Monday, July 11, 2016

Untangling the Truth About Race Can Get You in Deep Trouble


Monday - July 11, 2016

RUSH:  Okay, we lit 'em up here on Friday. If you pay any attention to the TV or internet on Saturday, Friday night, all weekend, you know we lit 'em up.  Let me ask you a question here, folks.  Greetings, by the way, great to have you, Rush Limbaugh, brand-new week, broadcast excellence.  It is 800-282-2882

We know that Barack Obama often speculates what kind of man a son of his would be.  For example, Barack Obama at one point said that, if he had a son, he would look like the Trayvon Martin, right?  We all remember this, correctamente?  So I have a question.  Since the president likes to speculate about having a son, what do you think, would Barack Obama's son have been a member of the New Black Panthers or Black Lives Matter, or maybe both?  What do you think? 

Well, I'm just throwing it out there.  I mean, I didn't start any of this speculation.  You know, I learn, experience guided by intelligence, or intelligence guided by experience.  (interruption) Well, maybe.  I don't want to throw that out there.  That's a foreign group.  These two groups are actually active and involved, and the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, told them to be patient or whatever she said to them, don't give up after the incident in Dallas.  So I'm just curious what the president's son would do.  It's speculative, of course, because he doesn't have a son. But he did say, if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin.  So would his son be a member of the New Black Panthers or Black Lives Matter?  Or maybe both. 

Here we are in the Washington Post: "Why So Many Critics of President Obama Insist That He Hates Police Officers."  What do you think the answer to this question is gonna be here in the Washington Post?  It's because of me, folks.  It's because of me.  This is a story about when the cops arrested Skip Gates for something or other, and Obama didn't like it and said the cop was stupid.  And that led to a beer summit out at the White House with the cop, Skip Gates, and President Obama, as they attempted to solve the problem of the stupid cop.  Right? 

"The following April, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh suggested that perhaps a 'tequila summit' was also in order, because of comments Obama made about Arizona's just-passed law that cracked down on immigrants in the country illegally."

They're quoting me here: "'Barack Obama, ladies and gentlemen, he's got something in for the cops, there's no question,' Limbaugh said. 'You go back to Cambridge. This guy's got some problem with police officers.' Why? Because Obama worried that Hispanic-Americans in Arizona would be harassed 'if you don't have your papers, and you took your kid out to get ice cream.'" Given the Arizona law that they wanted to pass on immigration, if you didn't have your papers and you're Hispanic, the cops could hassle you. 

"So that's his argument, to create a phony hypothetical where families getting ice cream are hassled by stupid, bigoted policemen. This is gonna require a massive tequila summit before this is all over," I speculated.  The tequila summit never happened by the way.  So you kind of get a taste of this for how the Drive-Bys are dealing with all of this over the course of the weekend.  And for whatever outrage there was aimed at me Friday night and Saturday, I'm now a man forgotten, and they have turned their attention and their fire to Rudy Giuliani. 

Now, Rudy had the audacity... The one thing that you can't do in very tense, highly charged situations like this? You cannot utter the truth at the wrong time.  We had an interview with Heather Mac Donald, whose new book is out on this, and I strongly urge everybody to read it. It's called The War on Cops, and I referred to it as "essential" on Friday, and it is.  And I asked her. I said, "Okay, you have facts on your side.

"The majority of blacks in this country are not killed by cops. They're killed by other blacks.  It's undeniable." She's got the stats, Justice Department stats. They're local police department stats.  It's all over the place.  It's not made up.  The majority of blacks in this country are killed by other blacks, not the cops.  But nobody thinks that. It's the exact opposite everybody thinks.  I asked her, "What would you do if authorities called on you to help bridge this gap -- this vast, wide gap of misunderstanding?"

She said, "I would try something we don't try much, and that's the truth."  Well, Rudy Giuliani tried the truth on CBS This Morning, and he's catching hell.  He's catching hell for things he said on TV yesterday.  He's catching hell for going after the squeegee guys again.  He's catching hell for "stop don't frisk," or "frisk don't stop," whatever.  He's catching hell for the "broken windows" policy! He's catching hell for everything because he said...

And I'm paraphrasing it. I don't have it right in front of me. He said, "If black lives really mattered, then they would be concerned about all the black lives lost in inner cities like Chicago that result from black crime. But I don't think Black Lives Matter cares about any of that." He went on to call 'em an inherent racial or racist organization by virtue of their title, Black Lives Matter. If you're gonna start segregating things like that, doesn't that make you racist?  Now, they're coming after Rudy full throttle, full throat.

But he made an accurate statement: "If Black Lives Matter, why don't the lives of young children matter?" There's one shot every 14 hours in Chicago. Why don't they ever go there?  Why is no effort expended to deal with that?  Why is Black Lives Matter constantly, solely focused on police shootings when they happen to be the minority of instances in which black citizens are killed?  Now, on the other side of that, you know the power of perception.  In politics, people say the perception is reality. 

And because the PR battle has been won by the left on this, the facts at this point in time don't resonate and don't matter.  The popular perception among leftists and minorities is that the cops are on a killing spree, and that if it weren't for cops, black lives wouldn't be lost hardly at all.  Almost all of them are lost because of cop shooting.  It just isn't true.  So you have to deal with that perception as a reality, though.  I mean, even though it's not true, how many people believe it to be true?

And some of the people that believe it to be true are decent, common, ordinary, everyday citizens who happen to believe that it's true.  It isn't, but they think it is -- and they act accordingly, they vote accordingly, they speak accordingly.  How do you reach 'em?  They're not militant by nature, not the people I'm talking about.  Just people that consume the news, people that consume news during highly charged times, such as these. 

The president said that untangling the motives very difficult here. "Obama Says Motives of Dallas Cop Killer Micah Xavier Johnson 'Hard to Untangle.'" You think they'd be hard to untangle if they thought talk radio was involved in this?  There wouldn't be anything "hard to untangle" about this at all, would there?  They're not "hard to untangle" now.  The guy pretty much opened up about what his grievance was.

The police chief in Dallas indicated that he was gonna go on an even bigger rampage, that he had a stock or a cache of weapons to pull this off, and people are looking at various things and institutions, events, that could have inspired him.  But the president said on Saturday, "I think it’s very hard to untangle the motives of this shooter," who killed five Dallas police officers, despite -- despite -- the fact that the gunman told the cops he wanted to kill white officers.

Ah, no.  No, no.  It's not that simple, the president says. It's very, very difficult to untangle. 

He "made the comment at a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, where he also issued another call for gun control in the wake of the Dallas shootings. He said, 'I think it’s very hard to untangle the motives of this shooter,' Mr. Obama said of the gunman, Micah X. Johnson. 'By definition if you shoot people who pose no threat to you, you have a troubled mind.'" Stop and think.  Has Obama once asked us to pause on the basis that it'd be very difficult to untangle the motives, let's say of shooter Dylann Roof?

The guy that blew up the theater, shot up the theater in Colorado?  In fact, they zeroed in on the Tea Party! I mean, within, what was it, 30 minutes, Brian Ross of ABC was trying to link that shooter to the Tea Party.  I mean, did they even try to untangle that? They just acted on their bias and their prejudice.  So I guess, folks, short of a months-long investigation, we might never know Micah Johnson's motives for killing five white policemen.  Very tangled. No, we don't know!  The president said (summarized), "No, no!  No, no, no. 

"We can't wait the word of the shooter.  The shooter was a deranged, obviously unhappy person.  No, no." "The president says, "It's hard to untangle." That means massive investigations are going to be required.  Even in San Bernardino, we were told to back off and wait a second; it's not so simple here.  Yeah, we kind of were.  Well, we knew what motivated that one as well.  The president went on to say that "police would be safer if the US enacted tougher gun laws.

"'If you care about the safety of our police officers, you can't set aside the gun issue and pretend that's irrelevant,' Mr. Obama said." Wouldn't outlawing guns for law-abiding citizens make the cops job even harder since the bad guys would be emboldened knowing that almost all citizens would be defenseless?  Wouldn't that make the job of being a policeman even harder?  "[I]t's been 'a tough week' in the US, [but] the president said America 'is not as divided as some have suggested.'

"'Americans of all races and all backgrounds are rightly outraged by the inexcusable attacks on police, whether it's in Dallas or anyplace else,' Mr. Obama said at the summit of NATO. 'That includes protesters. It includes family members who have grave concerns about police conduct and they've said that this is unacceptable. There's no division there.'" Police conduct?  What does police conduct have to do with this thing in Dallas?  There were...? Police conduct?

What is this? "Americans of all races and all backgrounds are rightly outraged ... That includes protesters. It includes family members who have grave concerns about police conduct..." Wait a minute.  Is there some aspect of this story I haven't heard?  Did the police provoke this guy in Dallas? (interruption) Oh, he's talking about Minnesota, Baton Rouge?  I'm getting them confused.  I thought he was talking about Dallas, since most of this is about Dallas.

But he didn't say Dallas or anyplace else. "Mr. Obama also addressed what he views as his legacy on race relations as America's first black president, saying he's speaking out about racial disparities to forge 'a country that is more just and more united and more equal.'" Let me... Well, if that's his goal, how's he doing?  If that's his goal, how's it working out?  I don't know.  When Obama brings Black Lives Matter to the White House and honors them as better organizers than he is, or was?

Anyway, it's a lot to weed through.  There just is. I mean, there's lots of weeds out there, folks, and untangling this is a difficult thing because the truth can get you in deep trouble.  The truth can cause people that don't want to hear it -- because they've other motives, other agendas. That can cause them to go ballistic on you, and people hold back because they instinctively understand. They don't want to make themselves targets.  Here's another one:

"Attacks on Police" Inspired or Directed by Militant Groups?" This is the AP.  Let's dissect this one.  "Police shootings of black men in Louisiana and Minnesota were followed by calls from black militant groups and others to seek vengeance against officers. Almost immediately, several officers were attacked, including the five slain by a sniper in Dallas. Now authorities are investigating whether the Dallas gunman was directed by those groups or merely emboldened by them."

See?  This is what the president meant by, "It's not as simple as you think.  We gotta take some time to untangle this."  But I'm just telling you that if Micah X. Johnson... If it had been discovered that he listened to talk radio, the headline would not be a question and it wouldn't be something they were investigating.  They would have already concluded that he was inspired by what he had heard on the radio.  But since it might be that he was inspired by what he heard from militant protest groups, "Well, well, well, well, back off.  We don't know for sure.  We must be very careful take our due time to untangle this."

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  And they are still fit to be tied over Rudy Giuliani.  They're still... "Rudy Giuliani slams Black Lives Matter movement amid calls for unity." "Rudy Giuliani sticks to his guns." "Rudy Giuliani in controversial fiery comments."  Let me something else that he said.  Rudy said, quote, "If I were a black father and I was concerned about the safety of my child -- really concerned about it, and not in a politically activist sense -- I would say 'Be very respectful to the police.  Most of them are good.  Some could be very bad.  Just be very careful.'" 

And he's catching hell for that, folks!

I don't know about you.  That's exactly what I was taught.  I remember when I was a little boy. I had to be 10 or under, and we had to... We were in Arkansas. I forget... I don't know why. We were all in the car. My great-grandmother lived there, so maybe it was that.  We were coming back and my dad got pulled over by a state trooper in Arkansas.  The trooper walked up, my dad lowered the window, and every answer he gave, "Yes, sir."  "Yes, sir."  "Yes, sir."  "Yes, sir."  "Yes, sir."  "Yes, sir."  "Yes, sir."

And when it was all resolved -- and it took a while.  It was speeding.  I don't remember what it was.  I don't even remember if there was a ticket.  I just remember saying, "Why did you say, 'yes, sir,' so many times?"  He said, "Son," his exact phrase, "'sir' them out.  Just say, 'yes, sir,' to everything.  Just say it. Just say, 'Yes, sir.'  'Yes, sir.'  'Yes, sir.'"  There was no racial component to this. There was no anything. But that's the way... I mean, I saw it in action, and when I asked about it, that's how it was explained. 

"They are the authority.  The only thing you want to do is argue with 'em, Son.  There's nothing to be gained by doing it."  He also told me the same thing about judges.  He was a lawyer.  And the lessons involved were always about respecting genuine authority when you were faced with it.  If you're a lawyer and you're gonna go try cases in court, the judge is it, no matter what the judge does. If the judge does something you think crews you, there are mechanisms after court to deal with it.

But the judge is the authority, and you must conduct yourself that way.  It's just the way it is.  Now, that's not a similar situation to overthrowing an oppressive government, of course.  That's why I'm making a point not to confuse the two.  But in this case of the police, I don't know about you, but that's how I was raised, and it had nothing to do with race.  My dad didn't say, "If a white cop stops you, if a black cop stops you, if a black trooper..."

He said, "Just 'sir' them out," and his point was being respectful and be polite.  The objective here is to get through it and end it as soon as you can and do not be confrontational with these.  It's all it was.  And I've never forgotten it, of course, and of course it's how I've done it.  I can't remember the last time I was stopped, though, which was decades ago -- which, of course, will change today.  Could I just...  But Rudy's out there saying essentially the same thing.  But that goes back to my point. 

The perception is that being respectful and polite is not going to work.  Whether they are right or wrong, there are lots of black Americans who think that's bogus.  "That's something that people who never gotten in trouble with the cops say, but it doesn't work for us," and they really believe it, and they might have instances where it hasn't.  The problem is this has all been blown up now to the point where people think every encounter with the cop ends up with somebody being shot -- or the vast majority of them -- neither of which are anywhere close to the truth. 

In fact, a black economist at Harvard is shocked at what he learned when he looked into this.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  You know, speaking of which, how are kids today learning how to deal with cops?  What are they seeing on TV being done by protesters?  What are they listening to lyric-wise in the music that they listen to?  How are kids today learning how to deal with cops?  What are they learning about cops?  What are they being told about cops?  All this stuff matters. 

And I know from the Black Lives Matter groups to the protesters, "Well, yeah, but it's organic, Rush.  The reason we say what we say about the cops is not because of anything other than how we are treated.  It's different than the way you're treated," and so forth.  I don't know, folks.  There are ways to defuse situations and they're not being taught.  On balance, there are many, many ways to defuse situations, and in fact, the opposite, exacerbating them and blowing them up seems to be a more easily learned lesson than the opposite. 

Now, I found this in the New York Times and I couldn't believe it. Oh, by the way, do you know what CNN just ran?  I can't believe this.  I didn't have a chance to hear the story, I just saw the chyron graphic on the screen.  The man that was shot in Minnesota last week, last name was Castille, had the video of him bleeding out.  You remember that.  It turns out that he was pulled over by the cops 52 times between 2012 and 2016.  That's all I know. 

I don't know if the CNN story was designed to show, "See?  All this bias.  See how the prejudice exists here.  This poor man who'd never done anything was pulled over 52 times."  Or I don't know if their angle was, "Hey, the guy had his run-ins with the cops. There may be something else to learn here."  Given that it's CNN, I can't believe it's the latter.  But we'll see.  They're doing it right now.  I'll have to check when I have a moment. 

But what is your reaction to that, when you hear, okay, no excuse for the guy just being shot in cold blood, if that's what happened, but the police find out who somebody is in the car, okay, this guy's been pulled over 52 times in the last four years, they should know probably what the reasons are it for.  Anyway, the story from the New York Times today. 

"Surprising New Evidence Shows Bias in Police Use of Force but Not in Shootings -- A new study confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police. But when it comes to the most lethal form of force -- police shootings -- the study finds no racial bias."

The study was done by a Harvard economist, the youngest Harvard African-American professor to ever be granted tenure.  His name is Roland G. Fryer Jr.  He says: "'It is the most surprising result of my career.' ... The result contradicts the mental image of police shootings that many Americans hold in the wake of the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Laquan McDonald in Chicago; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; Walter Scott in South Carolina." It goes on to list these shootings.

"The study did not say whether the most egregious examples ... are free of racial bias. Instead, it examined a much larger pool of shootings, including nonfatal ones. ... Official statistics on police shootings are poor. James Comey, the F.B.I. director, has called the lack of data 'embarrassing and ridiculous.' Even when data exists, the conditions under which officers decide to fire their weapons are deeply nuanced and complex.  Mr. Fryer is the youngest African-American to receive tenure at Harvard and the first one to receive a John Bates Clark medal, a prize given to the most promising American economist under 40.

"Mr. Fryer said his anger after the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray and others drove him to study the issue. 'You know, protesting is not my thing,' he said. 'But data is my thing. So I decided that I was going to collect a bunch of data and try to understand what really is going on when it comes to racial differences in police use of force.'

"He and a group of student researchers spent about 3,000 hours assembling detailed data from police reports in Houston; Austin, Tex.; Dallas; Los Angeles; Orlando, Fla.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and four other counties in Florida. They examined 1,332 shootings between 2000 and 2015, systematically coding police narratives to answer questions such as: How old was the suspect? How many police officers were at the scene? Were they mostly white?"

Anyway, the bottom line is they found -- there's all kinds of graphics that go with this, which I can't share with you on the radio, charts and that kind of thing.  But the bottom line is that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement; they're more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed the ground, or pepper-sprayed.  But when it comes to shootings, couldn't find any racial bias.

It's exactly what Heather Mac Donald says.  It just doesn't exist.  There is no data to support what is believed to be true by groups like Black Lives Matter, the New Black Panthers, NAALCP, you name it.  Jeremiah Wright.  The data isn't there.  The cops are not randomly, wantonly killing black suspects.  A black Harvard economic professor ticked off after what happened to Michael Brown.  What do you think this professor thought happened to Michael Brown?  Do you think he believed "hands up, don't shoot"? 

Here's a Harvard professor motivated to find out after Michael Brown.  Michael Brown, everything about that that was reported from "hands up, don't shoot" to the guy was surrendering, turned his back, none of it was true.  To this day none of it remains true, and yet that and the Trayvon Martin episode are the reason Black Lives Matter exists at all.  They formed when George Zimmerman was exonerated, and then it got exacerbated and grew after the Michael Brown situation in Ferguson.  It was a total lie that was spread by leftist activists. 

This is why I claim that there's a political party seeking to benefit from all of this, which, again, is undeniable.  That got me a lot of discussion over the weekend, but I don't care, it happens to be the truth.  So right there.  So we got two sources here, we got Heather Mac Donald and her research and her book War on Cops. And now Roland G. Fryer Jr., economics professor at Harvard, surprising new evidence shows no bias in police shootings. 

What that means is the number of white suspects versus black suspects is almost equal, almost the same.  He could not find a preponderance of evidence to show that the overwhelming majority of shooting victims at the hands of the cops are African-American.  It just doesn't exist.  So you have to ask yourself, why is the media so intent on portraying an opposite picture?  Why is the media so eager to try to convince the country that after the cops shoot a black suspect, "It's happened again, it happens every day." The media is out there trying to make you think that it's an everyday, multiple-times-a-day occurrence, and they succeed in persuading a lot of people to believe it. 

There isn't any evidence to back it up.  I know what some of you are saying: "Well, one time is too many."  Hey, not what we're talking about here.  We're talking about a brand-new soap opera narrative that has been created and invented and has been given life, and it's all based on nonfactual data, it's all based on lies.  And it's creating all kinds of havoc.  It's roiling our society.  It's furthering this division that exists in our country. 

We got so many different divisions now, you can't keep track of 'em.  We got racial divisions. We have economic divisions. We have employed and unemployed divisions, male-female divisions, gay-straight divisions, LGBT, gay-straight divisions. You name it, no matter where you go, there's a division, there's a divide.  Somebody's benefiting from all this, or trying to.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: To the phones we go.  We're gonna start St. Louis.  Nick, great to have you, sir.  Hi, and welcome to EIB Network.

CALLER:  Mega retired IRS agent dittos, Rush.

RUSH:  Well, great to have you with us, sir.  Hello.

CALLER:  How you doing?

RUSH:  Good.

CALLER:  Two experiences from my childhood about authority, and I'm just a couple of years younger than you.  One time I got brought home by the police because I was out after curfew -- something which is not enforced anymore, by the way.  My father thanked the police officer profusely, and for the next three months I was cutting that officer's yard and washing his car as my punishment for my offense.  And I never stayed out after curfew again.

RUSH:  What? You had to...? You had to wash his car and mow the yard?

CALLER:  My father made me do it.  The cop didn't make me do it; my father made me do it.

RUSH:  But the officer let you do it.  The officer --

CALLER:  I think he agreed with my father, and, you know, if that's what my father wanted, he was only too happy to oblige.

RUSH:  Clearly a different time.

CALLER:  Yeah.  Another situation was, one time I was acting up in school.  The principal, who was a nun, broke a yardstick over my head.  She sent the note home to my father about the incident.  I was sent to the convent for a couple weeks to wash dishes as my penance for that offense.  So --

RUSH:  And you became an IRS agent.  (laughing)

CALLER:  I -- I respect authority.  But to this day, I will not sass a police officer or a nun.

RUSH:  I hear you.  I hear you.  I had a piano teacher break a ruler over my hand once.  And, you know, with my mom and dad, the principal, I don't care. The authority figure... When I was a kid, the authority figure was always right.  Whatever my complaint, the authority figure was always right.  Yeah.  My grandmother, my maternal grandmother actually tried to make me afraid of the cops.  I had to go visit her. We had stopped in a...

It was a -- well, like a diner in Bloomfield, Missouri. We're sitting in a booth.  I'm like eight or nine years old, and a highway patrolman walks in. My grandmother said, "He's gonna get you! He's gonna get you!" "Why? What did I do?" "He's gonna get you." "Oh, my God!" I saw those guys, and I was scared for a while.  I mean, that's... I'm not advocating that. Don't misunderstand.  But the respect for authority, it was drilled into us our entire lives.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  No, no.  I've actually had... I've had people -- I have had professionals -- tell me that what my grandmother did with me in making me afraid of the police was a bad, bad, bad thing to do.  And I asked them, "Well, then, why don't I hate cops, if that's the case?" Yeah, maybe let me explain this again.  Greetings, and welcome back.  Rush Limbaugh here is the 800-282-2882.  The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com.  In the first hour of the program... If you're a welfare recipient just getting up, just turning on the radio, I don't want you to miss this. 

We had some discussions about all this that's happening in the country, and I happened to mention that my father was pulled over when I was eight or nine years old. We were driving through Arkansas on the way back home to Missouri.  We got stopped. It was nighttime, and I'm in the backseat with my brother. My dad and mom were up in the front seat, and I never... I mean, I didn't get a good look at the trooper, but it was an Arkansas highway patrolman, and my dad, everything he said was, "Yes, sir."  "Yes, sir."  "Yes, sir." 

He never once argued. He didn't dispute anything. I don't remember what happened. I don't remember why we were stopped. I just asked me dad, "Why did all you say was, 'Yes, sir?'"  And he said, "Sir them out, Son.  Whenever you're stopped," he added... They're old wives' tales.  I've also heard this about Oklahoma when I was driving to California.  Get this.  I'm driving to California on my way to Sacramento. It's 1984 and it's wintertime.

So I'm taking the southern route to avoid snowstorms, which didn't work 'cause when I got to Flagstaff I got snowed in.  Anyway, "Be careful going through Oklahoma.  If they pull you over in Oklahoma, you're done for." So I stayed five miles below the speed limit for the little time I was in Oklahoma. I said, "Not even if I drop Barry Switzer?" "Don't drop anybody's name.  Just don't get stopped in Oklahoma." Well, my memory is the same thing was said about Arkansas when I was a kid.

My dad said, "Look, when they pull you over in Arkansas, just sir them out." But he meant anywhere.  And this begot... We have a couple calls from people who say, "Yeah, yeah. I was raised the same way." The lesson there is, "Respect authority. It's the path of least resistance no matter what," and it doesn't seem to exist.  There isn't that universal respect for authority now.  It's being challenged everywhere by our grievance-based culture today. 

But, there was another thing that happened.  I was, again, nine or 10 years old, and my mother... Yeah, it was time to go visit my grandparents down at Kennett, Missouri -- which, if you drive, it's about two hours south of Cape Girardeau.  And they put me on a bus.  They put me on a bus from Cape Girardeau to Bloomfield, by myself, and my grandmother was gonna meet me at the bus stop in Bloomfield and pick me up and drive me to herself in Kennett. 

And the bus stop in Bloomfield was a truck stop, was a diner.  It was not a big massive truck stop.  It was a diner-type place.  And when she picked me up, she took me inside. "You want a Coke? You want a cheeseburger or something?" and I said, "Sure." So we're sitting there, and a highway patrolman -- a Missouri Highway Patrolman -- saunters in, and my grandmother looks at me and says, "He's gonna get you. He's gonna get you.  You better be good! You better be good.  He's gonna get you.  He's gonna get you." 

I'm thinking, "What? What have I done?" "Nothing, but he's gonna get you if you're not good. He's gonna get you. He's gonna get you."  And I got scared to death sitting in there.  Now, I've told people this over the course of my life, and they said, "That's the kind of thing that can give you a complex you don't know you've got."  I said, "What are you talking about?"  They said, "Those are the kinds of little things that make an indelible impression." I said, "Then tell me why I'm not afraid of the cops today.  Tell me why I don't... Why didn't that stick with me? 

"Why am I not somebody that doesn't like cops today?" given that you think what my grandmother did to me was scarring. Well, I've had people say, "That was really a cruel thing to do, to make you -- at age nine -- think that you were gonna go to jail for just sitting in a diner."  And I said, "I don't remember it, but sitting here thinking about it now, I don't recall having... I mean, I remember being scared, but that didn't last.  I haven't been... Every time I see a law enforcement officer, I don't get palpitations.

I don't cower in fear in the corner and all that. But I've had professionals say ,"That's the kind of thing that could have a lasting impact, could lower your self-esteem. It could make you think you're not worthy of things." "Are you kidding me?" "No, this is..." So my point is that who knows how many people are told things like that today in certain neighborhoods? A cop goes driving by or walks. "He's gonna get you! He's going to get you!" and some obviously people today believe it. (interruption) I hadn't done anything.

I wasn't old enough to have done anything.  I'm sitting there with a cheeseburger in a diner in Bloomfield, Missouri.  And I'm sure you all have stories like this.  We all have stories from our childhood about our parents' encounters with the police or maybe our own.  I've had a few.  I've had none of them end up poorly.  I don't recall ever having been unfairly treated, mistreated, falsely accused, none of that stuff. But see, there are people to whom all of that has happened -- and it only takes once, and then that can be exploited.  And that's where we are now. 

You know, I mentioned too that I asked Heather Mac Donald after... I had her on the program for 45 minutes on Friday.  She's got all this data that disproves everything Black Lives Matter says.  It just disproves it.  I said, "What would you do if somebody read your book, became familiar with your scholarly work, and asked you to be part of the solution dealing with aggrieved groups? What would you do?"  She said, "I would try something that hasn't been done.  I would try the truth." 

And there's some cynics who would say, "Well, you can, but that's not gonna work because you're not dealing with people that want to know the truth.  You're dealing with people who, instead, are comfortable with their anger, or their racism, or what have you.  And the truth isn't gonna make an impression."  And that may be true.  I mean, the same thing's true in politics.  How many people do you know who believe things about conservatism that aren't anywhere near the truth, and you tell 'em, and they still don't want to believe you? 

They still don't want to have... They don't even want to try to believe you because they've got their little cocoon of what they believe built in which they live, and they don't want anything challenging it.  I have a friend who, when we made these Hillary bumper stickers -- these Never Hillary bumper stickers available with new sign-ups for the Rush 24/7 website and the Limbaugh Letter. This guy called. "Do you have any couple of those laying around? 

"I want to give them away to some friends."  So I happened to have a couple.  I gave them to him, and he tried giving them away.  He couldn't give them away, even to people who are not gonna vote for Hillary, because they didn't want their liberal friends to see.  So they're not gonna vote for Hillary, but they don't want anybody to know it.  They're afraid of getting grief from their friends who like Hillary or who are gonna. 

So they didn't want to accept the bumper sticker, much less put 'em on their car.  And it's the same thing.  And they don't want to... Putting the bumper sticker on for them was the equivalent of trying to persuade people, and they didn't want to try. They did not even want to try to persuade people to agree with them on why they were voting against Hillary.  

They didn't want to go there.  Too big a confrontation. In some cases, they didn't want their friends to even know that they were opposed to Hillary, even though their friends probably already do.  So all of these things tell me something.  I mean, not a uniform something.  All these things tell me things about where we are and what we face, if we're actually gonna change things, reform things for the better and rectify them, we're dealing with a lot of people scared to death of the left. 

They're scared to death of the left.  They're scared to death of actual liberals.  They're scared to death of what people are gonna say about them.  They're scared to death of what people are gonna do to them.  They just don't want to get involved in any way, shape, manner, or form.  They might vote for Trump or whoever, but they don't want to be an evangelist for Trump.  They don't want to join an argument and try to persuade people to join them.  If they're liberals, they don't even want to go there. 

That's why this police chief and what he said, he had a press conference today, the police chief in Dallas, and he said (paraphrasing), "Serve your communities.  Don't be part of the problem.  We're hiring.  Get off that protest line, put in an application here."  Can you imagine telling Black Lives Matter: "Get off the protest line and become a cop"?  "You really want to solve the problem, drop the protest, join us.  We'll even deploy you to your neighborhood," he said. 

If something like this is fixable -- and it isn't right now with our current leadership, it just isn't.  That's something everybody's gotta realize.  There are too many people, particularly in an election year who are trying to benefit from all this, which makes me sick, but it's nevertheless true. 

A story from Breitbart about Mrs. Clinton back on July 8th.  This is just three days ago.  "Hillary Clinton used a CNN interview on Friday to completely embrace the Democrats’ claim that white people and cops must change to help reduce the number of African-Americans killed in tense exchanges with cops." Quote, Hillary Clinton: "I will call for white people, like myself, to put ourselves in the shoes of those African-American  families who fear every time their children go somewhere, who have to have ‘The Talk,’ about, you now, how to really protect themselves [from police], when they’re the ones who should be expecting protection from encounters with police.”

Now, obviously Mrs. Clinton -- this is for those of you who think I'm little bit overboard everybody saying there are people trying to benefit from this.  What do you call this?  Hillary Clinton is in deep trouble.  If you look at the polling data, she can't pull ahead of Trump no matter what he does. For the most part, there are a couple of outliers, but for the most part Hillary and Trump are locked in a margin-of-error tie.  But beyond that, the internals of these polls show that Hillary Clinton is trailing Trump in all kinds of key areas.  Of course, there's then this.  Have you seen this?  Fifty-six of people think Hillary Clinton should have been indicted or charged, but half of that 56%'s gonna vote for her anyway. 

So you say, what's the point?  If 56% think that she has committed an indictable offense with American national security and half of 'em are gonna vote for her anyway?  Now, Hillary, it is said that Trump is gonna have to really clean up with independents.  What Hillary's gonna have to do is turn out the African-American vote.  If she doesn't turn out the African-American vote anywhere near it turned out for Obama then she is going to be in trouble.  Ergo, here she comes (imitating Hillary), "I call on white people to put ourselves in the shoes of those African-Americans," blames white people, blames the cops. 

You tell me this isn't trying to benefit from this?  It's blatant benefiting.  I mean, it's transparent as it could be.  I can see right through this.  The fact of the matter is Rudy made this point on TV over the weekend.  Heather Mac Donald has made the point.  And it's not a point.  It is actual evidence.  It is data, the product of research. 

Ninety percent of all blacks are killed as a result of black-on-black crime.  The percentage of black people killed by cops pales in comparison to the percentage of African-Americans killed in black-on-black crime. 

But that doesn't do Mrs. Clinton any good.  She cannot say that.  She cannot use the truth.  The truth does not help her.  She went on.  She said, "I'm gonna be talking to white people.  We're the ones who have to start listening to the legitimate cries coming from our African-American fellow citizens.  We've gotta figure out what's happening when routine traffic stops, when routine arrests escalate into killings."  Well, it's tricky because that happens.  It happens to white people, too.  You just never hear about it. 

But the point is, there is not an epidemic of it, and no evidence can be found to support that there is an epidemic of it.  And I'll remind you again of the professor of economics at Harvard, the youngest African-American professor of economics at Harvard who, after Michael Brown, said, "I gotta get to the bottom of this."  He studied data and he found out that there is no greater instance of the cops shooting black suspects than white suspects.  It's almost equal.  And his conclusion is, well, whatever's going on, there isn't any racial bias here.  If the number of killings by police, white and black, are almost equal, then he couldn't find any race.  He admitted it is -- let me find his quote, exactly what he said here.  "It is the most surprising result of my career." 

Now, here is a Harvard tenured professor of economics, under 40, got an award for being the brightest, youngest economist at Harvard under 40.  What must he have thought?  He must have believed "hands up, don't shoot" happened.  He must have believed that the cops were shooting black suspects all the time and that we finally reached our limit, that Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin or whatever, it's over.  We've gotta put a stop to this.  He starts researching.  He finds no evidence to support what he believed.  Now, he has an education capable of making him understand.  Imagine people that don't.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Okay, now, back to this Harvard professor who says it was the biggest, the most surprising result of his career, he said, "The result contradicts the mental image of police shootings that many Americans hold."  Well, a question:  Why do many Americans hold that mental image, that cops are shooting African-Americans all the time, that it's something common, it's so common, we gotta stop? 

Who's giving them that idea?  Whose fault?  In other words, where is this evidence, quote, unquote?  Where is this evidence of white cops killing blacks all the time?  Where is it?  I'll tell you where it is.  It's in the New York Times.  It's in the Washington Post.  It's on CNN.  It's on NBC.  It's on ABC.  It's on CBS.  It's all through the Drive-By Media.  It's all over the print media.  Every instance is portrayed as the latest in a never ending string of 'em, but it isn't happening.

And I know it's a fine line.  I know what some of you are saying, "Rush, you're not dealing with the reality."  The reality is they think it's happening, and that's what has to be dealt with.  Well, I know, but it's the same old argument we always have about dealing with liberalism.  What's the most productive way of dealing with it?  Telling people that what they think isn't true or acknowledging that we know what they believe and giving them credit for believing, acknowledging what they believe and then trying to tell 'em it isn't true, how do you go about this? 

My contention is that the leadership of these movements, whether they know it or not, they don't want it to be otherwise.  When the evidence is produced that demonstrates they are wrong, what happens?  They go after the people producing the evidence.  When is there is an apparent lack of desire for the truth to prevail, then what do you do?  Then how do you deal with it?  And if you go about it the wrong way, you're gonna end up, whether you intend to or not, cementing what they believe in order to not be confrontational so that you continue the discussion.  And at that point, you may as well just forget trying to persuade 'em 'cause you've acknowledged what they think.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Now, just to illustrate what we are up against here, bear in mind here, folks, that the Obama administration could not find... If you recall, they couldn't find any evidence whatsoever that the IRS targeted the Tea Party, when there was tons of it.  Evidence was dripping out of pores everywhere, but they said at the Regime that they couldn't find any.  But now they find evidence of white police targeting black men. 

Targeting. Targeting black men.

There isn't any evidence of that, folks.  There just isn't any evidence.  And yet the Regime has no problem believing it and acting accordingly, speaking accordingly.  And yet they couldn't find any evidence whatsoever the IRS targeting Tea Party, tax-exempt, nonexempt groups.  No, the point is you can't rely on the administration for the solution to this.  How many people do you think actually want there to be a solution to this, on the left?  It's a serious question.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Rudy Giuliani stepped... Well, he didn't step in it.  They're trying to make it look like he did.  He was on CBS This Morning yesterday.  He was on Fox today.  Rudy had the temerity to accuse Black Lives Matter of being a racist organization by virtue of the name of the group alone.  He said, "Black Lives Matter? That's racist." And particularly, they go bonkers when somebody says, "No, no, no. All lives matter."

They go bonkers.  They stormed a Bernie Sanders event and took his microphone when he said all lives matter.  You remember that?  And Hillary saw that and she didn't even go there. She started talking about how they're right and so forth.  But Rudy had the temerity to say, "If black lives really matter, why don't we ever hear about this group when blacks are victimized by black-on-black crimes, say, in Chicago," which is now almost become... It's not a joke, but everybody knows. Everybody knows that there's rampant killing in Chicago, gang-related killing, of people of all ages. 

Everybody knows it.  Nobody harps on it, nobody's trying to get to the bottom of it, nobody's fixing it, nobody's trying to fix it, nobody's calling attention to it, because it's black-on-black crime. So there's no way to advance the leftist agenda by focusing on it.  But if, as Rudy said, Black Lives Matter, why aren't they there?  If Black Lives Matter, where are they focusing on these very rare cop shootings as opposed to the seemingly common shootings of black victims in Chicago? 

Once every 14 hours, I think I read today, is the way it averages out over recent months.  Once every 14 hours. Many of them are kids, and they dying -- they're being killed -- and Black Lives Matter isn't there, and boy, is Rudy catching hell from the media for this.  Just a few samples of this.  We're gonna start with Saturday morning on Fox & Friends Saturday.  Clayton Morris had Rudy on there, and Clayton Morris asked Rudy, "What do you think of Rush Limbaugh?  Rush Limbaugh's out there on Friday, and he said that Black Lives Matter is acting like a terror organization."

MORRIS:  Rush Limbaugh, called them a terrorist organization!

GIULIANI:  I don't know the definition, the actual legal definition of terrorism.  But they instigate and encourage the murdering of white police officers.  Cops come up to me all over America.  For the last year and a half, I am told over and over again, "I feel like I have a target on my back, and I feel like the politicians have put it there. Black Lives Matter says, 'Kill white cops.'"

RUSH:  Oh!  Oh-ho-ho!  And this was on the quasi-friendly Fox News Channel. You're not supposed to say that.  See, that's a violation of the insider protocol.  He's not supposed to point things like this out.  You're not supposed to say, "Black Lives Matter says, 'Kill white cops.'" No, no, no.  No, no, no.  You're not supposed to say that.  So let's move on to Sunday where Rudy doubled down on Slay the Nation on CBS.  John Dickerson.  "You said the Black Lives Matter's movement's put a target on the back of police officers.  When members of the African-American community see videos as they have this week, they feel like there's a target on young black men.  Explain your response about how they've put a target on police officers.  How can that match up when people see these videos?"

GIULIANI:  Well, when they talk about killing police officers.

DICKERSON:  But they don't.

GIULIANI:  Oh, they sure do. They sing rap songs about killing police officers and they talk about killing police officers and they yell it out at their rallies and the police officers --

DICKERSON:  But Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, the reality is --

GIULIANI:  Please.  Please let me finish.  And when you say, "Black Lives Matter," that's inherently racist.

DICKERSON:  Well, I think they are --

GIULIANI:  Black Lives Matter, white lives matter, Asian lives matter, Hispanic lives matter.  That's anti-American, and it's racist.

RUSH:  Oh-ho!  He doubled down.  He's not supposed to go there.  But now, notice the question, the question from John Dickerson? Well, he is as quintessentially uber-leftist as you can get in the media, and you notice his question? He said, "But -- but -- but they're not doing that, Mr. Mayor! They're not! They're not! They're not do that. What about all these videos, Mr. Mayor? What about all these videos?" Okay, once again, let's go to the Heather Mac Donald. 

The percentage of blacks killed by police is less than would be predicted by their crime rates, and it's actually far less than the percentage of white and Hispanics who are killed by the police.  Let me reword that.  The number of blacks killed by the police is way less than the number of whites and Hispanics who are killed by the police.  And I know what some of you are saying, "Well, but the black population's proportionally smaller."  You better be careful going there, because that could be turned around on you. 
 They like to say, "Yeah, blacks are only what percent of the population but look at the percentage of them that are jailed."  Well, look at the percentage of black-on-black crime, and there you'll have your answer to the incarceration rate.  But nobody wants to go there. Nobody's allowed to go there.  We have to live on this myth that the cops are out targeting black citizens, when the truth is the number of blacks killed by the cops is far less than the percentage or actual real numbers of whites and Hispanics killed by the police. 

Let's go a little deeper. 

Fully 12% of all white and Hispanic victims are killed by police officers compared to 4% of black homicide victims killed by cops.  Twelve percent of all white and Hispanic victims are killed by police officers.  Four percent of black homicide victims are killed by cops.  "But -- but -- but -- but -- but -- but." No "but" about it; it doesn't fit your narrative.  And so things like this are not used when somebody like Heather Mac Donald brings 'em.  They're discredited. 

They try to discredit them by saying she's misplaying her numbers and not behaving with fealty to the percentages.  And so none of that's true.  These are hard numbers, and they're not hers.  These are numbers produced by the Department of Justice and local police department statistics, with the Justice Department being the primary supplier of the data.  So if you're gonna have an anti-cop lives movement, if you're gonna have a "Blank" Lives Matter movement, and it's oriented against the cops because the cops are doing all the killing?

It would make more sense to call it White and Hispanics Lives Matter, because there are far more white and Hispanic homicide victims resulting from the cops than there are African-American.  How many of you knew that?  If you're a regular listener here, you probably knew it because we had Heather Mac Donald here on Friday for 45 minutes explaining this and other numbers, and we've amplified them.  And the sad reality is that none of it matters. 

None of it will matter to anybody who doesn't want to believe that.  People are emotionally invested in the grievance industry in their belief that the cops are targeting innocent young black men.  It isn't happening.  If you're emotionally invested in it, you don't want to not believe it.  If you're emotionally invested in it, you want it to be true.  It has to be true, and anybody telling you it isn't can't be trusted, can't possibly be right, and is out to get you. 

And isn't that where we are in our society? Whether it's conservatism versus liberalism, Republican versus Democrat, or this, the actual truth doesn't matter.  The actual truth is a problem.  The actual truth is not desired.  

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I mentioned this to you at the top of the program, but I want you to hear it.  He's in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday after the NATO summit, and the AP White House correspondent, Kathleen Hennessey: "I wanted to specifically ask about the Dallas shooting and the attacker there.  Now that we know more about the man who we believe did these crimes, I wonder if you could help us understand how you describe his motives.  Do you consider this an act of domestic terrorism?  Was it a hate crime?  Was this a mentally ill guy with a gun?  How should Americans understand why this happened?"

OBAMA:  I think it's very hard to untangle the motives of this shooter.  As we've seen in a whole range of incidents with mass shooters, they are, by definition, troubled.  By definition, if you shoot people who pose no threat to you, strangers, you have a troubled mind.  What triggers that, what feeds it, what sets it off, you know, I'll leave that to psychologists and people who study these kinds of incidents.

RUSH:  Wait just a second now.  By definition, if you shoot people who pose no threat to you, isn't that the exact reason the guy did this?  He had been persuaded they did pose a threat?  The cops, they're out there killing innocent black men every day.  Doesn't that pose a threat?  But, anyway, the point is (imitating Obama), "It's gonna be a while before we untangle this."  Do you think if this guy happened to listen to talk radio it'd take 'em long to untangle it, for example?  I kind of doubt it.  

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