RUSH: Here’s George in Atlanta. George, welcome to the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hey. Hello, Rush. Thank you. Longtime listener, first-time caller.
RUSH: Great to have you here, George. Welcome.
CALLER: Thank you. Hey, I just wanted to know why our baller in chief isn’t touting the success of the Midnight Basketball programs that were put in place after the first time we had a bunch of riots a while back?
RUSH: You know why? Because the Midnight Basketball program doesn’t exist anymore, just like the hundred thousand cops doesn’t exist anymore.
CALLER: I was not aware of that.
RUSH: Midnight Basketball is long gone. And what was the purpose of Midnight Basketball? It was to stop riots. But wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. It wasn’t for the cops to play basketball. It was for residents of the neighborhood to play basketball at midnight instead of, you know, going and getting some cigarillos at a convenience store. Play basketball. So it was a tantamount admission that if we give, say, athletic activity sponsorship say at midnight, bammo. But it wasn’t for the cops to play midnight basketball.
Now, there was also a companion program that followed shortly after, also a Clinton idea, and that was — I think it was hundred thousand cops. Clinton had this big initiative… (interruption) Really? Look at what’s happening now. The Obama administration, the enemy, public enemy number one is cops. The cops, Eric Holder said, is an occupying force in way too many of our communities. Oh, yes, the cops are intimidating, they’re occupiers. I mean, it’s like a state-run media, state-run police force, and we’ve got to stop it.
But back in the nineties Bill Clinton thought we needed more cops. Yeah. We needed Midnight Basketball and we needed more cops. So he had this plan and I think it was a hundred thousand cops, but it sunsetted in five years because of the way it was written. The first year, a local police force could ask for new cops. They had to submit a request based on the need that they were to submit, and the federal government judged the applications, and if a community was judged to need a cop or three, the federal government paid for it, first year.
The second year, the local community had to pay 20%. And by the fifth year the local community had to pay all of it, which meant Clinton’s hundred thousand cops got fired after five years once the Feds stopped paying the salaries and benefits. So Clinton’s program was nothing but symbolism over substance. But the real point of it is, those two — and I’m glad old George here called. Midnight Basketball is an absolutely great reminder when we had problems with crime in neighborhoods, a Democrat came up with the idea we need to give these young people something to do at midnight, rather than engage in crime, so Midnight Basketball.
I remember making fun of it, all kinds of people had a lot of laughs with it. And I just want to stress, it wasn’t the cops that needed to play Midnight Basketball to straighten up. It wasn’t the cops that needed to burn off some energy here so that they were tired afterwards and went to bed. It was for the neighborhood, for the community. And the same thing with hundred thousand cops. Look how far we’ve come here, from Bill Clinton, Midnight Basketball and adding hundred thousand cops, to the current Regime where the cops are an occupying force and are the enemy.
The cops have almost become what the left thinks of when they think of the US military: the focus of evil. (interruption) I know, we did have grooming money. Children in the neighborhood could groom themselves before going on job interviews, after playing Midnight Basketball. Wait a minute. The store wasn’t robbed at midnight. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway.