Rush Limbaugh Program - January 19, 2006, Thursday, Hour #2

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Jan. 19, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program

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January 19, 2006, Thursday, Hour #2

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	Thanks, Johnny, and uh it's nice being with you.
	It sure is.
	And uh we always have that phone line open here at the EIB Excellence and Broadcasting Network 1800-282-2882-1800-282-2882.
	Also go to RushLimbaugh.com and among other things you'll see Rush at the Bob Hope Desert Classic.
	The uh professor will be in tomorrow.
	Class will be in session with the Professor Walter Williams right here on your favorite radio station.
	We appreciate you tuning in.
	Uh his headlines we're just not going to get to.
	I saw this on the ABC wires uh hamster and snake, best friends at Tokyo Zoo.
	I some something just tells me that that story may not have a happy ending.
	But we're not going to be able to get to that.
	Man said to fake death to keep child support.
	That's low.
	That is low.
	Uh let's see.
	Uh study indicates men you've seen this.
	Study indicates that men enjoy seeing bad people suffer.
	I couldn't say that without a smile on my face.
	But don't women uh enjoy seeing bad people suffer?
	Yes?
	Okay.
	Well, they uh they apparently they claim that we react we all react differently to it.
	And here's one that, you know, I'm just dying to know the details.
	Woman in Wendy's chilly finger case has regrets.
	That she didn't have a manicure.
	I mean, I don't know.
	What what could possibly be the what could be the rest of that story?
	Hey, I am uh not shy about bashing uh uh television uh because there's a lot to bash on television, but I do want to make sure that uh I say good things when there are good things happening and Direct TV group and Echo Star Communications, these are apparently the nation's largest satellite television providers, say that they're going to offer packages of family-oriented channels joining cable companies that you know they they took their steps whether it was for pressures or business or whatever.
	The reason being I know that uh Kevin Martin, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission has been trying to lead them into doing things like that, and so I salute them for offering packages of channels intended to weed out programming that might be inappropriate for family viewing.
	Good for them.
	I mean, let's face it, we knock them when they do bad stuff all the time.
	We should give them their due when they do something that's good, even if they're even if they're being forced into doing it, they're doing it.
	There are a couple of things I want parents to be aware of.
	Uh every teen, every twenty something in the United States apparently is already avail uh i is on to this and knows about it, forgetting about the mall, the movies, the school, whatever.
	Uh, if you're a teen in America today, the place to be is the social networking site, MySpace dot com.
	Uh it it has virtually exploded in the last few months.
	Google just named it the top gainer for two thousand five.
	In in two years, MySpace has shot from zero to forty-seven point three million members.
	Forty-seven and how valuable is that?
	Rupert Murdoch knows a thing or two about business.
	He has purchased MySpace for five hundred eighty million dollars.
	They came from nowhere, started at zero, and they were worth five hundred and eighty million bucks in a couple of years.
	That's all great.
	I'm not telling you to keep the kids off MySpace.com, but I want you to check it out.
	I want you to go to it.
	I want you to be aware of it.
	Because kids are getting on there.
	Kids under 14 are not supposed to be on there, but they are.
	There's no way to know.
	And there's stuff on there that kids under 14 shouldn't participate in, and any kid has to be careful because they're giving out too much information.
	Kids are kids are disclosing too much personal information about themselves to strangers, and it's causing some dangerous situations.
	I'm just giving you a heads up because I feel like this is an opportunity to reach a lot of people and tell 'em.
	So be aware of that.
	I mean, this is like it's the it's the guy in the raincoat uh theory.
	I mean, it's i if a guy knocked on your door at home and showed up with a raincoat on and said, Hey, can I go up into your daughter's bedroom?
	You would not let him do that.
	Don't let him do it with the computer that's up in the bedroom with your children.
	Myspace.com.
	They have some some safety tips there that parents should be aware of.
	You can also go to Wired Safety.org for information and uh be sure that you do that, because your kids are doing it.
	They're just doing it, and you should be aware of what they're doing with their computer.
	Also, if you if you watch Noggin and the kids watch Noggin, a great little show.
	I mentioned to you before I've got a thirteen year old, I've got a two and a half year old, and Sophie watches Noggin, but at six o'clock it becomes something way different from Noggin.
	It becomes like the N, and it ain't anything you want your kids watching.
	I'm here to tell you.
	They I I think they think it's okay for teenagers.
	Not it's not okay for my teenager.
	The N or N.com or whatever.
	Just a heads up.
	Just a little heads up on some of these things.
	All right.
	I was uh stunned to hear this, and I'm so glad that we have somebody uh bringing this to our attention who can help us understand just what's going on.
	By the way, in that last segment, you know, if you think we're just we're union bashers, we're not.
	We got a guy here who is a prominent member uh of an organization that's a member at least they were if they didn't break away from it with the AFL CIO.
	TJ Bonner is president of the National Border Patrol Council, American Federation of Government Employees, which is in the AFL CIO.
	TJ, welcome to the program.
	I'm Paul W. Smith.
	Hey, Paul, thanks for having me on the show.
	I was stunned.
	I I I was stunned to hear that we've had the Mexican Army violating our border space, not a couple of times, not a dozen times, but hundreds of times in the last ten years.
	And I don't mean just uh, you know, whoops, I stepped over the line, didn't know where it was.
	I mean shooting at us and helping the drug cartel.
	It's outrageous, isn't it?
	It's unbelievable.
	What's really outrageous is for a lot of people this is the first time they're hearing about it.
	Yeah, that's unfortunate because this has been going on for at least the last twenty years, and we've been trying to make noise.
	In fact, after a particularly egregious incident in New Mexico in two thousand, where Mexican military units and two Humvees came into the United States, over a mile into the United States, were shooting at our agents.
	We wrote a letter to the White House complaining about that and making specific recommendations.
	Not only did they not do anything about that, they sent us back a form letter that thanked us for raising concerns about international water boundary issues.
	You know, I saw I I have to tell you this uh the limbaugh team here at the East Coast branch of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, all over this.
	They were up all night doing the research, and they have given me copies of the letters.
	The one that you wrote uh dated March twenty-ninth, two thousand to one honorable William J. Clinton, president of the United States, stating uh very clearly the problem there that you were facing at the border in the National Border Patrol Council.
	Uh, and you did get a form letter back uh saying thank you for your letter regarding the deficit in water deliveries from Mexican tributaries to the lower Rio Grande.
	But you know, I mean, far be it for me to defend uh President Clinton, but the fact of the matter is these things do happen.
	I mean, somebody in an office threw that in the wrong pile and you got a stupid letter back.
	But have you ever had anything in those last five years, though, that that would be uh at least showing that they're aware of the problem?
	Because what I'm seeing from our Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff, he's saying that this is not a big deal.
	It's being blown out of proportion.
	Now, I gotta say, if you're a uh a border officer and people are shooting at you from another country, another army on our territory, that I don't know how you could think that could ever be blown out of proportion.
	Right.
	I mean, it may not be a big deal for him because he's safe in his office in Washington, and whenever he visits the border, the few times that he does, he's surrounded by bodyguards, and they've swept the area, make sure that no one's around there who could harm him.
	But it's a big deal.
	If you're a lone border patrol agent out there and you're facing a dozen or more heavily armed Mexican soldiers who are shooting at you and you have a pistol, it's a real big deal.
	All right, so what do you say then, TJ, uh that to Mr. Chertoff saying he does not believe that it's the military?
	Uh he believes that they're just criminals wearing camouflage so that many may assume they're the military.
	I point back to that issue.
	And I think by the way, they got their outfits at Walmart.
	That's what I'm thinking.
	I point back to the incident in New Mexico where we actually captured nine Mexican soldiers with bona fide uniforms, credentials, and State Department told us to send them back immediately.
	Which we did with their weapons and their Humvee and everything.
	That was clearly a Mex a bona fide Mexican military outfit.
	Now we can't prove it in the other cases because we generally don't capture them because we're outgunned and discretion being the better part of Valor, we would draw from the area.
	Unbelievable.
	I I really hate to hear this.
	You're telling me, TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, that one of our units, our border patrol units, are actually outmanned and outgunned by these criminals at the Mexican border.
	We're clearly outmanned and outgunned.
	When we had an incident over the summer last year where two of our agents came upon twelve men dressed in black fatigues, who opened fire on them, wounding both of our agents.
	The other agents who responded to the scene afterwards found about five hundred pounds of marijuana in the area.
	They were clearly guarding that illicit drug shipment.
	Probably Mexican military, can we prove it?
	No, because they fled back into Mexico.
	As happens in almost every one of these cases.
	And our agents have been shot at dozens of times down along the U.S. Mexico border by what we believe and we know are Mexican military units.
	Now it really doesn't matter whether it's some rogue breakoff unit like the Zetas who were trained by the U.S. military, by the way, for counter narcotics, and have been hired by the cartels, it's still in Mexico's backyard, and it's their responsibility to clean it up and not allow it to happen.
	I just can't imagine the U.S. allowing that type of lawlessness to occur on its side of the border.
	Yeah, but it's also happening on our side of the border, as you've pointed out.
	TJ Bonner is with his president of the National Border Patrol Council, American Federation of Government Employees.
	Uh, and he's saying, look, uh, intrusions by the Mexican military to protect drug lords happening all the time and represent a significant threat to his agents.
	You can speak to TJ up next at uh one-eight hundred-two eight two two eight eight two.
	That's one-eight hundred-two eight two twenty-eight eighty-two.
	On the Rush Limbaugh program, I'm Paul W. Smith.
	U.S. border agents complaining of being shot at by uniformed Mexican troops.
	Violence growing over the past two years, things have gotten very bad.
	And in fact, uh Mexico is uh is is saying it's not what it appears to be for its part, Mexico claims drug smugglers are uh are dressing as soldiers to gain access to the border, and that its own army has strict orders not to go within a mile of the U.S. border.
	Uh i it seems impossible, but uh i it apparently is true uh from eyewitnesses, like TJ Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all ten thousand of the agency's non-supervisory personnel,
	and uh and he's told us it was common knowledge along the border that some Mexican military units, federal and state police and former Mexican soldiers, are being paid by drug cartels to protect shipments of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin into these United States.
	Is that about right, TJ?
	Yes, it is.
	Let's go to the phones and see what our uh listeners have to say.
	At 1800, 282-2882.
	That's one eight hundred-two eight two uh twenty-eight eighty-two, and we welcome Josh on a cell phone.
	Welcome in to the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Josh.
	Hey, W, how are you?
	I'm good, thank you.
	All right, well, I'm a W myself, and our great presence of Wells.
	Lot of good W's, Josh.
	Yes, sir.
	Uh my question was is I think this border thing has gone past uh a legislative point, and with these invasions that are coming over, even from the Mexican army, is this justifies the president actually getting our own army involved?
	Well, uh what do you think about that, TJ?
	Do you need some uh reinforcements?
	I think that if Mexico refuses to police its own military and these criminals who are posing as their military, that it would be a good idea to have our military on standby to respond to those incursions.
	I don't think we should have them down there doing civilian law enforcement, but we're undermanned and outgunned when it comes to dealing with the Mexican military.
	I just I always hate To hear something like that when one of our military units or our police forces are are undermanned, undergunned against anybody else.
	How can that possibly happen in these United States of America?
	We're we are going to welcome in Congressman Rick Renzi uh coming up in this next half hour.
	He's got a red zone defense plan.
	Maybe we should call it Renzi's Red Zone, but we're going to talk about that with the Congressman, and TJ, if you can stick around, we'll keep you here too as we go to Harlan in Tucson, Arizona.
	Hello, Harlan.
	Good morning, gentlemen.
	Hi.
	I worked as a criminal investigator on the Tonantum Indian Nation, which borders the uh uh the U.S. border with Mexico for eight years from ninety-five to two thousand three.
	And it was common knowledge of our incursions by uh the militia and by federalities along the border.
	Uh border patrol agents, law enforcement were shot at.
	The interesting thing is Border Patrol never wanted this publicized.
	But you could see them coming across, they hauled not only drugs, they hauled illegals, and there were incidents, uh questionable incidents about them coming across and uh um doing other illegal activities uh along the border also.
	Well, let's ask TJ.
	TJ, what uh you heard what he said.
	You you never wanted people to know about this?
	What do you what's the story?
	The higher ups didn't want people to know about it.
	The rank and file wanted people to know about it, but you know, our voice wasn't heard.
	Of course, the folks in Washington try and cover up things like that.
	Why do they want to cover this up?
	Because we're trying we're so worried about a relationship with Mexico.
	I suppose that's part of it.
	You'd have to ask them.
	Would you get them on the line for me, Mamon?
	You should see his eyebrows.
	They just went up to the top of his head.
	Look at that hair for a second here, Mike.
	Uh all right.
	Uh Mike in McCallan, Texas, is on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	Mike?
	Yes.
	Uh I you know, I don't always agree with you know, conservative point of views on on uh guarding the the the border, but it is true that the Mexican military is absolutely corrupt, you know, and I and I think our government has to put its foot down, you know.
	Any way it can, you know.
	I used to, you know, government you know, immigration used to not be like this.
	I'm the son of an immigrant.
	And people used to come to work, you know.
	But things are different now.
	People they just it's so corrupt in Mexico, and it's spilling over to this country, you know, this beautiful country, and you know, I just hope the government really tips down, you know, puts its foot down.
	Hey, you know what, Mike?
	God bless you.
	Here you are.
	You're the son of an immigrant.
	You have learned our language.
	I salute you for that.
	That's not been very popular lately.
	And uh and you love this country.
	Yeah, I mean, it's beautiful, you know.
	It it's just that I seen the corruption, and it's spilling, and you know, really, you know, I think the government should put its foot down, you know, even I'm going to school here, you know, and they tell us, oh, the the the thing that the wall that they want to build is not gonna work.
	You know, we have to do something, you know.
	And I don't know, I just I just do it and I'm also on the side of the border patrol agents, you know.
	They need to be protected.
	It's it's good of you to say.
	Good of you to weigh in, Mike.
	We appreciate that.
	Uh, we're going to Scott in Port Angeles, uh, Washington.
	Yes.
	Hello, Scott.
	Hello.
	What's on your mind here, Scott?
	Well, concerning the situation down here in Mexico and well, on our border of Mexico, you know, I think we should have the National Guard and our reserve forces rotating on their active duty cycles to go down there and protect our borders with our border patrol people.
	TJ I don't support putting the troops there to enforce immigration laws because two things will happen.
	The most important is you're gonna confuse our soldiers.
	Soldiers are trained to fight wars.
	They're not trained to go out there and enforce civilian law, and the rules of war are much different.
	And people, it's a known fact that people react in a crisis according to their training.
	If you train them two different ways, how will they react in a war?
	We're going to get good soldiers killed if we train them both ways and expect them to do both things.
	And also the soldiers can do no more than the border patrol can do right now, which is to catch people, send them back, let them try again.
	Personally, I've caught the same group of people four times in one shift.
	That's not working.
	If we're serious about stopping illegal immigration, and we need to be.
	We need to crack down on the employers who are hiring illegal aliens at will with no consequence.
	Well, we're going to continue this thought and our calls and welcome in, Congressman Rick Renzi and the red zone defense.
	And TJ, you stay with us too, TJ Bonner, President National Border Patrol Council.
	Fact of the matter is, you thought the immigration problem was about those businesses and those country clubs that rely on cheaper illegal labor.
	They're shooting at us now.
	Stay with us.
	Thank you, Johnny Donovan.
	An Arizona Congressman has demanded the State Department take immediate diplomatic action to stop Mexican military incursions into these United States, saying U.S. Border Patrol agents face a continuing threat of being killed by rogue soldiers protecting drug smugglers.
	Two-term Republican representative Rick Renzi is on the line with us right now.
	He is the Congressman calling for that.
	He's got the red zone defense, and if you don't mind, Congressman, we're going to call it the Renzi Red Zone Defense.
	I appreciate it, Paul.
	Thank you for having me on.
	It's our pleasure.
	Standing by also is TJ Bonner, President of the National Border Patrol Council, American Federation of Government Employees.
	He is representing those border guards that are getting shot at.
	Yeah, he's done a good job representing them.
	He has, and he understands uh getting out of the supervisor's office and getting out in the field and talking to the guys in the front line.
	My ranch is right down there on the border.
	My family's right down there, and I grew up on the border.
	My dad was uh commanding general down at Fort Wachuca, which is less than a couple miles from the Crows Flies from the uh Mexican border.
	I think uh TJ knows the countryside pretty good.
	You know, you know, Brent was telling us uh on the team here that uh at that fort they had to actually stop some of their uh uh some of their shooting exercises because they were afraid uh stray bullets would kill people sneaking over the line, I guess.
	We've had over four thousand people arrested on Fort Wachuca, which is uh one of our military intelligence uh headquarters is where we train a lot of our interrogators.
	Uh yeah, so our uh our ability to train has been compromised, not just at Fort Chuka, but out in our Barry Goldwater uh bombing range.
	Uh we've had operational um capability cut by almost fifty percent out there in the area of Arizona where our our pilots are training.
	With all due respect, I'm sorry.
	Uh uh uh uh to a person, all of us kind of cringed and smiled when you said the Barry Goldwater bombing range.
	Yeah.
	I mean, just it is all funny.
	I don't know what well named.
	Uh well uh then tell us why you think we've already heard this from TJ.
	Why do you think that it appears at least, Congressman, that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Cherdoff is downplaying this?
	He says the concern over the issue is overblown and scare tactics.
	Yeah, I think he's made a huge mistake and has set himself up for failure.
	We lose one agent.
	We get one more agent shot.
	Now we've had a couple agents shot and have been wounded, but we lose an agent from a um from a hill sniper uh from an MS 13 gangmenor from a uh from a Mexican Federale, and and Cherkov has put himself in a in a bind, I believe.
	I don't know why he would say this.
	I mean, what's going on here?
	Well, he hasn't spent a lot of time on the border, you know.
	Uh he's a good man, and he's he's got he's he's he's juggling a big agency, but is not it's uh you get a you can talk to somebody from Texas or New Mexico from Arizona who's lives on the border and who understands the violence on the border, and guys like TJ who've been out there in the trenches,
	and you get a real feel for the fact that the narco-terrorism, the distribution end of the drug cartels is so profitable now that the distribution end of it is more profitable than the production part of it.
	And so the Mexican drug cartels are more empowered, they're more i emboldened to take actions against uh our American uh border patrol agents and our customs agents than they've ever been.
	Let me let me let me go one step further, Paul.
	We are doing a decent job of looking across the horizon into Mexico and seeing the planes.
	We have radar that sees metal flying.
	We're doing such a good job with these aerostep balloons that they're landing short now, and I think TJ would agree with me, and a lot of the drugs are being driven in.
	But we need the same technology to look down at the border into Mexico and see the cars being driven in.
	We can see the Humvees, the Federalys staging right before dusk and lining up about a mile deep.
	We can alert our border patrol agents, and we can react with a quick reaction capability with the size and the force that we need to counteract that kind of a uh a threat and a breach.
	But we can't do it unless we got the intelligence and the capability on the border.
	Well, what are you proposing then, Congressman?
	I'm proposing that we take the the seven Aerostat balloons that we currently have on the border that run from California to Florida that have about a five hundred pound capacity that's not being used right now and that we add sensors and cameras to those balloons that will look into Mexico that will stare give us a long view, long dwell capability, just hanging there looking they can see the federalys, they can see the Mexican units, they can see the drug lords and the cartels lining up and staging before they breach the border at night.
	We can use infrared and even see in the dark.
	We downlink that to a fusion center that is multi-agency and then we shift our defense like in football we run that red zone defense where you shift the defense and you react to where you know they're running the play.
	Let me ask if you don't mind TJ Bonner who represents the border patrol what he thinks of that idea.
	TJ I think that that's a great idea for stopping the narcotics.
	It's not going to stop the people coming across because you're dealing with literally millions of people coming across that border every year.
	We catch over a million of them.
	That's part of the problem the smugglers of drugs are also running human beings now as decoys.
	They'll send up a group of fifty people and it will take us hours to round them up to guard them to transport them back to process them and to send them back home and in the meantime the borders left wide open.
	Bear in mind there are fewer than twelve thousand border patrol agents to patrol eight thousand miles of land in coastal areas and at any given time you only have twenty five percent of those agents actually out on the line because you're running round the clock shifts seven days a week.
	Yeah TJ's right Paul I don't even want to give you the numbers on the night shift in Cochise County, Arizona where I grew up on the border where we caught four hundred and seventy eight thousand illegal immigrants last year.
	The only thing I would add is that my red zone defense does include a sensor that can see at night and can see human beings.
	And it does allow you to see the big groups as they line up so that we could use, it would help a little bit, TJ, in that we would be able to use some of the sensors that we're using in Iraq on the Iraq-Syrian border that also see people lining up.
	And you can actually, as they move closer to the border, TJ, you can actually begin to distinguish body cargo.
	that we could actually even prioritize who the drug smugglers are or at least be able to see within as as you talked about where they they blend them into the groups they use the the illegal uh uh economic illegals to to act as shields for the drug smugglers and the mules I would love to see that technology pointed at the border I would love for the American people to know exactly how many people come across that border every night because now they know how many we catch.
	But that's like publicizing a statistic that a baseball player hit a hundred pitches for hits.
	And what does that mean?
	How many times was he at bat?
	There's no context to this well we're adding some today here on the Rush Limbaugh program and TJ I want you to uh this for this to be a good experience for you.
	Any final thoughts before we let you go and move on to some other issues with the Congressman Well I guess the final thought I would leave with your listeners is that this is a crisis not just the fact that our agents are in jeopardy out there but the fact that our borders are wide open.
	Anyone who wants to come across those borders has a pretty good shot of making it across and from the standpoint of homeland security that is unacceptable.
	All right well put we appreciate it we will stay in touch TJ thanks.
	Thank you.
	TJ Bonner is president of the National Border Patrol Council American Federation of Government Employees and by the way we open the phone lines back up again at 1800 28282 that's one eight hundred two eight two twenty eight eighty two as we speak with the Republican representative Rick Renzi and his I'm calling it the Renzi red zone defense.
	Now here's the kicker it is a fifty million dollar border intelligence pilot program which was included in the Department of Homeland Security's appropriation bill.
	It's been funded but it hasn't been implemented.
	What's going on, Congressman?
	Well the it's got to get through the Senate and you're exactly right I need um you and your listening audience to help me with the Senate piece.
	It looks like they may take our border security bill and try to attach the guess worker bill to it.
	There's some of us in the House who've asked our senators to look at uh security first and then follow with a guest worker program once we've proven to the American people that we got control over the border, at least operational control.
	And uh right now it's parked at in the on the Senate at their doorstep, so we're gonna need a little more help when we get we come back into session the end of January to get it pushed through.
	All right, we might get some of that help with our uh listeners here in just a moment at 1800-282-2882, 1800-282-2882, your opportunity to speak with Congressman Rick Renzi.
	And we want to hear about the letter you wrote to Dr. Condoleez Rice and if there's been any reaction on that yet.
	As we continue on the Rush Limbaugh program, I'm Paul W. Smith.
	Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi has called for state border guard units to help increase security along America's border with Mexico, and we have him here on the Rush Limbaugh program and your chance to speak directly with him at 1-800-282-2882, 1-800-282-2882.
	Sounds like a good plan.
	I know also that you have sent off an urgent message to Secretary of State Condolisa Rice.
	Yeah, Paul, we um we got a letter, another letter off to her that uh asks her to step in now and uh to formally meet with uh the Mexican Interior Ministry to discuss these uh incursions and whether it be rogue military elements, whether it be federalis, whether it be uh MS-13 gang members, the the f the the Mexican government has got to step up now and help us more along the border.
	We have they have been good partners down in Mexico City and helping to control that airport.
	We have our intelligence units and we have folks working with them down there and they're doing a good job.
	We need to take that model of success and collaboration down in Mexico City and move it up to the Arizona, Mexico, and the whole southern border with between Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California.
	We need to have that kind of success and collaboration up there with with our liaison officers.
	And uh so I'm asking her to to to meet with the with the Mexican ministry, the with the ambassadors here, open up dialogue, find out exactly what units may be involved in crossing over, and the Mexican government has got to help us.
	They've got to step up.
	Have you uh have you found the Minutemen to be helpful?
	Well, you know, it's funny.
	There have been a lot of Minutemen who have come to Arizona and who have helped change the dynamic, particularly in Cochise County.
	We had an onslaught of people coming through Cochise County.
	When I say to you 478,000 people arrested in Cochise County alone last year, the Minutemen helped change that dynamic and they helped move them out of that area.
	Unfortunately, it's like a water balloon.
	You squeeze it in one place and it goes into another.
	But uh it look, it's their right.
	They're they're f they're freedom-loving Americans.
	They were they uh in some cases we had one or two incidences where they had a couple of you know a beer drinking Rambo types that that got a little bit out of control, but for the most part, they did a good job.
	They helped they helped Coaches County, and there's a lot of residents down at my ranch who uh who welcome them back.
	Congressman Rick Renzi, let's go to Laredo, Texas on the Rush Limbaugh program.
	I'm Paul W. Smith, and Dave joins us on his cell phone.
	Dave.
	Hi, Paul.
	Hi.
	Great show, great guests today.
	Thanks.
	I agree with Congressman Renzi uh completely.
	But these people that say that we don't need uh a tall concrete panel fence down along the border all the way from Brownsville to California are freaking.
	We need that fence.
	I don't know it's hard to listen.
	The history of fences, beginning with the Great Wall of China and ending with the Berlin Wall, proves that fences are effective.
	Yeah.
	And point number two is we need to get the National Guard down there to augment the border patrol, and this business of trying to implement a guest worker program while we're trying to secure the border is not fence.
	Uh two days ago I was down here in Laredo delivering a load of construction materials down near the border, and there were two incidents of uh border agents being shot at.
	It sure is, Dave.
	Thanks for your thoughts on that, Congressman.
	Well, uh, as far as the fence goes.
	U.S. as gated community?
	Well, it in some areas, particularly where urban areas touch.
	For instance, in Nogales, Arizona, you've got a community right across the line called Nogales, Mexico.
	And you need to make sure there's a gate there's a fence and a gate there because it it helps push the people out into the open where we can see them.
	If you implement the the red zone defense that we talked about, and you have a technology curtain, you can actually see the folks.
	In some areas, Paul, if we build the fence out in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, they're going to go through it, they're going to go under it, they're going to go around it, and it's such a passive defense that unless you've got the folks out there to react to it, it it simply becomes a waste of money.
	I mean, you got if you can get them out into the open and you're there to arrest them, then essentially the open spaces also act along with technology as a fence.
	And so I want to be careful how we dip into the American people's pockets here.
	I agree with fencing in certain areas.
	I particularly agree with with uh barriers for trucks and cars in certain washes so they can't drive through under double canopy cover.
	A lot of these guys are driving driving these drugs in through through the canyons where I hunted and fished my whole life.
	They're scaring all the game out of there.
	They're polluting the area with old tires and water bottles and clothing and backpacks, and they're um and unless we get the truck barriers down in there and the car barriers down in there, we're not going to stop these guys because they're under double canopies.
	Let's try to get some other quick calls.
	And Jared is on his sale in Birmingham, Alabama.
	Welcome to the Rush Limbaugh program, Jared.
	Thank you for having me.
	Um, Congressman, I I had a quick a couple of quick questions real quick.
	How many millions or billions of dollars do we spend a year in in in protecting the U.S. uh Mexican border?
	Uh I would imagine it would be a great deal.
	I think it's my take on this is that it is a business decision by the U.S. government.
	Because they spend so much money and take in so many tax dollars to do this.
	Yes, sir.
	If they actually fix the problem, then we wouldn't be able to employ as many border patrol or as many immigration workers, or it's I I don't think they really want to fix the problem.
	All right, let the Congressman answer before we run out of time.
	Your your basic take is you don't really believe the government wants to fix the problem with immigration.
	No, no.
	Right, let's let him let's the Congressman be heard.
	The Homeland Security budget is is over uh w is in the billions and billions of dollars, and it's it's one of the fastest growing agencies in the government.
	But sir, if we fix the border, in all honesty to you, if we do fix the border, you can you imagine the amount of savings that we're gonna have with our hospitals and our local law enforcement, with our environment.
	Can you imagine the amount of savings that we're gonna get from uh the services that we're providing uh whether it be in the health care industry or in the schools or um for states having to bear the burden of these costs.
	So overall, the prosperity of America is tied to securing its border and then implementing an economic uh guest worker program once we've proven ourselves to the American people.
	We do, in many cases, rely on our brothers and sisters to the South.
	But to organize that labor to make sure that each individual one has been vetted and had a criminal background check.
	All that has to be done.
	And we can't even get there until we secure the border.
	Right.
	The fact of the matter is the federal government has the ultimate responsibility that's not happening at the moment.
	That's why states are getting involved.
	That's why you're involved.
	And Congressman, we salute you with your uh Renzi red zone defense, and we hope it works out and and we'll follow it along and hope that it's uh comes into uh action uh as soon as possible.
	Thank you, sir.
	Thank you for being with us, Congressman Rick Renzi and his red zone uh defense.
	We'll wrap it up in just a moment.
	All right, wrapping it up.
	In this next hour, we've had the war on terror, the war on Walmart, the war on our border with Mexico.
	And uh now it's the war on well, I guess the war on the president, Harry Harry Belafonte, calling President Bush the greatest terrorist in the world.
	We've got a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, uh Paul Hackett saying the Republican Party has been hijacked by the religious fanatics that in my opinion aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden and a lot of the other religious nuts around the world.
	It goes on and on, and we'll talk to the National Review's Byron York about that, the war and the rhetoric coming up as we continue here on the Rush Limbaugh program.

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