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Dec. 13, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:29
December 13, 2005, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Well, thank you so much, Johnny Donovan.
What a pleasure and a privilege it is to be able to spend the next few hours with you.
I know you're disappointed that Rush is not here.
He is under the weather.
I'm always disappointed when Rush isn't here.
But for those of you too who've been waiting for the morning update DittoCam video podcasts, they will debut soon when Rush is back, which I hope is tomorrow.
Right back in this chair and the Golden EIB microphone, I happen to be coming to you by way of my home now, Detroit, Michigan.
And it's great to be in my WJR Detroit studios, the great voice of the Great Lakes, and to be able to look across the glass and see Ann Thomas, my executive producer for the morning show, Anna Bartolada, Paul Roy, Brian Morton.
You can't believe how many people are behind the scenes to make these shows work.
You already know about Mike Mamone, who I used to work with at WABC in New York.
And Brett Winterbull is the guy who answers the phone when you call right now at 1-800-282-2882, 800-282-2882.
We'll open the phone lines right away.
Then, of course, there's Rush's chief of staff, the famous H.R. Kit H.R. Carson.
H.R. has been with the show now 15 years.
Happy anniversary to you.
And another guy I used to work with at WABC in New York, the official EIB announcer, Johnny Donovan.
I even worked with Bo Snerdley a long time ago.
But Bo's not around today.
Rush is off ill, so Bo gets off too.
What a contract Bo Snerdley has.
I have talked to you from the 50,000 watts of WABC from WMCA in New York over the years, WWDB in Philadelphia, and now my home, WJR in Detroit, filled in for Paul Harvey a number of times, America's number one newsman, and once for even Sean Hannity.
And in the very, very beginning, many, many years ago on WABC, on the Rush Limbaugh show, when it was just on WABC, or at least my fill-in part.
Like you, I am a faithful student at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
As you know, there is no final exam.
We are tested every day.
And if you just look at the news today, you know how much we are tested every day.
I mourn the loss of life.
Well, I'll get to that in a moment.
The couple of things that we are going to be talking about is the taking back of the Christmas season.
And also, and this one's close to home because we are Motown.
We are the motor city, the heart of the Midwest, and the site of Super Bowl 40, by the way, next month.
And I must tell you that we're going to invite Rick Wagner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, coming up on the program today, to ask him basically bluntly, why should anyone else care about how the General Motors story ends?
You've certainly seen in the Wall Street Journal lately a couple of different editorials, one that Rick Wagner wrote several days ago and one that was just in again the other day, basically talking to us about the motor city and about the automobile industry and the fates and fortune of an industry that affects a lot of people.
And of course, here in Detroit, it means everything.
Here in the state of Michigan, it means everything.
But what's it mean to the rest of us around the country and for that matter around the world?
We'll give Rick Wagner a chance to tell us.
Other news that's out there, I have to tell you right off the bat, I am sick, and I mourn the death that has been so much in the news.
And, you know, I'm talking about what has happened here with Stanley Tukey Williams.
And I know there's been a lot of argument and a lot of people for or against capital punishment.
And, you know, it's great that he ended up writing children's books and telling people not to join the Crips, which he founded.
And, you know, thousands of people probably have been affected by the Crips.
Heck, you have to commit a crime just to become a member.
I'm glad that he changed and that he saw the light.
But I must tell you, I am sad about the death, incredibly sad, about the death of, well, first of all, Albert Lewis Owens, who was just 26 when Tookie told him to lay down on the floor face down, and Tookie stuck a shotgun in his back and killed him.
You see, Albert Lewis Owens, who was 26 when Tookie killed him on that 7-Eleven store for a $120 robbery, would be 52 today, which happens to be my age, 52.
And, you know, while Tookie wrote children's books and all of that, who knows what Albert Louis Owens might have done had he been given an opportunity to live?
Can you say he wouldn't have discovered a cure for cancer?
I can't.
Who knows what he might have done?
He never got the chance.
So today, I mourn the death of not Tookie Williams, but of Albert Lewis Owens, who would be 52 today.
Of Shai She Yang, who would be 89 had he not killed her at the age of 63.
Yen I Yang, 76 when he was murdered by Tookie.
And Yi Chan Lin, who was 43 and had the misfortune of visiting her mom and dad at work where they were merely running a motel when Tookie decided to kill them.
Their daughter, Yi Chan Lin, would be 69 today.
And doesn't it just bother you a little bit that all we hear about is Tookie this and Tookie that, and we don't hear anything about these four people that Tookie took off the face of the earth.
It just makes me sick.
And when you see the Hollywood elite get involved in this thing, it just becomes ridiculous.
It becomes laughable.
Well, but it isn't funny because nothing about what Stanley Tookie Williams did was funny.
And the biggest crime was that it took us so long to finally put him to death.
Because if justice was served and it didn't take over 20 years, we never would have known that he could, in fact, write children's stories and whatever else he did that makes people forget what he did with no apology, no atonement for these senseless and brutal killings.
No redemption.
This is the guy who joked about the gurgling last sounds of 26-year-old Albert Lewis Owens after he shot him in the back, laying on the floor of a 7-Eleven in a $120 robbery.
Goodbye, Stanley Tookie Williams.
Sorry it took so long, but in your words, as you said just before you died, it's God's will.
Interestingly enough.
Well, and by the way, whatever happened to God and Christ in Christmas, we'll talk a little bit about that today because we have the opportunity.
It's been going on for a long time.
You've heard Rush talk about it.
You've heard other people talk about it.
But now finally, and maybe it's because of the internet, finally something good from the internet, I mean really good, and that is people are finding some strength to step up and say, you know what, we happen to celebrate Christmas.
If you don't, that's fine.
Welcome to America.
We are inclusive.
We let you come to this country as we came to this country.
We invite you to celebrate whatever holidays are important to you that doesn't offend us.
That doesn't offend us at all.
Why should you be offended by our celebrations?
Our celebrating our holidays, important to us, shouldn't offend you.
And lately, it's as if we are having folks over for dinner.
It's like America is having folks over for dinner at our house.
And when all of our guests are seated at our table, we realize that we can't even sit at our own table because they're short a chair.
We find another chair in the other room.
We bring it to the table, but we're told by our guests in our house, sorry, no room at the table.
It's our table.
It's our house.
This is our country.
We welcome everyone.
Please come to these United States of America, but don't immediately put us down for what makes us these United States of America.
You come here for freedom.
Don't infringe on ours.
You come here to make more money than you can make in your country.
Then don't immediately complain that our money says in God we trust.
That's just the way it is.
We welcome you to our country.
We've tried to be as nice as we possibly can and as inclusive as we possibly can.
Maybe we've bent over a little too far backwards, and now we're saying enough is enough.
Well, the phone lines are open to you, and I want to hear what you have to say about various stories of the day at 1-800-282-2882.
That's 1-800-282-2882.
And we'll take our first callers in just a moment.
I'm Paul W. Smith in for Rush Limbaugh.
Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, happy Kwanzaa, happy whatever you might be celebrating.
That's what makes America great.
We all celebrate every different holiday that's important to us.
We're all inclusive, aren't we?
Well, it seems like it's been harder to be all-inclusive.
It's been the holiday season.
People were actually selling holiday trees instead of Christmas trees.
You go into the store and say, I'd like a Christmas tree.
Well, our holiday trees are over there.
So you go, you buy the tree.
Then you go to the other part of the store and you say, gee, I guess I need a holiday tree stand.
And the other person says, well, I don't know where that might be, but the Christmas tree stands right over there.
1-800-282-2882 direct line to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Paul W. in for Rush, who's a bit under the weather.
We're hoping he is back fine.
Tomorrow, let's see what's on your mind as we go to Stephen in Tarrytown, New York.
Stephen, welcome into the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Hi, how are you doing, Paul?
I'm a longtime fan.
Good.
Nice to have you.
I'm a longtime fan of the Rush Limbaugh Show myself.
I used to, I mean, I'm a fan of Rush, of course, but I'm a fan of you too.
I used to listen to you when you were on MCA when I first moved to Tarrytown.
Oh, my goodness, that was a long time ago.
Was Stephen?
Is that 18 years ago, something like that?
Got to be longer than, well, let's see.
It could have been about 18.
Let's see.
I spent been here almost 10 years back home at WJR in Detroit.
I spent five glorious years in Philadelphia, and before that, five years in New York.
So from 85 to 90 in New York, 90 to 96 in Philadelphia, 96 to now, right here in Detroit.
Good memory, Stephen.
Wow.
And by the way, I don't know if you ever been to Tarrytown?
I never have.
We're right near the Tapan Z Bridge.
I don't know if you read in the New York Post about what's happening here next week.
No, what's happening?
Scott Ritter, the former UN inspector, he's doing a big Iraq debate with Christopher Hitchens.
And apparently, at the Tarrytown Music Hall, and there's going to be all kinds of protests with the Cindy Sheehan people and the American Legion people.
It's going to be a big, big event.
Okay, I'm glad you gave us the heads up, Stephen.
What else is on your mind today?
And also, you can go to popdebate.com for tickets for that if you want.
And I wanted to talk about the Tukey Smith thing.
Tookie Williams?
Yeah, Tookie Williams.
Okay.
Do you think if Schwarzenegger, if Tukey had admitted that he did it and apologized, do you think Schwarzenegger still would have gone through with the execution?
That's a good question.
It's a good question, Stephen, in that Governor Schwarzenegger did say that without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption.
Sounds to me based on that, that he might have at least looked at the possibility of giving him some clemency life without parole.
But he said based on the cumulative weight of the evidence, there's no reason to second-guess the jury's decision of guilt or raise significant doubts or serious reservations about Williams' convictions and death sentence.
And again, without that apology and atonement, no redemption.
Could be.
It's a possibility.
You bring up an interesting question.
I guess we'll never know.
Hello.
I said, I guess we'll never know.
Stephen, thanks very much.
Frank is in Redding, California, and joining us on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Hello, Frank.
Hi, Paul.
How are you doing this morning?
I'm great.
I hope you're well.
Yes, I am.
Thank you.
Just two quick comments about Tukey Williams.
I work for the California Department of Corrections, and Tukey Williams' son is currently imprisoned at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, California.
He's over on D Yard, and they've got the yard locked down for security reasons.
We got a memo the other day at work that said that if Tukey was executed, there was a danger that the Crips and Bloods were going to unite and go after the officers on the yard.
And I find it interesting that two groups that are normally very antagonistic towards one another when they have a common enemy, that is the guards, that they're willing to forget their differences and go after the guards.
That was one point.
The other is the people in our population, in our culture that do believe in the death penalty, parolees or inmates, because they know if you want to control somebody's behavior, threaten to kill them if they don't do something, and they will comply.
So the question is, is the death penalty a deterrent to crime?
Yes.
Yeah, I agree with you, Frank.
I think at the very least, it's a deterrent for that person that's put to death to ever committing another crime.
Yes.
And I think that it's greater than that, but it gets down to that simple question.
But isn't that interesting?
I didn't know that.
Tukey's son is in another jail.
I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Thanks.
He was still there, but he's gone now.
Frank?
Yes.
You were starting to say something.
Oh, I just want to say you're doing a very good job for Rush.
Keep up the good work.
Boy, am I glad we got you back for that.
Thanks, Frank, very much.
Let's go to Freddie in Long Island, New York.
Hello, Freddie.
Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Yeah, hi, Paul.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing well.
Hope you're well.
Yes, thank you.
You know, I have a little different take on this, and it really burns me up with this issue of capital punishment.
When Williams decided in that time to shoot that person, he made a risk and reward value judgment.
He knew that the law was already on the books, that if I take this life, I run the risk, if caught and convicted, of being put to death.
He knew that.
His value judgment was, I will take that risk.
He did that same value judgment 12 days later.
If you go into a store and you pick up an item, you're saying, is this worth X amount of dollars?
Whatever the case may be.
The bottom line is the state did not kill him.
He committed suicide when he put that shotgun to that kid's back and when he killed that family.
So this everybody goes around and starts saying, this poor guy, look what he's done in his redemption.
His redemption is between him and his maker, not between him and the here and now, if you would.
Freddie, I made that decision.
I'm so glad you brought this up, Freddie.
But here's the other point.
You know, if people would say he made this mistake when he shot this 26-year-old kid face down on the floor of the 7-Eleven store in a $120 robbery, you know, the heat of the moment, he was just going to rob.
Something went wrong.
He killed the guy.
But then to hear that, of course, he shot him in the back while he's laying on the floor and that he joked about the gurgling sound this poor kid made as he was dying.
But then you're right, Freddie.
It's important to point out, days later, two weeks later, he then shoots three other people dead.
So clearly, it wasn't just a happenstance, a circumstance, a bad turn of events.
He made decisions.
He made choices.
And he was made to pay for his own decisions and his own choices.
You're right.
He put himself to death.
That's exactly right.
People must remember.
We live in a society today that nobody wants to take responsibility.
He made a choice.
Now, we have laws on the books if it's justifiable homicide.
We have laws for manslaughter.
There were choices that could have been done, but he proved what he did and why he did it, and he paid the consequence, no more than anybody else would.
Personal responsibility.
Thanks, Freddie.
People don't take that very often anymore.
Let's go to Wayne, who is on his cell phone in Baton Rouge.
Hello, Wayne.
How are things in Baton Rouge?
That's actually sunny and pretty nice here today.
Very good.
But the comment I was going to make is that the death penalty is not so much for deterrent, but it is to protect innocent life.
You mentioned that earlier, is to keep that one who has shown the propensity to kill innocent people is to protect other innocent people from being killed.
And the other thing is I think it provides when society has a way to provide that protection, ultimate punishment, it lets the other victims, the families, be able to forgive and get over that.
Otherwise, you end up with a revenge system where they've got to go out and hunt Puki down and kill him himself.
But when society comes in and protects the other innocent people, it allows the victims to forgive and forget and get over and move forward.
I agree with you, Wayne, not 100%, but 1,000%.
Thanks very much for your call as we squeeze in Justin in Brookville, Pennsylvania.
Hello, Justin.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
Welcome in to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Good morning.
Merry Christmas to you, and you're doing a great job.
Thanks, Justin.
Merry Christmas to you.
Real quick, before we have to break here.
I don't understand why all these Hollywood liberals are so against the death penalty for this gentleman, that he's a cold-blooded murderer, yet they're so put on abortion and they want to kill the most innocent living being on earth, an infant.
Makes no sense.
It's total hypocrisy.
It is.
You're absolutely right.
But the answer is in your question, the way you ask it, Justin.
They're Hollywood liberals.
What exactly is that anyway?
I think they've defined themselves well.
They're against the death penalty, but all for abortion.
Exactly is that anyway.
I lost you there, Justin, but I appreciate the call, and we're going to get back to more calls at 1-800-282-2882.
That's 1-800-282-2882.
It's the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Paul W. Smith.
Right back.
Thanks, Johnny Donovan.
It's a pleasure and a privilege to be able to spend this portion of the day with you from Detroit, Michigan.
1-800-282-2882, the number.
We'll talk a little bit later about taking back the Christmas season.
Also, we're welcoming in the chairman and CEO of General Motors, Rick Wagner.
They've been in the news an awful lot.
Not good news.
And the question is, we know what it means here in the Motor City in Motown, but what's it mean to the rest of the country and, for that matter, the world, if General Motors is not able to pull out of the problems they have?
Why should we care?
Is the question, I guess, I'll be asking Rick Wagner coming up.
The Los Angeles Times with their editorial says it's not about Tookie, and then it goes on explaining why he shouldn't be put to death.
And at the end, it says, the population of California's death row now stands at 647 with the next execution of Clarence Ray Allen scheduled for January 17th.
Allen, who is 75 years old, blind and confined to a wheelchair, is unlikely to attract the kind of attention that accompanied the debate about Williams.
Why not?
Meanwhile, if the governor feels compelled to issue a treatise explaining his decision in that case, he should take the opportunity to address the larger injustice of capital punishment.
Well, anyway, of course, they don't put in here at all what this guy did to be on death row.
He just happened to kill three people with a shotgun in 1980 in a San Francisco robbery.
Now, the big crime is that he's been sitting there and we've been paying for him since 1980.
That's the biggest crime now, next to the fact that he killed people and should be therefore put to death.
And the L.A. Times is right in this case.
It's not about Tookie.
I'm amazed that they figured that out.
And I agree with them, not 100%, but 1,000%.
It's not about Tookie.
It's about Albert Lewis Owens, who was 26 when he was murdered face down on that 7-Eleven store in a $120 robbery by Tookie.
He'd be 52 today.
I'm 52.
It's about Tsai Shai Yang, who'd be 89 today.
Yen I Yang was 76 when he was put to death.
Yi Chen Lin, the daughter of these two folks running a motel, sadly, was visiting that day, visiting mom and dad, so he killed her too when she was 43.
Today she'd be 69.
You're right, L.A. Times.
It's not about Tookie.
It's about the people he killed.
It's about the people who joined the gangs that he organized and legitimized.
It's about the hundreds of people, maybe thousands, who have been affected by those gangs.
Let's go back to you on the telephone: 1-800-282-2882.
That's 1-800-282-2882.
And, well, for goodness sakes, Rob is in Traverse City, Michigan, beautiful Traverse City, Michigan, the cherry capital of the world.
And it's just a great place to visit.
Rob, nice to have you calling in.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Paul.
Hi.
I just have to tell you that I have to respectfully disagree with most of your callers.
And when it comes to the death penalty, I just want to say that I think a lot of people make assumptions.
And one of the assumptions is that criminals are scared to die.
And I think that because most citizens, most people, they don't want to die.
They live a good life.
They're honest people.
And for them to be put to death would be incredibly hard.
But with the criminal, I think that when you assume that they want, you know, that that's the harshest punishment, I think that that's wrong.
Personally, I think the harshest punishment would be to stay in prison your entire life.
I think that it's an easy way out.
I think it has more to do with maybe revenge than it does with justice.
And I think that justice should be the ultimate goal.
Well, if they didn't worry about dying, then they wouldn't have tied this thing up in the courts for 26 years or whatever it's been with appeal after appeal after appeal.
Let me tell you something.
When it gets right down to it, you know what's going to happen.
Very, very few people want to die.
Very, very few people say, well, okay, I'll just die.
Actually, Tukey said if he dies, it's God's will.
So he at least found peace in that way.
And here's the other point that I don't want you to forget, Rob.
Whether it keeps someone else from committing a crime or not, what we know for sure about capital punishment is that that person won't commit that crime again.
That's what we know for sure, and that's what matters to me.
I certainly appreciate the call.
Rob in Traverse City.
What a good place to be.
Let's go to Dan, who's in Toronto, and let's hear what he has to say here on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Dan.
Yeah, when I heard the announcement yesterday here on local radio about Schwarzenegger's decision, at first, I was all ready to praise him and everything.
This is great.
Justice, you know, he won't both bow down to the Hollyweird left and whatnot.
And then later on, I don't know if it was late last night or this morning, I heard his comment on why he made the decision he did.
And that sort of had to make me throw my hands back up in the air because Rush is always talking about this.
He says Tukey didn't, he wasn't convinced that Tukey was remorseful.
Right.
He said without an apology.
The actual quote, for those who didn't see it, it says Stanley Williams insists he's innocent and that he will not and should not apologize or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case.
Without an apology and atonement of these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption.
Based on the cumulative weight of the evidence, there is no reason to second guess the jury's decision of guilt or raise significant doubts or serious reservations about Williams' convictions and death sentence.
Now, that might be copping out a bit, but we also understand, Dan, that this is a guy who's going to run for re-election and has to get elected in California.
Yeah, but it seems like it's missing the point completely.
It's about the justice system and the fact that he was convicted, whether he's had a change of heart, all the power to him.
You know, if he really did come to God, he's in heaven today, all the power to him.
But he's got to pay the penalty for the crimes he's committed on this earth, regardless of whether he's respectful or sorry for it.
That's certainly the way you and I feel.
So that's not, that's, you and I have agreement.
I just wouldn't be too hard on Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He's got a, can you imagine being the governor of California?
I just was a little bit disappointed.
I'm glad it went the way it did.
Yeah.
And it's over at this point.
All right, Dan.
How are things in Toronto, Dan?
Cold.
It's about 10 degrees here today.
Okay.
Well, we've all got some cold and snowy temperatures.
You're more used to it than we are.
It's a little earlier than normal to be this cold.
Yeah.
It's going to be a great winter, Dan.
It sure is.
You take care.
Jeff is in Indiana, and Jeff is on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I'm Paul W. Smith in for Rush.
We hope Rush is back with you on your favorite radio station tomorrow.
That's what we're hoping for.
And what's on your mind, Jeff?
Hi, Paul.
How are you doing?
I'm doing well.
Hope you're well.
Bear with me.
I'm a little nervous.
This is my first time calling in a radio show.
Welcome.
Just curious, I haven't heard anybody actually spin that redemption factor, and I'm just wondering how anybody can see any form of redemption based on writing a couple books to redeem murder in people, especially innocent people.
Well, the books don't mean anything to me.
First of all, if he hadn't been around for this long, he wouldn't have ever gotten around to writing the books.
So, I mean, that's a gift that he was given.
He had all kinds of other problems early on in jail and in prison, but to write a book or a series of books warning young people against gangs, the very gangs that he organized and legitimized, and to get into a gang, you got to commit a crime in front of gang witnesses, and there are thousands of gang members, so thousands of crimes, and probably thousands of murders and stuff.
It doesn't much matter to me.
His redemption, his final justice is with God, and that's where he is right now.
So it's not up for us.
Our job is just to enforce the laws and the punishment that goes with those laws while those punishments are still on the books.
Oh, exactly.
And personally, I mean, he's been there 20 years too long, if you ask me.
Of course he has.
He's trying to justify what he has done, what he has done more recently.
And I mean, how do you justify murdering people?
I just don't see anything that you could do to redeem or find redemption for that.
I just don't see it.
I don't understand it either, but you and I don't think, like the people who are out there or were out there, fighting for him to live, about 2,000 death penalty opponents standing or sitting outside the prison gates.
Thanks very much for the call.
We appreciate it.
As we continue, Jeff from Indiana, you know, some of the information, you can't help but look this stuff up when you're going to do a story like this and a show like Rush's.
But you look at the 1980s, the Crips, heavily involved in a drug trade that they commenced, an expansion throughout the United States.
They brought in a new drug that no one had really heard about at the time called Crack.
Thank you, Crips.
And as I mentioned, Crip members initiate into the gang by committing a crime in front of gang witnesses.
The initiation process is called locking in, and female members have the option to commit a crime or become sexed in, have sex with several older members.
The fine organization that Stanley Tookie Williams started.
1-800-282-2882, 1-800-282-2882.
We have time to slip a mic in because he's on a cell phone, and I don't want it to cost him an arm and a leg.
Mike in California, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Hello there.
Hello there.
Just a little mental exercise here.
Let's just assume that the original judge and jury that convicted him and the three or four appeals were all wrong and that he should not have gone to death.
Okay, well then why not take that to the next logical conclusion and let's just turn him loose from jail completely.
And then to protect him from getting back into a life of crime, we need to relocate him.
So let's find some liberal who doesn't believe in the death penalty and let them adopt him.
Yeah, he should be adopted and if not move in with them, move next door.
Next door might be a slight bit better, yes.
Your argument about the executed criminal not committing another crime is one that I have used for years and years.
It is absolutely foolproof and it frustrates the living daylights out of the liberals.
Because right now, I worked eight years in the prison system herding inmates around on fires.
And the rate of reveticism is somewhere in the 83% range for felons.
And I don't know the murder rate, but last week on Tom Sullivan's show here in Sacramento, they talked about 858,000 people have been murdered since the death penalty was reinstated.
You know, it's only 1%.
That's still, you know, 1,000 people that would not have died, assuming 1% of the criminals that committed that would have been arrested and released to commit another crime.
And I think that 1% is hugely low.
So it is absolute mathematical fact that the ratio of zero murders committed by an executed or any other crime by an executed criminal versus an 83% reviticism, some of which have to be murder, it's irrefutable.
Michael, we've got to go.
You keep an eye on California for us, will you?
I'm doing my best.
All right, we appreciate it.
As we continue on the Rush Limbaugh Show in just a moment.
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I'm Paul W. Smith in for Rush.
He's a bit under the weather, so unfortunately, the podcasts, the morning update, Ditto Cam video podcasts are held off just a bit till he is back, which we hope is tomorrow.
We're taking your calls at 1-800-282-2882.
1-800-282-2882, your direct line to the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, and we find Joe in Mansfield, Ohio.
Joe, welcome in.
Hi, thank you.
My comment was that people just don't seem to understand that these guys that have committed murder and they're on death row, they think, well, okay, we can just let them lock them up forever and throw away the key and then they can't kill nobody anymore, but that's not true.
You know, you have a correction officer that's working, you know, taking care of his family, you know, paying taxes, and he's killed by one of these guys.
So it doesn't mean because they're locked up for life that they'll never kill again.
We do have a tendency to like the idea that maybe we sweep them under the carpet and don't think about them, but they're there, and there are people who have to deal with them on a daily basis, and we're paying for them on a daily basis.
And I already know the argument that somebody on death row costs us even more than if they were just being held in prison forever.
But be that as it may, justice was served in this case.
And I appreciate you weighing in on this, Joe.
Let's see what Trish in California has to say here on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Hello, Trish.
Hi.
I just had a thought here that when I hear about the supporters of Tookie Williams talking about how great his books have been as a deterrent to kids to not joining gangs, I think there should be one last page added to these books stating, on December 13th, 2005, Stanley Tookie Williams was put to death for his crimes.
I think that would be a powerful deterrent.
I think that's a very good point.
If he was very concerned about teaching kids not to make mistakes, not to join the very gangs that he formed, that he organized, that he legitimized, he ought to have the final chapter being one that you will pay the ultimate price when you take someone's life, when you break these laws, these laws against humanity, that the final crime in this case is paid back with death, and that's what happened to him.
I think you're right.
Now, Trish.
Yes.
Do you think that's going to happen?
I don't know.
I think it would be a great idea.
I think it ought to get the idea, get out there, and maybe just add these, because kids have to see that there are consequences to our actions.
Absolutely.
Regardless of how sorry you are for it afterwards, even as we raise our children, our kids still have to pay the consequences.
Even though they're sorry and they do retribution, they still have to pay the consequences.
I was just, now has Rush put up with this during the entire show?
I just heard from Kit H.R. Carson, who's been with the show 15 years.
He just said in my headphones, Trish, maybe in the paperback edition of Tukey's books.
There you are.
Nice to know that they still have a sense of humor all the time back at the world headquarters in New York City for the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Thanks for your call, Trish.
I do appreciate it.
And some final calls on Tukey Williams at 1-800-282-2882 coming up.
1-800-282-2882.
Still to come.
Taking back Christmas, which is kind of ridiculous that we have to.
There's even a book called The War on Christmas written by John Gibson.
And General Motors, we know they're in big trouble, but what's it matter to us?
Well, we know what it matters in Detroit.
What about across the rest of these United States and for the world, for that matter?
Rick Wagner, the chairman and CEO, will join us in a bit.
He happens to be at lunch at the White House right now for Congressman John Dingell, our congressman in this area who has been there for 50 years.
And President Bush was honoring him at lunch today.
And Rick Wagner's after lunch.
We'll talk to him after that and talk to you after this.
And we're giving Louise in Cleveland, Ohio, the last bit of our precious time this hour.
Louise, welcome to the Rush Limbaugh Show.
Yes, you had a caller state something about a lockdown, where Tukey Williams' son is.
And perhaps that reinforces my thought that bad behavior is a pattern that often is not changed unless drastic steps are taken, police monitored, so to speak.
And at any rate, that behavior often embraced and reinforced by, say, Hollywood or these video games and so forth.
But maybe, indeed, the very ones he supposedly changed or was trying to don't change.
Well, I think you're absolutely right, Louise.
And you point out something that would have slipped by.
I didn't know Tukey Williams' son was in another prison elsewhere until one of our callers informed us.
See, I hope you learn a little something from what I'm talking about, and I'm learning a lot from what you guys are talking about.
In just a moment, we'll continue here on the Rush Limbaugh Show.
I hope you can stay with us.
85% of Americans say they're Christians.
Christmas is a federal holiday.
How come it's so hard for some stores to say Merry Christmas?
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