RUSH: I mentioned earlier in the program a bunch of different stories here on the statistical breakdown of DUI, spouse abuse, sociological crimes like that in the NFL compared to the US population at large. Numerous surveys, numerous study data reveals that the incidence of these occurrences in the NFL are far less than in the general population. Here’s just one story. This is from DigiNews.com.

RedState had a story on this yesterday as well as. Let me read to you this one. “The National Organization for Women,” affectionately known here as the NAGs, National Association of Gals, “called for the resignation of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell this week. They said that the NFL ‘has a violence against women problem.’ NOW President Terry O’Neill said in a statement that ‘the NFL has lost its way.

“‘It doesn’t have a Ray Rice problem, it has a violence against women problem.’ Does it? The data say no, it does not. More than that, the data say that NFL players are half as likely to commit domestic violence as men in their 20s in the general population. A 15-year-old academic study by Alfred Blumstein and Jeff Benedict was one of the first to look at this issue.

“In a paper titled ‘Criminal Violence of NFL Players Compared to the General Population,’ they compared arrest data for NFL players and other men for a variety of crimes, including assault (non-domestic), domestic violence, rape, kidnapping, homicide, DUI, drugs, and property offenses. Blumstein and Benedict found that of the 342 black players in their sample, 97 of them, or 28%, had an arrest for one of these crimes.

“There were 77 whites in the sample; seven of them, or 9%, had an arrest[.] Those numbers appear high until we compare them with arrest numbers for the general population. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports provided the arrest data. For the general population, the arrest rate for assault for black men was 6,990 per 100,00, and for whites, 2,209. The corresponding rate for NFL players, black and white, was less than half the rate for the general population.”

So whatever the offense here — domestic assault, domestic violence, nondomestic assault, rape, kidnapping, homicide, DUI, drugs — the incidence rate in the NFL is less than half what it is in the general population. “More recently, USA Today published its USA Today NFL Arrests Database…” Yes, you heard me right. USA Today has something called the USA Today NFL Arrests Database which “goes from 2000, just after the Blumstein-Benedict study, to today.

“Benjamin Morris at FiveThirtyEight’s DataLab used these data with the Bureau of Crime Statistics’ Arrest Data Analysis Tool to compare arrest rates for NFL players and the general population. Morris looked only at the 25-30 age group, which most closely reflects the age of NFL players. What he found was that, again, NFL players have arrest rates far below the general population.

“Their arrest rates for domestic violence are half the rate of the general public, just as Blumstein and Benedict found. In addition, Morris found that NFL arrest rates for DUI were about [25%] the general rate; for non-domestic assault, about one-sixth; for sex offenses, about one-half; and for non-violent gun-related offenses, about one-half. Overall, arrest rates in the NFL are only…”

Are you ready for this now?

Take this number and contrast it with what you have been led to believe the past ten days. “Overall, arrest rates in the NFL are only 13% those for the general public among men aged 25 to 30,” and yet, what are we on the verge of doing? You can find these numbers anywhere. I found two websites that reported these numbers. Well, there’s a third now: USA Today. They’re not hard to find. They’re out there.

I mean, this is an illustration of the power of the focused, intense, agenda-driven media. And what is the agenda here? The agenda is liberalism and its own sociological revolution, and what’s driving this? Women, feminism! Liberal feminist women are driving this, disguised as agents of political correctness. So everybody is being told that the NFL is a hotbed for all of these crimes and abuses and aberrant, depraved behavior.

The NFL is being told that it’s dirty and filthy, and the commissioner is incompetent and has gotta get thrown out, and these players need to get thrown out, and this league needs to straighten up or we’re gonna do something about the NFL. The Reverend Jackson has chimed in now because the NFL, under pressure, is doing what big corporations usually do. They pander to try to head off the criticism at the pass.

So they’ve hired four women who are experts to one degree or another in spousal abuse and other social crimes to come in and advise the NFL on what they’ve gotta do to straighten up. When in fact, the truth probably is that for most of the NFL players, the NFL is the first formal discipline they’re ever subjected to.

From the moment they try out for a team, either by virtue of being drafted or signed as a free agent, they have to comport to specific behaviors handed down by the coaching staff to even have a prayer. They have to show up on time. They have to be respectful of authority. They have to follow directions. They have to be where they’re supposed to be on time. (That’s one of the biggies.)

They have to be able to memorize the playbook. They have to be able to do anything when called on to do it or they get cut, and their dream is taken away from ’em. In many cases, the NFL is the first formal exposure to real discipline a lot of young men who come to it have ever had. The NFL does plenty of preseason seminars for rookies, to tell them what they’re gonna face, how to manage their money, how to deal with fame.

We don’t know how successful it is.

You’d look at weeks like this and say not very successful, but they try. They do it. But they do not have autocratic control. They’re always gonna be subservient to the legal system. Now, I’m not saying this to let them off the hook. What happens is, as usual, there is a political agenda driving all of this. All it took was the Ray Rice incident, and every element of this agenda got in gear and was off to the races.

And then here came the Adrian Peterson story, and that just added fuel to the fire. Now, where is the corresponding outrage and attempt to remedy or fix all of these kinds of behaviors in the general population? We don’t see it, do we? In fact, whenever anybody suggests it, they are told to shut up and mind their own business, that you don’t understand where these kids have come from and therefore you have no business either judging them or advising them on how to shape up.

But when they get to the NFL, there are certain things they have to do if they want to make the team. Now, I don’t want to be misunderstood when I say that this may be the first exposure to formal discipline. I mean, that as a positive. I know some of you, “What, really? Discipline? How come so many of them are beating their wives?” The discipline at the facility, when the team has control of them as employees, very rarely do you see these guys engaging in this kind of aberrant behavior at the team facility. Very rarely do you see it. You do see it during games, and the NFL, for years, have been worried about it. That’s why so many more penalty flags are being thrown, folks.

They’re trying to keep control of the game. They know where their players come from. They know the culture circumstances. I’m convinced the league is doing everything they can, within the bounds of political correctness and not making themselves targets of racism, bigotry, and what have you. It’s a business to them. They’ve got to make sure the product is — well, the best it can be, number one, in terms of athletic ability and so forth. But they’ve gotta make sure that sponsors are gonna be willing to stay associated with it and so forth. People are gonna slip through the cracks, as is happening here in this particular season. But look at the disproportionate amount of rage and anger directed at the NFL.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: This is Paul in Columbia, Missouri. Welcome, sir. It’s great to have you with us.

CALLER: Oh, it’s great to be here, Rush. It’s a pleasure and an honor to speak to you. Dittos from Columbia, Missouri, the future home of the government’s Tax-and-Spend Hall of Fame. I hear they’re still located in the bottom of one of our new parking garages here. Anyway, to get straight to my point: A little earlier in the show you mentioned the fact that the NFL is a tax-exempt organization.

I knew that for a long time, but I kind of started to put two and two together here and realize that a few weeks ago Burger King was just lambasted for being unpatriotic and a horrible company for moving their headquarters to Canada where the taxes aren’t quite as high. Not nonexistent, but not quite as high. So we get Burger King being lambasted for that. Yet we have the NFL who gets by with no taxes and nobody’s saying anything about that. Kind of wondered about your thoughts on that.

RUSH: I don’t think anybody knows that the NFL is tax-exempt. I think most people are gonna just learn this for the first time, and they’re not gonna understand it. They’re gonna see a multibillion-dollar corporation not paying taxes, and I guarantee you they’re gonna be outraged by it. It’s not gonna take the media to make them outraged. The media did that.

The Democrats have done that through class warfare and class envy for the last 50 years. All it takes is the revelation that some big firm isn’t paying any taxes and, bam! We’re off to the races. Unless that firm is a good, well-known liberal firm that stands for global warming and climate change and green energy, or unless they stand for tax increases on the rich. Then they get a pass.

CALLER: Exactly. So is this something that we might see on the horizon that could be, you know, like the end of the NFL? Maybe not the end, but at least a downturn in popularity?

RUSH: No. I’ll tell you what: The NFL is more concerned about its anti-trust exemption. It’s the same thing in Major League Baseball. The anti-trust exemption allows the NFL to operate as… I always get this confused. It’s either as one entity, even though there are 32 different businesses, or as 32 different. But I think it’s they have an anti-trust exemption.

They’re protected in a lot of ways that other industries aren’t. That’s what they’re desperate to hold onto, and that is what is always held over their head if they don’t do what Washington wants them to do. I fully expect that to be used in due course if efforts to… Look, I’ll make my point. Dan Snyder and the Washington Redskins. I don’t care what poll you look at.

There is not a poll of the people in this country that shows a majority even care about it, much less think the Redskins ought to change their name. So how is the campaign to get the Redskins to change their name being implemented? Bruce force, bullying, intimidation, threats. The media and all the other agents involved in forcing this change are trying to intimidate the owner, pressure him, threaten him, bully him, what have you.

At some point, they’re gonna dangle this tax-exempt status.

They’re gonna say to the commissioner or somebody, “You know, if you guys don’t fix this, get this guy to change the name of that team, we’re gonna be serious here about removing that status.” Now, their tax-exempt status is legal. I mean, they’ve applied for it. They’re structured that way and they run their business that way. They are ripe to take a hit over it among low-information voters, which also happen to be among their biggest fans/customers.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here is Joy in Griffin, Georgia. I’m glad you waited, and welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: Hey, Rush.

RUSH: Hey!

CALLER: Thank you for taking my call. I love your show.

RUSH: Well, I appreciate that. I’m glad you’re out there.

CALLER: Love it. Recently there was an incident in one of the major hotels in Atlanta. A judge was arrested for domestic violence. He beat up his wife. He was from a neighboring state. And other than it being a sad situation, I didn’t think a lot more about it until this thing came up with the NFL, this Rice fellow. And I got to thinking, how many professionals out there, other than pro ball, like the Wall Street crowd, the stock market, the attorneys, the doctors, the guy up on the street corner here, lives across the street from you.

RUSH: The Main Street journalists.

CALLER: Journalists, yeah, I could go on. I just didn’t write down my list. But I could go on and on and on. How many — and you actually addressed my comment in a previous segment of yours about the percentage of NFL players that do this type of thing.

RUSH: Do you remember what the number is?

CALLER: I think it was somewhere around 13%.

RUSH: Thirteen percent, the incidence of abuse, nonsexual abuse, DUI, all that, 13% of the general population rate in the NFL, 13%.

CALLER: Yeah. I mean, that was my comment, because I said, “Well, I would hate to be in front of this bench with this judge if I’m the victim and I’m trying to prosecute somebody that just beat me up,” you know? How far does it go? I mean, would he be fair in his deliberation? I don’t know.

RUSH: Who knows anymore.

CALLER: I agree, who knows. I never really thought too much about this until this Rice thing came up. I don’t know why they’re blaming Goodell, is that it, Roger Goodell?

RUSH: Hm-hm.

CALLER: I mean, I feel sorry for that fellow. He was just trying to do the right thing. They didn’t even have a rule at the time that he gave him the first suspension.

RUSH: Doesn’t matter. Okay, so, this is a good point. So you are watching this. You’re watching it from afar. You seem to have an abundance of common sense, as you’re absorbing all this news, and you just said, “Why blame Goodell? He didn’t do anything.” So do you have an answer? Were you able to come up with an answer for yourself about why they are targeting Goodell? I mean, Goodell’s a good liberal. He’s politically correct. I mean, he would seem to be doing everything —

CALLER: I think it plays right into the War on Women, which is a false war. I think they’ll put anybody under the bus to forward their agenda.

RUSH: Bingo! Bingo! War on Women, exactly right.

CALLER: Sure.

RUSH: The Democrats need turnout this November.

CALLER: Sure.

RUSH: Exactly. So Goodell, who has twin daughters, who’s married to Jane Skinner, the former anchorette on Fox News; Roger Goodell, who has established pink month in the NFL in October; Roger Goodell, who’s bent over backwards, but, you know what? Let me tell you something. This is something I’ll bet — I’ll bet — I’ll just bet. During the Masters there was a picture on the AP wire. It was of Roger Goodell in a green jacket. He’s a member. Now, members of Augusta National, they can tell people they’re members, but they don’t broadcast this. It was learned that Roger Goodell was.

Now, you know what the feminazis think of Augusta. Even though they’ve started letting in women, like Condi Rice is a member there now, and Lynn Swann got in. But it’s a closed place. When they found out that Goodell’s a member there, I’m sure some people filed that away, ’cause that’s a definite politically correct no-no. And there he was pictured, minor fact, it’s just something that adds up. One of these little incidents that gets thrown on the pile.

But Goodell, I mean, Roger Goodell has bent over backwards to make this league responsive to critics and so forth, and yet you have so nailed it. It’s the War on Women. Feminism has become the controlling agent of liberalism. And so what better way to advance the War on Women than to take down the commissioner of the National Football League, or to sully his reputation and make him the face of this bastion of macho, brute, predatory, mean men, because the War on Women requires it. Very, very perceptive, Joy. So glad you called.