Rush: Union, Politics Behind Ouster From Rams Bid

RUSH LIMBAUGH discussed his departure from a group bidding to buy the LOS ANGELES RAMS on his show TODAY, alleging that his dismissal was engineered by the NFL PLAYERS ASSOCIATION to show its power over the owners and suggesting that the addition of liberal billionaire GEORGE SOROS to the ownership group may have been related to his being dropped from the DAVE CHECKETTS-led consortium.

LIMBAUGH, noting that union head DEMAURICE SMITH donated to the OBAMA campaign, said that "the real reason ... that pressure was brought upon me by (Rev. AL) SHARPTON and (Rev. JESSE) JACKSON and DEMAURICE SMITH and the commissioner is that the PLAYERS ASSOCIATION is using my involvement in the RAMS and this whole episode as a bit of leverage in their negotiations, the upcoming negotiations with the league and with the owners on a new collective bargaining agreement. That is what's really going on, and the PLAYERS ASSOCIATION ... I don't know how many players know this, but Mr. SMITH has let it be known that if he has to he'll bring the WHITE HOUSE into this. He'll bring the CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS into this. So OBAMA's AMERICA is quite possibly going to include the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, and pressure from OBAMA, the CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS and other places might be brought to bear on the owners. I can't imagine that that's anything they want. You know, as all businesses are, they're regulated to a certain extent by the federal government but this would be a huge expansion of that. And that threat is being bandied about." 

He said that the union-led brouhaha over his participation was "designed to intimidate the owners, frighten the owners and say, 'We're running this league now, gang, not you. Even though you may own the teams, we're running it, not you,' and this was a little warning shot fired across the bow to the owners to say, 'Get ready, here we come,' for the next collective bargaining agreement."  

LIMBAUGH said "I have lost nothing. I have lost very little. On the other hand, our country has lost a great deal -- a lot more than most people realize at the moment."

LIMBAUGH also decried "the lying... the made-up quotes, the blind hatred" of sports reporters, who circulated incendiary racial quotes that LIMBAUGH says he never made.

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