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Jan. 5, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
33:54
January 5, 2006, Thursday, Hour #3
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Hi folks and welcome back.
Great to have you.
L. Rushbow and the Excellence and Broadcasting Network, serving humanity, talent on loan from God.
I am America's anchor man.
Play by playman of the news, along with the color commentary.
Telephone number if you want to be on the program today, 800-282-288-2, the email address rush at EIB net.com.
You won't believe that.
Well, yes, you will believe it.
A call screener during a period of downtime here at the top of the hour decided to scope out.
We do this periodically for our amusement, but to also figure out just what the kooks out there are thinking.
So went to Democrat Underground.
That website, we had this uh report the other day that uh uh McCain, uh Susan Collins, and Sununu, three Republican senators, uh, are on their way to Antarctica.
And of course, there's no reason to go to Antarctica other than to say you've been there.
Why were why are they going to Antarctica?
Go down there, you're obviously going to study whether or not man-made global warming is destroying the pristine ice and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
While they're there, they might want to jump in that ravine and save the three penguins that the film crew refused to save during March of the Penguins.
But there are people on the Democrat underground who are worried that something might happen to Collins McCain and Sununu like when Bush took out Wellstone.
I kid you not.
I printed it out.
I'm holding here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers.
So we took out we took out Wellstone.
Bush took out Wellstone.
Now that they can't go into Antarctica.
Wow.
Well, what no, not even any evidence of how it happened.
Bush could have taken them all out.
These are the people who think they are the mainstream and uh have already won the 06 uh elections.
Snerdley was the guest on C-SPAN today that you were watching Melanie Sloan.
Okay, because we got a soundbite from her, not the one you're talking about, but it is hilarious spin on the whole Abramov thing.
Basically, the money that Democrats got from him didn't mean anything because they're not in power.
Um, the uh the uh who's the host?
Susan Swain.
Here's the question.
Christian Science Monitor has a chart this morning headlined The Trail of Money from Jack Abramov, and it looks at stuff from the 2000 cycle through 2006.
And it shows that while in fact Democrats got significantly more money from him, 2.8 million, Democrats collected as much as one and a half million from his lobbying efforts.
And Melody Sloan, she's executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
She's also a former aide to Senator Schumer and Representative Conyers.
So we know what she's made of.
This is what she said.
Democrats are affected by this scandal, although I think it just will not be to the same extent.
And you know, the main reason for that is that the Republicans were the ones in power.
You wouldn't have as much reason to pay off a Democrat because they frankly just couldn't deliver anything.
Yeah, like Harry Reid, right?
It would make no sense to pay off Harry Reed, who runs Nevada.
It wouldn't make any sense, huh, Melanie?
Then why did they get the money?
Abramoff's not stupid.
You don't give money, they can't do anything for you.
That's not the way politics works.
Everybody that gives expects something, either ideas, quid pro quo, policy, what have you.
What the the the real answer that she should have given, Democrats are affected by this, although I don't think it'll be to the same extent because the media will ignore the contributions that the Democrats got.
Because the media has already made it a Republican scandal.
Oh, me oh my um.
Let's see, what I may as well do this because this is this is I'm uh when I saw this story today, it's a Robert Novak column, actually.
And I saw this and I went, uh-oh.
Maybe I've been too vocal.
This is entitled The Nancy Problem.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had just finished a typically discursive floor speech.
You know what discursive means?
I know you and Rhea Linda don't, but you know what it means, discur means you just ramble incoherently from one topic to the next with no transition that makes any sense.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi just finished a typically discursive floor speech shortly before the year-end adjournment, when a very liberal member approached her second in command, minority whip Stanley Hoyer, and whispered in his ear, Stenny, is it not time for a coup?
It obviously was not time to oust Pelosi and replace her with Hoyer.
House Democrats do not get rid of their leaders with coups, as Republicans have during the last half century.
Nevertheless, dissatisfaction with Pelosi's performance is pervasive across the ideological spectrum.
Her colleagues grumble that under her leadership, the party lacks focus and a clear agenda necessary to take advantage of Republican disarray.
The deficiency is referred to by some House Democrats as the Nancy problem.
But it really transcends failings of their party leader.
They remain tied to obsolete practices that freeze in place aged committee leaders.
Their rhetoric betrays inability to free themselves from New Deal tax and spend policies.
Republican majority looks divided, out of gas, and threatened by scandal, but Democrats fear that they're ill-equipped to seize on their opportunity.
Democratic caucus.
The vote that propelled Pelosi to power was cast October 10th, 2001, when Pelosi defeated Hoyer for Party Whip 118 to 95.
But the authenticity of that outcome has always been questioned inside the caucus because of the exaggerated influence of Pelosi's fellow Californians.
Thirty of the outsized California delegations, 31 Democrats voted for Pelosi, some of them reluctantly.
Minus them, Hoyer had a clear edge over Pelosi, 95 to 88.
Also there was election fraud.
Within the Democrat Party caucus.
Many Democrats inside and outside of Congress see the wrong person elevated as their House leader by accident of geography.
It's hard to deny that Hoyer surpasses Pelosi in backroom strategy sessions, floor debate, TV interviews.
The man from Southern Maryland seems a better voice for a party trying to expand its base than the woman from San Francisco.
Today's gap between minority leader and minority whip is wide and visible.
Hoyer is no conservative, and he delivers partisan stem winders expected of a party leader, but he also is unapologetically pro-business and pro-national defense.
While Pelosi consistently runs in the opposite direction, Hoyer voted to go to war and for bankruptcy reform while Pelosi was against both.
What this is all about, folks, the Nancy problem is real simply explained.
Democrats know that she's an idiot.
That's what discursive floor speech means.
They know that she's an idiot.
They watch her on television with those eyes that never blink, and they got that is our leader.
What is she saying?
It makes no sense to even us.
But you know, they don't know what to do about it.
Because she was legitimately elected because of geography, all the Californians in the caucus, well, almost all of them voted for.
But aside from that, the Democratic management of legislation in the House is handled by the likes of John Dingle, who's 79, Tom Lantos, who's 77, John Conyer 76, David Obe, 67, John Spratt, 63.
These are men who generally talk about moving the previous question more than moving the nation.
The combination of such senior citizens and the 65-year-old Pelosi produce a mind-numbing product that is not calculated to take advantage of an unpopular war and a climate of scandal.
Pelosi is reported fearful that if Democrats don't finally regain control of the House, she may be replaced by Hoyer.
There are House Democrats who feel that change ought to come sooner to prevent another election defeat.
Yeah, that they're whispering to Stenny Hoyer, hey, Stenny, is it not time for a coup?
And and now, my I also have another theory.
I think I think everybody in the mainstream press knows this too.
But we're only hearing about it from Novak.
But I mean, if you got Democrats running around whispering in Stenny Hoyer's ear, you know they're talking to their pals in the press.
You know, can you believe I got this idiot?
Well, you see her on television last night.
What was she saying?
Well, you know that kind of scuttle butt's going on between the press and the favored friends of the Democratic Party, but they don't dare.
I'll guarantee you, if there were whispers of such things about Denny Haster, you wouldn't hear anything but that kind of talk.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back and continue here in mere moments.
I keep thinking about Melanie Sloan and C-SPAN today.
No, the Democrats don't have any power.
Why would anybody give them any money?
They have no power to slow down legislation.
I mean, they don't they don't have any power.
They can't conduct filibusters.
They can't slip about 225 billion dollars of pork into a highway bill.
Oh no, no.
Democrats don't have any power, do they?
You think they aren't a bunch of wackos that would give their left arms to stop these judicial nominations.
I'm also wondering, and we we we we hear about all this high crime and misdemeanor stuff going on.
I'm just wondering if um if eventually Bush will pardon Jack Abramov.
After all, Abramov's no Mark Rich.
Don't be surprised, folks.
I mean, stranger things have happened.
Dingy Harry's on the war path, by the way.
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Dingy Harry called for the resignation of Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday, one day after the government dropped Las Vegas from a list of cities considered potential high-risk targets eligible for special anti-terrorism grants.
Dingy Harry joins Clark County Sheriff Bill Young in calling for Chertoff to step down as a result of the decision, jeopardizing millions in additional federal funding that Nevada currently receives as a result of being considered a potential terrorist target.
Dingy Harry said anyone who can't see that Las Vegas is a high risk area doesn't deserve to serve in a position like that.
We had more visitors on New Year's Eve than they had in Times Square.
We're not a high risk area for heaven's sake.
That's what they say, all politics is local.
A friend of mine, Deborah Saunders, is a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle.
And she's funny, and she's no, I've said this before.
I've said Snertley's worried if I just outed her.
No, I've I've I've I've told people that she's a friend of mine.
She's safe.
She's the only thing in that paper people read anymore.
And is this talk, you see, she got a column here all about the left and its fascination with impeachment.
Uh from the nation's Katrina Vanden Hoovel to Jonathan Alder of Newsweek, the left's pulled out the impeachment card, brandishing it as the weapon that'll drive George W. Bush from the White House.
This could be more than talk Barbara Boxers consulting with John Dean as she explores the idea.
I must say I'm tickled at their efforts.
I supported impeaching the perjury-prone President Clinton, but preferred censure to removing him from office.
I also saw the damage to Republicans who pushed to chase Clinton out of office.
The angry leftists are so hysterical.
They can't distinguish between government agents eavesdropping on a president's political enemies and the data mining of international phone calls in an earnest effort to thwart another September 11 terrorist attack.
They don't see that Bush, rather than trying to hide his role in the effort, signed off on the program more than 30 times.
But it's the last paragraph that is just choice.
Deborah Saunders writes, this whole NSA story reinforces the fact that Bush is willing to be unpopular, willing to risk the White House even to get the job done, while too many of his Democrat critics will walk all over anyone to stand up for their lack of principles.
They will walk over anyone to stand up for their lack of principles.
Here is uh Karna in Naples.
Hi, Karna.
Welcome to the program.
It's great to Hey.
Hey, Rush, good to be with you.
Thank you.
Listen, on the whole uh Abraham case, I I've been thinking that while the ballot box is our first line of defense, um, when it comes to lobbyists, people seem aghast that there are some what 14,000 lobbyists in Washington, but nobody thinks about the fact that if Congress didn't uh control so many aspects of our lives from taxation to estate taxes to regulations to setting the price of butter To where we build submarines and everything else,
we wouldn't need to hire so many lobbyists to protect our interests.
We have a free speech right to do that, and how else can we make our points uh to these various members of Congress who control our lives?
That's an excellent point.
I mean, it's it's uh lobbyists are one way.
I mean, uh I've I've heard this defensive lobbyists, and some of them are very good people, and and the and the the uh message is hey, we're just representing the interests of our clients, which represent the American people, and we are petitioning government on their behalf, and blah, blah, blah.
And some of them are straight and clean and pure as the wind driven snow, others are not.
Uh well, that's the one.
But I your overall point is if they weren't if they weren't so damned intertwined with every element of our lives, they wouldn't need to pay that much attention to it.
Well, th you're you're absolutely right.
I mean, th think about you you say, well, look how many lobbyists are there now.
And I heard of I saw a number the other day, 14,000, 15, 20, whatever it is.
Uh the number of lobbyists employed in Washington has grown with a direct correlation to the you can almost look at it to the number of pages in the Federal Register and the number of pages in the in the tax laws.
Not surprised.
I'm not so it makes it makes it makes total sense.
I know.
So and what else are we going to do?
We can vote them out of office.
Uh, but on the other hand, uh I have every right to try to hire someone to protect my interest as a business person or whatever I am uh in Washington to look at every little line in that new tax law and what they're going to do with it.
I mean, Congressman, quite frankly, in their defense, they don't have time to learn the uh intricacies of every single tiny piece of legislation, and they rely on research done by all of these groups, you know, to see whether the law makes sense.
Let me ask you a question out there, Carner.
Are you a lobbyist?
Uh no, sir, I'm not.
I'm an author.
You're an author?
Uh-huh.
Have you have you hired a lobbyist?
Uh no, I haven't.
Okay, well no, no, I'm I I'm uh don't I'm not making any accusations here.
No, no, no, no, I no, I never have.
Uh but on the other hand, uh, I've I you know, I've I've lived and worked in Washington and and I see an awful lot of good people that that work in those kinds of jobs, and they're simply representing our interests and all the folks outside the boatway.
Yep.
I know it's true.
But yet then what you get down to the same old the same old criticism.
Well, that's all well and good for the people who can afford to hire lobbyists.
What about the poor schlubs who work in the mines in West Virginia who can't even afford to stay alive?
You've got the American.
What chance do they have to hire a lobbyist?
It's just wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait a minute.
What do you think the NEA is?
The American Mining Association, the AFT, uh the unions, all the rest of them, they act, you know, they're not going to be able to do that.
Well, now waiting.
Those are just those are branch offices of Democratic National Committee.
Oh, come on.
There's so many groups.
I mean, you walk up and not just K Street, but you walk up and then every other street in town, L Street, H Street, Connecticut Avenue, you know, it's totally filled with offices uh and people who are endeavoring to influence Congress on behalf of somebody.
And and I understand it.
It's a free country.
We're entitled to free speech.
And and once again, if Congress didn't have so much control over our lives, we wouldn't need them.
Well, and don't forget this, though.
Don't forget this.
Abramov's clients were the Indian tribes.
And the Indian tribes had a total exemption from campaign finance reform regulations.
And the Indian tribes gave more money to Senator McCain than anybody else.
In fact, he got more money than all the others combined.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And he's the author of campaign finance reform.
Some of the some look what do you think Tom Dashell's doing?
Tom Dashell became a lobbyist.
His wife already was a lobbyist for the uh for a couple of airlines.
Uh and and uh a lot of uh a lot of ex-Congressmen and Senators go into lobbying.
They have to wait.
What is the what is the law year?
They have to wait a year because it would look strange if they left their office and started selling influence or trading in the next day.
So to make it appear clean uh and make them wait a year before they can start running back into the office as a lobbyist, but they're hired because they know how it works up there.
Uh they're hired and know how the the goose is greased, uh and uh you know what doors open to where and how to get to the doors and that sort of thing.
So uh the idea that there's going to be any seriously re serious reform and fix it uh via legislation is as specious as the notion that campaign finance reform got the money out of politics.
And uh and yet even today you can find Richard Cohen in the Washington Post waxing on and on and on, oh John McCain, why why John McCain is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
By the way, what was the greatest thing before sliced bread?
Does anybody know?
I've always been curious.
It's the greatest thing since sliced bread.
There had to be something that was great before sliced bread became great.
The zipper.
Yeah.
Okay.
Your guiding light.
Times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, humiliation, torture, spying, warrantless searches, and even the good times.
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan urged a standing room only crowd at the Church of the Crossroads last night to unite to stop the war in Iraq, impeach President Bush, and see justice for those killed since the war started in 2003.
If you don't want the war machine to invade your island, don't let it happen, said Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son died in Iraq.
Where's she's in Great Britain or Europe?
Uh is over there rousing the troops.
Anyone can do what I do.
We are the checks and balances for our country.
We would like to see justice, she told the crowd of about 75.
It doesn't say 750 what?
Never once does it say that they are 750 people in this church.
So who was there?
I mean, if it were 750 people, you say 750 people.
But I mean, standing room only, you can put anything in there.
It could have been dead people.
Could have been penguins, could have any number of, it could have been seashells for all that matters.
But they didn't specify that there are any people at her.
Standing room only 750.
That's embarrassing.
Over there should have been 750,000, given the proclivities of that part of the uh world.
Oh, you know, the darling of the left is Cesar Chavez.
You know that.
Because you know why?
Because Caesar Chavez is more concerned about people who live uh in the Northeast and use heating oil to stay warm than George W. Bush is or the big oil companies in America.
Caesar Chavez is making it possible for Northeastern people and Chicago people, I think, to get reduced price heating oil.
He's a good guy.
They had Bill Delahunt, a congressman from Massachusetts, go down there and meet with him and make the deal.
And you know, Cesar Chavez, a typical left-wing dictator that the left loves.
Pretty soon it'll have him up here and they'll go on a Hugo.
I'm sorry, keep Caesar Hugo.
What's the difference when you get right down to it?
But it's right, Hugo Chavez, who runs uh Venezuela.
Pretty soon, Peter Paul and Mary are gonna call a guy up, invite him up here, and they'll go walking down Fifth Avenue shopping for sunglasses, like they did with Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista regime from the old commie days of Nicaragua.
But who is this man?
This great humanitarian who understands the needs of the poor in America better than George W. Bush and big oil.
Well, in a televised Christmas Eve speech, Hugo Chavez, it's a Reuters story, by the way.
Hugo Chavez said that minorities and descendants of those who crucified Christ have grabbed all the wealth of the world for themselves.
Hugo Chavez is a Catholic.
He didn't mention the Jewish people by name, and in the same comments referred to the betrayal of Venezuelan liberation hero Simon Bolivar.
But the group said that his remarks represented central arguments of anti-Semitism, accusing the Jews of killing Jesus Christ and associating them with wealth.
The uh Simon Wiesenthal Center has slammed Caesar, sorry, Hugo Chavez as anti-Semitic.
Our center strongly condemns his Anti-Semitic declarations, the insult to universal humanitarian values demands an immediate retraction and a public apology.
An official from Chavez's presidential palace said that the government had no immediate comment.
I wonder what uh Kennedy and Bill Delahunt will say or think about this.
Because I mean, Hugo Chavez is the new darling of these people, because he cares about suffering people in the wintertime.
Here in America more than George W. Bush does.
Donald Lambro has an interesting story in the Washington Times today, midterm race still iffy for Democrats.
Now, what's interesting about this, we just shared with you Robert Novak's column in which the Democratic caucus in the House is now beginning to whisper to each other what a rotten leader they have in Nancy Pelosi.
You know, there's something wrong with Nancy.
They got a Nancy problem.
And Novak, he tried to dress it up as as as uh make it as classy as he could, but the bottom line is they know that she's an idiot.
For example, Novak describes a recent speech that she gave on the House floor as discursive.
Well, discursive is a really elevated way of saying rambling nonsensical, makes no sense, goes from topic to topic with no transition kind of speech.
My dad used to call it talking to hear your head rattle.
So they're worried because they think the Republicans all the left think the Republicans is imploding culture corruption and spying and bullish and all that.
They don't feel like their position well to take advantage of most of the left thinks they've already won the election.
This story says that forecasts that the Democrats are going to cut deeply into Republican majority in Congress are a little premature at this point.
True, several Republican-held Senate seats look vulnerable right now, including Rick Santorum, who's uh running ten points behind his Democratic challenger, State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr.
Election trackers also point to Rhode Island Senator Link Chafee, the liberal Republican renegade who faces a dangerous primary challenge by his party's conservatives that could lead to a democratic turnover there.
See, what difference would it make?
Other than somebody who's not a Republican calling himself one.
And Mike DeWine is on the endangered species list in Ohio, where the GOP's hugely unpopular governor Bob Taft with a 15% approval rating.
Uh pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor ethics charges last year's damage to the party's statewide standing.
But that's that's not DeWine's problem.
But that's only one side of this year's political ledger in an election that could produce some surprising GOP turnovers in heavily democratic states like New Jersey and Minnesota and Maryland of all places.
Let's take them at one at a time.
New Jersey, it's not being picked up by most political radars, but this may be the GOP's best opportunity to pick up another Senate seat.
After John Corzine's easy election to governor last year, it was a virtual foregone conclusion his party would hold on to his seat.
But the entry of a popular Republican name in the Senate race and Corzine's unpopular decision to appoint a Democrat associated with the state's semi-political bosses has changed the entire scenario.
Right now, in fact, polls show that Republican state Senator Thomas Kane Jr., son of the popular former governor has a 13-point lead over Robert Menendez, the Democratic Congressman that Corzine named to fill the rest of his unexpired term.
So in Minnesota, Representative Republican Representative Mark Kennedy, widely considered the GOP's best hope to win the seat being vacated by Democrat Senator Mark Dayton.
And then they talk about Michael Steele having a genuine chance of winning in Maryland, the seat that uh Paul Sarbanes will be vacating as a result of his retirement.
So there are a lot of potential surprises out there, and the same thing in the House.
And so everybody thinking all the I'm like I said yesterday about the Texas USC game.
Folks, when the media is aligned on something, and they always are, when they are in mass saying, This is it.
Democrats regained control of Congress.
It's going to be just the opposite.
That's like they thought last night Texas shouldn't even show up.
Reggie Bush is going to run for a thousand yards in one game.
Matt Linert's going to throw for 2,500 yards in one year.
Score's going to be a thousand to nothing.
Texas might not even make It to the stadium.
They'll be so intimidated.
And of course, Texas wins.
Anyway, I got a quick timeout.
We'll be back, got some phone calls on the other side of our EIB obscene profit break.
Hi, welcome back.
Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have despite suffering and fighting the ravaging viruses of an oncoming flu bug replete with fever and sore joints.
I am here because I care and because I am committed, is I am a servant of humanity.
Here's Patrick in Long Island.
Hi, Patrick.
Nice to have you on the program.
Hey Rush, Megadillos and Chavez.
I don't want to stray from the reason I called, but uh in the UN, there were he was the only country in the Western Hemisphere not to recognize the Holocaust Remembrance Day.
And he said that because the same reason that everyone jumped on Mel Gibson, because there were other people who died in World War II.
There are other ethnic groups who died in World War II.
So we got their free passing left on that, but not on this.
Well, I mean, I uh the the guy's a demonstrated kook.
He's a lunatic.
He's is is the best friend of the American left today.
I mean, it it it it makes it makes total sense that they gravitate to this.
Go down and meet with him trying to arrange these secret deals, public deals actually, to sell oil, heating oil at cheaper prices than American big oil will do, or and of course we never hear that the the Kennedy family has a bunch of oil wells, have oil business, and they won't make these signs of concessions, but no, they'll go down and send Delahunt down there to make these deals with uh with Chavez.
But the reason I called was because uh you seem to criticize John McCain for looking out for his ethnic group or an ethnic group that dominates his constituency, which is something that Barry Goldboard had done in the same state, which is Arizona, where where they have the largest Native American population of any state.
Now in New York, we have Peter King, who used to be my congressman, who I'm very happy used to be my congressman, and he used to look out for uh groups like the Asian order Hibernians uh and different Irish Catholic groups, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Yes, but but the ancient order of Hibernians are not immune to campaign finance reform.
I mean, you have you don't see anything strange about McCain getting on the white horse with a white hat and riding in to save the day to get the money out of politics, but conveniently exempting the group that gives him more money than anybody anybody else.
Maybe, but then but any ethnic but I mean you could represent your constituents without exempting them from the laws everybody else are appl being applied to.
I mean, there's a legitimate case there, but in honesty, I think that any politician in Washington was gonna look out for the for the Native American tribes no matter what.
Because I think that that most politicians feel that they're entitled to an exempt status.
That's not the nobody's arguing with looking out for the Native American tribes.
Nobody's I mean, they can do casinos, they can do all kinds of nobody's nobody's got a problem with that.
We're talking about the idea that you come up with a plan to reform campaign finance.
It's just polluted out there.
I mean, it's just it's corrupt as it can be.
Too much money in politics.
We gotta get the money out of politics.
Lo and behold, the FEC along with McCain exempt Indians from any of the limits.
Or they give them much higher limits.
Whereas the average person can give twenty-five thousand dollars aggregate, Indian tribes give five hundred thousand.
I mean, now now and does it does it matter that McCain is the primary beneficiary of this?
So while we're getting the money out of politics for everybody else, McCain's pipeline remains full and flowing.
And I I don't think that that falls under the umbrella of representing your constituents.
I mean, if everybody did that, if everybody got the same kind of exemption like Peter King.
Well, I think ancient order of Hibernians uh ought to be exempt.
I mean, uh pressed group uh brought over here only because of potato famine.
If it weren't for that, they'd still be over in Ireland.
What the hell are we talking about here?
They need to be exempt from these laws too, blah, blah, blah, because they're my biggest contributors.
They'd be laughed out of the place.
He gets big money from a telecommunications company.
So when he sat on a commerce committee, he was the chairman of the commerce committee, and they were scared to death of what he was gonna do.
I mean, this this is it's just it's hypocritical.
At the at the least.
Here's Susan in Houston.
Susan, I'm glad you waited.
Welcome to the program.
Uh thanks for taking my call, Russ.
Um I was just wondering if you thought that with the favorability polls of the Congress and the Senate being so low, and now this um scandal that's probably going to involve several congressmen and senators.
Do you think that there might actually be a small window of opportunity for somebody to start a movement, a serious movement for term limitations?
Because I just feel like that's the only way we're gonna lessen corruption in politics.
I think that there will be somebody will bring it up, but I don't think it has a prayer.
Uh it it the the one real time it had any energy was with the Republicans election in ninety-four, but so many of them who made the the term limits pledge got there and liked it and wanted to stay and ended up breaking the pledge.
Uh I I think the best term limit is the ballot box.
And I think this I said when this I I guess it was earlier this week, this this this Abramov scandal, if it is as big as everybody's saying, and I I have my doubts because everybody's saying it.
And we don't know yet.
That is the biggest scandal since Watergate.
It's the biggest scandal since Teapot.
No, that's the biggest scandal since...
When since ever.
No bigger scan.
It's bigger than oil for food, folks.
This is huge.
Well, I just don't believe it.
I'm not gonna believe it's that big until but if it is, if it turns out to be that big, and if it is understandable, one of the reasons that the House bank scandal uh caused such upheaval was because it was easy to understand.
When we found out that Congressmen could write checks for cash or other things without the money in the in air count.
Well, you don't you don't need an MIT graduate to explain to you that and then these guys start making excuses for it.
You and I know we can't do that.
They did.
That's easy.
If this ends up being as easily understood as that was, then whoever is targeted and found to be guilty will pay the price at the ballot box.
We'll be back here in just a second.
It was best to distance myself at that point.
I mean, somebody thinks they're gonna be my chief of staff in the White House that's they've gone over the edge.
Oh!
Uh out of time here, folks.
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