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RUSH: So let me tell you about Joplin yesterday. We have four sound bites. I just told the guys up there, “Give me the whole thing.” I spoke for about ten minutes. I might use that ten minutes to fix my trackpad while you’re listening — he-he-he — just kidding. (laughing) So anyway, as you know, we sent a truckload, it was about 3,000 cases of Two If By Tea to the Joplin Fourth of July celebration. This was as a result of reader suggestions at our website, TwoIfByTea.com.Now, we decided that we would do this as our way to celebrate the Fourth of July with people. We had over 3,000 entries, and even people from outside Joplin said, “You know, if you’re gonna do this, why don’t you send the truckload of tea to Joplin.” So we did. And we had the giant Rush Revere logo, the Two If By Tea logo on both sides of a giant semitrailer, and I’m gonna send the pictures of that up to the website people. I haven’t even done that yet, but I’ve got all that. That truck rolled into town, I guess it got there just before noon yesterday.
She finally had to persuade them and they took the money. Then everybody started sending me pictures of how it was all shaping up. The crowd started arriving at three o’clock at Landreth Park in Joplin, and I had decided only on Friday to go in and be with people there, and I asked if I could speak for a short period of time. I was not on the original agenda there, and they were very gracious, the Joplin mayor, the parks department were very gracious, and our affiliate, our great affiliate radio station people there found ten minutes for me to appear between two bands, two country bands, and I asked, “What’s the time limit here?”
 
“Whatever you want to do. I mean, you’re Rush Limbaugh. Ten minutes would be great.” I said, “Okay, I could do ten minutes.” So I left here at five p.m. to fly to Joplin, four o’clock in Joplin, I ended up arriving at Landreth Park at about 7:15 or 7:20. I met the mayor, and I met some of the officials, met the security people, a lot of the police and I met the guys from the country bands from Nashville, and they were just a hoot. These guys were just great. They let us spend some time in their air-conditioned motor home that they had driven to the event in. We sat in there and one of them had watched The Haney Project and wanted to know all about it.So I’m talking about The Haney Project with Joe, the leader of the country band. Now, I could just tell, the mayor, the parks department people, they were nice as they could be, but I have to tell you something. (laughing) They were scared to death of what I was gonna say. (interruption) Well, here’s what they’re trying to do in Joplin now. They’re trying to take a day off from their misery. You know, they got racked by that E5 tornado. And, by the way, television does not do that justice. We flew in there and landed, and I asked if we could get permission from air traffic control people to kind of take a tour at about a thousand feet, 15,000 feet over Joplin before we landed. I’ve been to a war zone in Afghanistan. I’ve not seen devastation like this. It’s incomprehensible. But they wanted a night off. There were no Red Cross booths. There were no fundraising booths for the rebuilding, none of that.It was a pure party, just a pure Fourth of July celebration with a bunch of food and music, dancing, chatting, fireworks, all that, and our truckload of tea, as it turned out.
But they were just… (laughing) and you could tell talking to ’em. They were just… (laughing) and you can understand, “Gosh, what’s this guy gonna say here? Is he gonna come in here and start bashing people? Oh, gee.” They didn’t say anything to me. I could just tell that they were nervous. Kathryn, Kraig Kitchin from our staff, we had about 20 volunteers there all day passing out the tea, and Kathryn was sending me pictures back, so was Kraig, about people, signs that were held up for us that people had made. It was a miniature Dan’s Bake Sale. By the time I got there, there were maybe 50,000 people who had shown up. So finally it’s my turn to speak, and the local affiliate morning show introduced me. They had a huge stage to handle all the equipment for the country bands, and I went out, and I did ten minutes of pure Fourth of July American independence, revolution, what it all means. I’ll play you portions of it here. The point is there was not one political word in it. I did not utter the word liberal once. I didn’t utter the word conservative once. I didn’t say Republican once. I didn’t say Democrat once.I simply talked about America, what it means to be an American, why we’re great. You’ve heard me delve into this on the program before. I talked to the people of Joplin about who they are and how they define the greatness of this country. They are the kind of people who make this country work. When this is all over they are going to show how you build a community. In their case they’re going to show how you rebuild. It was 100% uplift. There was no separating people out. There was no identifying people group-wise or any of that. Folks, I gotta tell you, when I finished I had people telling me how wonderful it was. And I was doubtful because I only went ten minutes. I’m used to going two hours, with ease. And there are people that had driven in there from way out of state. By the time I finished and was on the way to the airport to come back home and get some sleep to be able to do the program today, there were still lines of people in cars getting into the place. I said, “Jeez, how many of these people are gonna get in there expecting to see me and I’m already gone?” But I had to get out of there in ten minutes ’cause they had that second band go on and they had fireworks scheduled for when it got dark. So there was a schedule here that had to be adhered to, and I was a late add, and I sort of added myself. (laughing)So I only did ten minutes and I always feel like I short-change people when I only do ten minutes. But this was a great crowd, and it was a fabulous time, and it was a wonderful celebration, and it was pure, 100% Americana. The people were in a festive, good mood. Everybody that I ran into — and I had a chance to run into a lot of people — were nice as they could be, they were in fine, fine form. They were proud to be there yesterday, proud to be Americans, proud to be from Joplin, Missouri. They were happy that the spotlight was on Joplin for a day because it’s been forgotten since the tornado came and went. But they’re still devastated there. It’s gonna be a huge process.I want to tell you this. During the course of the day yesterday, I’m not gonna mention any names, there were at least two political people who started vying for the chance to introduce me, and I said, “Nope, this is not political. I’m not gonna have anybody up there from a political party, I don’t care what party it is, identifying me with it or using me being there to introduce me. I just want to keep it pure, 100% about Joplin,” which is what it ended up being. Flying home and I’m telling Kathryn, “I hope everybody doesn’t feel short-changed here because it was only ten minutes,” which to me went by like (snapping fingers). I barely get warmed up in ten minutes. So there’s two YouTube versions, and, by the way, folks, you know, in 22 years there are still things I don’t think about, and one of the things I never think about is video. We did not take a camera. It never crosses my mind and for some reason it never crosses the mind of anybody on our staff. I never think about it. I’m such a radio guy that we did not have any official videographer there. Everything that’s up is from somebody’s cell phone, and there are two YouTube versions of the speech. We’ve posted both of them at RushLimbaugh.com. I’m gonna have to actually write a checklist for this kind of stuff. It’s amazing. Nobody ever thinks of video. We didn’t have a still photographer there. Nobody ever thinks pictures. We are such radio people that nobody thinks pictures.I mean I was posing for pictures, people were taking with their iPhones, but the point is we didn’t have any official professional video equipment there in doing any of this. (interruption) What are you shaking your head at? I know, I’m Mr. Tech, and I’m Mr. Broadcast excellence. I just never think video. Maybe I just don’t like it. I can’t tell you the number of TV things I turn down simply ’cause I don’t want to do the makeup. I just hate it. Don’t get me started. I could go down a list of what it is I hate about TV. First and foremost, none of it’s real. I live in Realville. So, anyway, there is video, and the second version is pretty good, somebody in the first three rows was using some sort of device, got video. There’s two versions, one is six minutes and that’s the first one we saw, then the second one we saw this morning is about ten minutes, and I asked for both. I haven’t had a chance to see if they’re both up there. I’ve been working on the trackpad problem. (laughing)So anyway, take a brief break. We’ll come back, Cookie’s on vacation, so we got Koko III doing the audio sound bites and I told Koko III put all ten minutes together as one solid bite if you can while I work on this trackpad and let you hear the whole thing. But it’s nothing that you haven’t heard before, folks, in bits and pieces here on the radio program. It was energetic. I went out there and, bam, started, and the energy level was consistent, increased, until I just sensed it was time to go, after ten minutes. And I could tell when it was over that the city fathers of Joplin were going, “Whew.” (laughing) like they dodged a bullet. (laughing) But it was, folks, it was just pure celebration. I said, “You know what we’re celebrating here?” This is such a tiny attempt to cross the line. But I said, “We are celebrating a revolution today.” Huge cheers. The Fourth of July Independence Day was not often referred to here as a Revolution, but it was. I pointed out what was different about the American Revolution from all others, and, by the way, there’s a piece, you know, Victor Davis Hanson writes at National Review Online, occasionally the New York Post, he had a great column on similar things over the weekend that I saw, too.

So it was just get in, get it, and get out was the way I did this. But I thought when I said “revolution,” I knew what people were gonna be thinking, that the next word out of my mouth is gonna be Obama. And it wasn’t. It wasn’t. You’ll hear it. We just uplifted. It was just an attempt to be inspiring and positive. You know, it was like I went out there and I tried to pretend I owned a bra company. That’s what I wanted it to end up being, uplifting.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here it is in its entirety. It’s about nine and a half minutes. This was last night at about 8:10 p.m. Central time in Joplin. This is at Landreth Park at their Fourth of July celebration where we had sent in about 3,000 cases of Two If By Tea. And, by the way, I got a note from Kathryn. She said, “Hey, look, don’t include me in you being a boob about pictures. We thought about it, don’t include me.” (laughing) She said, “We thought about having a photographer at the truck, but we didn’t want to big-time it. We weren’t trying to big-time anything so we didn’t go with a professional photographer at the truck and people were taking pictures with their own cameras, and that was fine,” and I’ve got a bunch of pictures here I have to upload after I fix the trackpad to RushLimbaugh.com. These are some pictures that Kathryn took out of the airplane window of Joplin as she was flying in yesterday that show the destruction. I’m running out of time, better get started with it.

START TRANSCRIPT

HOST: Welcome to the stage, Rush Limbaugh!

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

HOST: Maha Rushie!

RUSH: Thank you all very much.

AUDIENCE: (cheers)

RUSH: Thank you so much, but I can’t hear you. I’m a little hard of hearing.

AUDIENCE: (wild cheers and applause)

RUSH: I gotta tell you, folks: Thank you so much for allowing me to be part of this tonight. It was a thrill, it was an honor to be here tonight among all of you. It’s the Fourth of July, and do you know what we’re celebrating today?

AUDIENCE: (cheers)

RUSH: No, no. We are celebrating a revolution.

AUDIENCE: (cheers)

RUSH: We are celebrating the most unique revolution in the history of humanity.

AUDIENCE: (cheers)

RUSH: Most revolutions install dictatorships.

MAN: Obama!

RUSH: No, I’m not going there tonight, folks. Our Revolution… Have you ever thought…? I ask myself this frequently as I’ve gotten older and I’ve become more and more in awe of the country. I’ve asked myself: We’re 235 years old today.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: There are countries, civilizations thousands of years older than we are. In 235 years we have become the most powerful, the most benevolent —

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: — the most productive, the richest society in the history of the world. How did this happen?

MAN: Freedom!

RUSH: Do you realize, even to this day, the United States produces 25% of the all of the world’s economic output?

AUDIENCE: (cheers and hoots)

RUSH: Twenty-five percent! How did it happen? My friends, seriously: We are no different DNA-wise from any other human beings on the planet. There’s nothing special about us genetically. So what is it about us as Americans?

MAN: Freedom!

MAN: Liberty!

WOMAN: Freedom!

RUSH: I heard a key word here a moment ago.

AUDIENCE: Liberty! Freedom!

RUSH: The word is “freedom,” but I want you to stop and think about something very seriously: This country has produced opportunity and prosperity unlike any the world has ever seen before. The first reason is our Founders — this country is a miracle. Our Founders believed in the power of the individuals not the power of an elite government —

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: — to dictate for people.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: The power of the individual. They knew that people using their God-given gifts — their own ambition and desires — could exceed their own expectations, could realize their dreams, and in so doing create the best and most prosperous country in the history of civilization. But there’s one other element to American exceptionalism. This is a term, when people bandy it about, they think, “Well, we’re better than everybody else. We’re exceptional.” That’s not what it means. The history of the world is oppression, tyranny, dungeons. Not here. We are an exception to the way human beings have always lived on this planet. This is a nation blessed by God.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: This is our exceptionalism. This is not a country chosen by God; we are blessed by God because our Founders — it’s all in our Declaration, folks. “We are all endowed by our Creator,” there it is, “with certain inalienable rights, among them Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

AUDIENCE: (applause)

RUSH: That’s all up to us. This country turns America loose, it turns individuals loose, and look what has happened in 235 years. We, even to this day, run the world but we do it benevolently. We liberate people from tyranny. When there is a disaster anywhere in the world, we are the first to arrive. Now…

AUDIENCE: (applause)

RUSH: You — those of you here tonight from Joplin, Missouri —

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: You may not know it yet, but you are the essence of what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

AUDIENCE: (applause)

RUSH: You are the epitome. You are the people who make this country work. What happened here is something that you are going to erase. You’ll never forget it from your memories, but you are going to build it back. It is going to get fixed. It is going to be rebuilt. It is going to be better than it ever was. You are going to show the rest of the country how it’s done, because…

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: You represent the best of what this country has to offer. You understand the principle of hard work and self-reliance. You understand the difference between “self-interest” and “selfishness,” and you are not selfish. You are all going to be working in your own self-interest to rebuild your lives and, in the process, everybody else’s lives will be rebuilt right along with yours. American exceptionalism is simply the result of our Founding Fathers’ understanding that our government is not to determine the equality of outcomes in life because we’re not all the same. Our country was determined to provide equality of opportunity, and what you do with it is your business.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: We are 235 years old. We are here on Independence Day. We are celebrating the greatest miracle in the history of human civilization, and as I grow older — I just turned sixty; I know I don’t look it.

AUDIENCE: (laughter)

RUSH: I just turned sixty. I become more in awe of — have more appreciation for — this country each and every day. Now, I’m from Missouri. I’m from southeast Missouri, another part of the state.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: You know, people ask me, “Do you think you would have succeeded as you have…?” and who can deny my success? (chuckles) “Do you think you would have succeeded if you’d been born in the Northeast?” Yeah, but not the way I have. I don’t think that there is any doubt that the fact that I am from the heartland of this country allows me to be able to understand and relate to and be one of you. I have never changed. We are all part of a great part of this country that understands the concepts of hard work and self-reliance — respect for our neighbors, love, doing the best we can, playing by the rules — understanding none of us are perfect but we’re there for each other when times require it. Joplin, Missouri, you are defining that in the last month.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: You are showing the world how it’s done. I am honored — I am really honored — to be here. We have this new little company we’ve started. We wanted to bring a truckload in, but we wanted to make sure… We didn’t want to intrude. We wanted to add to and be part of your event tonight, show a little gratitude and keep the spotlight on your city. The one thing that needs to happen: We must not forget what happened here. I know you’re trying to tonight and I understand that. People say, “Well, what are you going to do?” What I’m going to do is keep the spotlight on Joplin, Missouri —

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: — and what you are doing and how you are overcoming something that was just thrown your way. So thank you all so much. I know you’ve got a lot to do. You’ve got a great band coming up. You’ve got fireworks coming up tonight. You have a great future. You are Americans; we’re all Americans! We are celebrating our 235th birthday — and remember: There’s no stopping you. Whatever you want to be, you define it.

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

RUSH: You can be the best you can!

AUDIENCE: (wild cheers and applause)

RUSH: Go for it — and I’ll see you there! Thank you all very much and have a great Fourth of July!

AUDIENCE: (cheers and applause)

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: We got Gretchen from Joplin on the phone. Snerdley found somebody from Joplin. Great to have you, Gretchen, welcome to the program.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Mega dittos.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: Well, I just wanted to call today and tell you how much we appreciated having you up here. I hadn’t had the chance to try your tea yet, and that was wonderful and it was really inspiring to see you and Kathryn and it just meant so much to the community. And I really appreciate the way you did keep it all about America and how great our Founding Fathers planned this country and how we need to keep that going.

RUSH: Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. I’m glad you noticed the subtleties.

CALLER: (laughing.)

RUSH: (laughing.)

CALLER: You were wonderful, and I love you bowing off the stage. That was classy. I liked it.

RUSH: Well, it was a fun night, it really was. And that crowd, you heard the crowd, the crowd was jazzed, the crowd was revved up. I love being a part of things like this. As I told ’em, it was a genuine honor and opportunity for me and for Kathryn to be there.

Chloe, 13 years old from Joplin, Missouri. Hi, Chloe, you’re next on the Rush Limbaugh program. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: I’m 13 years old. I’m Chloe. And I just wanted to call in ’cause I’m a huge fan, and I met your wife, and I just really appreciate that you came down to Joplin, ’cause you didn’t have to do that.

RUSH: No, I didn’t have to but it’s something that we really wanted to do, and you got to go, too, right, your parents took you?

CALLER: Yeah, and we helped distribute the tea. We brought our golf cart and we brought a trailer and we helped distribute your tea all around Landreth Park.

RUSH: Oh, that’s so wonderful. We had, I forget how many hundreds of volunteers. You’re from the young conservative group, then?

CALLER: Yeah. I’m just a huge fan. I go to College Heights, which is a private school.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And we always talk about you, Rush, and we’re 13, so we say we listen to 1310 KZRG ’cause we’re 13.

RUSH: (laughing)

CALLER: Yeah. And I just hope maybe one day I could meet you in person. And Kraig Kitchin was very nice ’cause he gave us a white sheet of paper, and he said that you would send us something, so —

RUSH: Well, there’s no question we will. If Kraig said that we’re gonna send you — Kraig gave you a white piece of paper?

CALLER: White piece of paper.

RUSH: What was on the white piece of paper?

CALLER: They were T-shirts. My dad, which is Ron Brewer, my mom, Theresa Brewer, and me, Chloe Brewer, and we want you to sign T-shirts for us, if that’s okay.

RUSH: Are you the one, there’s a stack about two feet high of T-shirts that I ended up with.

CALLER: I don’t know. I don’t know. But I would just like to meet you one day.

RUSH: Well, that will happen.

CALLER: Okay.

RUSH: Chloe, that will happen. And thank you so much for being there. Thank you for helping distribute the tea.

CALLER: You’re welcome. And just thank you so much for coming to Joplin —

RUSH: No, no, no, no —

CALLER: — ’cause you didn’t have to do that.

RUSH: No, no, no, I appreciate that very much, thanks. The honor is all ours, the opportunity to be there. We’re the ones that horned in and you all let us come in, accepted us, open arms. We loved it. Thanks very much.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: (interruption) No, Snerdley, come to think of it there was not — Snerdley wants to know who else was at Joplin. There wasn’t one politician that showed up, other than local politicians. That’s right, that just struck me. The state representative was there, and I think their member of Congress was there earlier in the day. In fact, I think the congressman from that area got a picture with Kathryn. But you would think that they would see that as a golden opportunity to go in. There wasn’t one there.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Jerry in St. Louis, as we go back to the phones. Great to have you with us, Jerry. Hi.

CALLER: Thank you, Rush. I appreciate that. Mega dittos.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: First thing I want to do is I want to thank you for taking my call and thank the call screener for allowing me to talk to you. I actually called originally about — I was at the rally yesterday, I guess you’d call it, the party in Joplin. I drove from St. Louis across the state to Joplin just to see you, and it was worth it for the ten minutes, I want to tell you that. I’ve been listener to you since 1992, I actually found you by accident. And I feel as if we’re friends, because I’ve been listening to you so long and I actually talk to you while you’re on the radio, “Yeah, Rush, that’s right,” that kind of stuff, so —

RUSH: Ah, you’re making my day. I know what you’re talking about. The remarkable thing about this program for me, what it’s meant to me as a person, is that the relationship between my staff here, me, and the audience, you, is familial, it’s like a family.

CALLER: Yes.

RUSH: There is a deep connection there. You drove across the state. Tell people how long a drive that is from St. Louis to Joplin.

CALLER: That’s 300 miles.

RUSH: So you drove 300 miles.

CALLER: Now, I’d like to share with you, though, that I gotta be honest about this, my son-in-law is in the Army, he’s stationed in Fort Leonard Wood. Well, they own a house outside of Fort Leonard Wood, okay, so she’s been wanting me to come down and visit her anyway, and I was listening to you last week when you said that you were going to be in Joplin.

RUSH: Yeah.

CALLER: And so I called my daughter and I said, “Well, you’ve been wanting to see me, how would you like to have me for a night?” So I reserved a room in Joplin, and she said, “Yeah, Dad,” and I told her I wanted to go see you. We talked, my son-in-law and I and my daughter talked about you a lot that evening when I was there with her. But anyway, so I stayed at my daughter’s one night and then I drove on into Joplin the next day and checked into the motel room, cleaned up and went to the rally. I was there before they put the first case out. I was at your truck, took pictures and everything.

RUSH: No kidding.

CALLER: It was really exciting for me, the opportunity, and I paid for it. I had to stand around and, you know, stand in the sun. It was 92 degrees and felt like a hundred. It was really hot, but it was worth it, and the ten minutes I think was fine. I would have loved to have met you. I was within 20 feet of you. I was right to the right of you there, and I want to share this with you before I go any further. My best friend, Milton Menafee, who a veteran of the Vietnam War, he listens to you religiously, can I say —

RUSH: Sure, you just did, so go ahead.

CALLER: Mega dittos to Rush Limbaugh for Milton Menafee, because I know he would like me to do that. He’s my best friend. He’s disabled, and he listens to you every day.

RUSH: Well, God bless both of you guys. You drove 300 miles, you got to see your daughter, and the ten minutes didn’t disappoint. That’s the one thing that I walked out of there — of course I love all these people. This has been going on, it will be 23 years August 1st. And this just humbles me. I mean it humbles me. We’re listening here, these are the kind of people I always have in mind when I talk about who it is that make this country work. These are the people, they’re not trying to get their picture out there in People magazine, they’re not running around. They’re just playing by the rules and living their lives, and they’re the ones that make the country work. I mean it sounds a little hokey, but it’s not. It’s actually true. These are the people that make the country work.

His disabled vet friend, country wouldn’t be what it is without his friend Milton, and Milton listens to me every day. And here’s old Jerry driving in there from St. Louis, 300 miles, satisfied by ten minutes. I walked out, if Kathryn were here she’d tell you, we’re flying back home and I’m worried, we’re on the airplane and she’s telling me, “No, no, no, it was fine, it was good,” and I don’t know, ’cause I saw that line of cars still driving in as we were driving out, and I know that I normally go two hours and there was no way I could do two hours. I mean it would take us past the fireworks and they’d-a hated me. But I always want to meet and surpass expectations, and if I feel like I haven’t met people’s expectations, audience expectations, I feel like I’ve let ’em down and so forth.

I didn’t see any coverage of this in Politico before I got there. The New York Times had a story about this before we got there. The New York Times mentioned I’m going in there to hawk tea, which is not what we did. We gave the tea away. They said we went in there to try to take advantage of the opportunity. No, I didn’t even mention the name of the tea when I made my remarks. (interruption) Is that what they said? Politico and the Huffing and Puffington Post said I was going in there to grow the Republican Party? What they don’t understand is, we have the news from Harvard, that happens anyway, whether I’m there or not. Harvard University study, Fourth of July celebrations grow the number of Republicans, whether I show up at ’em or not.

Now, the New York Times story just ever so mildly snarky at the beginning, intimating that we’re going in there to use the occasion to promote the tea, which is not what happened. If you listen to my speech, I did not mention the name of the tea. But then at the end of the story, the guy whether he intended to or not, came up with a great description of Two If By Tea: “Iced tea packaged as patriotism.” Two If By Tea, iced tea packaged as patriotism. Thank you, Jerry, and thank you, Milton.

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