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Sept. 2, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:28
September 2, 2005, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Thank you and welcome to the EIB Network.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
I am Roger Hedgecock broadcasting from KOGO Radio out here on the left coast in San Diego, California, where we will hear shortly that firefighters and emergency response teams that dispatched days ago to help in the Gulf Coast disaster have still not reached their destination because government cannot get it together to get them where they should be.
We are, as Americans today, ladies and gentlemen, five days into this catastrophe, doing what Americans do when our government lets us down, when the government has to finally admit it cannot do all the things it promised to do.
When that happens, and it's inevitable, Americans turn to each other.
We do the job ourselves.
That's really what's going on in this country.
It's the story not, and it's tough for the media because the media covers government.
The media covers the government.
The government feeds the media.
The news is what is the government doing?
That is not the news today.
The news today is what the American people are doing.
The news today is the outpouring that is going on in every church, in every community group, in every one of these organizations like the Salvation Army at SalvationArmyUSA.org, obviously the Red Cross.
Again, the American Red Cross is at redcross.org, ORG on your internet.
These are organizations now that are flowing.
And interestingly enough, the smaller the organization, the more capable it is to get in and do some good immediately.
Obviously, there are portions of government working very well as well, particularly, again, smaller agencies of government, state governments, down to community-level governments.
San Antonio is opening its heart.
Memphis is opening its heart.
This is a grassroots effort to accommodate what is a catastrophe unfolding before our eyes.
It is still unfolding as fires now begin to claim parts of New Orleans today.
It is still unfolding.
A great American city is dying.
And this is the kind of thing that we have not seen.
We have not seen it.
The great Chicago fire.
We don't remember that.
No one's still alive.
The destruction of San Francisco in 1906, a handful of people alive that recall the impact of that, obviously, if any.
And so here we are 100 years removed from the spectacle of an American city with this kind of problem.
New Orleans has it.
It is joined by many, many miles, hundreds of miles of Gulf Coast, Alabama, Mississippi, and all of Louisiana, where there has been this utter devastation and the human misery that follows.
The human misery that follows, of course, is entirely predictable.
So was the impact of this storm, entirely predictable.
I pulled out National Geographic for October 2004.
Here's the headline.
The Louisiana Bayou, hardest working Martian America, is in big trouble with dire consequences for residents, the nearby city of New Orleans, and seafood lovers everywhere.
The whole idea is, and they ran a little scenario here.
Well, here's the scenario.
Now listen to this.
It was a broiling August afternoon in New Orleans, Louisiana, the big easy, the city that care forgot.
Those who ventured outside moved as if they were swimming in tupelo honey.
Those inside paid silent homage to the man who invented air conditioning as they watched TV storm teams warn of a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.
Nothing surprising there.
Hurricanes in August are as much a part of life in this town as hangovers on Ash Wednesday.
But the next day, the storm gathered steam, drew a bead on the city.
More than a million people evacuated to higher ground.
200,000 remained.
The carless, the homeless, the aged and infirm, those die-hard New Orleans, New Orleanians who look for any excuse to throw a party.
These are the words of the National Geographic for October 2004, predicting the catastrophe that actually happened here in August of 2005.
It is a situation in which, as AP points out, the American government spent $231 million on a bridge to nowhere in Alaska, but couldn't spend another $40 million to control the repair the levees.
The Army Corps of Engineers seeking last year $105 million for hurricane and flood programs in New Orleans.
They got $42.2 million.
And again, these pet projects in the highway bill, including $231 million on a bridge to nowhere in Alaska.
Why?
Well, because Congressman Don Young's the chairman of the House Transportation Committee.
He's a Republican from Alaska.
I mean, that's the way our system works.
It's obviously not working very well, but we knew that.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are conservatives.
We've been here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies for how many years, talking about this very issue.
If you're expecting effectiveness and efficiency, if you're expecting your dollar to be stretched, if you're expecting a can-do attitude, if you're expecting someone to slash through the rules and make things happen, please do not expect it from government.
It does not happen.
So I'm not surprised, but I'm shattered.
Today we're going to play some New Orleans music.
I have been to New Orleans many times.
I've enjoyed New Orleans many times.
I enjoy particularly the music.
I was stunned yesterday with the concern about the disappearance, for example, of Antoine Fatz Domino, whose music I love.
And they found Fatz today, and we're happy for him and his family and for New Orleans.
The music of New Orleans today and the bumpers.
But I tell you, there's obviously everything you can do, and I know you've been doing it.
But for those who have not, obviously every one of your churches, you can go to a lot of websites.
CharityWatch.org has a lot of the charities that are in the networkforgood.org.
The Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives has a list of these organizations that are in every community, and some of them national, and every one of them moving in to help, every one of them doing the work effectively, efficiently, needed now work.
And so what we're going to do is we're going to visit with one of those folks.
And let's see, as soon as I get the paper up here, we will visit with Darwin Bacon.
He's a pastor.
He's with the Arkansas Southern Baptist Convention.
He's the team leader there for Christina Relief.
Pastor Bacon, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
Good morning.
You have been active now for some days, have you not?
Yes, that's correct.
We began mobilizing people over the weekend and sent our first persons down to Mississippi and Louisiana on Wednesday.
They arrived, set up kitchens, and began feeding people on those days.
We've taken water with us this morning.
We're concerned about shipping more food.
We took 60,000 meals down, and we're running low in Laurel, Mississippi.
We have a request today for 60,000 meals.
We can't prepare that many.
We prepare about 20,000 meals per day per site, but our supplies are starting to run low, and we're concerned about that.
It's a three-day weekend, and I'm trying to get more food to our folks.
Well, and that's where people come in, don't they?
How can people get in touch with you in your area or throughout the country to help you?
Well, let me back up.
You had three mobile kitchens.
Where are they located?
Those three mobile kitchens located in Laurel, Mississippi, in Gonzales, Louisiana, and in Kenner, Louisiana.
Kenner, Louisiana is just outside of New Orleans, and I'm very much concerned that we be able to ship food supplies, replacement supplies to them.
We normally count on Red Cross and FEMA, and we're hopeful that they'll be able to supply us food by the weekend, but I may have to ship it out of Arkansas.
It'll cost me about $60,000 worth of food to get it down there, but I'm afraid if our kitchens run out, it could be critical.
And so we want to make sure that we've got food for those folks.
Absolutely.
Now, why you usually rely on Red Cross and FEMA for delivery of the food?
Why is that a problem today?
Well, we work in partnership with those groups.
And they do a great job for us, but their resources are stretched to the max right now.
We have not had those persons on site yet with us in a couple of our places.
Red Cross is in Laurel, Mississippi now helping us.
We're thankful for them.
They will be supplying food there if they can get it.
So your effort was in ahead of those folks.
I mean, your effort was there days before there was anybody from FEMA or the Red Cross?
Yes, we were on site before any of those showed up.
We actually had to take water in with us in order to cook.
We took our own generators to power our units.
We took propane tanks where necessary.
I'm sending, I'm resupplying all of those.
We've sent so far about 12, 14 tractor trailer loads full of food and water in with us, and every day I'm sending new shipments.
Darwin Bacon with us, Arkansas Southern Baptist Convention, Christina Relief the day after.
Christina Relief in place, meals and water in place the day after in Kenner, Louisiana and the other two locations.
Now, you were also running buses to try to help the evacuees to get clear.
How's that effort going?
Yes, what we're doing now is our buses are leaving, and they had put us on hold yesterday because of the violence in the areas where they were loading buses.
Also, they were running out of space to bust them, too.
This morning, I had an emergency meeting with my staff, and we're making every campsite in Arkansas that we know about available for evacuees.
I have notified all of the camps that if they're willing, I'll put the money and food to them so that when evacuees arrive this evening and tomorrow, they'll have food and water.
They'll have persons to greet them and welcome them.
They'll have counselors on site.
We do not want another superdome to happen here, and we want to be prepared for them.
So our churches and our organization is preparing this very moment.
We had early meetings this morning to go over a checklist.
We meet with the governor's office this afternoon to talk about utilization of those sites.
And our buses are en route now to New Orleans to evacuate persons.
Darwin Bacon with us, Arkansas Southern Baptist Convention doing the work.
Darwin, if people want to help you, Pastor Bacon, where would they call right to email, what have you?
How do we get a hold of you?
How do we help?
Great, ABSC.org.
Wait a minute.
Let me do that again.
ABSC.
What does that stand for?
ABSC, Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
Okay, Arkansas Baptist State Convention, ABSC.org.
Okay.
They can also call 501-376-4791.
If the offices are closed, there'll be a voicemail letting people know how they can make contributions and gifts.
Well, Pastor Bacon, you get back to work.
You're doing the Lord's work.
We appreciate your being with us today to give us an insight of what is working and the good news that is not being covered pretty much by the media, and we appreciate you, sir.
Glad to do it.
Darwin Bacon there, again, the Arkansas Southern Baptist Convention.
You can find him at ABSC.org, and you can call him.
And ladies and gentlemen, you could pick up the phone and make a difference.
I'm just offering this as an example.
It's not the only one.
In fact, I looked over some websites.
There are dozens and dozens and dozens of private organizations at the local community level, at the state level, all across this country that are doing exactly the same thing, that are pouring efforts in that you do not see on the cable news networks.
It is not being covered because it is not government.
We now have a situation where the media thinks the solution can only come from government.
And when the solution is not coming fast enough, then it becomes a bushbashing and racial tension problem.
And all of a sudden, the media's got their story and they're off and running when it isn't even what's going on.
What's going on is that government is moving too slowly.
There isn't any question about that.
But what did you expect?
I'm sorry.
Think about this for a minute.
What did you really expect?
The day after there was going to be everything set up and running?
And no, it was the failure of government in the first place that led to the flooding, that led to the electricity going out.
The pumps went out.
There's no water now to fight the fires, et cetera, et cetera.
I mean, this is a domino that's falling the wrong way.
The only thing falling the right way are the individual efforts by individual Americans and community groups and faith-based groups and state groups to help other Americans.
That's what's working.
And that's not even being covered in the national media or anywhere else, except right here.
We're taking your call.
I'm Roger Hedgecock at 1-800-282-2882 on the Russian Baugh program after this.
The sounds of New Orleans.
We pray to hear them again.
I don't know.
Danny Haster wants to bulldoze the place.
You might have a comment about whether we should rebuild in a marsh.
You know, I trace this back to the French.
The French started this.
They founded New Orleans, and they were told by the local Indians, you know, this place floods here that you're trying to build a city.
Built it anyway, surrounded it by levees, and said, that's all right.
We can handle that.
And they did for 300 years.
Not anymore.
By the way, again, that phone number that I gave out for Pastor Bacon and the Arkansas Baptists to help them and their obvious impact they're making on this situation.
501 is the area code, 501-376-4791, 376-4791.
And I don't mean to single him out except by way of using an example.
Catholic Charities is doing a lot of great work.
I'm sure once they get geared up and FEMA is in there, the American Red Cross will.
But I have a feeling that these faster-moving, smaller organizations are getting in quicker with what's really needed.
Did you hear what he said?
We greet people.
We greet people with a hug.
We don't kick their dogs off the bus like they were doing down in New Orleans if you saw that story.
A kid tries to get on one of the evacuation buses with his dog.
The dog's kicked off.
The kid is crying so much he vomits.
This is in front of a...
So, look, these people, and I don't mean just the Baptists, but anybody, with an ounce of common sense and compassion, and these faith-based groups, are going to hug the people, are going to take them in, are going to make it right.
These are the people I'm supporting.
So that's just where I'm coming from on this, and I think the nation is as well.
All right, let's take a call.
This is, by the way, this is Open Line Friday, and we will take all the calls you want.
You betcha.
We are, because I know this week you've got a lot of things you want to say that have not been said because there aren't enough broadcast hours in this kind of a week to get in what should be said about all these events.
So let's try to do as much as we can today and rush back next week, of course.
Here's Tim in Jacksonville, Florida.
Tim, welcome to the Russian Limbaugh Program.
Thank you for taking my call, Roger.
Yes, sir.
My statement is that the United States should be intensely embarrassed at what the media is portraying, not only in our country, but to other countries.
When you compare this disaster to the disaster of the tsunami victims, you didn't see looting.
You didn't see a slow-moving government.
You didn't see excuses.
You didn't see raping and pilfraging of property.
You didn't see gouging at the price pumps.
Now, granted, I'll give you that their government might not be as fast and as quick as ours.
But you made the point.
If we can't depend on our government to take care of us, then I say get rid of them.
If our own people can't be dependent upon to take care of each other, I don't want my federal tax dollars going to help these thugs and looters to have another house, to bring their guns into the silver dome, to bring their crackpipes into the silver dome, to leave garbage when we're trying to help them.
It's an embarrassment.
The rest of the American society should be embarrassed to see these people, to see the state government, the local government, and the federal government all just playing stupid, ignorant, childish games.
Well, they are, but they are not.
They're games, but they're not childish.
Look, I was in elected office for some time, and I know the mentality of the bureaucracy intimately.
The mentality is this, and it was expressed by the Mayor Baton Rouge in his press conference yesterday.
We're going to do everything we can, but of course, we don't want to use our budget.
We're going to wait for the feds because they have more money.
They're going to come in.
And if something doesn't happen right away and our constituents are unhappy, then it's the federal government's problem.
It's not our problem.
We're going to husband our resources.
We're going to keep our people protected.
We're not going to expend a lot of money here if the feds are going to come in and do it.
So we're waiting for them.
We're waiting for somebody else to do the job because it would hurt us and hurt our budget.
We'd have to use our reserves.
We can't do that.
It's the bureaucratic mentality, and it's a paralysis.
Apparently, he's safe, and it's good news.
That's a little Antoine Fatz domino there, one of the great music figures of our time out of New Orleans.
We'll play some New Orleans music today.
Yesterday, I was kind of in shock that he'd stayed behind.
He's 77, I think.
He stayed behind in his house with his wife and daughter, and they found him safe today, so that's good.
Help is pouring in now to New Orleans, but what does it mean?
Fires go unchecked.
There's no water pressure.
There's a lot of firefighters standing around.
We're going to continue to bring that to you.
Now, in our community, and I hope this is being duplicated in yours because we believe, well, you know, sitting out here on the West Coast, this could just as easily have been a catastrophic earthquake, and San Diego could as easily have been New Orleans.
I mean, that's just, we understand that.
We believe that we have a responsibility to help.
So all the radio stations out here owned by Clear Channel are putting together a ton of cash day next Wednesday after the holiday.
We're getting together seven radio stations out here.
And all of our broadcasting will be from the local stadium parking lot and urging all of our listeners to come on by and contribute.
And we're going to put the cash right into the kinds of organizations we've been talking about.
TV telethons are being planned, particularly by those who Harry Connick Jr. and others who are natives of New Orleans and that area.
Brett Favre, his hometown in Mississippi, wiped out.
And a number of those sports figures are also working on this situation.
And that's the spirit of America.
But back in our hometown, we're also sending out, and this is part of the national mobilization.
After 9-11, there's a big national mobilization plan that went into effect.
I know you don't see a lot of effect from it, but it did.
And part of it was a team coming out of San Diego.
Joining us from the San Diego Fire Department, Maurice Luque.
Maurice, welcome to the program.
Good morning, Roger.
Hi.
Tell us again, what is this national plan?
Well, our national plan is we sent 99 people from Task Force that's based here in San Diego back to help out there in the states hit by Katrina.
So that's our part of it.
Correct.
That's our part of it.
And they arrived, the first contingent arrived on Wednesday, and within like a three and a half hour period of time, these Swiftwater Rescue Lifeguards, they made 240 rescues from people who were stranded on building rooftops and all.
But then it got dark.
They could see like about 500 other people within eyesight that they could try to rescue, but they couldn't.
It was dark.
It was unsafe.
They had to come back in.
The next day, they were anxious to get back out there, but they couldn't.
They and a number of other search and rescue teams from all over the country that are there had been told not to go out because of the violence and the lawlessness there.
And they were even, our team was even assigned an armed guard as they just stayed in quarters not going out and doing anything yesterday to their frustration.
I mean, they were just really frustrated.
They got better news this morning.
Things must have subsided a bit, and it's a little safer because they hit the water again at 8 o'clock our time.
They've been out there now doing rescues and recoveries all morning long so far.
And more people are on the way, right?
Correct.
More people are on the way.
The bus with 80 people and the three flatbed trucks with equipment and supplies that left here on Wednesday evening, they arrived in Houston at 4 o'clock our time.
They staged there at the Astrodome.
They got about four hours of sleep.
And about an hour ago, they went into a briefing session to get their assignments.
It's anticipated that they'll be sent into the Biloxi area in the Gulfport region, but that was just what they were anticipating.
They hadn't been given their formal assignment yet, and they haven't communicated that information back to us yet.
As you know, the communications between there and here because of cell sites being down and all is just not that great.
So again, what are the capabilities we're sending in there once they're ultimately in Biloxi and once they're on assignment?
Well, it's a multitude of capabilities.
Medical, rest search and rescue, of course.
Structural engineers are part of the team.
Hazardous materials experts are part of the team.
There's even three search dogs and handlers as part of the team that went in there.
All right, terrific.
Maurice Luque, thanks for being with us.
Go ahead.
The other thing I wanted to mention, too, is that for people here at home, things can still happen here.
There could be an earthquake here.
And I think it's reassuring that the public knows that there are still search and rescue teams here.
We only sent one.
We have two more.
The same goes for the other seven search task forces in California.
The only concern that we have is that all the supplies and equipment, most of them, went back there with the teams that were deployed.
So the teams that remain here are working with other teams to pool their resources to ensure that they have enough supplies, enough equipment to go into action here and protect the public if something happens here, yeah.
In San Diego or this area.
All right, Maurice, thanks very much.
Maurice Luke there from the San Diego Fire Department.
I was a little nervous last night because there was a flurry of little earthquakes over in Imperial Valley, which is to the east of us here in San Diego.
And I go, okay, this is what we need.
A big earthquake on top of this situation.
But our people are out there and they're doing great work.
They are part of this mobilization.
Now, think about what he just said, though.
Listen to what he just said.
We're mobilizing out of San Diego Fire Department.
This is happening all over the country.
These teams are being mobilized.
It's the biggest mobilization under the post-9-11 action plan that has ever been done.
It is, in effect, what this government would do if there was a major terrorist attack, an atomic bomb instead of a hurricane, what have you.
It hasn't gone well when you're relying on cell phones.
Our communications are bad because, you know, the cell phones are down.
Good grief, folks.
We're relying on the cell phones.
We know that in a bomb, a hurricane, whatever kind of attack you're anticipating, cell phones and things like that are probably going to go.
Don't you guys have the satellite phones?
Don't you have the satellite communications?
Aren't you ready?
Haven't we spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to gear up for a situation where we will be effective and you're down because of the cell phones?
We had National Guard units.
Was it Mississippi?
National Guard units in Mississippi, I believe, and I could be corrected on this, but we had an article on it earlier today, that were using physical runners.
People were running between groups to give orders and to take information.
This is like back in the Civil War.
Hey, semaphores, why don't we put up some balloons?
Have some carrier pigeons nearby.
Good grief.
Reed in Shreveport, Louisiana, you're on the Rush Limbaugh program.
Hi.
Hey, Roger.
Karen, I just wanted to let you know, I think you hit it right on the head with that National Geographic article and some of the local politics that's happening down here.
You know, they've known about this problem for 50 years, and a lot of money was supposed to be spent on levies and on pumps and stuff to fix it and to make plans.
Like you mentioned, after 9-11, there was a lot of FEMA money that came in here to make these plans for evacuations, and none of it happened.
It just seemed like it fell apart.
You know, the local radio station here has been talking about this for years.
And I'm in Shreveport, Louisiana.
The Moon Grafont show that's out further south here was talking about this for years, the amount of corruption and stuff that happens in the state and local governments.
And the fact that the disaster relief is supposed to start locally, then to the city, then to the state, and finally to the federal government.
But we've had a collapse of the local city and state.
Matter of fact, you had the mayor this morning on there throwing four-letter words at Bush on the radio this morning, blaming him.
So it's ridiculous.
Well, we got some of that, too, and I don't know how much of it we can actually broadcast, but you're absolutely right, Reed.
Thanks for the call.
I was just, and I've been a mayor.
I was appalled by this mayor putting out his SOS and all that.
WWL, as a matter of fact, had some of it.
Let me see how much of this we can actually put on the air.
Here's a little bit of Mayor Ray Nagan.
Is it Nagan, the mayor of New Orleans?
There is nothing happening.
And they're feeding the public a line of bull and it's spinning and people are dying down here.
Mayor, they're dying because your police force is more interested in looting than they are in protecting people.
They're more interested in not confronting the looters and the thugs that you know have taken over your city.
Mayor, your police officers, rather than face the problem, have been turning in their badges and fleeing the city.
That's what's been happening.
The first line of defense crumbled in the first 10 minutes.
And the second line of defense, the state government, the state of Louisiana, and I appreciate the position these public officials are obviously in and the stress they're under, but let's get realistic.
Where was the Louisiana National Guard, which is under the command of the Louisiana governor, in terms of restoring law and order in New Orleans?
It's not Bush's National Guard unless he federalizes it, and they haven't done that because the governors are very jealous about that.
Governors don't want the president federalizing the National Guard.
The National Guard is under the command of that governor, as far as I know.
What's that all about?
The governor's having a teary yesterday, a teary, and I think she's probably done some good work down there, but this press conference was not strength and was not Rudy Giuliani after 9-11 type stuff.
It was, oh, oh, me, oh, my, who's going to save me and wringing my hands.
Come on.
So, you know, I think, again, there's enough blame to go around, and we don't want to get into any kind of a blame game because there's enough stress and tragedy to go around as well.
But the federal government took too long.
There ain't any question about that.
But the local government collapsed.
If you think I'm wrong about that, I'd love to hear about it.
1-800-282-2882.
I'm Roger Hedgecock filling in for Rush Limbaugh back right after this.
Welcome back to the Rush Limbaugh Program.
I'm Roger Hedgecock filling in for Rush Today.
And of course, everything available at rushlimbaugh.com, as usual, as we continue the relentless pursuit of truth.
Little Harry Connick Jr. there as we continue to remember the great music of New Orleans today as one way to reach out to this great city.
There's a reach out going on right now.
Now, the buses are finally here.
It's day five, I know, but the buses are finally here to evacuate.
What's really curious is coming the other way is a huge convoy of National Guard-looking trucks with food.
Now, if the people are going to be taken out of New Orleans, why is the food coming in here?
So they're going to pass each other.
The food that they needed two days ago is going to pass as the hungry people leave in the buses for the outlying areas.
Clearly, some work needs to be done.
The Times Picoun, by the way, these guys are heroes too.
I can't believe putting out a newspaper in the midst of all of this.
They've done it online, obviously, and you can see this at n-o-l-a.com, nola, n-ol-a.com.
If I've been saying Christina is the name of this hurricane, it's Katrina.
We try to get every detail correct here as we go through this.
Let's take some more calls.
This is Open Line Friday on the Rush Show.
Here, Shirley, in Hinton, Oklahoma.
Hi there.
Hi, Shirley.
Hello.
Hi, you're on.
Oh, hello, Roger.
Listen, this morning on television, I saw a black leader, and I'm reasonably sure it was Reverend Abernathy, talking about racism.
And it was because the people, the majority of them, are black is the reason the help wasn't down there when it should have been or as quickly as it should have been.
You know, it discourages people from donating.
It discourages people from helping because the majority of the mom and pop people like my husband and myself are white.
We are sending money.
We are canceling a trip that we were going to make to see our children in Ohio and Tennessee because we feel the fuel should be sent to that area and used for this rescue effort.
Yeah, good for you.
It's just absolutely asinine that people are trying to whip up this race thing.
Yeah.
Well, here's my advice, obviously, Shirley.
On the fringe, you're going to hear all kinds of crazy stuff from people.
They are on the fringe.
When you hear racism, surely you ignore it.
You fight against it.
You do the right thing.
And I don't care whether the person's black, white, or whatever color.
When you hear racism, when you hear people who are saying things that are based on the color of people's skin, I tend to ignore them.
I tend to marginalize them in my mind.
They're put off to the side.
They have lost all credibility.
The idea that anybody would gain any traction by, in effect, saying, George Bush is murdering those blacks because they're black.
He's deliberately withholding food and water, and it's a deliberate thing.
He just wants to murder blacks.
Now, when you hear stuff like that, you just know this crazy person needs to be pushed right off to the side there to babble off in the corner because that is not, well, accurate.
That is not common sense.
That is not mainstream political thought.
That is not acceptable political thought in this country, one way or the other.
You wouldn't put up with it from David Duke.
I'm not going to put up with it from Al Sharpton.
I don't care.
These people are now talking the same race-based language that I absolutely, and I think a majority of Americans absolutely reject.
Done.
Over.
I'm not going to give them another minute of coverage.
I was thinking about, wasn't it, Al Sharpton on Keith Oberman yesterday?
And I listened to that and just about threw up.
And I'm not even going to play it.
I mean, the normal thing would be cover it and then analyze.
No.
They're so marginalized by that race-based approach.
It is so unacceptable.
It is so far out of the mainstream.
It is so extreme.
It is the same stuff Hugo Chavez, the dictator of Venezuela, was saying yesterday.
That's just off in the corner.
Not even going to be covered.
So surely that's the way we're handling it.
People are in trouble in this Gulf Coast area.
Americans are in trouble.
Babies are in trouble.
Pets are in trouble.
Grandmothers are in trouble.
People in wheelchairs, people walking upright, whoever they are, they're Americans in trouble.
We're going to help them.
That's the end of the story.
All right, Jeff in Houston, next on the Rush Show.
Hi, Jeff.
Hey, Roger.
Yes, sir.
Hey, I just wanted to tell you that down here in Houston, we've got an unbelievable amount of refugees, I guess you'd call them.
I was this morning at a food donation drop-off.
They had a line a quarter mile long.
They didn't care if the victims were white, black, or whatever.
If people would just quit this bickering and do their part, everything will be fine.
Absolutely right.
Absolutely right.
And by the way, hats off to Houston, to Rick Perry, to San Antonio, to the amazing people of Texas who have opened their hearts, their doors, their homes, their stadiums, wherever, to helping the evacuees.
I don't call them refugees.
They're evacuees.
Their people are displaced and they're hurting.
And people out in Texas are picking up on this.
And it's a tremendous thing to watch and see and an inspiration.
So I appreciate the call.
We're going to take a short break here on the Rush program.
I'm Roger Hedgecock.
We're covering the, obviously, we're covering the aftermath of Katrina.
And your thoughts on Open Line Friday at 1-800-282-2882.
After this.
Roger Hedgecock in for Rush Limbaugh today.
When the Saints co-marching in, Pete Fountain.
More New Orleans music today as we celebrate that great city in the agony of this post-Katrina world with now National Guard streaming into the Superdome and finally restoring some order there.
By the way, National Guard that had to be brought in from as far away as Arkansas, apparently no National Guard from New Orleans and Louisiana itself.
And I'm desperately searching here to come up with why the governor of Louisiana wasn't using her own National Guard to solve some of these problems earlier on.
A good quote.
In fact, I'm getting a lot of my information here online from the Times Picayune, the newspaper in New Orleans, which is online at nola.com, n-ol-a.com.
Zachary Smith, evacuated from his home in mid-city, quoted here in this article saying, There's no leadership, none.
Where's the mayor?
Where's the city council?
They all want to come to the hood when they need a vote.
Where are they now?
We need them.
He says, When I get back, I guess he's being evacuated.
He said, When I get back, I'm going to be out there in the hood with a picket sign right in front of City Hall.
So there are people on the ground know who initially needed to respond and didn't have a response.
So the New Orleans mayor can fume all he wants to.
The Black caucus can fume all they want to.
The fact is that it was the local authorities that folded in the unfortunate wake of this thing.
And of course, it destroyed their homes too.
I understand.
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