Art Bell dissects the 1996 U.S. power grid collapse—affecting 11 states, Canada, and Mexico—mocking shifting explanations while critiquing Bob Dole’s combative Today interview with Katie Couric, which he calls an "unmitigated disaster" that dooms his campaign against Clinton amid scandals. Callers rant about social decay (Menendez brothers, child violence) and fringe theories (Frisbyterians, "Steve conspiracy"), while Bell dismisses UFO claims but laments moral decline, like the Aloha, Oregon, boy charged with murder after heroics. The episode’s chaotic mix of politics, conspiracy, and pop culture underscores Bell’s cynicism about democracy and humanity’s descent into absurdity. [Automatically generated summary]
From Canada to northern Mexico, California, eastward to Colorado, poof, it all went down.
Well, not all.
Actually, we retained power here, even though we took a big hit.
We somehow kept power here, but most people didn't.
They say it began when three main transmission lines from Oregon to California went down.
Now, I'm going to ask the same question tonight that I asked then.
Power now has been restored to most of the West, not all of it.
Salt Lake City at 102 degrees and no power.
I'm missing something about the nature of the grid.
Now, that means the knee bones connected to the thigh bone and so forth and so on, all across, apparently all across the West.
And it was my understanding that the reason for the grid in the first place was so that if you lose power, breakers kick in and other areas are protected, or the problem where the problem is is isolated and then other areas keep power.
Obviously, it doesn't work that way.
Not then and not now.
So what in the world is going on with our power grid?
Whatever it is, they still have not obviously fixed it.
So I don't know.
If you have any comments, you're welcome to make them.
I wonder if you lost power.
It was about a third of the United States, and I'll tell you what, baby, it was hot.
Now, had the power gone out here, where I am, and stayed out, I would have had to have virtually abandoned the place.
It would slowly have risen to about 110 or 12 degrees and would not be tenable.
So power is very, very important in the middle of for about two months during the summer, any other time of the year, you know, we'd be able to take it no problem.
Not now.
So I don't understand this grid, and if you work for a power company, maybe you can make me understand.
I would love that.
If you can call and make me understand it, fine.
But to me, it is supposed to protect against this kind of widespread outage, not invited.
Cigarettes, an issue now in the campaign, big time.
It began when Bob Dole said tobacco may not be addictive for somebody.
Or maybe it's not addictive for everybody.
The press accused him of being in the pocket of big tobacco.
As a matter of fact, Bob Dole said Sierra Coop may be brainwashed, may have been brainwashed by liberal media.
Katie Couric did an interview with Bob Dole, which was terrible.
Terrible.
Yes, I saw it, and I've got a fax on it here.
In the interview, Couric hit him pretty hard, and he came fighting back, this time with the mean-edged Bob Dole back again, said the whole thing is because of the media, people like you, meaning Katie Couric and NBC, said the FEC might be interested in the liberal tilt to the media, Federal Election Commission, in other words, that it is not fair.
Here is a facts.
Did you happen, Art, to catch Katie Couric interviewing Bob Dole on this morning's Today show?
Art, I am really trying to give this man a chance, but he never fails to disappoint.
Dole's performance was lousy.
Watching it was physically painful.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, sitting hunched, ill at ease next to his wife, was totally derailed by Couric's questioning regarding campaign contributions by tobacco interests.
Dole's response to Couric was an odd and unattractive mixture of muffled anger and barely concealed befuddlement.
His poorly prepped face, an alluvial fan of wrinkles and crevices.
He lamely moralized about the evils of smoking while simultaneously defending his acceptance of tobacco industry money.
Why didn't his handlers better prepare him for Couric's predictable line of questioning?
It just doesn't work, Art.
Dole can't cut the mustard anymore.
If he's not able to hold his own with Katie Couric, why should we expect anything but a decisive massacre at the hands of Bill Clinton in the presidential debates?
Who wants another geriatric figurehead president precariously propped up with three by five cards furnished by unknown and unelected presidential underlings?
We need a leader, not a card reader.
Stop the campaign.
I want to get off.
Pretty rough, but that, I'm sorry to say, does fairly accurately, in my opinion.
Describe the interview with Couric in the morning.
It was terrible.
Terrible.
Yesterday evening, we discussed later in the show what Mesa, Arizona has done.
They have disallowed smoking in public places, any public city buildings, which would affect smoking in jail, by the way.
You cannot smoke on the sidewalk, I thought you'd want to know.
As a matter of fact, somebody sent me a conversation they had with the police dispatcher in Mesa about smoking in Mesa.
And he called and said, well, can I smoke on the sidewalk?
And they said, no.
Sorry, sir, you cannot.
Can I smoke in my car?
Yes, sir, you can.
Can I smoke if the top on my car is down?
I don't know, sir.
Please hold.
They put him through to a death sergeant.
Wasn't sure either.
Well, yes, you can smoke on a motorcycle.
So it's pretty serious.
This is the first really complete smoking ban that I've seen, folks, in Mesa, Arizona.
I mean, you cannot smoke on a city sidewalk out in the middle of the air because you're going to be that close to any business.
Fourth of July crowds face a threat on Florida and Alabama beaches.
Thousands of hardhead catfish with razor-shop-sharp barbed fins have washed ashore.
It's not known what is killing them.
Dozens of people have been hurt by barbs.
Doctors frequently have to cut them out.
So they're dying like flies.
Another warning, you tell me.
An 11-year-old boy who was originally heralded as a hero in a Portland, Oregon fire last week, has been charged with eight counts of murder in the arson.
So it looks like our hero was actually the one that did the torching.
Police say they arrested him after they interviewed him about the fire that killed eight people, including five other children.
In the aftermath of the blaze, the boys' family had called him a hero for alerting them to the fire, which broke out in the middle of the night.
A local law enforcement official says he's still shocked by the outcome of the investigation.
Well, I'm not.
Two twin six-year-old boys in kind of an ultimate fighting championship promoted by their mother, who videotaped the whole scene for later entertainment, a bloody fight.
You tell me what's going on.
If this is not the quickening, then what is it?
Now, dear Art, this is typical.
I've received so many.
I will simply read you this one, all right?
Art, I have haven't seen a movie opening like this in years.
I stood in line for a half an hour with about 600 other people to get in to see Independence Day.
My high expectations were surpassed.
First, 2001, a space oddity.
Then Star Wars.
Being a trekkie, it was cool to see data as a long-haired, freaky scientist.
Love your show.
That's Jim from Phoenix.
So there you go.
That is typical of the response I'm getting to ID4.
It is going to be a smash hit, probably going to be the movie of the year.
The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works awarded the contract for the new shuttle, or more accurately, replacement for the shuttle, the X-33, experimental now, a wedge-shaped craft, very weird.
It will, they say, operate at one-tenth the cost of the shuttle, fly 40 times a year, carry hundreds of people into space instead of just a few.
Could be in orbit in a decade.
If we get busy now, we'll service our space station.
The Viper militia in Arizona.
12 now in custody, all accused of a frightening plot to blow up federal buildings in the Phoenix area.
How were they caught?
Very interesting story.
November 13th of 95, a deer hunter apparently stumbled into a Viper training exercise out in the middle of the Arizona desert.
So one man, deputized by the ATF, infiltrated this militia.
But one of the Vipers, Viper militia guys, was an AT ⁇ T employee working with the Vipers, got phone records of the guy on the inside and turned them over to the Viper militia.
Presumably, these phone numbers went to, you know, to perhaps the ATF.
And so, presumably, at that point, this guy's life was in danger.
Somehow, he managed to convince them that he was not a cop.
But they then made him take an oath, which said, quote, if need be, I will enter, get this, I will enter into mortal combat against enemies of the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. militia to carry out this oath, so help me God.
There's about 440 militias out there right now.
And NBC last night had the ATF on there saying they're scared.
You know, the ones they know about are fine.
Mostly the big ones, militia of Montana, that kind of group.
And that's fine.
The ones to worry about are the small cells, not of apparent idiots like this group, but small secretive cells that they believe are forming all over the country to do exactly this kind of thing.
Blow up buildings.
Here's a facts from somebody in Phoenix, Hiart, regarding the Viper militia.
One of the houses raided in connection with this odd group is just down the street from me and around the corner.
We live in the Northern Mountain Preserve area, a housing development called Acatello Hills.
My home and many others are on peaks and sides of this beautiful mountainous region with a little road that leads up to some of the most private and elegant homes in the neighborhood.
Last July 22nd, at about 6.10 p.m., there was a tremendous explosion.
A noise so loud I thought a plane had crashed into our house.
It also happened to be my birthday, so I don't forget the date.
At our next block watch meeting, we had a representative of the Phoenix Police Department speak.
He'd come to let us know that various State Departments were looking into this explosion, working on it, which was described as a carload of dynamite set off on the private mountain road.
As the months passed, there were several other explosions in our general area, including a humane society truck blown up in its parking lot.
At the Block Watch meetings, we were updated on the investigations into the explosions.
But the story was that some kids had stolen dynamite from a construction site and were playing around with it.
So there you go.
This obviously has been going on for some time now.
The voters in Russia are going to the polls now in an election that will either give Yeltsin another four years as president or return a communist leader to the Kremlin.
Turnout is up slightly from the first round, and that would bode well for Boris Yeltsin, who probably is going to get four more years.
Whether he will live through them or not is another question.
The Menendez brothers, Lyle and Eric, got life in prison without parole, and they said they would like to be in the same jail together so they might complete their college education together in jail.
And I guess I've got to ask whether you think this is really justice for murder in the first.
Is it?
If you plan something, take a gun, and in a modern version of Liz Borden's adventure, give your mom and dad 40 whacks and blow their bodies to pieces with shotguns.
Is it really justice to trot off to jail to finish your college education?
I wonder.
I wonder.
Somebody sent this to me earlier in the day, and I could not resist reading it.
It is political humor.
Some will find it distasteful, but I found it humorous.
Some positions have opened up on the White House staff.
Should you apply for them?
Well, let's see if you have the right stuff.
Do you suffer from convenient memory loss at opportune moments?
Do you have an irresistible compulsion to shred incriminating documents, especially after they're subpoenaed?
Can you lie at will, convincingly, under oath, in court and before Congress?
Can you lie convincingly enough to beat a polygraph test?
When the next scandal hits, can you take the blame, even though it's actually HRC's fault?
That'd be Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Do you know what fetch the soap means, and are you willing to grab your ankles first and ask questions later?
Will you share your drugs with others?
If you answered yes to all these questions, then maybe you too can be one of the few, the proud, the unindicted co-conspirators.
But those of you who have watched Bob Dole time and time and time and time and time again, somebody sent me a copy of a speech he made earlier today by email, and I'm not even going to read it to you.
It's pathetic.
You know, it's basically, hi, I'm Bob Dole.
Bob Dole wants to be president.
Bob Dole has wanted to be president for a long time.
And Bob Dole's American Dream is to be president and on and on.
Boy, I'll tell you, I'll say it again tonight.
I have had, and I still have, an open invitation to Bob Dole to come on this program.
Not for a short little interview, but to spend two or three hours with us.
And it's his only chance.
Not this program.
I mean, he can do it with somebody else with a good national audience.
But he better do it.
He better, you know, maybe sitting at home, relaxed, not under pressure, and he better let the American people get to know him where this man does not stand a chance.
I know you're all going to be very excited about ID4.
But the rules are no telling the plot, only a review of Cool, I liked it, scale of 10, whatever you want to do, that's fine, but no giving away of the plot.
Go ahead, sir.
unidentified
All right.
Scale of 1 to 10, it's probably a 100.
This is an excellent movie.
Special effects are great.
Everything is great.
There are little references about 2001 and the day the airport stood still and everything.
You know, where it shows the aliens coming to the world and destroying it.
The aliens are a bunch of screw-ups, and we human beings are so nice and good.
And we went out over the evil aliens.
If I'm an alien sitting watching a bunch of crap like that, I'd try to destroy the humans just so they wouldn't spread their garbage throughout the universe.
Well, you know, stuff like that really puts you know, it really turns on a light as far as what humanity is all about, as far as anybody who's not like us, well, they obviously have to be evil and they have to be out to get us because we're good.
No president this century, and I heard this on a TV show today, I won't mention the name, but it mentioned that no president this century has ever been booted out of office who had a reasonably good economy and no major foreign policy blunders.
And so he's got to buck up Bob Dole has to buck up against that.
And then there's something strange out there.
The two Republicans that were defeated in the last 20 years for the presidency, Ford and Bush, their last names had four letters in them.
Dole's last name has four letters in it, so it's kind of just a very good thing.
But the thing about Bob Dole, if I were Bob Dole, you're going up against a guy who has more charisma than you do.
If you're going up against a guy who has more charisma, he's got all these trends in his favor.
The thing about it is you have to try to not make any big mistakes and hope something happens and either foreign policy or something goes wrong around the world because the world is not constant.
Things are going on.
And that's what I would hope, just to stay in the ball game and not make any big blunders.
But the thing about Bob Dole, he can't even do that because he's got this damn temper of his that's always hurt him, consistently hurt him.
Even again it's Bush when he came on the air on that one show and said, why do you keep lying about my record?
Which it was true, Bush was lying about his record, but it made Dole look like the sucker in that.
And so he needs to mellow down on that temper of his and just play it close to the vest, hope something happens to Clinton.
If something does not happen, Clinton is going to win the election.
I likened it once to, you remember the old movie High and Mighty?
Maybe you don't.
You're probably not old enough.
Anyway, it was a good John Wayne movie.
And, you know, you have this thing where in the old days with the piston engine aircraft, you'd get a little more than halfway across the Pacific Ocean and you would come to a point of no return to where you had to go forward.
If something went wrong, it was impossible you didn't have enough gas to go back.
And I don't think we've got enough gas to go back.
I think the little red light in the cockpit point of no return came on a little while ago.
If you were the guy in charge, or the gal in charge, up there, and you looked down on earth now and you looked at all that was going on, the way man was treating man and all the rest of it, and you had ultimate power, what would you do?
unidentified
What would I do?
Yep.
Well, I'll tell you, I'm not used to having power.
Social deterioration, the likes of which I have never ever seen.
Do I know what it means?
No, I truly don't.
I am only an observer.
I am not a prophet, though I have prophets on the show, and I have people like major dames and others who foresee very serious things ahead.
I'm not one of those.
At least I don't see them that way.
I see merely what is going on, and I'm capable of projecting where it's headed.
That's all.
Not a prophet, not a seer.
Not even a religious person, but one who knows that if there is an object to all this religion, if there is, whoever that person or that entity is, he sure ain't happy.
unidentified
The trip back in time continues.
With Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM.
More Somewhere in Time coming up.
Art Bell, Somewhere in Time.
Tonight featuring Coast to Coast AM from July 2nd, 1996.
CIA was listening to Charlie Liberal on the phone and their BS meter blew up.
Too many shredders across the country trying to shred Clinton documents all at once.
Radios all turning on to listen to Art Bell, wrong time.
Technical problem with a special effect during the film of the new movie ID4 vs. Twister.
All employees at the power plant eaten by a chupacabra.
Radar at airports overloaded as aliens land in an attempt to get in line for ID4.
Really intense testing on Art's parts overloads circuitry.
Art plugs all of his ham radio equipment in at once, not funny.
Charlie Liberal drains power attempting to connect to his home planet.
Art, you mentioned all the barbaric acts being committed by adults and children alike.
Yes, for example, the mother with the twin children in the blood sport fight that was videotaped for entertainment.
My question is, where is the grand old deity while all this is going on?
I respect any person's right to believe in a God, but how can anyone really say they know there is one when children are killing people and adults are murdering their children?
Mark, the atheist in Louisiana, never letting an opportunity to get his two cents in.
Art, why did the power go out today?
Real aliens are angry, very angry, about the movie Independence Day, because they lose.
The Bob Dole candidacy makes me believe in conspiracies.
That is the only way I can explain why the Republican powers at B want to hand the election to Bill Clinton.
It's really sad.
There's still time to find another candidate if such a thing is possible.
I'm not sure it is.
I think it's probably too late.
The election is going to be a crowning.
And that brings up the interview with Katie Couric.
And I did see the interview with Katie Couric with Bob Dole.
It was terrible.
Absolutely terrible.
And somebody sent me a fax earlier that really, really sums it up quite well.
Did you happen to catch the Katie Couric interview of Bob Dole on this morning's Today show?
Art, I'm really trying to give this man a chance, but he never fails to disappoint.
Dole's performance was lousy.
Watching it was physically painful.
The presumptive Republican nominee, sitting hunched, ill-at-ease, next to his wife, was totally derailed by Couric's questioning regarding campaign contributions by tobacco interests.
Dole's response to Couric was an odd and unattractive mixture of muffled anger, barely concealed befuddlement.
His poorly prepped face, an alluvial fan of wrinkles and crevices.
He lamely moralized about the evils of smoking while simultaneously defending his acceptance of tobacco industry money.
Why didn't his handlers better prepare him for Couric's predictable line of questions?
It just doesn't work, Art.
Dole can't cut the mustard anymore.
If he is not able to hold his own with Katie Couric, why should we expect anything but a decisive massacre at the hands of Bill Clinton in the presidential debates?
Who wants another geriatric figurehead president precariously propped up with three by five cards furnished by unknown and unelected presidential underlings?
Okay, I'm sure some people do, but it was sort of a generalized comment made in a political argument because Charlie was saying, I think, that all conservatives are mentally ill or something like that.
And so I flew back at him, and it was in that spirit.
And it is true, as you well know, that a lot of people who suffer some form of mental illness think the rest of the world is nuts.
unidentified
Maybe it is.
Yeah, I've considered that.
I just wanted to call and say that because so many people listen to you and respect what you have to say.
And I mean, I know I do.
I listen to you every night.
And there's just so much misinformation out about mentally ill.
I'll tell you, I'm in an interracial marriage.
My husband's what they call black.
I'm what they call white.
And I have much, much more trouble with prejudice and discrimination being mentally ill than I do being, you know, in an interracial marriage.
And it's just when there's something said from somebody I respect like you, I just wanted to call in and say, hey, the spirit of the comment, dear lady, was in combating Charles, who was throwing around, as he usually does, invective about painting all Republicans with a broad brush of insanity.
And that was the spirit of the comment, if you recall the conversation, which I do.
It is said, actually, that one out of four people in the country are or do suffer some form of mental illness.
Now, maybe that's just the psychiatrist's hopeful number.
Or maybe there is some truth to it.
I suspect there may be some truth to it.
I mean, I'm not even sure we know what full sanity is.
And maybe we are the ones.
Maybe three out of four who think they're sane actually are the ones who are, you know, not playing with a full deck.
Maybe there is not really such a thing as playing with a full deck.
And maybe a lot of the people that are presently in asylums, thought to be hopelessly antisocial and mentally disturbed, are actually simply in a bit of a different place than we are.
Who knows?
First time caller line, you're on the air.
unidentified
Yeah, about the attention deficit disorder, like mental illness and things.
I was just thinking that maybe everyone has it to some degree in a different area, and people are using it as a crutch.
And, yeah, I've got several points that I wanted to hit, if I could, real quick, if I could hit them.
First off, regarding Dole's lousy performance in campaigning in general, as well as today, and also regarding what's being piled on Clinton and his apparently surviving it.
Yeah, I agree with that last facts that you read.
It almost makes you want to believe in conspiracies.
It looks to me as if Dole has known that he's going to lose right from the outset as for what the reason is for that.
I think there's more than rumor and innuendo that might point out why.
You know, what with the new Aldrich book and all of the controversy surrounding that, People seem to be just getting used to a lot of gossip that can't quite be constructed.
And moreover, it tends to drive down the number of people that are going to vote.
And I think powerful people like that.
But I think for those who see that the Aldrich book is just a lot of gossip, there's something else out there, another book out there that's been out for some time that most of the talk show hosts, left and right, really don't want to touch.
What is it?
Well, I would first of all urge that people evaluate it for themselves if they want to have a look at it, make up their own minds about it, like everything.
You're probably somewhat familiar with it.
It's called Compromised, Clinton, Bush, and the CIA.
To me, sir, it is part of the same group of publications, videotapes, and all the rest of it that I'm sorry has been helpful in the long run to the Clinton administration because it has so numbed people, so numbed them, that when a real problem came along the FBI files, people didn't even notice it.
As a matter of fact, I had Terry Reid on many years.
I think, as I said yesterday, and I stand by it, that the American people are absolutely numb.
That everything but the kitchen sink has been thrown at Bill Clinton.
So much so that it's like the party that cried wolf.
Now that we've got something serious, people are not paying attention.
So in a kind of a weird, twisted, backward way, all of this has ended up helping Bill Clinton.
Then you've got Bob Dole.
What a terrible disaster with Couric.
What a disaster.
i'm going to say it again and again until somebody in the dole campaign finally hears me if this man is to have any chance at all he needs to come on a program like this one or rush or liddy or somebody who will give him a good extents i'll tell you something If the Dole people called me and said, we'll give you 15 minutes or 30 minutes, I'd turn it down.
What we need is about two or preferably three hours with Bob Dole, right here in the middle of the night, Bob Dole sitting at home with the telephone, relaxed, and just talk to us about who he is.
I see that now as the only chance.
The only chance.
I really mean this.
Somebody who will not go after him the way Couric did.
Somebody who will try to get to the base, the center of Bob Dole.
And if he could relax enough to do an interview and really let us know what he's all about, then maybe there might be a chance.
But if there is a succession of the kind of interviews he had yesterday, it is going to be a massacre at the polls.
It takes a little while to get used to being on talk radio, I guess.
And some people come on, they're nervous.
Some people come on and they just sort of go.
No problem.
Other people need to be on several times before the nervousness leaves.
With regard to the power outage, I once again ask all of you, do any of you have any idea why this grid that is out there, which is supposedly formed to have relays to shut down and isolate the problem and allow everybody else to keep their power, why this grid goes down like so many dominoes every time there is a problem.
Shouldn't somebody be working on this?
I mean, why does it always have to all go down?
unidentified
We'll be back.
This is Premier Networks.
That was Art Bell hosting Coast to Coast AM on this Somewhere in Time.
We'll take
you back to the past on ART BELL, Somewhere In Time.
He is, I don't know if you want to use the phrase the presumptive nominee, but I believe that over this July 4th convention they'll have in Washington, Harry Brown will be the nominee.
And at that point, I will have him back on the air again.
So, I, yes, I'd like to have them all on, but not for little whistle-stop interviews.
I want them for an hour, minimum, two to three hours, would be better.
I really think that we need to get to know these men, particularly in the case of Bob Dole.
I think it's a make-or-break deal.
And I wouldn't say going on Imus for a little joke festival is the way to go either.
I would think that a very serious, down-to-earth, relaxed conversation with Bob Dole is in order.
And if nothing comes out of that, and I think it would, but if nothing comes out of that, then all hope, in my opinion, is gone.
Well, I just had a comment to make on where you said if there's a God that exists, you know, where could he be because of the way things are right now?
I wonder if we will ever know, and I have serious doubts that we will.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
Hi.
unidentified
Hi.
I got in a little late this evening.
I'm calling from Colorado, but wondered if anybody had mentioned what a tank in the works that Richard Lamb's candidate for the Paro Political Party might be.
Hey, just haven't been able to catch up with you much because I've been traveling around down here and getting the internet connection sometimes a little skippy.
And it'd be a pretty amazing bunch of information because I also reference back to when you were having a few days' discussion about the lowering of the sperm count and whatnot.
Melbourne, Australia, I guess is the way you say it.
If you would like to call us internationally, I'm always neglectful of that number.
And you're listening on the internet no matter where you are in the world, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, down in South America, however it is you're hearing us, anywhere outside the USA.
The way to call, now listen closely because I don't get to give this out enough, is get hold of your ATT USA direct access number.
That's what it's called, a USA direct access number.
You can get it from the operator for your country, or you can get it off the internet.
We've got a list up there as well.
Dial that, or if you can't get that, call the ATT operator and have her call for you 800-893-0903.
That is the international number, presently blocked to the USA, Mexico, and Canada, but open to the rest of the world, toll-free.
I suppose, sir, thank you, that there could be a last-minute movement toward an open convention.
That would be very exciting.
But it's not going to happen.
Bob Dole is going to be the nominee.
He is now the presumptive nominee.
He's got everything locked up.
The Republican convention, more than the Democrat Convention, is a kind of done deal.
Now, I'm not going to be here for the convention.
I will be on vacation.
But short of a Buchanan revolution, which I do not expect, it's going to be, I'm sorry to say, a kind of boring rubber stamp on Bob Dole's back, and he's going to be the nominee.
God, I'd like to interview Bob Dole.
He's got to stay away from the Katie Courics, and he's got to get to some people like me.
And this is no big brag statement, but I would just give him a good interview, and it would have to be long enough.
And we've got to get to know Bob Dole.
I just don't know what it is about the kind of interview that Katie Couric would give, and I also don't know where his advisors' heads can be sending him to Katie Couric, knowing exactly what would occur.
And predictably, it did.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
unidentified
Let me implement standard operating procedure and turn down my radio.
No, I think that surrounding you are people that are just monsters, and you're just feasting on them and pitying people for their upper ability compared to yours.
Listening to all the discussion about Mr. Clinton, I thought maybe I might mention something that's happened out here in California in the city of Fullerton.
The 714 area code, if anybody wants to check this.
Anyway, because the state of California has, let's say, had a lot of problems with defense leaving and bases and everything closing, the state has taken more taxes from the people, you know, the cities.
So in the case of Fullerton, the police department had to cut back on lieutenants and sergeants and what have you.
The Justice Department or the people connected with it went out to the city and complained they weren't hiring enough minorities.
And they said they had hired the last five three years previous were minorities.
So anyway, they said, well, that wasn't going to work, even though they had 24% minorities.
They were going to have to have 42% minorities in the city of about 150,000.
Well, they said, well, what are we supposed to do?
And we don't have any money.
And they said they didn't care.
They were going to hire two people from the government to oversee the actions in their office.
And they were going to have to hire these minorities, whether they had to lessen the requirements or what have you.
Now, if they didn't do this, what they were going to do was they had to appear at a hearing.
And if they didn't meet the requirements, they were going to have to pay retroactive salary to any minority that ever applied for a job and failed for any reason, whether it was testing or what have you, to the day that they applied.
Also, any person, minority, that had ever thought about getting hired there but didn't go because they thought they'd be turned down could get paid retroactively.
Well, I just got a fact from somebody who said, gee, Art, you're so negative on Bob Dole, and Rush is so positive.
I haven't heard Rush in quite a long time now, actually.
It's been weeks.
It really has been weeks since I've listened to Rush.
And so maybe I could use some input.
Is Rush really positive on the Dole campaign?
I saw the interview yesterday with Katie Couric, and I thought it was an unmitigated disaster.
Absolutely an unmitigated disaster.
Bob Dole was mean-spirited, angry, non-responsive, and just it was not good.
It was not good.
And that's my take on it.
And I'm not going to sit here and jive you.
I'm going to tell you exactly what I think, and that's what I think.
Unless there is some grand change, I don't think there's a chance this man is going to win.
Not a chance.
I'd love to have him on the program.
Love to interview him.
Love to give him an opportunity to become involved in an interview that would be friendly with the intent of trying to find out what he's really all about.
But I haven't listened to Rush for a long time.
Is he really up on Bob Dole?
Is he really?
That's interesting.
That's what the facts are said.
And it's not that I dislike Bob Dole because I think he is an honest man.
I simply think that in the arena of presidential politics, as a faxer said earlier, somebody who can't keep up reasonably with Katie Couric sure is going to have a hell of a time with Bill Clinton.
So I would kind of like to know what has Rush been doing?
Big power failure in the West, 112 degrees here where I am yesterday.
My power has stayed on, blinked, went into a brownout, but stayed on.
11 Western states went down.
More information on the Viper militia down in Arizona.
This apparently is something they've been working on for a long time.
They managed to get somebody in there, and he almost got caught.
He damn near got caught.
And they accused him of being a cop.
He somehow managed to get out of it.
They made him take an oath, which said, quote, if need be, I will enter into mortal combat against the enemies of the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. militia to carry out this oath, so help me God.
And with that, he stayed in the Viper militia, and the bust came down.
The Menendez brothers, Lyle and Eric, life in prison without parole, hoping they'll be in the same prison so they can finish college together.
And we're beginning to get a flood of reviews on Independence Day, and I have yet to get a bad one.
Everybody is raving about it.
Everybody out there is kind of in a crazy mood this morning.
I sense that.
People are kind of strange.
That's what I think.
They're strange.
Maybe I am too.
Maybe we're all stranged out.
Maybe whatever took down the power grid is now affecting all of us.
I've heard this from other people that have been studying sleep and REM sleep.
And they say that we need certain types of ultraviolet rays during the day.
We do need certain types of light that is good for us.
And if we don't get out during the day and get those certain types of rays, this is a true fact that they say that we live a shorter life, and that's kind of sad.
And I believe the convention is going to nominate Bob Dole.
And again, I would ask those of you who have listened to Rush, has he really been positive on Bob Dole?
That's what somebody faxed me and said, boy, you know, Rush has been so positive on Bob Dole, and you have been so negative.
And I guess I am negative.
I am.
I admit it.
I am.
So negative, frankly, that I'm bored with the whole political process.
Not all that interested in even talking about it.
But, you know, this interview with Katie Couric earlier today pointed out and just, again, underlined for me all the problems I have with Bob Dole.
Do I think that Buchanan ⁇ Buchanan, of course, is great in argument.
Buchanan is great in debate.
But believe me, Bill Clinton would have chewed up into little indecipherable pieces Mr. Buchanan on a number of issues.
Mr. Buchanan, self-destructed, and the fact that Mr. Buchanan couldn't keep it together long enough to take Bob Dole tells you that in a very different sort of way, it would have been a very contentious, interesting campaign with Buchanan, but he would have lost.
And he would have been painted as a radical, successfully painted.
Every rough thing that Mr. Buchanan had ever said would be dredged up and used against him.
And in the primaries, Mr. Buchanan, self-destructed.
Now, the Buchanan supporters that are out there would say it was vote fraud.
I think Dole would stand a chance if he turned around and changed the direction of his campaign and at the convention nominated his wife for vice president.
She's a very capable person.
She's held cabinet posts.
She's run the American Red Cross wonderfully for a couple of years now and changed the point of campaign to being, do you want those people or do you want us with our family values and track record?
And a couple weeks back, somebody mentioned Carl Sagan had written a fictional book on encountering extraterrestrials, the name of that, and nobody knew the name of the book.
They're out there percolating, but they really haven't gone anywhere.
For all the allegations and accusations and the president running out and having midnight trysts and all the rest of it, none of it has really been proven.
None of it has really come to the president's doorstep.
It's all around him, but not to him.
unidentified
Yeah.
Well, as far as him and Dole is concerned, I find them one and the same.
With reference to the lady who called about the Fullerton, California Fire and Police Department personnel hiring.
I'm well aware that is a real story.
And the disgust that I seem to radiate on hearing about it was not for the caller.
It was for the story.
I mean, can you imagine that somebody who was thinking of going to apply for a job but didn't go to apply because they thought they couldn't get it would be able to go into court and collect money, millions, maybe?
I mean, how can you prove that you were thinking of going to get a job?
It's like opening the doors for everybody in the world to walk in and collect.
It's insanity.
Absolute, unmitigated insanity.
Now, those perhaps who actually did go and apply, if they could prove they were turned down because of specific discriminatory reasons, those might have a chance in court.
But to imagine that people could go and apply for a settlement based on the fact that they would tell their attorney that, well, they thought about going down to apply, but they didn't because they thought they'd be discriminated against, that they could collect, that's nuts.
Absolutely nuts.
And so my, and also my comment on the callers was not a reflection on that particular caller.
It was the prior two hours worth of callers, or the majority of them.
There's something crazy out there tonight.
Absolutely crazy.
Maybe it is the continuing window of full moon or something.
I kind of find that it seems to me that children are more and more readily accepting the violence, and it just, I cannot, I cannot believe that, you know.
If there had not been much about Clinton, there hadn't been this constant drumbeat of bashing that really didn't end up going anywhere, and the FBI files thing had come along, people would have been genuinely shocked and upset.
unidentified
Absolutely.
Abuse of power, and they would believe a grain of truth in some of these scandals, but it's just been so non-stop that people say it's all politics, it's all politically based, and they just don't want to believe it anymore.
And like you said before, the economy's good, people are working, and I think people do vote their pocketbook.
And unless we go into some kind of a deep recession between now and November, which is pretty unlikely.
It may or may not be applicable to the power outage, and that is that when I listened the other night about the sunspots and the earthquakes and the blue moon,
I was wondering if possibly there could be something building in either the gravity or magnetic forces out in the area there where the earthquakes have been happening that would have somehow or other affected knocking out some of these power source generators.
There seemed to be no rhyme or reason particularly why five blocks south the people never knew that anybody had any power out except two blocks away from the streetlights weren't working.
Well, what I said was, I don't toe any party line for anybody.
That's not me.
I'm rather independent.
unidentified
Uh-huh.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
I've always been the same way.
I started out kind of liberal, then I moved to Texas here, and then I got a little more conservative as I went along.
But don't you feel that instead of a guy like Dole going into office, wouldn't the country be a little safer with an administration that's been in there for four years, you know, that has something going instead of starting from scratch and then having Dole get kicked out another four years?
I was just wanting to say that the only way I would vote for Clinton is if he divorced Hillary because, you know, either one of them, but both together, they're sickening.
Really?
And I'm hoping that the, you know, Congress will stay Republican.
Under most normal circumstances and elections, I would think that what would occur would be the Congress and the Senate would mainly remain Republican majorities and that Bill Clinton would get re-elected.
That's if you had a reasonable Republican candidate.
But what we have is Bob Dole.
So what I expect and fear is Bill Clinton coming back to office, but with a majority in the Senate.
Well, no, let's say in the House and maybe the Senate.
But anyway, as far as the election goes, I think that as far as the Democratic Party, I compare like the Amtrak or Greyhound bus system.
You might as well forget about defeating it because it's that powerful, just like the Amtrak, you have no other choice as far as another party as far as viable to knock them off the tracks.
And so I don't think we have any good choice as far as defeating the Democrats because it's that powerful.
Everyone would naturally choose that, and the other one wouldn't have any chance of defeating the train or the Congress.
Well, no, the problem with, you see, one of the most delightful things about politics, I do want to talk about quickening, but the most delightful thing about politics is I had a dismal belief in human beings.
And right towards the end of the blackout, we had a really fun little microburst come through here and blew the wind and picked up dust and got dust all over my truck because I left the window open.
It was really, like you said, lots of clichés, great special effects, but as far as plot, it was disappointing.
Although I think it was an important film in that, you know, a lot of people will see it and it will provoke a lot of thought towards that subject matter that might not have otherwise been turned to that.
Secondly, the Viper militia here in Phoenix.
Yes.
They totally, on the news today, they went through and they profiled each of the members.
And they're all like the biggest white trash losers that you can ever find.
Well, usually what the Patriot community does, and of course I don't put up with it, so you don't hear it here, but I'm sure on other talk shows they're saying that this was totally a government thing.
Yeah, they totally, the news had gone up into northern Arizona because they found out where they had practiced and everything.
So they went up there and they took shots of all that, and it was like this old cabin and everything.
And they're turning it into a big deal.
And the way it looks to me is like most of these guys were like, they looked like they were a little out of shape to be taking over the government or anything.
Somebody else with the facts trying to cheer me up.
We'll get to that here in a minute.
This one's entitled, What is Happening to Our Children?
Hi, Art.
I don't know if you've heard about this incident or not, but there was recently a residence fire.
I believe it was an apartment building in Aloha, Oregon, a suburb of Portland.
It killed eight people, including a number of children.
News reports have been saying for a day or two that arson was suspected.
Well, I just heard at the news at the top of the hour that an eight-year-old boy who was originally being praised for having helped rescue a number of people has now been interviewed, after being interviewed by authorities, charged with eight counts of murder.
There are any number of things going on in this world today that sadden me a great deal, but the horror of this downhill slide by the youngest of our children is just beyond comprehension.
When I was eight years old, my biggest problem in life was trying to console myself over being forced to use the hat-playing piece rather than the race car in Monopoly.
I just can't imagine a more prophetic or profound example of the quickening.
I'm depressed too, and politics is the least of it.
Larry in Medford, Oregon.
East of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hi.
unidentified
Yeah, Art, have you ever seen the movie The Stepford Wide?
Well, yeah, and what I've done, because I felt, you know, that politics have been hopeless for, well, since people were announced who were running in the primaries.
And what I've done is I basically knew from the beginning that Bob Dole was going to be the nominee.
And I knew that even though I don't particularly like Bob Dole, that I would definitely vote for him as opposed to Clinton.
And so what I've done is I've already made up my mind and I've stopped thinking about it.
And I don't dwell on it.
I just, you know, hear whatever's in the news and just leave it at that.
But I'm just saying, you know, he stumbled and fell a little bit with the interview, but, you know, he'll pick himself up and he'll get right back going again.
And I think we'll have a Republican in the office here coming into the next century.
So I'm not really that worried about it.
Yeah, I mean, it's something, you know, but I mean, the press has been looking for something to focus on Bob Dole about, just trying to find something that they can trip him up with and everything.
All he had to do was go on the air and say, look, what I said was, some people don't get it.
In fact, I know those people.
I know people that can take or leave cigarettes.
And that's all he had to say.
And aside from that, he could have said, well, you know, I know they're dangerous and so forth and so on, not good for your health.
Everybody knows that.
But instead, he got mean.
He started talking to Katie Kirk about the FEC, the Federal Election Commission, how the liberals are crucifying him, how the FEC ought to look into that, how it's not fair.
I think perhaps that as we propel ourselves into the future and try and contain ourselves by two 200-year-old or ancient doctrines, whether it be religiously or politically, What's happening through a quickening is just a natural process and if we don't stand back from the planet and see it as part of it and let go of what we're trying to hang on to,
the strain we're feeling is not going freely into and the cycle.
And today there's been two major oppositions to Planet Mercury, which rules Gemini and communications, so I think it'll pass real quick, like with this moon.
I hereby invite anybody from Lockheed who could come on and talk about the X-33, what it's going to be able to do, what its capabilities are going to be, and all the rest of it.
I would love to interview somebody from Lockheed about that.