RUSH: So yesterday afternoon, I got home, and I take my usual break from all this. It was a long day yesterday. The radio show, did an hour and a half postshow on the internet for subscribers, we call it the Fourth Hour. After that I had to do multiple takes on a client video. So it was a long day. I got home and I said, “You know what, I’m gonna take a respite from all this.”
So I did what I normally do, I started reading some tech stuff. But, you know, you can’t avoid this stuff on the tech blogs. A bunch of little blooming leftists there too. And the same way with the sports Drive-Bys. You can’t escape this stuff, no matter where you go, you cannot avoid being pummeled and beat upside the head with liberalism wherever you go. I wanted to see what happened today in the NFL, what’s going on with that controversy. You know what I found out? The sports Drive-Bys were livid!
The sportswriters and the television and radio people in sports media were outraged at the quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, Cam Newton. They were outraged! It was almost like they were college students and they just found out that a conservative was coming to speak on campus. They were frothing at the mouth. You could see the spittum, you could see gunk coming out of their noses as they wrote the stuff. They were livid over what Cam Newton did. They were demanding that Cam Newton be made to pay for this, that this is unacceptable, not in America 2017, and not in the NFL 2017.
Some of them even said, you know, Colin Kaepernick had played just as well on this time. It’s time maybe to think that Cam Newton’s been around too long. They were livid! They were unable to contain their rage. It didn’t matter where I went. The NBC site, the Sports Illustrated site, Sporting News site, you name it, they were outraged! I’m thinking, what the hell did this guy do? Did he go back to the IHOP?
They got outraged when he went to some IHOP to have dinner after a game. Remember that? It wasn’t the IHOP, but it was some restaurant like IHOP, International House of Pancakes, which is where, by the way, a lot of international diplomacy takes place. That’s why they call it the International House of Pancakes. Anyway, the Waffle House. Remember after a great game he went to the Waffle House and the Carolina Panther media was mocking him.
I mean, here’s this big guy, superstar in the NFL, why isn’t he buying cases of Cristal champagne and pouring it over the cheerleaders’ heads? What’s he doing at the Waffle House? Remember that? He said, “I happen to like it.” He took his family to Waffle House after a Sunday game. They made fun of that. This they were angrier than even when that happened.
So what did he do? What caused this rage? Grab audio sound bite number 18. This is at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, Cam Newton held his weekly press conference. Wednesday is the big practice day of the week for the NFL. It’s the first day back to work. And I think the press conference happens either after practice or beforehand. I don’t know when media availability is as the Carolina Panthers do things. Probably before practice. Because the media’s not allowed to watch practice, maybe 10 minutes of it, and then they’re ushered out, so, yeah, it would be beforehand.
A female reporter for the Charlotte Gazette, the correspondent Jourdan Rodrigue, like league. If there was a Z on it, be Rodriguez. But there’s no Z. Jourdan, J-o-u-r-d-a-n, Rodrigue. It’s 20 seconds. This is what happened.
RODRIGUE: I know you take a lot of pride in seeing your receivers play well. Devin Funchess just seemed to really embrace the physicality of his routes and — and making — getting those extra yards. Does that give you a little bit of an enjoyment to see him kind of truck sticking people out there?
NEWTON: It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes, like, it’s funny.
RUSH: That’s it. That’s it. The sports Drive-Bys had a meltdown that is still happening. That’s it. I cannot tell you how livid they were. In case you didn’t hear the last part of her question, I want to read the words. “Does that give you a little bit of enjoyment to see him kind of truck sticking people out there?” Newton: “It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes, like, it’s funny.” He may not be long for the league, folks. I don’t know what truck sticking people out there is. He might.
But, you know, the media talks about football in ways that you and I — not just football. Sports play-by-play people talking about — well, let’s talk about football. You’ll have a play, a pass play and a receiver will be out there, and the commentator, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, he’s trying to create space out there.” No, he’s trying to get open. It’s get open, not create space. They have all of this jargon that nobody who plays the game uses.
But all of these sports Drive-Bys think they have to be unique and have their signature calls, like for a home run or a touchdown or what have you. And some of it is really ridiculous. Well, I’ll give you a sample. “Panthers quarterback Cam Newton made a sexist comment to a female reporter today, smirking at her question and telling her he found it ‘funny’ to hear a woman ask a question about football. … Newton was smirking while Rodrigue asked the question, and he made a totally inappropriate comment before answering.”
They were livid. They were outraged. And then the outrage continued because, at the end of the day, Newton ran into the female reporter and didn’t apologize. So he compounded the offense. Grab audio sound bite number 19. This is Good Morning America today, fill-in co-host Amy Robach spoke with correspondent Paula Faris about Cam Newton belittling a female reporter during a press conference. Robach said, “You used to cover sports. Do you have any similar stories to this one?”
FARIS: I covered sports for a decade and absolutely loved it. Unfortunately you hear this every now and then. I was told women don’t belong in sports or you won’t make it unless you show your goods. Those were spoken to me. It’s an unfortunate sentiment, but it’s not the majority sentiment, which is respect from your colleagues, from the teams, from the owners, and from the players.
RUSH: “I was told women don’t belong in sports, you won’t make it unless you show your goods.” Hey, you know, this works both ways. The players are in there sometimes nude, and women are making comments. Look. All of this is a one-way street. And once again, women are portrayed as helpless, powerless victims of these predator, brute, insensitive mocking guys. Michael Strahan on Good Morning America today, defensive end for the New York Giants, was talking about Cam Newton belittling the female reporter, and here’s what he said.
STRAHAN: The way that Cam said it was in a way, that, “Well, how would you know? You’ve never played the game.” Well, I got to say, 90% of the reporters have never played the game either, the male reporters. So I think we all — we, players, I know as myself I looked at it as someone who’s trying to do their job who may understand parts of the game and see it in a different way that I don’t.
RUSH: Well, Strahan’s gonna come down on the side of the reporters ’cause he thinks he is one now. But he’s trying to trying to take some of the weight off Cam in this comment. Well, wait, hold it. We’re not through with this. We’re not through with this because the latest of this is Sports Illustrated happily, Sports Illustrated ecstatically tweeted that Dannon yogurt has decided to cut ties with the misogynist sexist Cam Newton.
Here is Dannon yogurt’s statement: “We are shocked and disheartened at the behavior and comments of Cam Newton towards Jourdan Rodrigue, which we perceive as sexist and disparaging to all women,” Michael Neuwirth, the senior director of external communications for Dannon. He said that in an email to USA Today Sports. “It is entirely inconsistent with our commitment to fostering equality and inclusion in every workplace.”
That’s not what you’re doing. You’re trying to sell yogurt. “It is simply not okay to belittle anyone based on gender. We have shared our concerns with Cam and will no longer work with him.” Well, there you have it. See, this is another one of these situations where everybody is assuming that everybody is as outraged as these people are at Cam Newton.
Mr. Snerdley, are you outraged at Cam Newton? You’re outraged at the outrage. No, no, no, no, it’s not a minor thing. He belittled a woman reporter. He belittled a woman simply trying to make her way in the world. She is trying to cover sports, she loves sports, she tried to ask an informed question, one that would impress somebody playing the game. She wanted an answer to what she thought was a legitimate question, and he is laughing at her because of the way she asked the question. And everybody in America is outraged and livid and probably thinks that Colin Kaepernick should be hired to replace Cam Newton.
Now, hang on a minute. This still isn’t over, ladies and gentlemen. It never is when you have me talking about it. Neither Rodrigue nor any of her colleagues in the local media followed up on that comment from Newton when he said, “It’s funny to hear a female talking about routes.” Nobody followed up on that. Rodrigue later took to Twitter to address the matter. The NFL weighed in and said they thought it was reprehensible and horrible and unacceptable for Cam Newton to do this. The NFL came down on a side against a player.
Now, if Cam Newton had wanted to take a knee and disrespect the flag, that’d be fine, they’d be out there defending him, he’s got every right to do it. But this, they don’t have his back. The NFL made it clear they don’t approve. They think it’s outrageous. They think it’s a bunch of other stuff and they don’t have his back on this.
Rodrigue said: “I don’t think it’s ‘funny’ to be a female and talk about routes. I think it’s my job. I spoke with him after and it was worse. I chose not to share, because I have an actual job to do today and one he will not keep me from.”
The NFL’s words were: “The comments are just plain wrong and disrespectful to the exceptional female reporters and all journalists who cover our league. They do not reflect the thinking of the league.”
And then the sports Drive-By Media guy: “There’s nothing funny about it. The comments are indefensible and inexplicable. Good for the NFL to call Cam out for a comment that turns the clock back to the days of Archie Bunker.” That’s how the sports Drive-Bys see it, that Cam Newton became Archie Bunker yesterday when answering that question.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
So Cam Newton gets a question from a reporter. Grab it again. Play audio sound bite number 18 again. Here we go, three, two, one, hit it.
RODRIGUE: I know you take a lot of pride in seeing your receivers play well. Devin Funchess just seemed to really embrace the physicality of his routes and — and making — getting those extra yards. Does that give you a little bit of an enjoyment to see him kind of truck sticking people out there?
NEWTON: It’s funny to hear a female talk about routes, like, it’s funny.
RUSH: Now, all hell has broken loose. Dannon yogurt has severed ties with Cam Newton. The sports Drive-Bys support it. They are eagerly and happily ecstatic that Dannon has broken ties with an African-American quarterback, which is what’s happened here. Cam Newton is African-American. The league’s abandoning him. The league said it’s terribly wrong and so forth and so on.
But it was just yesterday that we shared with you an audio sound bite from Moochelle (My Belle) Obama in which she said at the State of the Union address (paraphrasing), “When you’re in the room what you can see is this real dichotomy. It’s a feeling of color, almost. On one side of the room it’s literally gray and white, literally it’s the color pallet on one side of the room.
“On the other side of the room there are yellows and blues and whites and greens. Physically there’s a difference in color and tone, because on one side, all men, all white. The other side, some women, some people of color. I look at that and I go, no wonder, no wonder we struggle. No wonder people don’t trust politics. We’re not even noticing what these rooms look like.”
According to Obama, the GOP being too white and too male means it’s hard to come up with the right answer to the problems of minorities when you haven’t lived it. Now, she made those comments, and you could hear critics in the aftermath. I don’t think Dannon has broken ties Ms. Obama, but I don’t know that Dannon is sponsoring. Can you grow yogurt in your garden? If not, I doubt that they’re sponsoring Michelle Obama.
But seriously, an African-American quarterback has been thrown overboard by the sports Drive-Bys, soon by the NOW gang. Planned Parenthood probably will get in on the act at some point, and the NFL. And now you realize the next Panthers game, this is all you’re gonna be hearing about from the commentators and the play-by-play people covering it.
There will be roundtables and multiple segments on this outrage on all of the pregame shows, but before that, Sports Center on ESPN tonight and whatever their specific NFL show is, the NFL tonight, NFL this week, whatever it is, they’ll be talking about this. And since all the Drive-Bys are dyed-in-the-wool leftists, each one of them will be outraged, each one of them will have their own unique take on the misogyny here and on the sexism and how this is setting the country back years, not to mention the NFL, a sign of how much we still have to do, how much progress we still haven’t made, how locked in the Dark Ages we still are.
So I think those of you in the African-American community, you need to see what’s happened here. When it was Hillary v. Obama, your Democrat Party threw Hillary overboard. In this case, the sports media and the liberal commentariat is throwing the African-American male overboard. Well, that’s how the left looks at things, folks. They see the color of people and they look at what happened and then they make judgments based on that where they try to find discrimination, civil rights violations, misogyny, sexism, racism, homophobia, it may all be here.
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RUSH: Now, just a little bit of background on Cam Newton recently to put all of this in perspective, and then we’re gonna head back to the phones. Cam Newton supposedly raised a fist in the black power salute after scoring a touchdown in the fourth quarter of The Panthers game last Sunday. He said it was a black power salute. This was in solidarity with his brothers who are taking a knee or linking arms during the anthem pregame and in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick.
Cam Newton also said a couple of weeks ago that the legend Colin Kaepernick sacrificed his career for a movement. And in fact he was speaking to the very same reporterette, Jourdan Rodrigue of the Charlotte Observer who quoted Cam Newton as saying: “My hat goes off to the Colin Kaepernicks of the world. He has made the ultimate sacrifice as a player, and I respect that wholeheartedly. I can’t let a moment go by without shedding light to that, a person that does have the talent to play, a person that should be in this league, but I feel as if he’s not getting his just due because of his views.”
The above was reported back on September 28th by Jourdan Rodrigue, the same reporterette as the one he supposedly insulted yesterday. So she asked him about Kaepernick, he was entirely respectful, and he said all the right things, and even despite that, that bought him nothing. The black power salute. The testament to Kaepernick. The stating that Kaepernick is good enough to play in the league but he’s not being allowed to play because of his views. He said everything right. He said everything he’s supposed to say to stay in good favor and standing with the left mobilizing this issue, and look what it got him, nothing. Absolutely zilch, zero, nada.
Cam Newton is now persona non grata. Whatever goodwill he thought he had built up, if indeed that’s what he was doing, didn’t buy him anything. The sports Drive-Bys are livid. And I’m telling you, as well as that, they are ecstatic at how he is being mocked and criticized. It’s amazing about these people on the left, how they revel in getting people in trouble and exposing them in their views, exposing them.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: As I rub my hands together in a little schadenfreude, from the NBC Sports Talk profootball.com website, headline: “Jourdan Rodrigue Apologizes for Offensive Tweets.” I said, “Whoa, whoa, what, what?” I thought Cam Newton was the perp here. I thought she asked a legitimate football question and he laughed and said it was funny listening to a female talk about routes. The sports Drive-By had a conniption fit and they demanded that Newton apologize, and he hasn’t apologized. They called him misogynist, a racist, a sexist. I mean, the NFL, the whole sports community started dumping on Cam Newton. But now there’s a new wrinkle.
“Panthers quarterback Cam Newton still hasn’t apologized to the reporter he addressed with a sexist comment on Wednesday, but now the reporter has apologized. Charlotte Observer reporter Jourdan Rodrigue posted an apology on Twitter after three tweets she posted years ago were discovered by Black Sports Online.
“In two of the tweets, Rodrigue referenced laughing at racist jokes. In the third she used the,” N-word, slang for the N-word. She’s not permitted to do that. Rodrigue said today, “I apologize for the offensive tweets from my Twitter account from 4/5 years ago. There is no excuse for these tweets and the sentiment behind them. I am deeply sorry and apologize.”
“Rodrigue asked Newton a football question during his media appearance yesterday, and Newton smirked and said he found it “funny” to be asked a football question by a female.” So the story ends with what a reprobate Newton is, it ends with what a reprobate Cam Newton is. The thrust of the story is that the babe admits to laughing at racist jokes and even using the N-word.
But Cam Newton remains a bad guy. Dannon yogurt canceled its advertising marketing representation deal with Cam. They said, “Cam, this does not represent our values. This is not who we are, and we no longer want to be associated with Cam Newton.” Are you asking if Dannon has canceled its advertising in the Charlotte Observer? I don’t know that Dannon advertises in the Charlotte Observer.
Well, that story got in the way of my completing the details on the growing number of transgender people who want to go back. These are people, by the way, the story is at TheFederalist.com. These are people who are claiming that they were talked into gender reassignment surgery. They were talked into it and now they wish they could go back. They wish they hadn’t done it and that people are standing in their way because it would damage the political aspect of this if they reversed.
Let me get to the phones. Again, I’ll have to save the rest of this story for later. Hope I can squeeze it in, but I’m committed to getting to these calls.
The first is Matt in Orlando. Glad you waited, Matt. What’s happening?
CALLER: Not much. I’m glad the warning wasn’t about me. I was a little scared. But my point is, the NFL needs to be consistent in their protests and they need to protest the Las Vegas first responders, police, and veterans. I mean, they gotta be consistent. However, I think they’re gonna try to use this opportunity to redeem themselves. I myself have stopped watching football, buying NFL gear, and I’m contacting sponsors of the NFL saying I’m terminating services, like with USAA and Verizon.
RUSH: So what is it about the NFL being consistent and the first responders? What’d you say the NFL should do?
CALLER: Well, they’re protesting the police, so they need to protest the police consistently.
RUSH: Oh! Oh. Oh. You’re saying the players, by taking a knee are protesting police brutality and all that mistreatment of African-Americans. That’s what Kaepernick was saying and they’re in unison with Kaepernick, and so now —
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: — in Las Vegas the police and the first responders went to the danger, and you think players should continue to protest them for that reason?
CALLER: Well, they need to be consistent. I mean, if they hate the police, they hate the police, you know?
RUSH: Oh. I get it. So if the police, as structured, are bad, then whatever the police did in Las Vegas has gotta be something they did wrong. Maybe they didn’t try to find certain numbers of people. People are looking for ways to expose the fraud that they are seeing in the media because the media is now trying to say these players are not protesting the flag. They’re not the protesting America. This isn’t about the police. Which of course that’s all it is about because they’re all expressing solidarity with Kaepernick, and that’s all he was doing.
But it’s become something more. Now it is a protest against the NFL. Whether these guys doing this know that’s what the impact is or not, they’re actually causing damage to their business. They’re causing damage to the people that own the NFL and pay them. They’re inflicting damage by what they’re doing. They may think they are giving a what-for to the cops or what have you, but the ultimate impact of this is the harm that it is causing the NFL. I’m glad you called out there, Matt.