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June 3, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:14
June 3, 2005, Friday, Hour #2
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Well, now I'm frustrated.
Now I'm frustrated.
The commercial break ended too soon.
I have, I've got the new Mac OS 10.4 Tiger.
And there's a, oh, should I even get into this?
Oh, I will.
And just, it's Friday.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program.
Let's go.
And it's great to have you with us on our first day of podcasting at www.rushlinbaugh.com.
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A little quick thing.
I got 10.4 Tiger, actually running 10.4.1.
And there's a new preview app that's a much quicker way of viewing PDF files than opening up Adobe Acrobat.
So I use PDF or preview to open PDF.
And I thought that this new program allowed me to take the text of a PDF message and copy it and move it to some other application.
I thought I'd read that it did that.
So I'm trying to do this and it doesn't do it.
I thought it did.
If there's a way to do it and I haven't figured it out, I'd like to know.
But the reason is I want to send what I got to somebody on a Blackberry.
And a BlackBerry will not open PDFs.
So I actually have to get the text off of this PDF and put it in like an email document or a Word document or whatever and then send it out that way.
Preferably an email document because it'll show up as the text.
So I was trying to do that during the top of the hour commercial break here and I was using the text tool, the annotate tool.
I was using a select tool.
None of it, I mean, it doesn't work.
I don't know if Acrobat does this, but I thought that there was all this new workability now with PDFs that you can take the text in them and edit it and all sorts of things.
And it probably is.
I just haven't figured out how to do it.
This is the first time I tried it.
Anyway, so that's why I was frustrated.
All right.
When I opened the program an hour ago, I mentioned that a prediction I made is starting to come true.
And I'm going to mention this.
I'm going to go to the phone calls.
I have a little blurb here that I got earlier today from another website.
We're already seeing rumblings of the next big thing for the Democratic Party.
It's impeachment.
Let me count them.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Different web links that you can click on and find impeachment websites for petitions for people to sign.
Now, they're kooks.
They're kook sites, but hey, who's dictating things to the Democratic Party these days?
They're kooks.
Democrats, I told you, I told you before last year's election, if Bush wins this, keep a sharp eye.
They'll start on impeachment.
And you know what?
I'll tell you what it's going to be.
Abu Grab and Gitmo.
This judge, Alvin Hellerstein, has decided that not only should pictures from Abu Grab be released under the Freedom of Information Act, so should videos.
This is a Freedom of Information Act brought by the ACLU.
Judge Hellerstein the other day said, okay, the more pictures, the better.
Now videos as well.
And the purpose, the ACLU says, is to demonstrate that it's not just a bunch of renegade soldiers, but that this went to the top.
Ergo impeachment.
I'm just warning you, it's percolating out there on these Kook Democrat websites, and I predicted it.
In fact, I've got, in fact, there's even a one of these links is to a letter to the editor in the South Florida Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale.
And this letter to the editor talks about how Bush needs to be impeached.
Now, my experience with letters to the editor in South Florida newspapers is that they generally are the forerunners of upcoming editorials.
So I wouldn't be surprised if there was an editorial from this newspaper someday about the need maybe to look into impeachment because of Abu Ghraib or whatever they come up with, forged documents that are true, whatever they come up with.
Now, get this, along the same lines, our buddies at Newsmax today.
Our buddy Carl Limbacher has the story.
Failed presidential candidate John Kerry said yesterday he intends to confront Congress with a document touted by critics of President Bush's evidence that he committed impeachable crimes by falsifying evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
John Kerry on the floor of the Senate.
Well, I don't know if he's on the floor of the Senate, but he said he intends to confront Congress with a document touted by critics.
I guarantee you, it's from one of these wacko-kook websites.
Kerry said, when I go back to Washington on Monday, I'm going to raise the issue, referring to the Downing Street memo in an interview with the Massachusetts Standard Times newspaper.
Kerry said, I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home.
The Downing Street memo, first reported on the 1st of May by the London Times, was drafted by Matthew Rycroft, foreign policy aide at Tony Blair.
It's said to be minutes of a July 2002 meeting where Blair allegedly admitted the Bush administration fixed Iraq intelligence to manufacture a rationale for war.
Ralph Nader called for an impeachment investigation on Tuesday in an op-ed piece published by the Boston Globe.
It's time for Congress to investigate the illegal Iraq war as we move toward the third year of the endless quagmire that many security experts believe jeopardizes U.S. safety by recruiting and training more terrorists, wrote Nader.
The British memo contains no quotes from either Bush or Blair and is notably slim on evidence implicating Bush in a WMD cover-up.
So when you got John Kerry out there going to confront Congress with this, and I've got these 10 website links, I just want you to remember, predicted it right here on this program.
They are failing to get Bush discredited any other way.
The three of these judges that they despise are going to be confirmed to the circuit court.
It's going to be a Supreme Court nominee coming up.
And remember what the purpose, I'm convinced the purpose of the Democratic Party is, is to have, is to live out these eight years with Bush in the White House.
And at the end of the eight years, have as little to show for it as possible.
They're just, to them, these whole eight years are illegitimate because 2000 Florida was illegitimate.
2004 was thus illegitimate because Bush was selected, not elected.
So he didn't have a right to run for re-election in 2004.
Then he won.
That's fraudulent because of voting machine problems in Ohio.
The race was too close to call, except for those 130,000 votes.
And so they're trying to make this illegitimate, delegitimize this whole eight years.
That's their policy by obstructing everything.
And now to attempt to tie the administration that you watch, this impeachment stuff is not just going to remain on websites.
That is, it now hasn't.
It's now been actually mentioned by John Kerry.
Here's Alan in Atlanta.
Alan, I'm glad you called.
Welcome to Open Line Friday.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
Thanks for taking my call.
You bet, sir.
Yeah.
I was thinking, do you think this attempt by the media to immortalize Mark Felt and classifying him as a hero is nothing more than a long-running advertisement that's really an attempt to recruit a Bush leaker that'll step up and take down the current administration in the same way they took down Nixon?
No, I don't think it's really about that, but I think that's a part of it.
I don't think they're doing this so that they can convince Bush leakers to come forward.
I think they're doing this to relive their glory in salad days.
But I think they probably would not disagree with you that it has that ancillary purpose.
Sure.
You too can be a hero of the Washington Post.
Just come tell us some dirt about George W. Bush, but make sure the documents are real.
You too can be a hero to the New York Times.
You too can be a hero to CBS.
Yeah, I don't doubt that there is, because they're making a big push now that this validates, validates anonymous sources.
Validates anonymous sources.
So yeah, you can say it's a little bit of an invitation here to get more of this.
No question about it.
Quick timeout.
Thanks for the call, Alan.
Back in just a second.
My gosh, I'm glad I ate lunch earlier today.
I would have been getting sick of seeing that.
Just watching CNN.
Greetings.
Welcome back, Rush.
Well, it was a picture on CNN.
That's not CNN itself.
I figured out why I can't.
The text in this PDF is actually an image.
It's a picture of a letter.
It's not the text itself.
I could get the text if it was text, but this is a scanned image of a letter.
So I would have to type it manually if I wanted to send it to somebody who cannot open a PDF on a Blackberry.
Anyway, we are back and we continue now on the phones.
We'll start with Melissa Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Nice to have you on the program.
Thank you.
It's an honor to speak with you today.
Thank you.
I wanted to thank you for making podcasting available.
You're welcome.
I started listening to you two years ago and it made me realize how extremely conservative I am.
And I later, about two months after that, became engaged and I thought, oh, no, what if he's not as conservative as I am?
And through listening to you, he has really come around.
And this podcasting is really going to make it a lot easier for me to continue my husband training.
Well, you know, I'm always happy to help with that.
In fact, I could probably help you.
I've been so well trained in the past in that regard, and I know the techniques because I've been the victim, the TARP, whatever.
I know what you're, the student.
I've been the, yes, the student.
I've been the student of such retraining.
And if this helps, you know, I'm all for happy marriages.
And if this will help your marriage, you know something else you can do with this, Melissa.
I mean, people are always asking in emails, could you send me that monologue?
Could you send me my mom?
I was a great best of monologue.
That show's great.
You can put together your own best of shows here, hour by hour, anyway, because the files are sent to you that way, first hour, second hour, and third hour.
So there's any number of things you can do.
Now, these can be big files, folks.
I have to tell you, these are MP3s, but three hours of an MP3 is pretty big.
So you will be chalking up your hard drive here if you keep a lot of these.
So you might want to have, you know, put them on CDs, especially if you've got a CD player that plays MP3 files or transfer them to your iPod or MP3 player or what have you.
But, you know, they are data hogs.
I mean, they're compressed as they are, but still, they'll eat up some hard drive space.
Now, this doesn't concern me because what is my hard drive?
I have to look.
I'm not sure what my hard drive is.
But I mean, No, not yet, not quite in terabytes, but it's multiple gigabytes.
So this, of course, I will not have a problem with.
But if you've got a laptop that you use or whatever, it's something to be cognizant of.
Adam and Hemmett, California, welcome to the EIB network.
Oh, Rush, conservative first, Republican, second.
Greetings from the College of Committee.
That's the way to be.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, second time caller, long-time listener.
I just want to know, and it's interesting you brought up that impeachment.
Barbara Boxer, dark horse candidate for 2008?
What do you think?
I don't think so.
I mean, look, I must, I have to tell you something, folks, and maybe I'm getting swept up here in all the hullabaloo and the conventional wisdom myself.
But back, you know, a year ago or six months ago, when the conventional wisdom was that Hillary has a nomination for asking, I say, you know, folks, I'm not going to go along with this.
I mean, conventional wisdom four years out, it's a bit premature.
But I'm just, I'm looking at this, and she's already gobbling up all the money.
She just finished a bunch of L.A. fundraisers in secret, three of them, in fact, that generated a million bucks.
I think it's pretty much hers.
If she wants it, it's got to win 06.
You know, that's the next election up.
But I think if she wants it, it's hers.
There are other candidates that want it.
There are Dark Horse Canada.
John Kerry wants it, which is why he's trying to get his name attached to so much legislation, why he's being so vocal so often.
I think it's why he's leading this impeachment drive.
The New York Observer this week had an interesting story, too.
Democrats trek to Park Avenue for pack books.
Now, that means here the names in this story.
Carrie, the Brett girl, Wesley Clark.
Remember Wesley Clark?
Wesley Clark wants to run again.
Evan Bay, Mark Warner, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden.
They all made recent trips to New York to try to focus their campaigns and to get money from deep pocket liberals in Hillary's own state.
Now, let me give you a quote, a little pop quiz.
I want to ask you, who said this?
Most of the candidates are like dogs beneath the dining room table hoping for surreptitious handouts.
Who said that?
You think it was me, somebody on Talk Radio, somebody on Fox News?
No, it was Chris Lehanus.
Chris Lahane, the former Clinton spokes, we call him Lahanis here, commenting that there's very limited ground to harvest given Senator Clinton's role.
The translation is, well, she's not yet running, but she's sucking all the money out of all the donors.
And if she's already made a California trip and soaked up a million dollars, where does it leave Carrie Edwards, Clark, Evan Bayh, Mark Warner, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden?
Well, they're having a trek to her state, try to get money from New York liberal PACs.
I don't know.
I've heard Barbara Boxer's name's a dark horse candidate because the left kooks so much love her, so very much love her, but it just appears that there's a steamroller going on out there with Hillary at the wheel.
John in Silver Spring, Maryland, you're next.
Hello, sir.
Hey, Rush.
Thanks for having me on.
You bet.
Hey, I was calling because I thought you guys would be interested in hearing about my experience this morning with the chairman's office at the DNC down in Washington.
I went to the speech yesterday in the morning over at Hilton, Take Back America, and he was doing the We Have the Power speech, which was very interesting.
Are you a Democrat?
Yeah, I'm a Democrat.
And I'm a conservative Democrat and I'm an anti-crime person, so I don't believe in weakening police forces like many Democrats do.
But I am a Democrat because local politics here in Maryland.
Yeah, You got to hate Walmart.
You got to big on night vision goggles for seatbelt violators.
Right.
But I totally understand, and this is not the kind of crime I'm talking about.
I'm talking about violent crime when I say anti-crime.
But anyway, neither here nor there.
Listening to this speech, my father is a voting Republican, been for years.
Unfortunately, I listened to this speech, and he goes right there, all Republican voters just don't have it together.
They say that they don't have, they don't work honestly for a living or something like that.
I can't remember what it is.
He said that Republicans haven't done an honest day's work in their life.
That's what he said.
And then I took that as an affront to all the voters who actually voted.
He was talking about the voters, not the Republican leadership.
When I called the DNC chairman's office to just say, hey, look, can you pass along a message from me, a Democrat, and I would really like to know why this, you know, why you think this is going to work to get back power in America.
Anyway, the guy tells me that, well, he was referring to the leadership of the Republican Party.
And that was an absolutely patently false statement.
Patently false.
Then he tells me that, well, you know, Democrats insult us all, huh?
I was like, well, that's not the point.
And frankly, I don't really care about that.
I don't really want to say let's not insult back.
Let's just be who we are and get a message together.
Well, you know, that's, I think, a matter of terminology.
The Democrats may consider it an insult, but you have to consider they also consider accurate criticism of them to be vicious attacks.
That is correct.
I think that what they're hearing as insults is actually the truth about them being said.
Well, and that's, see, and there's part of what, as a Democrat that's conservative, who really scares me to see like a dean in charge of the Democratic National Committee.
To me, that seems very crazy to move people so far to the left.
But then again, I can't explain that.
But then the funniest part about it to me was actually the part about the speech about the pensions.
Did you pick up on that stuff where he was kind of blaming the Bush administration for the pensions?
Yeah, we talked about this.
Yeah, he wants portable pensions.
He blamed Bush for destroying people's pensions and all this.
Yeah, he had three basic requirements for getting the White House back.
Portability of pensions.
The other was a national holiday for Election Day.
And I forget what the second one was, but I don't think it was funding, but it might have been.
But look, your point about Dean taking the party left, Dean is there because the party's gone left.
The party went left.
Dean is the tail on this dog.
My hard drive, 250 gigabytes.
I just checked it here in the break, and I got two of them.
I got primary and a backup.
That's here at the studio.
Same thing at home.
And the same thing in all of the Northeast.
Greetings and welcome back, Rush Limbaugh, the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
How about this story?
This is our old buddy Edith Lederer at the Associated Press.
Headline, UN weapons equipment missing in Iraq.
Hmm.
UN satellite imagery experts have determined that material that could be used to make biological, chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles has been removed from 109 sites in Iraq.
UN weapons inspectors said the report obtained yesterday.
UN inspectors have been blocked from returning to Iraq since the U.S.-led war in 2003.
So they've been using satellite photos to see what happened to the sites that were subject to UN monitoring because their equipment had both civilian and military uses.
So here we go again.
Things that never existed are missing.
Second reports such as this things that never existed are missing.
UN satellite imagery experts determine the material that could be used to make biological or chemical weapons and banned long-range missiles have been removed from 109 sites in Iraq.
Doesn't this always happen to Kerry?
Yesterday he gives this interview, Bush needs to be impeached.
Whoa, Lord, about weapons of mass destruction.
Here comes his old buddies at the UN.
Weapons of mass destruction that never existed are missing from Iraq.
109 sites.
Got to love that.
Lanita in Orange County, California.
Hi, welcome to the EIB Network.
Hi, Rush.
Mega Black Nuclear Family Dittos.
Well, thanks very much.
Great to have you with us.
Oh, thank you.
I'm calling about the landslide that happened on the beach in Laguna in California.
Yes.
The mayor declared it a disaster area in order for the governor to come in and rebuild all these million-dollar homes.
And then they had a relief fund on the radio, and I laughed out loud.
Why?
Because the homes are worth between a million and three million dollars.
Yeah, but we wait a minute now.
Wait just a second.
We've got to put that in perspective.
A home in Laguna Beach worth a million to three million.
I've seen these homes.
They're shacks.
They're little starter houses anywhere else.
Oh, not the ones that fail.
See, that's what they're trying to get over on us.
The ones that fail are huge.
Yes, there are some houses in Laguna that are small, but not the ones that are damaged.
Okay, so you're offended that these super rich homeowners are being, are asking for a relief fund to rebuild their property.
Their insurance probably doesn't cover it.
I don't know if they have landslide insurance out there, mudslides.
No, the insurance, because I guess like 20 years ago, it fell once before.
And so the insurance will no longer cover it.
And they didn't save.
They probably do have lots of savings.
But if the government is going to step in and rebuild, you know, let them do it.
So you think this is unfair?
Absolutely.
Why?
Well, who's going to pay for it if the government doesn't?
Those people are millionaires.
They could pay for it.
Oh, come on.
You can pay for it.
I don't feel so.
Most of these people are probably house poor.
What kind of cars are it?
They may have these million to $3 million houses, but they're probably driving Volkswagen Beetles.
No, sir.
No, sir.
I don't believe that.
I believe that they are living very well, and they just feel entitled.
They feel like it's okay.
Lenita, I love you.
You know, you're trying to pull a good scam here on a number one scam artist of this type.
No, sir.
I'm not sure if I can do it.
See, I hear you laughing.
You're trying to get my goat with this.
No, sir.
I promise, on the radio, they have these women crying about this.
Oh, no, I believe this.
I'm saying your opposition to it is what the joke is.
I just can't.
I found it funny more than anything else.
You find it funny that the rich would be bailed out.
Yes.
I mean, what difference is it between farm subsidies or welfare?
Let me ask you a question.
Lenita, seriously now.
How many people, I don't care how rich they are.
How many people have enough money to just replace a home that gets totally destroyed?
No, no.
What happens is when you go to build the house, they tell you the risk involved, and then you choose at that point.
Oh, I see what you're saying.
So you're saying that people who purposely live near a floodplain who then get flooded out and demand the government reimburse them, no, no, no, no.
You took the risk.
You knew that river could flood.
Just like, oh, now this I understand.
I have driven through Coldwater Canyon.
I can't tell you how many times.
And there are people with houses on stilts on the side of a hill.
Yes.
And I'm saying to myself, I would not, and there are people out on the deck enjoying their adult beverages as the sun sets.
And I'm saying, you wouldn't get me in one of those stilt-borne houses on a side of a hill like that, knowing what happens with mudslides out there.
So I see your point.
So they knowingly took the risk, but they wanted the view of the ocean.
Everything has a price.
Everything has a price.
Well, but the government bails everybody else out.
Why not the rich?
Oh, wow.
I guess that just really hurt my feelings.
I just couldn't even believe it.
Why are some people allowed to feel entitled and others not?
The whole country is we've created a whole entitlement culture for as many people as possible.
Why not the rich?
Because this is a huge entitlement exclamation point.
You know, oh, I live in Laguna.
Oh, I have a million-dollar house.
It fell.
I need some help.
I think that's horrible.
Well, let me tell you a little story.
The area of the country, and I'm not going to bother to tell you why.
You just have to trust me on this.
I mean, I will tell you, this take me a little time.
The area of the country with the highest property values is Jupiter Island, Florida.
And it's about 35 or 40 miles north of here.
It's up in Martin County.
And the reason primarily is it's a small place, and only certain people are allowed to build their houses.
They have to be the certain size.
There's no middle class there.
It's all upper crust.
And it's the wealthiest in terms of property value in the whole country.
Now, the hurricanes hit very near there, two of them last year, and their beach was destroyed.
And they have asked the state to rebuild the beach in front of their homes rather than, and if anybody has the money, you know, to go import sand from Saudi Arabia on a couple barges, these guys do.
And the same reaction here.
You should have seen the letters to the editor.
You should have seen the editorials.
That was outrageous.
How dare these, the wealthiest among us, want to prey on the poor by having the poor rebuild their beach?
No, Rush, the point is that Governor Schwarzenegger is begging and pleading for us to do all these things, you know, with our budget.
And they would sit there on the beach and on top of everything, say they're going to rebuild.
Let's say the government gave them some money to buy a house, you know, a safer place, but never ever to rebuild, you know, on the mountain.
That's obviously sliding.
It is obvious.
Well, look, no, I've been joshing.
I understand why you're upset.
I even rope Snerdley and Snerdley's looking at me wide-eyed in disbelief like you can't believe what I'm saying.
I'm just good at this.
Oh, good.
I would refer you to the Al Sharpton episode, folks, if you want to try to understand that in light of this.
You know what, Rush?
I love Walter Mosley, and you have really made a difference for me.
And five years ago, I would not have recognized how horrible it was that they were asking for relief.
So I appreciate you.
Who's Walter Mosley?
Isn't that the doctor guy that's on there all the time?
What's his name?
Walter Williams.
Walter Williams.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The guy who makes fun of his wife all the time that guest hosts the show.
But you know what?
He speaks a lot of truth when you're not there.
Well, I know.
Absolutely.
Why is he here?
You know what?
And you know, that's what I tell all my friends about you because I get in arguments all the time, but you are on the radio speaking truth every day.
Nobody can say, oh, that's not true.
That's not true.
So somebody needs to take a look at some of that stuff.
Well, I appreciate it.
It is an interesting, it is really an interesting societal thing, these people.
And look, Lenita, I'm just going to tell you something now.
And I've been cringing when I've watched the pictures of this and the TV networks, you know, superimpose their graphics, multi-million-dollar homes, and then you see them.
And they're multi-million dollar homes because of where they are, not because of the kind of home they are.
They're not that big.
They're not mansions.
Maybe I haven't seen all 18 that plummeted down the side of the hill, but I have seen some that are halfway down and that are there.
And yeah, you know, you know what property values are in California throughout the state.
And the closer you get to the ocean, no matter where you are, the higher the value goes.
And it's the dirt that is the cost.
And how much ocean front you have in some place.
But the houses themselves, I mean, you could build a huge mansion for the $3 million that it takes to build a little house out there in Iowa or Arkansas, Missouri, or a lot of places in this country, Mississippi, Utah.
It's amazing.
You know, I live in Orange County, and a lot of people that I know are selling their homes as they retire and moving to Arizona or any other place.
A lot of Californians going to Idaho.
Yes.
That's because Mark Fuhrman's up there to protect them.
Oh, Lord.
But the, no, no, why are they doing that?
You know why they can't afford those homes in retirement.
Oh, that's true.
They can't afford them in retirement.
It's just that simple.
The cash flow is just too much.
Their retirement pools, especially, just don't throw off enough cash flow to be able to afford those homes.
And that's, and then, okay, somebody's going to come along and buy them and they do.
But you're getting the property values out there in relation to income.
And this has been going on in California and New York, a lot of big cities, San Francisco, for a long, long time.
It's gotten to the point that the people who work in these cities can't for most of them can't afford to live there.
Oh, yeah.
That's why you have two-hour commutes.
I suppose, but then I would counter, and I learned this from you, that then you get more skills.
You know, you just get an MBA and you get a better job and all that.
That's interesting, too.
I'm glad you mentioned that because in my stack of stuff today, I have an op-ed written by a college president who's beginning to question the value of a college education.
His point is, if a family would take four years times the tuition cost it takes to send your kid to a good school and put it in an investment account, the kid would end up more money with more money in that investment account in 20 years than he will with a job he gets from his college degree on odds because of the high cost of tuition at a lot of universities.
I'm not denigrating education.
What you're basically saying, all right, fine.
You want this?
Here's the work you have to do to get it.
I totally support that, you know.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
Well, look, I got to run here, but it's been great talking to you.
Thank you, Rush.
You have a good day.
You too.
And we'll be back here in just a second.
I still don't understand why if everybody else's homes get destroyed are going to be paid for by the government.
Why not the rich?
Well, including the big supermansion.
Yeah.
Nobody knew the hill was going to come down.
Nobody could have predicted it.
Not when it was going to happen.
This guy, if somebody would have told him a hill is going to come down in 2005, he could have sold it before it came down.
But he didn't know that.
We bailing out all these people on floodplains.
We bail out people all over the place.
We don't bail out the rich.
We say, no, you can't take the money from the poor.
It would be taking the money from the poor if we bailed you out, so forth.
It's all about punishing the rich, class envy and so forth.
But I mean, if we're going to have an entitlement culture, why not let everybody participate back after this?
All right, since the subject of the Laguna Beach landslide has come up, I've got a story here from the LA Times about it today.
And I've got also that column that I wanted to share with you from the college president asking, is college worth the money?
But I'm going to tell you what my first thought was, and it's all a product of conditioning.
I live on the beach.
I don't live on a hillside, but I live on the beach.
And of course, you live on the beach on the Atlantic Ocean.
You're in the middle of a potential hurricane path for six months of the year.
And you can deal with that any number of ways.
I'll just give you an example.
If you live on the beach where I live and you want hurricane insurance, you've got two choices, a deductible of $2 million a year or a deductible of $500,000.
They don't want to sell it to you.
That's the point.
Second thing, Every year, the state moves the coastal construction line further away from the waterline, from the beach and the waterline, on the basis that if we keep moving you further away, you'll be safer if such a storm comes.
An example, where I live right now, if I wanted to rebuild my house and tear it down, I would be subject to the new coastal construction line.
I would have to move probably another 40 feet west.
which would reduce the amount of property I own that I can build on.
So the state's telling me, you can't build close.
Wait a minute, I'm insuring it myself.
I'm not going to be coming to you and saying, if my house gets blown away, I want you to rebuild it.
We're worried about your safety.
I'm going to get out of here if a hurricane comes.
I've got this lot.
I want to use it X-way for built.
You can't.
Now you can get a variance.
You can go to the state.
You can get it.
You apply for a variance to build beyond the coastal construction line.
And it takes two years to get it, but you can do it.
And it can be granted.
They'll tell you you got to build your house up a little higher, which is a neat trick because the town won't let you do that because they've got height requirements.
Can't have a house any higher than X, according to a town ordinance.
But if the state says, well, you want to build beyond the coastal construction line, here's your variance, but you got to raise it three feet.
You do it and you screw the town and get what you want.
But it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of money to go file these papers and conduct the hearings and so forth.
So when I saw those houses go down in Laguna Beach, I knew what the ultimate decision on this is going to be.
Some state, city, or local government is going to say, you know what?
You can't build there anymore.
That hillside has to be barren in case there's another slide.
We don't want any more property loss.
We don't want any more damage.
You're not going to be able to build there.
Lo and behold, LA Attempts.
Headline, too many in Laguna Beach, that mansion was too much.
Some blame the home for the slide, but experts doubt that.
Still, it's seen as building excess.
It sat on an unstable hillside, 6,300 square feet of concrete stucco and glass overlooking the ocean, the embodiment of the California dream.
And to sum an oversized symbol of coastal development run amok, the environmentalists are going to move in there.
You don't have to worry about rebuilding these rich people's homes because these sandal-clad, long-haired, maggot-infested, dope-smoking FM types in their SUVs and redwood decks are going to come along and try to get no home allowed to be built on those hillsides in Laguna Beach.
That's going to be the end result of this.
So you're not going to have to repay for some poor Schlub's house to be rebuilt because he's not going to be allowed to.
By Bluebird Canyon standards, the low-slung modernist house in Laguna Beach was a palace that dominated the hillside like a miniature Getty's.
Come on, 6,300 square feet.
I don't care where it is anywhere is not a palace.
Where I live, it's a library, maybe.
But it's not a palace.
This is my exact point.
Snerdley's.
6,300 feet is a big house.
It's not a palace.
A palace, think for psych.
Think a palace is a palace.
It's a castle.
It's where kings, this is a 6,300 square foot house.
It's very big, very nice, but it's not even a mansion.
Well, seriously, folks, we're talking about words here.
The Democrats are trying to, you know, come up with new ways to win elections based on words.
This is not a palace.
Words mean things.
But the mansion, oh, now it's down to a mansion.
Next paragraph.
But the mansion.
So we're going from palace to mansion.
Built by investors in 2001, never sold.
It had never been occupied.
Defects riddled the property.
And the supersized house insulated.
I've got to take a break here, but you see where I'm headed with this.
It's too big.
It was too wealthy.
Nobody ever wanted it.
We're not going to build anything here again.
Back after this, stay with us.
All right.
I don't have time to get into the detail of it.
I'll do this in the next hour.
But the bottom line of this LA Times story is that the reason for the landslide can be laid at the feet of the rich.
The rich are responsible for the landslide because of the houses they built.
and where they built them.
And when that's the point, then you know what's going to happen.
They're going to ban building or they're going to try in this location.
And you'll see what I mean when I share with you the other details of this LA Times story.
We'll be right back and resume.
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