RUSH: Kevin Johnson. Kevin Johnson’s the mayor of Sacramento. He’s also chairman of the Players Association. He used to play for the Phoenix Suns. I know Kevin. Back when Paul Westphal was the coach of the Suns I took a bunch of road trips with him. And one of the road trips was into Sacramento. Kevin, that’s his hometown, and he had a charity for minority kids to go after school and so forth to learn things and not be on the street and all that. It was a positive reinforcement type place. He had a fundraiser and it was scheduled for when the Phoenix Suns were due to play the Kings of Sacramento.
I happened to be on the trip so I went to this thing. Of course everybody was shocked to see me, although I had not been a stranger. I’d been running around with the Phoenix basketball team for a while. I ended up being the high bidder for a Ronnie Lott New York Jets jersey, which I think disappointed some people there. But I got to know Kevin a little bit, and now he’s the mayor of Sacramento. He had a press conference yesterday, as the chairman of the Players Association, after the commissioner made his announcement of how they’re gonna fry Sterling. We have two sound bites here, and there’s a lot of people, the mayor of LA was there, and some other NBA players, but here’s the first of two sound bites with Kevin Johnson.
JOHNSON: This is a very stark reminder that we still have a lot of work to do. Yes, we have an African-American president. Yes, justice happened in a swift manner and forceful, yes, that occurred today. But these events remind all of us that hatred and bigotry are far from over. I hope that every bigot in this country sees what happened to Mr. Sterling and recognizes that if he can fall, so can you.
RUSH: And that was greeted with resounding applause and support and so forth. It kind of makes the point that it’s never gonna be over. It was like when Obama was elected, how many people do you think, how many white people voted for Obama thinking that it’d be the end of racism? ‘Cause nobody likes this. Nobody likes this racial divide. Nobody is made comfortable — I take that back. There are a lot of people making money off of it. There are some people who actually promote it and like it. And, again, the Democrat Party’s the home of this stuff. But, for the most part, your average, ordinary American wants no part of it.
And as Bernie Goldberg pointed out on Megyn Kelly’s show the other night, the overall condemnation Donald Sterling is receiving is evidence that there isn’t racism, institutional racism in this country. It just doesn’t exist anymore. There’s nobody out defending Sterling. Nobody out trying to call for calm or anything. I mean, universal condemnation, once people found out who the guy is. And yet, and yet Kevin Johnson says here, oh, that doesn’t matter. It’s still out there, doesn’t matter. We got a black president, we got a black attorney general, that doesn’t matter. It’s like when Obama was elected, I told people, this is only going to exacerbate racial disharmony. And people, “How do you mean?”
See, ’cause any criticism of Obama’s policies are gonna be chalked up to racism. Nobody is gonna be permitted substantive disagreement with Obama and his policies. It’s all gonna get chalked up to racism. I said by the time it’s done nobody’s gonna have the guts to criticize Obama. He’s gonna have a clean slate ahead of him ’cause nobody is gonna have the guts to be critical because everybody who does is gonna immediately be labeled a racist. And that’s exactly what’s happened. So Sterling is gone and it seems to me there’s not any satisfaction. It just seems like the anger gets even worse, even when the situation gets rectified.
I know that most people don’t want this. Most people don’t want there to be racial strife. They don’t have any desire for it whatsoever. Most people agree with Rodney King: “Can’t we all just get along?” You have to go to the Democrat Party to get this fixed. They’re the state sponsors of this stuff. I’m reminded again with Kevin’s sound bite here what Bernie Goldberg said. He said, “There isn’t any racism. If there were, Sterling would have some supporters, but everybody can’t wait to get in line to condemn the guy.” And yet, no, no, we got black president, we got a black attorney general, it doesn’t mean anything.
Here, let’s play the second Kevin sound bite. This is Kevin Johnson, a second sound bite. We’ll just move on.
JOHNSON: Let me just show you how much this moment meant to our country. You know, yesterday before the ruling, I get a call from Vice President Biden, and he says, “Tell those players that we are standing with them, that none of us would accept the disdain and the comments that were so reprehensible by Mr. Sterling.” When you have the president and the vice president and the White House standing with the players in this league, that is a testament to what sports can do. Sports bring people together. It allows us to talk about real issues.
RUSH: You know, it wasn’t that long ago where I kept hearing, “Now, no politics here, Rush. We don’t want any politics here at ESPN. We are not gonna combine anybody’s political views with our sportscasts,” and now look. Sports is as politicized as the news, maybe even more so, and the sports media is identical to the news media. Is there anybody else that I want to play on this before we move on to other things? No, that’s it. That wraps that up.
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RUSH: Osage City, Kansas. This is Cliff. Welcome, sir, to the EIB Network. Hi.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. I got one complaint with you, but that’s not why I called. My complaint is with Silver — or not Silver. The Donald. He’s being persecuted for using his First Amendment rights. I mean, they’re… Automatically he’s guilty for using his First Amendment rights. His First Amendment rights says that he can do this.
RUSH: Well, are you talking about First Amendment free speech?
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Well, not really. I mean, the First Amendment’s free speech clause only says that the government can’t shut you up for political speech. But any business can penalize anybody, any employee they want for saying things that the boss doesn’t agree with or the company doesn’t stand for. So free speech is not it. If somebody wants to try to defend Sterling, free speech is not the way to go here, because the NBA can punish them if they want to.
Their bylaws and constitution say if it’s bad for business — and clearly this kind of stuff is — they can punish you. Look, what this really boils down to, again, is it was going on for 33 years before this. This New York Times story is amazing to me. I’ve quoted it two or three times today. Is the New York Times not a newspaper? Why does the New York Times have a story today asking — not reporting, but asking — why nobody reported on this guy for 33 years?
Don’t they have reporters there?
The New York Times has a story wondering why nobody told anybody about Sterling for all these years. Why didn’t the New York Times tell people? Now, you could say, “Well, Rush, I heard your sound bites of Kevin Johnson. He sounds mad.” But maybe they’ve got a right to be mad. I mean, the players knew and the NBA knew. This guy was a sanctioned owner, and nobody did anything about him for 33 years.
Finally this guy’s been caught, so it’s understandable that they would feel happy. I mean, who wants to work for this kind of guy? But the point is they did. Free agents willingly went there and signed contracts; they took the guy’s paychecks. I don’t think anybody in this is… It’s hard to find the victims here, when you get right down to it, and I’m not defending Sterling by any stretch.
But with this known for so many years and nobody making any effort do anything about it? Elgin Baylor did, but only after he got fired. He worked there for 23 years. He got fired and charged illegal termination based on racial discrimination, age discrimination, that kind of thing. But I think that this guy has been who he is for 33 years — actually his whole life, but 33 years is the length of time he’s owned the team.
So that’s the years that people are looking at, and none of this was a shock to anybody. For nobody in LA, nobody in the NBA was this a surprise. Again, I asked people throughout the last 15 years, “How does he get away with it?” And the answer always came back to, “He’s a joke. The team’s a joke. The Lakers own the town. The Clippers never won anything. They never even had any winning seasons. They were just a laughingstock,” and so was he, and so he was never a threat. Plus, he was buying insurance policies. He was donating to the NAALCP and getting humanitarian awards!
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RUSH: Here’s Gaynelle in New Orleans. Great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Rush, I am so honored to speak to you. I can’t tell you how many times I tried to call. Even during Katrina, I tried to get you for your clear mind and your advice. I have a question for you.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: If they can take people’s property away for foul things they say or horrible things they say, why has nothing ever happened to Reverend Wright or Louis Farrakhan — or, for that matter, Al Sharpton? They said horrible things about people, and we didn’t dream that we would take somebody’s property way for saying foul things or for being fractious. That’s not… Actually if they allowed the capitalist system, this guy would have ended without his ball team anyway ’cause people could have not bought tickets. They could have not played for him. They could have done a whole lot of things, and then nature would have taken its course because I believe people are generally good people.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: I don’t understand how they think they can force him out of an ownership when he said something. I mean, you can’t take things away ’cause you disagree with ’em. My goodness.
RUSH: What do you mean, they can’t? They just did.
CALLER: I know, but that’s not American. That’s not free. I mean, you can say he’s not protected under the freedom of speech. Were those people who said foul things about Palin protected by free speech? You know, I mean, foul things about a handicapped child?
RUSH: It’s called, in 2014, “justice.” Now, you ask, “Well, why don’t they take away Reverend Wright’s house?”
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: Or church or Reverend Sharpton’s car. I mean, he owes the IRS about a million bucks. Why not?
CALLER: Right.
RUSH: The reason is that Reverend Wright, Reverend Sharpton are perfectly allowed to say whatever they want to say.
CALLER: Why?
RUSH: Well, because they are victims. They’re victims of a 200-plus-year oppressed minority.
CALLER: Well, I’m gonna tell you something that’s gonna sound really silly to you, but if you’re from New Orleans you will understand. We are veterans of the same thing, because we did not leave people to die. We did not not tell people to evacuate. We did everything we could in this city to prepare for a national disaster. We did have a problem. We had a deer-in-the-headlights governor who didn’t realize that the National Guard belonged to her.
RUSH: Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah. But, see, again, your governor was a woman. Again, a member of a protected minority.
CALLER: Well, great.
RUSH: She cannot be held to the same standard as a male governor. She’s permitted to be incompetent.
CALLER: So selective discrimination we have? Is that what it’s come to?
RUSH: It’s because America has been so unjust and immoral to certain of its citizens since it was founded. You all know that the Republicans are waging a War on Women. What, women are gonna have to defend themselves? You’re gonna have to give them some latitude. And we had slavery in the past.
So those two groups are permitted to pretty much do and say whatever they want to do. I just had a story yesterday. I didn’t get a chance to it, but now you’ve heard of the glass ceiling for women. Now, unfortunately, it’s become “the glass cliff” because women are becoming CEOs and then they don’t cut it and they’re being fired and they’re being replaced by white guys.
It’s humiliating. It’s being called “the glass cliff.” Women are now being thrown over and it’s ’cause America is just so unjust and immoral. That’s why Sterling can have his team, property, whatever, taken. He can be suspended from having anything to do with it because of who he was mean to.
CALLER: Yeah, what about people who speak out against Jews? Do they have to lose their property, too? We are full of people in this — (crosstalk)
RUSH: Well, that depends on where that happens.
CALLER: Oh, okay, so it can happen from somebody who’s a high standing —
RUSH: Well, I mean, John Kerry just basically said that the Jews of Israel are a bunch of slaveholders, and nothing happened to him.
CALLER: Now, minorities (unintelligible). I’m not sure. Or what unjust people does he belong to? What can I say — slave people or unjustifiably judged people does he belong to? The Democratic Party?
RUSH: The Democrat Party has made — no, all of this stuff has a political base to it. All of this would not exist if there were not political power attached to it, and the Democrat Party has made that possible. You know, you talk about the mayor, Kathleen whatever her name was down there. Don’t forget School Bus Nagin. This is the guy that left the school buses there to get flooded along with the residents, but he had some slack cut because he’s a minority, too.
It’s just like these media guys, there’s two speech codes now, and you better figure out which one applies to you, and if you don’t, the same thing is gonna happen to you that happened to Donald Sterling. And the media is gonna applaud it when it happens to you. (interruption) Look, if people are gonna call here and ask me, I’m gonna answer it. (interruption) The reason why Reverend Wright can say whatever he wants is because he’s a victim of this country. It’s understandable that he’d be mad. It’s understandable that he’d be filled with rage. We better learn and understand why. That’s what we’re told. And the same with Reverend Sharpton. He can do a hoax on Tawana Brawley and end up on television because he’s permitted. There are just certain things and it’s the way they are.