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<\/p>\nRUSH: Now, folks, before we get into the meat and potatoes of the program today, I want to get a little personal here. This is the time of year where I often become the most reflective and thankful for all of the blessings that I have had my entire life. And the blessings that I have had obviously extend to my family, the people who work and have worked here at the EIB Network.<\/p>\n
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But this year is a little different. This year has something added to it that is unique. Every year about this time we get the top 50 list, the top 10 list of this or that, the best cars, the best movies, whatever, the most influential in the media, the most influential here — but there\u2019s always a group left out. And it\u2019s you. The most influential audience in all of media is right here on this program, hands down, no contest. Because without you, none of anything that happens here would have happened. It would be all academic if it weren\u2019t for you.<\/p>\n
And then all of these end-of-the-year reflectives and retrospectives and analysis of what\u2019s been important and what\u2019s been popular, it\u2019s always the American people left out of everything. It\u2019s always assumed that the American people are kind of mind-numbed and simply do what they do as a result of those who influence them. And it\u2019s always been my approach because it\u2019s always been my belief that you are not mind-numbed and that you are not robotic. That you in fact are very intelligent and you\u2019re perceptive. You wouldn\u2019t be here otherwise.<\/p>\n
I have made it a point because it\u2019s in my nature to treat everybody I talk to as though they are fully capable of understanding me and in many cases, smarter than I am because the point is to relate and to communicate and to be understood, if that\u2019s your objective. And it certainly is mine. I\u2019m not here to be misunderstood, and I\u2019m not here to mislead, I\u2019m not here to practice deceit or misdirection. It\u2019s the exact opposite.<\/p>\n
And so I\u2019ve always assumed that you are independently intelligent, educated, informed, opinionated, and desirous of knowing and learning more. And I have always assumed that you\u2019re not thinking what you think because of me or anybody else, that you are independently capable of making up your own minds about things. And it seems that that attitude about audiences is not common. It ought to be, but it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
‘Cause in each of these lists — most influential here, most important there, the one thing that\u2019s always assumed in these lists is that the people being influenced know nothing on their own and if it weren\u2019t for the influencers, then nobody would know anything or nobody would think anything. And I think it\u2019s the exact opposite. I think many of the people that make these end-of-the-year lists don\u2019t have half the brains that you do, don\u2019t have half the intelligence, perceptiveness that you do. And especially if we\u2019re talking about media lists.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s even bigger than that. I want to play a couple sound bites today to make my point, that you are the most influential audience in all of media. And I say audience simply not to label you, but that\u2019s what you are, you\u2019re an audience to this program, and you listen to it, react to things that happen on it in ways that no other audience does. And I\u2019m talking about compassion and giving, charity supportiveness, loyalty, you have it all, or I wouldn\u2019t be here, and I wouldn\u2019t be thriving the way I have. I wouldn\u2019t have enjoyed this. I wouldn\u2019t have had the blessings that I have if you weren\u2019t there as you are.<\/p>\n
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So the two sound bites are from Fox & Friends today. They did another segment — I didn\u2019t know this was gonna happen. Which is not a big deal other than to tell you I didn\u2019t know about this until I got the sound bite roster about a half hour ago. It was a segment on Fox & Friends on Tunnel to Towers<\/a> paying off yet another mortgage of a family from Fort Worth, Texas, the family of police officer Garrett Hull. So here is Ainsley Earhardt talking to his widow, Sabrina Hull. She says, “Tell us what happened to your husband a year ago?”<\/p>\n HULL: In September of 2018, he was helping get some bad guys that were doing armed robberies all over the Fort Worth area and there was a shootout and unfortunately my husband was killed in the line of duty.<\/p>\n KILMEADE: What\u2019s the last year been like for you?<\/p>\n HULL: Horrific, but also amazing \u2019cause I\u2019ve seen so much good come out of so much horrible. I was literally sitting at my husband\u2019s grave site when Frank called to tell me that they were going to pay off our mortgage. Garrett was our main source of income. I have two daughters. How am I gonna keep our home? How am I gonna pay the bills? What am I going to do? So, when Frank called, I had no words for the gratitude I feel.<\/p>\n RUSH: So here is the widow of the police officer, Garrett Hull from Fort Worth, Texas, who was killed a year ago. He was the breadwinner, primary provider. She had no idea how she was gonna go on, how they were gonna keep their home or any of that. She had a chance meeting — well, it wasn\u2019t chance. That\u2019s the point. She was sitting at her husband\u2019s grave site when Frank Siller called her from Tunnel to Towers<\/a>. Here\u2019s Frank Siller talking about it.<\/p>\n SILLER: I just listened to Sabrina here, and I didn\u2019t know that she was at her husband\u2019s gravesite when I was speaking to her. And we know the difference it makes in their lives. So, Sabrina, this is your paid mortgage here.<\/p>\n DOOCY: Oh wow.<\/p>\n SILLER: Here today.<\/p>\n HULL: I really love you all.<\/p>\n SILLER: Well, the viewers from Fox & Friends and Fox in general and most certainly Rush Limbaugh —<\/p>\n EARHARDT: Yeah.<\/p>\n SILLER: I\u2019m wearing another one of his shirts (laughter) here today.<\/p>\n DOOCY: Stand Up for Betsy Ross.<\/p>\n SILLER: Listen, he donated $5 million, you know, and going.<\/p>\n KILMEADE: Still going, right?<\/p>\n SILLER: Still going, and this is why we were able to do — in the Season of Hope — 24 homes in 24 days to relieve the mortgages or give mortgage-free homes. That\u2019s RushLimbaugh.com<\/a>, and the proceeds for these Stand Up for Betsy Ross shirts is coming to the Tunnel to Towers.<\/p>\n RUSH: Folks, I can\u2019t adequately describe how this affects me: $5 million, all from you<\/a> — every penny of it from you — by buying apparel at my website store and the Stand Up for Betsy Ross campaign<\/a>, starting out with a $27 T-shirt — one color, white T-shirt. The apparel line expanded to include all kinds of items for the holiday season, which have now become mostly sold out because you have just taken everything that we have, bought everything we have all for the support of this great charity.<\/p>\n Twenty-four homes, 24 mortgages in 24 days. Stop and think where these people would be without you, if this hadn\u2019t happened. No, it\u2019s not me. See, I can announce it. I could do everything that I did, starting with Kathryn and I starting July 4th and July 8th, and announcing it and making the merchandise available. But if you hadn\u2019t stepped up, none of this would have happened. It\u2019s $5 million, on an average-price item of $30, in the course of — let\u2019s see, July, August, September — five months.<\/p>\n That is so, so deeply profound to me. There\u2019s nobody, no other audience out there that could have done this. Now, it\u2019s huge — it\u2019s a huge audience — and that\u2019s one of the explanations for it. But still, it\u2019s all you, and I just wanted to start the program today, because every year at this time of year is when I get really reflective about the blessed, great fortune that I\u2019ve had over what now is — if you count Sacramento — approaching 34, 35 years, and each year the audience has grown, and you are responsive.<\/p>\n You are deeply caring and compassionate. Now, you get fine merchandise in exchange. You\u2019re not just throwing the money at it without any return; I understand that. But still, you step up — and each time we, as a program, make a decision to get involved in a charitable thrust or activity, you always step up. You\u2019re always there, and it chokes me up to stop and think about: $5 million. You know, we live in times where big figures are part of the common, everyday lexicon.<\/p>\n The budget deficit is $500 billion or maybe even a $1 trillion. The total budget\u2019s $3.4 trillion. We\u2019re talking about large numbers that are associated with everything. But $5 million at 30 bucks a pop is astounding. So I just wanted to take a brief moment here to play these sound bites and let you know what you\u2019ve done, what you have made possible, what you\u2019ve made happen, and to express again all of the heartfelt gratitude and appreciation that I have for you for making this happen and for making it possible.<\/p>\n And if there ever is a category, if there is ever one of these end-of-the-year most influential lists that includes audiences, you have no competition. You have no peers. You have nobody who\u2019s even close — and you don\u2019t even know the half of it. You don\u2019t even know the half of it. The $5 million and counting that has been raised through this? Prior to that, there were the multimillions for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/APP-121719-Fox-Grab-001.jpg\")
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