RUSH: I want to move on to Starbucks for a minute because I mentioned this yesterday but didn’t get into a whole lot of details. Starbucks is gonna shut down all their stories for a day to have every employee undergo a racial sensitivity training seminar. Why is it necessary? Starbucks is hip liberalism! Starbucks defines modern-day hip liberalism.

You would think that everybody at Starbucks already is racially sensitive. You would think that there isn’t a single racist anywhere near Starbucks, that they would weed them out, that they would hire them away, get ’em out of there. You would think that no racist would even apply.

If Starbucks, the quintessential, the model, the role model for hip American liberalism is infiltrated with a bunch of racist pigs, then can anything be safe? So they’re having these racial sensitivity retraining camps, seminars, what have you. People are gonna go in there and get their minds right. And I just heard here, Bloomberg reporting that the estimated cost of shutting down Starbucks for a day, 16 and a half million dollars. And get this. There’s an African-American guy demanding free coffee for the rest of his life now as reparations from Starbucks and a barista hands it over immediately.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I heard you guys don’t like black people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE BARISTA: Not our store.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: So I wanted to get my Starbucks reparations.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE BARISTA: Is that a real thing? I mean, I’ll give it to you. I, yeah, I saw that on my Twitter last night, I was like, what the (bleeped).

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah, I need, I need a free coffee.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE BARISTA: I’ll give you a free coffee.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: That’s what I’m…

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE BARISTA (to another barista): Did you hear what happened?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: … talking about! This is justice.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE BARISTA: Where was that, Arizona?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE BARISTA: Philly.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This is justice. This is what I’m talking about.

RUSH: That was in Philadelphia. Reparations for the — and I’m not sure it was in Philadelphia. Unidentified Starbucks. Don’t know where it is, but the guy walks in demanding reparations, the barista, “Oh, yeah, whatever you want. It’s not our store, it’s not our store, yeah, that’s so F-bomb, sorry.”

Here is Howard Schultz, who is the founder, CEO, head honcho. He was on CBS This Morning with Gayle King. “What, if anything, does the company do for the two black men who were offended here, Howard?”

SCHULTZ: So what we have tried to do with the two young men — and Kevin has met with them — is ask them, what can Starbucks, given our resources and the capabilities we have, they have an interest in real estate, what can we do to help advise them and support their own business endeavors? And I think what will come out of is that, given the resources that we do have, that we will provide them with a foundation of learning and provide them with an opportunity to be part of our company, either directly or indirectly, as a result of this situation.

RUSH: Look, I don’t have time to react here ’cause of time, but that’s incredible. That’s mind-boggling.

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RUSH: So Starbuck’s is gonna use their resources to set these two guys up. They have an interest in real estate, so what can we do to help advise them and support their own business endeavors? Give ’em a plot of land, build ’em a building, whatever, so long as they don’t sue us. As you heard the first spite with the black customer, it’s reparations time, baby. Lifetime Starbucks coffee is just the opener.

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RUSH: I got an email during the break, “What do you mean, ‘Starbucks is the quintessential liberal organization’?” Aw, come on, folks! Don’t get into a little smackdown on this. You can’t deny — nobody can deny — that Starbucks has a left-leaning, liberal-tilt identity. Come on! This is exactly… If you don’t know that, then you can’t vote in an informed manner. If you don’t know that Starbucks is every bit the leftist organization that ESPN is or that the Democrat Party is, then, man, you are gonna have to work overtime to get up to speed.

And that’s why racism abounding in Starbucks is such a shock, because, look! The left teaches that they are perfect. The left is nonjudgmental. They don’t notice race, sex, gender. It’s only the right that does, right? It’s only conservatives and Republicans that are racists and sexists and bigots and homophobes and all of that. But in liberal organizations, there’s no discrimination against women. They make the same amount as men do, right?

Nope. Nope.

They don’t.

They didn’t in the Clinton White House. They didn’t at the Clinton State Department. And there’s no racism anywhere in liberal organizations, because they are perfect. Wrong again. There’s racism everywhere in liberalism, and there’s bigotry everywhere in liberalism, and there’s even homophobia in liberalism. It’s just that most of the homophobes know enough to shut up about it. But some of them, it leaks out, and they end up in deep doo-doo.

So now we’ve got racism at Starbucks, and the left is scrambling! If you don’t think that Starbucks has a thoroughbred liberal identity… (interruption) No, I’m not saying don’t go there; don’t drink the coffee. It’s fine if you want to. I don’t care. I’m just telling you that they are politically engaged. They help to politicize the culture. They donate exclusively to Democrats and far left-wing causes. They’re big believers in the climate change hoax. They’re political!

This is my point, folks. The leftists have made everything political. We did not do that, except to the extent that conservatism is common sense. So common sense wherever it is, if you want to call it political, fine, but it really isn’t. The left has turned everything in this country into some leftist political hysterical propaganda. Sports! Sports has been politicized. They’re on the way to ruining it! They’re on the way to ruining sports media.

They’re on the way to ruining sports in terms of the actual athletics and competition. Television shows, movies. I just read a review. You know, I read everything, folks. It’s what I like to do. It’s required for my gig here. I stumbled across a liberal really fed up with the remake of Will and Grace, the comedy show that I guess broke ground with gay and lesbian characters being portrayed in normal settings. This liberal reviewer was all fed up that they’ve watered it down too much and it isn’t funny and it’s not getting the political message out the way it used to.

Don’t tell me these people haven’t politicized everything. Education, the internet. What do you think net neutrality is? Net neutrality is just a different name for the left having their people regulate the thing. So you’ll forgive me if I am laughing uproariously and with great glee over the left now attacking one of its own sacred institutions: Starbucks. So Starbucks is shutting down all its stores to teach its employees about racial diversity and sensitivity.

Again, I’m telling you: If they have to do this, then something is really, really wrong. By definition, there isn’t any racial insensitivity in liberalism. Therefore, everybody working at Starbucks should already be a perfect human being. And to the extent that they’re not or that they’re unhappy, it’s gonna be some conservative’s fault! These are the same employees ordered to talk to customers about race in 2015. Do you remember that? Have you forgotten that?

There was a racial incident at a Starbucks somewhere, and the Starbucks management ordered employees to actually talk to customers. Starbucks opened a Starbucks in Ferguson in the middle of the riots to prove their purity. Do you think that’s not political? That’s saying, “Look at us. Look at how pure we are! Look at how great we are! Look at how unracist we are! We will open a store in the middle of the riots — and we will do so fearlessly, because we are perfect.”

Starbucks, like many other left-wing organizations, has set itself up as the great arbiter, the great definer, the great purveyor of left-wing ethics and principles. It’s a coffee shop, for crying out loud! Teach your employees how to make coffee, be nice to people, and be done with it. But, no! We got turn ’em into political warriors. We gotta turn ’em into political messengers. We gotta turn ’em into political activists.

Just sell your damn coffee and make your profit — and feel guilty about it if you do. It’s your only job: Sell coffee that people want to drink and make a profit. I know it’s embarrassing. (interruption) What? (interruption) What do you mean, “They’re not embarrassed”? Privately they…? They do everything they can to cover up how much money they make! They’re not running around bragging about it. They’re not saying, “Look at us! Look at our capitalistic we are! Look at how successful we are!”

They cover it up. They’re trying to make it look like they’re not in the business for money like all liberals do. What think the purpose of a nonprofit is? The purpose of a nonprofit is to give liberals a great image that they don’t care about money. Nonprofit! Nonprofit equals bulls… It does. “Nonprofit” my (pfft!) formerly sizable rear end. Nonprofit. Cut me some slack. Here’s… We got more sound on this. Here’s Eric Holder. He’s going to help Starbucks train their racist employees. Holder is going to be conducting many of the racial retraining sensitivity seminars.

HOLDER: They understand that what happened in Philadelphia, uh, was inappropriate, was wrong, and they want to try to get things right. And I think that what they’re gonna tried to do is close the stores, go through some unconscious bias training. Uh, put together a panel — of which I am a member — to help advise them in — in that regard and hopefully not have a repeat of that. But what I think is that we should not as a society, as a country feel comfort in the notion that this is a Starbucks problem. This is a problem that is much larger.

MAN: Right!

HOLDER: This is a problem our nation has to deal with.

RUSH: You see, my friends? It’s never about one isolated little pocket. No. It’s the whole damn country sucks. The whole damn country’s a bunch of racist pigs. Don’t blame Starbucks. Don’t blame them alone. This is everywhere. This is from the guy, Eric Holder, who as attorney general said that we’re a bunch of “cowards” for not talking about race nearly enough. Not talking about race? That’s all we do! We’ve had so many damn conversations about race.

That’s what makes it amazing. Starbucks even has racists in there. (interruption) It’s a good point. It’s a good point. I have to acknowledge, it’s a good point. Why didn’t Holder, why didn’t Howard Schultz, why didn’t all these people fix this problem when Obama was president? Why wasn’t the example set by the first African-American itself enough alone to change the culture at Starbucks? How could there have been racist thinking, racist behavior in Starbucks during the Obama administration, and why didn’t they do something about it then?

But you see, we gotta let Starbucks off the hook because it’s not just them. It’s all of us. It’s everywhere. And we have Mellody Hobson. Mellody Hobson is a Starbucks member of the board of directors. So she has to go out… This is profoundly embarrassing to these liberals that believe their institutions are pure and not affected. So she was on the CBS Evening News last night. The anchor Jeff Glor said, “What was your reaction when you first saw this video,” this mean-spirited, extremist, racist behavior to two black customers at a Starbucks?

HOBSON: I was stick about it, I have to tell you, because I knew that was not the company where I’ve been on the board for all of these years, and I knew the integrity of the people and what the company stands for and aspires to be. And I was very, very, very disappointed and expressed that right away and said we’ve gotta make this right. But everyone agreed.

RUSH: Right. Of course, everybody agreed. We’ve gotta make this right. How did it go wrong, Mellody? I mean, you’re running around — look, folks, these are the people running around pointing fingers of blame at us all damn day. Whenever they spot racism, and it’s usually among people that own guns, when they spot it, they’re pointing fingers of blame, they’re shouting insults at us.

They’re demanding the federal government take action against us. And yet where is it really? It’s inside their walls! It’s inside their institutions and companies, no less than Starbucks. And so now Mellody Hobson has to look inward. She was very, very disappointed. And she told ’em right away, she told the rest of the board of directors she was really, really disappointed. We’ve got to make this right.

So I guess Starbucks is gonna give us the ongoing instruction on making or paying reparations. There was one more question here for Mellody Hobson from the CBS anchor, Jeff Glor. “Okay. So taking a half day to do racial bias training. Does that accomplish the goals?”

HOBSON: This is serious. We’ve only ever closed the stores once in the history of the company and that was back in 2008. So this is a big deal, and this is us saying, “We are going to take whatever time and energy we need to take, spend the money that we need to spend, because obviously there will be lost sales during that period, to make sure that our people are trained about these issues and why this is so important to create an environment that speaks to the community that we stand for at Starbucks. This is a big deal.

RUSH: What happened to “this is who we are?” What happened to “these are our values?” Where are your values? Why do you have to train anybody? Why are you hiring racists? Why are you hiring people that don’t fit the Starbucks ethic? Are they fooling you? Do you not know how to recognize them? Are they sneaking past you? This is seriously what gets me.

I mean, they present themselves as pure. They’re the ones that are perfect. The problems exist elsewhere in society. They are the answer, right? So how can this be? Why do you need retraining seminars? Why do you need any of that? Why do you need to make sure people are trained about these issues? Why do you need to create an environment that speaks to the community we stand for? If you speak for the community, then why is there anybody in there not speaking of the community?

You know, Obama used to run around (imitating Obama), “This is not who we are. These are not our values.” Well, obviously there’s some sabotage going on at Starbucks. What do you think is sneaking in there and getting hired? From what conservative group?

Do you think Trump supporters are going in there and getting hired under the pretext of being clean and pure as the wind-driven snow and then– (laughing) No. There are some Trump supporters in Philadelphia. I know them. There are at least four. There are four Trump supporters in Philadelphia that I know.

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RUSH: Wesley in Carneys Point… Is that New Jersey? Great to have you, Wesley. How you doing?

CALLER: (garbled cell) I’m doing good, Rush. Thanks for taking my call. I just had a point about Starbucks. I live close to Philadelphia and get their news and it was my understanding through the news reports that the manager of that store is just following policy by not allowing anyone to use the restrooms if they hadn’t purchased anything. And then these gentleman refused to leave the store and that’s when the lady called the police.

RUSH: Well, now, wait a minute. What is a transgender to do? Because Starbucks is supposed to be opening and welcoming of transgenders. That’s a big liberal cause. And, you know, transgenders have the right and freedom to use any bedroom they want! And Starbucks is gonna tell them that they can’t use it unless they buy something?

CALLER: I understand that’s their policy. Whether that’s part of it or not, I don’t know. But the manager is only following store policy.

RUSH: Well, actually, though, what is wrong with that, in your mind? What’s wrong with that? I mean, there are gas stations that won’t let you use the restroom — even with the condition some of them are in. They won’t let you use the rest or the condom machine inside unless you buy something.

CALLER: That’s right. I work for a little business around here and there’s places I go as part of the business that won’t let you use their restroom. So, I mean, that seems to be policy all over. I just wonder how far this is gonna go now that it started with Starbucks just because the manager was following store policy.

RUSH: I get your point. I mean, Starbucks should be open and accepting and tolerant and understanding. When you gotta go, you gotta go, and Starbucks should be sensitive enough to understand the concept of a bulging bladder, a weak sphincter. In either case, they should be accommodating. But on the other hand, it cuts both ways. They won’t let you use a table. You can’t walk into a restaurant, sit down, have a table, an dnot order something eventually.

And if the place has maitre d’ or something like that, you’re not gonna be seated, or you won’t stay seated long if you don’t. It cuts… (interruption) What about a bar? What about a bar? (interruption) Oh, of course, at a bar! They’re not gonna let you sit at the bar unless you buy something. You can’t sit in there and just camp out. “Oh, I’m waiting on my contact.” “Sorry. You gotta buy something first.” That’s a policy I really… I understand it. It became… (interruption)

They were the enforcing what equally? The restroom policy? Is that what the guy said? I couldn’t understand half what he was saying. His call… (impression) “He sounded like this I couldn’t understand him.” So I was just… (interruption) Oh. (interruption) Ohhhhhhhh. Oh. Oh. Starbucks, it’s alleged, was throwing the black guys out who weren’t buying anything but the white guys were allowed to stay? See, I don’t understand that. How could liberals be so insensitive? How could they be so discriminatory?

(interruption) Really, there’s a Starbucks video in LA? So a white guy wanted to use a bathroom and they said, “Sure, have at it.” A black guy wanted to use the bedroom and they said no? Exactly my point. How can Starbucks…? This should not be happening at Starbucks. This would not happen at the DNC. This would not happen at Tom Steyer’s house. This wouldn’t happen. How come there is this kind of discrimination at what would be a flagship liberal cultural institution? I’m genuinely… I’m serious about this.

It may sound funny, but I’m not trying to be flippant. I’m dead serious about this. These are the people that preach to us about their perfection. These are the people that run around pointing fingers all day long at people they think are discriminatory, racist, sexist, bigoted, all that. They do it constantly! It’s how they shut people up. And then you find out inside their own walls, inside their own businesses, they’re the ones that actually engage until this stuff.

It’s just rampant, blatant hypocrisy.