RUSH: Norman in Holbrook, Arizona. I’m glad you waited, sir. How are you doing?

CALLER: Rush!

RUSH: Hey, Norman, how are you?

CALLER: I am super good and getting better. The master of liberal versus conservative mixed mind-grappling martial arts. You continue to bring knockout power to conservative talk radio, Rush.

RUSH: I like that. I may appropriate that in my liner stash.

CALLER: (laughing) I understand that. And from the land of the recently beleaguered John McCain, mega golf smacking and cigar smoking dittos.

RUSH: Well, great to have you in the audience out there, Norman.

CALLER: Hey, Rush.

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: I just read here that the NFL has got this figured out. Old Goodell and his cronies, they figured out the best way to figure this anthem kneeling problem is to throw about $90 million at it.

RUSH: No, no, no, no, no, $100 million.

CALLER: Okay, it’s gone up.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: It’s gone up. They want to give the United Negro College Fund 25%, the Green Corps 25%, and 50% to the Players Coalition. I mean, they have it figured out now. Let’s throw some money at it. But my question is, Rush, is the Players Coalition the same as the NFL union?

RUSH: Yes. Well, it turns out there’s the NFL PA. That’s the union. And then there is a coalition of players that is independent of the NFL PA that has been organized for the purposes of this issue. And they are not in agreement. You’re very shrewd out there, Norman, to have picked up on this.

CALLER: And, Rush, this money they want to throw at it are donations. Where are they getting these donations from?

RUSH: Let me explain this to you, because it was gonna be my next story, Norman, and I didn’t want to steal your thunder. It was right here, the next thing in the Stack, and so I wanted to use your call as a segue and I appreciate it. Norman, since I did steal your thunder, are you still there?

CALLER: Yes, sir.

RUSH: Do you happen to need a new cell phone? If you do, I’d like to give you one. If you don’t want one, don’t need one, you don’t have to take it.

CALLER: I absolutely do and I’m gonna hand mine down to my wife ’cause she needs an upgrade.

RUSH: All right. So you have any preference in kind? Got the iPhone 8 Plus which is a great phone. The iPhone X is a new one that’s Face ID. It’s really, really cool, but what do you have now? What kind of phone are you using now?

CALLER: Rush, I have a Samsung. It’s S6 Plus or a 6S Plus whatever that is.

RUSH: Oh, you have no idea what you’re in for! Are you sure you want to move to Apple?

CALLER: Yes. Rush, I have an iPod Touch. It’s just to store music.

RUSH: That’s exactly what it’s for.

CALLER: Wonderful little device to store music and I use it all the time.

RUSH: All right. So you’re familiar enough with iOS. Okay, so you hang on, and Mr. Snerdley will get the pertinent information we need from you, including your address and your carrier and all that and we’ll get it out to you as soon as we can. We have a whole little presentation we put together as we send these out, so it may take a day or two to get it to you.

Now, here’s the deal. Folks, when I first saw this, here’s this headline: “NFL Offers $100 Million Plan For Social Justice Organizations In Partnership With Players.” And my first reaction was, when did Jesse Jackson worm his way into this? Because this sounds like a Monochrome Coalition shakedown if I’ve ever seen one.

I mean, this is the way the Reverend Jackson and Sharpton, I mean, they would threaten boycotts against companies, and they would claim that the companies were under-hiring minorities or they were advertising in bigoted, racist ways. And the companies would then, of course, offer the Reverend Jackson penalty payments in exchange for the Reverend Jackson shutting up.

The NFL just cannot bring itself to tell the players, as its employees, “You guys like playing in this league? Then you’re gonna stand up. One of the conditions of employment is to stand for the anthem. At most, it’s two minutes. It’s just two minutes. And then we play the game.” But the NFL doesn’t have the fortitude to tell ’em that.

So the NFL wants to buy their allegiance. The NFL wants to purchase the apparent loyalty of the players. So the details of this — it was announced on Monday. The league submitted to players a final draft of a proposal that would contribute nearly $100 million to causes considered important to African-American communities, which means to the Democrat Party.

Whatever else this means, the NFL has agreed to funnel a hundred million dollars to causes important to the Democrat Party. That goes without saying, but I wanted to say it to leave no doubt. This is one of the most effective shakedowns I’ve ever seen, beginning with Colin Kaepernick refusing to take a knee last season, spending Thanksgiving Day on Alcatraz Island celebrating unthankfulness day, inspiring other players to kneel.

The NFL is paying a steep price for this. In-stadium attendance is down, TV ratings are down, and the NFL has decided that it’s worth a $100 million payoff here to try to get the ratings back up and attendance back up by getting the players to stop publicly demonstrating their lack of support for America and the flag. The NFL hopes that the $100 million will effectively end the protests, which is a laugh.

The thing about blackmailers is that once they get paid, they always want more. The original payment, damn, it just wasn’t enough. We realized we didn’t ask for enough. We realized we screwed up in the original allocation of the distribution.

Now, “Some players who have actively protested since 2016 are displeased with the NFL’s approach and plan to break from the Players Coalition, a group of roughly 40 players who negotiated with the league … Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins and former NFL wide receiver Anquan Boldin are regarded as the leaders of the coalition.

“Miami Dolphins safety Michael Thomas and 49ers safety Eric Reid tweeted Wednesday that they are withdrawing. ‘The Players Coalition was supposed to be formed as a group that represents NFL Athletes who have been silently protesting social injustices and racism,’ Thomas and Reid said via Twitter. ‘However, Malcolm and Anquan can no longer speak on our behalf as we don’t believe the coalition’s beliefs are in our best interests as a whole.'”

So the NFL negotiated this deal with apparently just two players representing 40 other players, thinking that a massive $100 million payoff would work. Here’s how it amortizes. The league “will create an environment in which players will no longer want to protest. The NFL’s multifaceted offer earmarks at least $89 million over a seven-year period for both national and local projects, according to the documents. On the national level, owners this year would allocate $5 million, with their commitment growing annually and maxing out at $12 million per year from 2021 through 2023. At the local level, owners would put up $250,000 annually and expect players to match that amount, totaling $500,000 for each team.”

Players having to match ain’t gonna fly. Just telling you right now, players having to match it, it ain’t gonna fly. Neither is a hundred million dollars over nine or 10 years gonna fly. Let me ask you, if you’re a football fan. Let’s say this happened, let’s say the NFL does the deal and somehow the players unify, go for it, agree to stand for the anthem, is this gonna end your problems with the NFL?

If the players all of a sudden stop protesting verbally, if they stop kneeling during the anthem, are you going to automatically return to your TV sets on Sunday and Monday nights, as though nothing ever happened? My instincts are that this isn’t gonna work the way they think it’s gonna work. In fact, my instincts are that it isn’t gonna help. It’s gonna — the fans — I can’t believe how out of touch.