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July 27, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:23
July 27, 2005, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
And welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Program to the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
While Rush is on a great vacation, we are here commanded to continue the relentless pursuit of the truth.
And that's what you'll get three hours here.
And, of course, your take on it, too, at 1-800-282-2882 on the EIB Network.
What a privilege to be here.
Thank you, Rush.
Let's get into it.
I was going to react a little bit today to some of your reaction to my last broadcast here last Friday with respect to police.
And we'll get to that.
We also have, wow, politics today on a whole broad array.
The president meeting with the House of Representatives Republican members over CAFTA, many of them in revolt against the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
We'll find out why and what you think about it.
More news on eminent domain after the Hartford case came down.
Seems the city of Hartford itself, New London itself, why do I keep saying Hartford?
And the city of New London itself in Kilo versus, that's what it is, though, isn't it?
Anyway, is going to fight back.
Now, first of all, I have to say this.
What a tremendous victory here in San Diego last night.
I am still euphoric.
I don't know whether this goes on in your community, but in my community, there is a determined, nutball minority of people who believe that instead of the plain meaning of the First Amendment,
which guarantees all of us that Congress will pass no law restricting freedom of religion, that what that really means is that we should restrict all religion, that no religion, particularly the Christian religion, has any role in public life, any of its symbols, etc.
So for 15 years, does this go on in your community?
For 15 years, we've been trying to preserve on the top of Mount Soledad near La Jolla here in San Diego a cross that is part of a war memorial erected in 1953 to commemorate the sacrifice of those who fell in Korea,
since expanded to commemorate the service of veterans of all wars, and since expanded with concentric concrete walls emblazoned with tablets, the families, including my own family, gone up there to honor our family members in that way.
It is a tremendous war memorial.
It is a community war memorial.
And for 15 years, one atheist who said, one atheist who said he was annoyed and offended by the sight of a Christian cross has sued and sued successfully because of the Ninth Circus Court of Appeal to get that cross torn down.
The first round, not to bore you with the whole detail on this, but it's so amazing to me how the Constitution of our founders has just been turned into a pretzel and in this case turned on its head.
Not freedom of religion, but freedom from religion is their interpretation.
And all these judges nod and sagely tell us that they read something in the Constitution that none of the rest of us read.
Is it just that they see things we don't see?
Is there a between the lines thing that isn't apparent on the copy I got from the founders?
I don't know.
But we've been fighting this fight for 15 years.
Last night, 70, let me get out the exact number because I just love to relish in this, and you'll find out in a minute why I'm so happy about it.
75.9% of the voters endorsed a move to transfer the Mount Siledad National War Memorial to the federal government for inclusion in the national park system,
following on the heels of an invitation to do so in last December's defense bill, which included authorization for the Department Park Service to incorporate into its national war memorial system this war memorial and transfer out of San Diego and California jurisdiction to the federal jurisdiction this question of whether a cross is an appropriate inclusion symbol for inclusion in this war memorial.
In California, our Constitution says, well, if you even favor religion, that's to be barred.
So they've used this favoring religion argument to try to tear down this cross.
The public vote was supposed to be a majority vote, mind you, until last Thursday when a judge, I'll tell you these judges are out of control, ladies and gentlemen.
I don't know about where you live, but where I live, they just changed the rules.
This judge, Pat Cowitt by name, had a Superior Court judge, California judge, had before her the notion, and the annoyed atheists saw that we were going to win this election, get this thing transferred to the feds.
The Justice Department would start defending this cross.
They'd have a whole new mountain to climb to try to tear it down.
So they were upset, went into court, said, hey, this isn't right.
A majority vote, it should be two-thirds.
You're transferring park land under the city charter.
It's got to be a two-thirds vote.
And we all went, what?
It's only a two-thirds vote if you're transferring park land to another use.
It's going to be transferred for the same use.
It's a war memorial.
It's been there since 1953.
It has been expanded as a war memorial.
That's all it's ever going to be.
In fact, in the federal legislation, it said you are going to take this thing as specifically a national war memorial, nothing else.
The judge said, well, because it could in the future, it possible, it might happen that we could, they could do anything with it.
They could put up radar stations.
They could put up a detention camp.
They could bring in dogs and start abusing prisoners.
Anything could happen.
So therefore, it's going to be a two-thirds vote because it could, someday in the future, under some other circumstance that I know today, become other than park, other than a war memorial.
So five days before an election, they raised the bar from majority vote to two-thirds vote, five days before the election.
Last night we got 77%.
I couldn't be so, I mean, I couldn't be happier.
I was screaming.
Last night was a great night in this fight to draw the line, a line in the sand, against the crazies who have perverted the Constitution, who have turned it on its head, and particularly in their jihad against Christianity.
In our own little community here, we have saved, I was on the Board of Supervisors, which in some of your areas of Board of Commissioners, we saved in Heritage Park, mind you, a number of architecturally significant buildings that were in the way of progress and were going to just get torn down.
One of those was the first synagogue in San Diego, preserved now on public land in a park in San Diego with Stars of David on it.
Have they ever sued the synagogue or the Star of David?
No.
And I don't think they should.
I don't care if somebody's annoyed by the Star of David or feels offended by the Star of David.
Tough!
Look the other way.
Freedom is freedom.
Freedom for the Star of David, freedom for the Shinto shrine that we have down on Shelter Island, San Diego Harbor, where the Shinto priests rang the bell to keep the evil spirits away when they dedicated the shelter island.
So, you know, we have freedom of religion here.
None of those other things have been sued.
Only the Christian cross has been sued.
So this jihad by the atheists, by the ACLU, this is what we're up against here, a significant victory yesterday.
Now, of course, they're promising endless new lawsuits, and I don't doubt it.
But I just, in this country, I find it just, well, I'm offended by people who are offended by the freedom of religion, because I know it's so rare.
In China this week, authorities there and the communist government arrested 100 young people because they were meeting for a Bible study in Langfang City, wherever that is.
I know how fragile that freedom is and how one annoyed atheist could blossom into a full fascist range of suppression of all religion.
And the ACLU, of course, taking up the craziness by, on the one hand, of course, telling us that we've got to purge all religion from the public square completely.
On the other hand, going into court in North Carolina, the ACLU suing the state of North Carolina in Wake County in order to end the Bible's monopoly in the swearing-in procedure, as you are sworn in as a witness or a party in a lawsuit and you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God, and you put your hand on the Bible and put your hand up and all that.
We already have, obviously, in most states, at least in California, we do, you can affirm without saying, so help me God if you're an atheist, not a problem.
ACLU wants to have all kinds of other holy scriptures, quote unquote, including the Koran, to be used.
Since the Koran itself says it is not a sin to lie to infidels, on what basis would you swear to Allah on the Quran to tell the truth when you're in a courtroom full of infidels?
I don't know.
And how is it that the ACLU and the atheists can draw a line saying we've got a government has got to get completely out of the religion business, no symbols of religion, especially Christian religion, but we're going to buy Qurans for the prisoners at Gitmo?
Huh?
And prayer rugs for crying out loud.
What?
So, ladies and gentlemen, last night we struck a blow back against this sort of thing and a blow for the original founders' idea that the Congress shall make no law restricting the free exercise of religion, period.
Not on public land, not on private land.
This cross was erected with private money by a private memorial association to honor those who had died and given their lives in the Korean War.
The area around it with the plaques I described are festooned with other religious symbols.
Jewish veterans have the Star of David.
There is no restriction against religious symbols, except by this one annoyed atheist who wants to take one religious symbol, the Christian cross, off the top of that mountain.
Our determination in San Diego over my dead body.
1-800-282-2882.
I'm Roger Hitchcock in for Rush Limbaugh back out to this.
Welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh program, and this is the EIB Network, ladies and gentlemen.
Roger Hedgecock's sitting in today, and thank you for listening and participating at 1-800-282-2882.
Let's get to those phones.
Here's Chris in Kentucky.
Chris, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program.
Yeah, Roger.
Hi, how are you?
Good and you.
I'm doing well.
I would like to, it seems like you're saying something that might be confusing some people.
I'm sorry I'm confusing you.
What is the problem?
Well, you are saying that the government's trying to suppress religion or something, that all these lawsuits and whatnot.
You know, the government is separate from religion, right?
The government is required by the Constitution of our founders to not establish a religion.
That's correct.
We do not.
We are not the free exercise thereof, correct?
Exactly.
And all I was trying to say, let me get to the bottom line for you so that you're not confused.
What I'm trying to say is when the atheists are single religion.
Whoa, no wonder you're confused.
You don't know how to listen.
But when there are other religions, right, in this country.
Thank you for the call.
I appreciate it.
Of course there are.
And you're free to go about your business and exercise your right to worship as you please or not worship.
That's my position.
That's the position of the founders' constitution, the original constitution.
It's not the position of the atheist and ACLU who think they have a right to use the government to tear down a cross.
How is that different?
I would challenge you in this listening audience.
How is it different when an atheist gets an order from the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals for the federal government, a federal court order, to tear down a Christian cross?
How is that different from the Taliban, government of Afghanistan, the Taliban, blowing up that big Buddha statue they did some years ago?
Is there any difference?
I see no difference between those two.
It is the suppression and oppression of religion, exactly the opposite of what were guaranteed in the First Amendment to our Constitution.
And by the way, I have in my little hands my hot little hands.
How could 50 states be wrong?
This is an email I got, which for every single state in the United States, every single one of them, invokes God.
Alaska, 1956, preamble, quote, we the people of Alaska grateful to God and to those who founded our nation and pioneered this great land, et cetera, et cetera.
Let's go to the older ones.
Massachusetts, for example, preamble to the state constitution, quote, we the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the great legislator of the universe in the course of his providence and opportunity and devoutly imploring his direction, etc.
Now, how many more do you want me to read?
I mean, this is every single state, including, yes, California, which says in its preamble, quote, we the people of the state of California, grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, et cetera, et cetera.
David in Beaumont, Texas, next on the Russ Show.
Hi, David.
Delo David.
Hi there.
Yes, you're on.
Go ahead.
Oh, you know, Roger, I was getting to think.
When they order, like you said, the tear down of these crosses, and I guess they have, but I've never heard about it, the tearing down of the menorahs or any other religion icon or anything.
By doing so, basically, hasn't the government established the religion of atheism?
Because the First Amendment is supposed to allow the free exercise of religion, but also prohibit the establishment of a religion.
And it seems like by suppressing all religion, they've established a religion of atheism, just like the Communists did.
Seems like it to me, too, my friend.
I don't know how you avoid that conclusion that if you tear down all believing religions because of the objection of non-believers, haven't you established the non-believers?
David, thanks for the call.
This, of course, this jihad against Christianity by the left, by the ACLU, and the atheists, goes on everywhere.
It, of course, goes on against the Boy Scouts.
We have a federal judge down here who has ruled in San Diego that the Boy Scouts are a religious organization and therefore should be evicted from their camp in Balboa Park in downtown San Diego.
They've been there for, I don't know, 60, 70 years.
This Boy Scout thing came out as well in an ACLU of Illinois lawsuit against the Pentagon sponsorship of the annual jamboree.
And you know that's going on because of the bad news, the sad news of the deaths there I'll talk about in a minute.
But the National Scout Jamboree opened up at the Army's Fort AP Hill in Bowling Green, Virginia.
And of course, they were setting up the tents and had this awful tragedy of four scout leaders killed, electrocuted when a tent pole touched an electrical wire.
One of those, by the way, did survive.
And Paula Call was the wife of a husband who was one of the lucky ones.
And she said this about how he did survive.
He said that he was actually on the ground when my son came to him.
But talking to my son, my son said that he pulled him from the poll.
And I know that that has saved his life.
The scout saved his father's life.
So scouting is under attack because somehow or other, morally straight and believing in God is offensive to those who aren't and don't.
You know what?
If you're offended, start your own scouts.
You can name it whatever you like, but, you know, it's not the Boy Scouts.
It's like this marriage thing.
You know, if you don't think marriage is inclusive enough, then start your own institution.
You know, group Labradors, well, I won't get into it.
But you see what I'm saying?
In a free country, you don't try to change somebody else's behavior because you object to it.
You start your own group.
Anyway, back to the scouts and the jamboree.
The ACLU of Illinois went into court.
U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning ruled in the ACLU's favor, saying it was too late to stop this year's jamboree on federal land, but the Pentagon cannot spend more money on these Boy Scout events.
These Boy Scouts are offensive.
Why, they believe in God, crying out loud.
They're morally straight.
Can't have that.
The United States Senate, God bless them, the United States Senate this past week voted 98 to nothing to authorize the Defense Department to spend money on the Boy Scouts jamboree.
98 to nothing.
It's just possible.
This is how optimistic I am the day after we won this 77% vote on the cross at Mount Soledad in La Jolla here in San Diego.
It's just possible that with the Senate vote of 98 to nothing, this vote of the people here standing behind the original intent of religious freedom, it's just possible that this culture war is turning a corner, ladies and gentlemen.
It's just possible that you and I, it's just possible that you and I could turn this corner.
And after 50 or 60 years of the ACLU and the atheists and the left shredding our original Constitution and remolding it into a document unrecognizable to our founders, it is just possible that we have turned a corner and we're back on the offensive.
It's a good feeling, isn't it?
I'm Roger Hedgecock, Infor Rush Limbaugh, and back after this with much more and your calls too.
Britain rounding up terrorists.
We'll talk about a poll now of Muslims in Britain and what they think of what's going on there in a moment.
Let's get back to the calls here, however, on this topic.
David in Washington, D.C. on the Rush program.
Hi.
Hi, good topic.
And I've wondered about this.
When I was in Oklahoma station there, there was a town that had a large cross like that.
And they also had the cross on their city seal.
And of course, they went through this same thing about they wanted everything gone.
What I can't figure out is if atheists, let's say, if they don't think this is true, if it's all false to them, why do they care?
They're trying to destroy something that represents something they don't even think is true.
Exactly.
Do you see what I mean?
Exactly.
But I wish, I mean, in two elections now, we've proven that we're the majority.
And the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
All the whiners, the liberals, the atheists, just to shut them up, we appease them.
And I think we just need to get tougher like our forefathers would have been and not put up with it.
Amen.
And that's exactly what's happening and why I brought up San Diego as an example of this.
I want to inspire across this country a revulsion against the ACLU and their stupidity and their twisting and pretzelizing of our Constitution and get back to the founders' original intent, the original intent of religious freedom, no establishment of religion, and not the suppression of religion and tearing down religious symbols and blowing up Buddhas.
I mean, it's just not what I'm about.
So I'm with you, and thank you for your service, David.
I appreciate it.
By the way, speaking of Washington, D.C., Sheets Byrd back in the headlines here, the senator waking up to the fact that he is not popular in West Virginia, that as we discussed last week, in a matchup with a congresswoman, a Republican congresswoman, in the upcoming race for his seat, the incumbent, Mr. Byrd, falls below 50%.
And this other congresswoman hasn't even announced yet.
There isn't even any campaign.
So Sheets, eager to rehabilitate his reputation after Rush and others have pointed out the man is the only living member of Congress who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
I just want to let that sink in for a sec.
Can I just, this dead air is devoted to the idea, but I just want this to sink in.
The only member of the United States Congress that I know of, and if I'm wrong, please call and tell me, who was, in his long-ago youth, I understand, a member of the Ku Klux Klan is a Democrat, Sheets Byrd.
Sheets has a bill that would create a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. on the National Mall.
We have previously restricted that to war memorials and presidential memorials.
This would be next to a four-acre site next to the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial.
And this is a bird, obviously, politically, trying to say, look, I'm making up for those indiscretions of my youth or whatever.
But hold it a minute.
Let me just try this other tact because I'm on this talking about the ACLU atheist and so forth.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Martin Luther King, wasn't he the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.?
Wasn't the civil rights movement based on Christianity and appeal to Christian moral values incorporated into our Constitution and Declaration of Independence?
Yes, it was.
Anybody on the liberal left following Dr. Martin Luther King had to be wincing.
This preacher constantly referred to the Bible, to God, to the incorporation of Christian values into the Declaration and into our Constitution.
And now, by golly, Sheets Bird wants to memorialize all of that right there on our Capitol Mall.
What will the atheists think of this?
I don't care.
I think it's great.
Lots going on in the news.
I've got a news digest that's got some pretty good stuff in it, too.
And then I want to get to the cops situation.
Last Friday, I was critical of U.S. cops.
Actually, I was praising the British cops for shooting five shots, five shots in the head of that guy.
Turns out, of course, it was the wrong guy.
But hey, I don't want to quibble about details.
No, I'm just kidding.
But the fact I was trying to get to was that I didn't think U.S. cops have become so politically correct, so afraid of their own shadows, so politicized.
I know it's true in my community.
Maybe it isn't in yours.
And that's great.
Because I want the old-fashioned cops.
I want the old-fashioned cops who feel like their job is to go out, find the perps, get them in handcuffs, and throw them in the jail.
If you think that's what cops still do, you've got to start opening up your eyes.
They don't.
And they don't for political reasons.
And then when something happens, and I'll get to this in a moment, and L.A. is my, I know I keep beating up on L.A., but the truth is so much of this does happen in L.A. around here, that something happens, and all of a sudden you realize these people don't know how to shoot.
They don't know how to do much of anything except whine about they don't have enough training and enough money and their retirement isn't two or three times what they made while they were working or any of that other stuff that they always complain about.
So I'll get to some of your hate mail, all you cops who sent me hate mail, in a moment.
But first, here's Eric on a cell phone in Michigan.
Eric, welcome to the Rush program.
Hi.
I don't think that the comparison between the Taliban blowing up the Buddha statues and our having courtrooms say take down the Ten Commandments is quite a straight analogy.
Okay, what's the difference?
Well, the Buddha statues were actually at a Buddhist temple.
And so they were actually going into, it would be more like the U.S. government going into a church and having them take down the cross.
No, I was talking about that one.
I was talking about that one, Eric, that was carved into the mountain.
It wasn't in a temple.
It was carved into a mountain.
Well, but it was a site of Buddhist worship.
Well, so was this cross on Mount Soledad.
The cross on Mount Soledad is the site of Easter Sunday services as well.
Okay.
And right, but when you set it up as some kind of a natural or a national or a federal park or something, that's actually, and I agree that the whole thing with the Quran and the courtrooms and stuff, I think it's bogus, but I'm just saying that the analogy may not be quite a straight line.
Because if you've got a cross or something like that in a state or a federal park, that's actually affiliating it directly with the government.
So there's a difference there between having it directly affiliated with some government and just having it at the site of worship, which is more of like a public set up.
A group of people set this up as its own entity.
The Buddha was located on public land.
It was carved into a mountainside.
It was blown up because the government disagreed with this religious symbol.
The atheist in San Diego is trying to get the federal government to tear down by court order a Christian cross on public land that's also the site of Christian worship as well as commemoration of the fallen in our wars.
And the difference between those two is that one, yeah, in the war memorial, yes, that example, it does sort of fit.
But I'm more saying there's a lot of these cases that do come up where people make the same claims.
And the ones like the Ten Commandments that were in the courtroom, especially, that's not actually the site for, you know, in a war memorial, yeah, like it's a bad, I can kind of see the correlation there more clearly.
Yeah.
But again, the Buddhist temple was in a mountain site, but it was also a site of Buddhist worship.
It was their church.
Yeah, so is this cross.
They have Easter Sunday services there.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, and then I didn't know that that was a that they used it as a site of worship.
Yeah.
But that's, I mean, there is a difference in a lot of the cases, depending on where and what the symbol is.
Okay, well, this was the analogy I was making was to our situation here in San Diego, Eric.
Thanks for the call.
All right, so back to the police thing.
Oh, boy, did I get some hot email?
Listening to you sitting in for Rush, this is Gary M. Good job till you said the cops in London were better than the cops in the USA.
Let me see.
They shot a person who was on the ground five times in the head from six inches away.
What a sharpshooter.
By the way, wrong guy.
And then this, let's see, from Phoenix, Sean C. Roger, I was truly stunned at what I considered your very ignorant comment yesterday on the Rush Limbaugh show.
You sung the praises of London's police and quipped that they were such good shots, they hit this terrace five shots out of five.
Then you spouted off about how there probably wasn't even a U.S. officer who could shoot that good, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Then I got some other very curious email that really got my attention.
Chad S. Roger, thanks for saying this about our cops.
I just visited a new police station near Sacramento where there was a rumor that the new inside firing range in the police station might be open to the public during special hours.
I inquired, and the office told me that the gun ranges have holes in the ceilings and walls where supposedly trained officers and other SWAT guys have fired their weapons inadvertently as well as purposefully and missed their targets big time.
He said it would be dangerous for me to shoot in the police department range.
John in Denver.
I have a story, Roger, to illustrate that American police officers are horrible shots.
And it's a long story, but the bottom line of it is that when he was in high school, his father and he were members of a shooting club in Miami.
And the police would come to the shooting club also to fire.
And the shooting club members were always better than the police.
And the police always said, oh, it's because you guys are here all the time and you're all 50s and 60s years old and so forth.
And you've been here a long time on this range and you're just good on this range.
Except this kid, age 16, would stand up and beat all the police, too.
And then, Roger, I grew up in San Diego but left to find a new life here in Placerville, says Mike, just outside Sacramento.
I wish I could get your show up here, but you were talking about the British police and how they shot and killed that terrorist, how the police in this country wouldn't do it.
And he relates the story of a California Highway Patrol officer responding to a wounded deer on Highway 50 in Placerville in the mountains.
And the wounded deer was thrashing around, and they asked the California Highway Patrol officer to shoot to put the deer out of his misery and every motorist out of all this danger.
And the police officer said that he couldn't do that.
That as a matter of policy, I just can't fire my weapon like that.
Finally, the deer is out there, and cars are skidding around, and so forth and so on.
The CHP officer says, okay, about 15 minutes later, he says, I'm going to dispatch this deer.
He pulls out a Smith ⁇ Wesson .40 caliber, and this is the description.
The officer took aim, was only about 10 feet from the deer, proceeded to empty the complete clip, 19 rounds, at the deer, missing every time.
The officer reloaded, put another clip in, and on the 10th shot from the second clip, hit the deer in the shoulder, causing it more pain.
On shot 15, hit the deer in the head, but not fatally.
And on shot 17, finally ended the deer's life and torture with a final fatal shot to the head.
This officer showed the most pathetic display of marksmanship I've ever witnessed in my life, and he was supposed to be protecting us.
My son, at age 10, was shooting a five-inch group at 50 yards with a nine millimeter.
Thank you for bringing the topic up.
I'm Roger Hedgecock back after this on the Rush program.
And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with police in the United States that we haven't imposed on them that we have allowed politicians to handcuff the police and liberate the criminals.
This has been going on for decades.
I'm not taking on the cops because I think they're intrinsically bad.
I'm taking on this cop situation in which cops have become much more involved in their unions, much more involved in becoming a pressure group and lobbyists than they are law enforcement officers.
That's what I'm concerned about.
And I'm concerned about politicians who handcuff them.
Case in point, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who said last week that, well, terrorists come, as he put it, quote, in all sizes and shapes and forms, unquote.
And it wouldn't be fair for the police to profile suspects on the basis of a Middle Eastern appearance.
Mike, I don't know about you, Matt, but I've been watching the news as they collect these guys from Somalia and Pakistan and wherever.
They all seem to be male, number one.
They all seem to be between the ages of about 18 and 30.
They all seem to be Muslim.
I don't mean to blanket here.
I don't mean to profile.
I don't mean to discriminate in any way.
Okay, I do.
I'm discriminating on the basis of fact.
The fact is that terrorists so far have been male, young, Muslim.
I don't know what else to say, Mike.
If you're going to tell your cops, no, no, no, no, keep patting down Granny.
By the way, Granny's fighting back.
Did you see this?
In Green Bay, Wisconsin, a woman upset over being bodily searched, having her Brazier, I guess, searched at the airport, felt up the TSA woman who was doing it, crammed her against the wall and felt up her breasts.
Now, of course, she's facing a year in federal prison and $100,000 in fines.
Apparently, only the government can feel you up and not vice versa.
I'm trying to get the rules straight here as they evolve.
Wayne in San Jose, California.
Wayne, you're next.
Hello, Wayne.
Welcome to the Russ Show.
Go ahead.
Wayne, are you prepared?
All right, let's go to Stu on a cell phone in Billings, Montana.
Hi, Stu.
Hey, how are you doing, Roger?
Good.
Hey, my comments related to the police and their marksmanship abilities or the lack thereof.
Remember that big old bank robbery there in L.A., I think back in 97, 98?
Right.
You know, two gunmen with the body armor?
Very well.
Well, you know, I was watching a program here the other day.
It was all about that.
You know, you got 40, 50 cops all coming in there.
How come, out of all that many cops, not one shot took out those guys in the head?
I mean, the guy took himself out in the head eventually, but how come?
There's a couple of actual reasons for that, because I followed that issue pretty closely.
Number one, the cops were underarmed because the Los Angeles mayor and council would not arm the cops because, of course, arming cops means they're more dangerous.
They're more likely to hurt ordinary citizens if they have actual weapons.
So we can't have them have...
So the bank robber comes in with an automatic weapon, some kind of AK-47 type weapon.
And what did the cops have to do?
They had to go into a gun store in San Fernando Valley there and actually requisition weapons that were at least equivalent to in firepower what the robbers had in the first place.
Then when they had those weapons, they didn't basically know what to do with them.
They were firing them all over the place.
Well, right, I realized they had to go get their weapons, but I'm still saying, I mean, I used to live in the Mojave Desert.
We used to go out shooting all the time with pistols, okay?
Yeah.
I mean, we could take out bottles and watermelon from 50, 60, 70 yards with a pistol.
And you know what these guys would say?
And they're absolutely right.
The city council cut their budget, cut their budget so much that the ammunition rounds have to be accounted for.
The time spent away from their police duties at the range has to be accounted for, et cetera, et cetera.
And these guys get every year less and less range time, less and less actual firing time, more community relations and diversity training.
And pretty soon they're not cops anymore.
They're counselors.
And I don't think I need a counselor when the gang guy comes through my door.
I need a cop.
I'm Roger Hedgecock back after this.
Welcome back to the Rush Lime Ball Program.
Roger Hedgecock filling in for Rush, taking your calls.
And just one more, all right, one more.
L.A. County Sheriff's deputies who fired 120 shots at an unarmed driver in Compton, where I was born, by the way, have now been said by the Office of Independent Review of the L.A. County Sheriff's Department that the deputies used, quote, a poor tactical approach, unquote.
The driver was slightly wounded, as was a deputy caught in the crossfire.
120 shots.
Never form a circle and start firing.
Didn't they go through the elementary stuff at the academy with these guys?
I don't get it.
Hey, coming up in the next, okay, more hate email coming.
Coming up in the next hour, we're going to talk politics.
The Democrats, says a leading Democrat, need to be for something.
Hallelujah.
They need to be for something.
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