RUSH: If it weren’t for the calendar I would not know this was Christmastime. I mean the venom that is out there in the e-mail from people ticked off we don’t have an Android or BlackBerry version of the app, to people ticked off at me because I’m continuing to talk about McNabb and football. (laughing) Jeez. People are ticked off at you, Snerdley, for making that the first call of the day, poor old Dorothy from Chicago.
Greetings, and welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, we’re here serving humanity, half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair. Telephone number is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com. Folks, I have to tell you, I’ve checked the e-mail here during the top-of-the-hour break. I’m gonna read a couple e-mail I got replying to Dorothy from Chicago. I got one person who understood what she was trying to say, my wife, Kathryn, sends me a note and says, ‘Have Dorothy call me.’ (laughing) Oh, and that’s another thing. I posted a new picture of the two dogs, Abbey and Wellesley, put it up on Facebook and at RushLimbaugh.com. We got ’em out of school yesterday. Well, they go to the kennel, we call it school, and they got a bath yesterday, and the kennel put red ribbons in their hair. They’re sheepdogs and they pull the hair out of their eyes and sent ’em home with a couple of red ribbons on top of their head. I’m getting grief about that, people sending me e-mail, ‘You wouldn’t dare do that.’ I didn’t do it. The kennel did it, and as soon as we got ’em home we took the red ribbons off, but Kathryn took a picture of ’em first. It’s a cute picture. Get off my back about this, for crying out loud, the venom that’s out there today.
‘Rush, I think the caller was saying she wanted to hear you be less glib and speak more from the heart, that you need to express your core values more, to get more in touch with your inner Limbaugh.’ And I said, ‘No, I asked her if that’s what she wanted, if she wanted to hear my feminine side, and she said no.’ He said, ‘Rush, here’s what was going on. She’s upset because so many people that she knows don’t get you, because they don’t listen to you. And she wishes you would do something to help those people that don’t understand you to more properly understand you.’ How can I do that if they’re not gonna listen? So this guy theorizes that she goes out, she gets grief from people for listening to me, and she tries to tell ’em how they’re wrong about stuff. Then there’s this, from a guy named Tom. ‘Dear Rush: I think the caller needs to stop worrying about what other people think of her. My wife hated you. Hated when I’d listen to you, so I divorced her. The caller needs new friends and stay away from the blockhead parties.’ (laughing) My wife hated you, hated when I’d listen to you. I divorced her. (laughing)
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RUSH: Carol in Bowling Green, Kentucky, you’re next. It’s great to have you here.
CALLER: Oh, thank you, Rush. It’s an absolute delight to talk with you.
RUSH: Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
CALLER: I have a theory about why you’re getting all these less than salubrious e-mails and notes, et cetera. It’s all this Christmas travel. Here people are in the car, they gotta go see their mother-in-law or they gotta get to the airport, they’ve gotta get nine-square-feet of luggage and gifts into seven-square-feet of space. He’s grumpy, she’s frustrated. It’s just not a good time.
RUSH: But this is supposed to be a happy time of year. People are supposed to be doing stuff out of pure joy in their hearts! Cramming nine-square-feet of luggage into seven-square-feet of space to get to where you’re going to give it away, this is supposed to be a happy holiday time of year. Why should people be getting ticked off here?
CALLER: And then — well, wait, you have another piece of this because the food that he said was so delicious when you were dating and you were visiting the mother-in-law and now he gets it served every Christmas, and it’s terrible, but he can’t ever say it because that would probably break up the marriage.
RUSH: Okay. We’re dealing with marriage issues here, obviously.
CALLER: Right. (laughing)
RUSH: You’ve jammed your mother-in-law twice here in this call.
CALLER: And bless her heart, she’s not here anymore. (laughing)
RUSH: (laughing)Well, that makes it even worse!
CALLER: (laughing)
RUSH: The poor woman can’t respond. You’re ripping the woman. Are you saying this woman cooked up a storm and it was good until you got married then it went south?
CALLER: There you go. No, I’m not! She was a good cook. I have to take that back.
RUSH: Okay, so you’re talking about other people’s mothers-in-laws who phone it in.
CALLER: Oh, absolutely it’s so much easier to talk about other people’s mothers-in-law than my own.
RUSH: All right, so they phone it in after the marriage takes place?
CALLER: Exactly. Exactly. It all goes south after the marriage takes place.
RUSH: All right. So nobody wants to go to the in-laws because after the marriage takes place the in-laws are free to revert to their normal reprobate selves. They don’t have the impress anybody.
CALLER: Not only they’re free to revert to their reprobate self but you’re free to revert because all those things that you really liked that he took you to and the places you went and the things you did were wonderful when you’re dating, but when you have to do them year after year after year they kind of lose their bloom.
RUSH: Ah, because you have to do them as opposed to want to do them?
CALLER: You pretend that you like to do them. (giggling) Right. Right. You’ve got it.
RUSH: So what you’re basically saying is, if I understand —
CALLER: Uh-huh?
RUSH: You’re basically saying is that people are jealous of me, upset because I can speak the truth and they have to button their lips.
CALLER: Yes, 24/7, 365 you can do that.
RUSH: They can’t.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: Okay, all right. So they’re taking it out on me.
CALLER: Exactly. And we’re constrained by politeness, and you’re not bothered by it at all. (laughing)
RUSH: All right, so what are you doing for Christmas? Are you…?
CALLER: I am in the road, in the car, on the way to see my children and my grandchildren. And we’ve got the nine-square-feet of luggage in the seven-square-feet of space.
RUSH: Okay, so you’re a mother-in-law. Have you phoned it in? Or do you still cook well when the in-laws show up?
CALLER: Oh, no, they still love me so they — they agree with whatever I do.
RUSH: Ahhhh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So everything’s cool in your house.
CALLER: Absolutely.
RUSH: It’s everybody else that’s screwed up.
CALLER: Oh, absolutely. Isn’t that the way it always is?
RUSH: Well, in a lot of people’s minds — hee-hee-hee-hee-hee — maybe so.
CALLER: I think so. I think so. I think you’re absolutely right. But this has been the delight of my Christmas. I’ve listened to you for years and it’s just wonderful.
RUSH: Well, I love mother-in-law bashing. It’s a stereotypical form of humor that I have always enjoyed. I find as I grow older that fewer and fewer people like stereotypical humor. It offends them. They don’t really like it. But I do. I just (laughing) In the stereotypes of relationships, stereotypes of in-laws, stereotypes of kids, stereotypes of whatever, I love the jokes. Because there’s always a grain of truth in it. Always a grain of truth. (interruption) Now, my in-laws are cool, I have to tell you. (interruption) No, no, no, no, no, no, no! (interruption)Oh, yeah. I’m telling you. No, no, no, no, no. (interruption) I’m telling you! No, no. (interruption) No. Don’t accuse me here of being Carol. I’m not. No. I’m not joining her chorus on that. I’m just stipulating here, ’cause I’ve been the one talking about how I love stereotypical humor and so forth. If I told a joke or made a funny comment, stereotypical comment about my in-laws, it would be a joke, not because they’re really that way. (interruption)
No, I’m not ’cause I don’t have to suck up, Snerdley. I don’t suck up. Here, look, I’ll give you an example. I mean, just off the top of my head. I can’t remember how this joke actually goes. Mixed emotions: You see your brand-new Mercedes driving off the side of the cliff; your mother-in-law is driving. Okay? Mixed emotions. Now, I would never want to see my mother-in-law drive off a cliff in any car, hers or mine, but it’s a funny joke. But I don’t tell it because it relates to me personally. I just think it’s funny, and I am not gonna back down from my sense of humor. I’m not gonna make people make me back down from my sense of humor. Too many people are forced to back down from who they are. I mean, the inner Limbaugh is on display here each and every day. Those people who think that I’m hiding something? Ha! You don’t know the half of it.
Augusta, Georgia, this is Russ. You’re next on the EIB Network. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Hey, Rush.
RUSH: Heyyy! How are you, Russ?
CALLER: I’m doing terrific, thank you. It’s just an awesome honor to get to talk to you.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: Hey, I wanted to check with you and find out. Listen, I’m really hugely annoyed when I hear about like how the General Motors union got this massive windfall of money basically from the stimulus, and they’re not the only one. There are a lot of unions that have gotten windfalls of stimulus money.
RUSH: The whole purpose of the stimulus was to buy General Motors for the union. They’re the 55% owner.
CALLER: Well, my feeling is, I’m a Republican, and I do not appreciate this. To me it seems almost like money laundering, and that they’re giving all this money to the unions, which the unions then turn around and shell out like there’s no tomorrow —
RUSH: Now, Russ, this —
CALLER: — like in Nevada —
RUSH: Russ?
CALLER: — and it goes to support Democrats.
RUSH: Russ?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: Russ, this all happened about 18 months ago, 19 months ago.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: (chuckles) Um, so you’ve been ticked about it that long?
CALLER: I have. Well, it especially came up in November when Harry Reid got reelected, due in no small part to union money —
RUSH: Oh.
CALLER: — and I felt like, ‘Well, wait a minute.’ I felt like, ‘Look, Obama and these people, there should be a law that if they receive stimulus money, they’re not allowed to spend any money on election advertising.’
RUSH: There probably is, but what does that matter? There probably is such a law but what does that matter? You’re talking Democrats. Law?
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: What do you want to do about it besides enforce the law that they won’t. What do you want to do about it?
CALLER: Well, I didn’t know if some of our legislators could bring it up. I never cease to be appalled at the Republicans’ inability to really articulate much of anything.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: (laughing) So, I don’t know. Maybe this is just one more taste of that, but —
RUSH: Yeah, it is.
CALLER: — I wondered if maybe like Michele Bachmann or somebody could submit a bill and try and get something, and that would help bring this up.
RUSH: What would the bill say? ‘Cause I know Michele Bachmann, I can call her. What do you want the bill to do? What do you want it to say?
CALLER: Well, basically just like a straight up say, ‘Hey, if you receive stimulus money, you are not allowed to spend any money on campaign advertising, period, until you have repaid the federal government.’
RUSH: Okay. I’ll talk to her about that.
CALLER: Wow. Well, that’s great.
RUSH: What you’re asking here… You’ve said it’s ‘almost like money laundering.’ It is money laundering, there’s no almost about it. This is pure and simple. These are slush funds. The stimulus is not anything but a slush fund expressly for the purpose that you have identified, and that’s the Democrat Party. That’s what they do — and the Republicans, for the most part, are not gonna say anything about it because they’re gonna be calls racists since it involved Obama.
CALLER: Well, yeah. No, you’re exactly right.
RUSH: I know, and that’s a tough burden. But somebody has to be right.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: ‘Dear Rush, the 2X is not working on my iPad.’ I have mentioned this before countless times. It will work if you do it after the streaming video begins. Wait for the streaming video to begin, then hit the 2X button on your iPad, and it will fill the iPad screen.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I was out shopping the other day and saw six women beating up my mother-in-law. I was standing there watching and her neighbor, who knew me, said, ‘Well, aren’t you gonna help?’ I watched and I said, ‘No, six of them’s enough.’ Now, I don’t want to see my mother-in-law beat up, but I think the joke’s funny.
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RUSH: So I got an e-mail during the break at the top of the hour. ‘Rush, does your wife listen to your show?’ Why would people ask me that? She does listen. Here’s what happens. She gets in the car, she drives during the commercial breaks, when the program starts she pulls off to the side of the road and covers her face. (laughing) That’s how she does it. That’s what she tells me she does.