taught economics.
They've been taught capitalism stinks.
They've taught, been taught corporations are evil.
You know, as I reference oftentimes, I spend a lot of time interacting with millennials, not personally, but I read what they write.
I go to their websites.
I pay attention to what they're seeing.
You would not believe.
Maybe I'll admit this is a pet peeve of mine.
It really is.
And I don't I'm not even sure why.
But I almost have a visceral reaction when I read anything where a millennial writer is demanding that something be free, or is celebrating that something is free and writing a big article informing all of his millennial buddies that X, Y, whatever it is is free.
And if it's free, it's good.
If it's free, the company offering it is wonderful.
And if a company isn't giving something away or is overcharging for it, then they're instantly in the bullseye or the crosshairs.
And I've thought about this.
Why does this bother me so much?
And I one of the reasons I've run into it all the damn time.
Especially in the tech blogs.
The tech blogs will have a post on how a ninety-nine cent app, 99 cents, is too expensive, but if it's on sale for free, all of a sudden it's the best app in the world.
But at 99 cents, it's a ripoff.
99 freaking cents.
You can't go anywhere and buy something for 99 cents.
But you can get an app for your phone or your iPad for 99 cents.
But this celebration of free, I think I think it bothers me because of what I think it stands for and represents.
I grew up believing if you want something, you pay for it.
That's your responsibility.
And if you want what you can't afford, well that you work harder and earn enough money to be able to get what you can afford or find a way to borrow it or what have you.
But to sulk and run around and complain because things cost money and that they ought to be free.
I don't know.
It bothers me.
And I'm probably overthinking it, but it nevertheless does.
And I've never encountered it.
My we grew up, we were suspicious of things free.
Weren't you, Snerdly?
I was suspicious of stuff that was free.
Okay, what's the trick?
What's the come on here?
Because you owe you it's right, you get what you pay for.
You know where it manifests itself.
You know, the the millennials on the tech blocks, they hate Comcast.
I mean, they hate Comcast more than they hate Republicans.
They hate ATT, they hate anybody that charges them money to use their phones.
And the reason they hate cables because they want HBO for nothing.
They don't want to have to steal it.
So HBO heard them and came out with a standalone app, a streaming app that doesn't require you to have a cable subscription to use on your phone or your iPad.
It costs 15 bucks a month.
Well, it was good for a while.
How dare they?
15 a month?
Then Showtime's gonna charge their 15?
How am I ahead?
As though, do you think this stuff doesn't cost anything to produce?
Snerdley just got a drive-by call from an angry millennial shouting at him, you too!
You tell Rush!
Damn right we want free apps because these people who write the apps are collecting all our data and selling it to advertisers, it all ought to be free, and hung up.
I said, Snurdly, see?
What did I tell you?
Anyway, here's Cody, Cody, Portland, Oregon, and millennial, it says here that you are.
Is that right?
Uh I am indeed, yes.
Well, uh great to have you here, and I applaud your courage.
I've been waiting a long time to be able to get through to talk to you.
But uh, I'm calling not because I'm an angry millennial, but I am an angry millennial wanting to stick up for the hardworking millennials.
Okay, so that was a well, this is good.
So you're you're acknowledging that there are some.
There are many out there that I know of.
I'm actually here in Portland, Oregon.
So there are.
This is a place where there are very few, obviously.
I also want to stick up for the ones that I know.
Well, I know.
I'm I I look at I actually, if you want to know the truth, Cody, it's it's not that I feel sorry for liberals at all.
I mean, I'm I'm really I I'm conflicted.
I feel very badly for millennials.
I know the world was promised to you people.
Your parents, in some cases your grandparents, are the most selfish generation this country's produced since I don't know when, the baby boomers.
First generation had so much free time that all they thought about was themselves.
And you've had the world promised to you by politicians.
You've had politics promising you this free this, free that.
Every mess that's uh in life they're gonna fix for you, and you've been let down.
None of what you've been promised has come through.
None of the good times that you've been promised has come through.
You've said the millennials that have bought into it and have waited for politicians to fix things for them, are sadly disappointed, but don't blame the politicians.
They blame the country, or they worry that the country has seen its better days.
And that's that's a disaster, as far as I'm concerned.
But uh the idea that you guys have all this student loan debt, yeah.
You were told by everybody you have to go to college, and you have to go to a big college, and you gotta study all this other stuff that's not gonna do you a damn bit of good, and you've spent all this money doing it.
You've been ill advised.
You have been promised things that nobody can deliver.
It's no wonder you feel dejected.
You just have to figure out who has let you down and who hasn't.
And America has not let you down.
Ninety-three million Americans not working.
93 million, that is more than the population of ten New York cities, folks.